20nothing.com

There is a pair of purple gumboots sitting in the window of a store across from where I work and I want to own them.

In fact, I think they would genuinely make my life better if I owned them – which is a ridiculous, yet frequent, pressure I put on inanimate objects. My wardrobe is cluttered with items I purchased while feeling under the weather. Hence why I think it is important to buy the gumboots.

 

But I can’t bring myself to walk into the store. It is one of those businesses that have ads on television featuring a voice screaming at you, quickly, to rush in and buy as many packets of nine socks for sixty cents as you physically can. Their marketing plan has had the reverse effect on me. But that is common. I frequently run the other way when people yell.

 

I don’t watch television anymore, so the last time I was actually yelled at to buy things was back when Ken and I would laugh at it in Byron Bay. Today, at lunch, I actually promised myself that I would run in, grab the purple boots (quickly), hopefully in an applicable size, throw money at someone and bolt.

But I didn’t. Instead I tried to write my own celebrity crossword.

 

Could I be too pretentious to walk into a store that sells pants out of a bin? Lets not go down that path…

 

I just can’t figure out why I won’t go there.

 

I rarely avoid things in my life. In my relationships, I say what I mean and mean what I say. Or I just shut the fuck up and find new friends. I am always honest, maybe selective, but never dishonest. People will always know how I feel about them. And if they don’t, on the odd chance that I have actually shut the fuck up, all they have to do is ask.

 

Sometimes, this approach to people has put me in trouble. I have lost friends over it. (Aside: Never ask me if those pants make you look fat.)

When I was sixteen, my BFF from birth asked me what I thought of her dating RG’s personal assistant, twenty-six.

“I think it is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of,” I responded.

They were married last year and I wasn’t invited.

 

You would really think I would have learned my lesson.

 

But I refuse to believe that honesty is not the best policy.

Tact is an entirely different issue (but still don’t ask me if the pants make you look fat). If you have something nice to say to someone, or about someone, I think it should be said. So frequently I think people are too stupid, too ignorant, too incompetent, too complacent, too boring or too ugly, so when I finally meet someone I think the exact opposite of, I feel the need to tell them. Frequently. They may find it excessive, but then, they may not understand what it is like to constantly meet people with the IQ of a nugget.

 

I fear that my latest bout of sincerity has lost me another significant relationship in my life. Who knows if this one will involve a wedding that I won’t be invited to. But even if it just results in sadness, of me feeling remorseful , the virtue of honesty will have wronged me again.

 

Honesty cannot be avoided. Even if what you need to say walks the fine line of destroying or making a relationship, some things need to be said. That is why you buy boots made for walking.

 

You just need to be brave enough to walk into the store.

 

 

 

 

Post by Salium.