Deprifun

“We are going to the cinema, care to come?” “We don’t know yet where we are going to spend the hols.” “Repairing the heating cost us a fortune”.

People talk about themselves in the plural form, and I always feel a pang of envy when they do. It means they have somebody they can count on, that they are a part of someone’s life.

With me, it is always “I”. “I could go to the cinema tomorrow. Or just stay home alone hoping some thief shows up for company or prank opportunities.” “I’m not going anywhere for the holidays: first, I have no money, plus, even if I had, travelling alone would just be depressing. I could perhaps bring the thieves with me, though.” “Repairing the heating cost me a fortune and frankly I only repaired it because it was a safety hazard. And while I thought the idea of just falling asleep and sleeping forever was rather appealing, the chimney sweeper found me out so I had to fix it.”

Just my luck, by the way. The only person in my life who is singular is the chimney sweeper, who’s clearly the only one in his trade who doesn’t have a magical nanny with whom to dance on the roof, so he can actually do his job which consists in getting me out of bed at an unholy hour just to tell me that I will need to starve myself in order to be able to save enough money to pay for the privilege of not suffocating.

So, only my chimney sweeper and I are singular, everybody else is plural. I wish I could be plural, too. All the while still wishing I was singular. Actually, I think I need a language where there’s no distinction between singular and plural. I have heard Japanese might do the trick?

It looks like I am developing a phobia for grammar; which by the way has a name (it’s called grammatophobia) and yet doesn’t seem to be a legitimate phobia, so I couldn’t research how this typically works and evolves. I might be the first person affected, ever.

Will this keep to singular and plurals, so I could really solve it by adopting a language with no distinction? Or will it extend to other, more or less random, grammatical elements? Perhaps an urge to punch in the face anybody who shows off with a particularly elaborate construction? And how to make the difference between a normal reaction (anybody would be slightly tense when faced with a past perfect subjunctive tense) and a pathological one (like crossing yourself every time you encounter a cardinal number)?

And will this stay limited to grammar, or will it invade other domains? I wouldn’t be surprised if I started being pissed off at even numbers – I’m always the odd one out, while everybody else comes in pairs. The number 1 is depressing in itself. So will I end up having to buy at least three of anything? Three shoes, three gloves, three watermelons? And what am I going to do with three watermelons anyway? I don’t even like melons, plus according to The Internet, they might be depressing. Or depressed. And shady. Definitely very shady. And possibly on drugs?

turn: terrible, do not eat watermelon, and depressed!!!!!!!

pigment powder with water saccharin tricks, melon conscience exposes insider traders –
Hot summer, eat a sweet red watermelon, both hot weather and thirst. When people of this natural fruit cooing when, who thought of commitment, these red and sweet watermelon, melon actually Meixin traders to earn money, injecting saccharin and coloring the water cooked out of it! Yesterday, a melon trafficking, told reporters this one blew the whistle on shady.
[actual internet wisdom – handbook case of terminal grammatophobia]