Last word freak

Do you feel that you have an obsessive-compulsive need to have the last word?

Do you, at times, say something, hoping to close the conversation, but ended up never hearing from the other person?

Do you, at times, say something which turned out to be not quite as witty as you expected and the only reason you did that was as a retort?

Do you hate coming across people like above?

This post is dedicated to all of you (I dont believe in niche positioning and I dont like to limit my audience:-). Alright, honestly speaking, this post is dedicated to people who have an obsessive-compulsive need to have the last word, referred to as Last-Word-Freaks. They are as common as the number of times calls drop in Malaysia (Trust me thats quite a lot). There are more similarities between the two. Sometimes, they are quite irritating (imagine talking to your girlfriend with repetitive call failures) and very welcome at other times (especially if your boss has taken a habit of thinking of you as his keep). On the same token, sometimes you find LWFs extremely irritating and at other times, they are quite fun to have around. All depends upon the context and the mood.

I have devised a very simple way of diagnosing who are the LWFs. It starts with playing a game which is called "Associations" (Disclaimer: I havent invented the game; but the idea to use it to diagnose LWF is entirely mine). You would need to start this game with an unsuspecting potential-LWF. The game is very simple. You utter a word. the other person utters another word, somehow linked to the original word. You do the same. Repeat ad infinitum. See an example below:

Mountain - River - Water - Yacht - Sex

You can challenge a link if you dont understand one. In the above case, I was thinking of sex in a yacht.

Sex - male - Beta - Idiot - Beta - Idiot - Beta - Idiot

The moment you hit a repeating circular mode, you are dealing with an average LWF. He thinks that he is smart, except he is not. He is your nightmare; a lethal and potent potion of arrogance and absurdity. He cant spell wit, is easily amused (only at his own "jokes"), doesnt understand half of others' jokes or refuses to smile and is too arrogant to be bothered with. Walk away while you can. Or if you are the cynical sadist, unleash him on other unsuspecting victims, lean back and enjoy.

Beta - Associations - Last-word-freak - Beta - Blog - Nudepics - Censor - Globalwarming - WorldPeace - Ms. Universe - Antarctica - Captain Cook - Santa -

If you encounter a trail like the above, behold, you are watching a master at work. He is still not diagnosed as the LWF but he is witty and playing along. If he is diagnosed as the LWF, then you may have discovered the rarest breed of LWF who, sometimes can be quite fun to have around. Now, comes the test (Remember, Santa is your word):-

Santa - Paedophile - NowIamGettingTired - Vitamins - NoSeriously - Quitter - AlrightIamOffNow - Loser - StopIT - WristWatch - What! - Why - Sorry? - Hard

The above will be a sureshot diagnosis that you have a Super-LWF at hand. He probably roams the streets at night in black clothes and stiff upper-lip and talks the criminals into jail. You dont want to be at wit-loggerheads with him any more than drill a jackhammer through his head. However, you dont want to miss out on your entertainment tonic of the day when he is at work on somebody else.

So, have you encountered any Last Word Freaks recently?

For sheer driving pleasure

Past weekend, I drove about a thousand kms for a memorable trip. But this post is not as much about the trip as about the road (non)sense going on around me. To be fair, I might have also contributed to it but I will choose to ignore that at my discretion.

Let us start with the ubiquitous trailers. In the context of driving, Trailers are species that like to smell others' asses and contrary to my prior-belief, the number of trailers on the road is exponentially proportional to the overall traffic. Consider this, you are driving in the top-speed lane which is going at 100+ with a lot of cars in front and behind. Herein arrives a Trailer who can see that there are miles and miles of cars bumper to bumper but he still wants to overtake you (probably to smell the next ass upfront). The middle lane is obviously going slow and you would rather drive at 100+ than move aside. There is nothing you can do but be agitated by this trailer. His nose is right under your smokey behind and you are afraid that in the event of braking, he is going to go "up yours". For a moment, you consider braking just a bit to bring him to his senses but it doesnt help that he is driving a beat-up lorry while you are driving a GTI.

The opposite of a trailer is an idiot. An idiot is the guy who is driving in top speed lane but is driving too slow. He is merrily oblivious of the traffic behind him and doesnt even get the hint when a lot of cars, in direct violation to their basic survival instincts, are forced to overtake from the left. They can all go to hell and back, for all he cares; he is going to drive at the speed he is comfortable with (nothing wrong with it) and he will drive in the top-speed lane (bloody idiot). In my opinion, such people should be reclassified as sub-human species with their licenses revoked till such time as they naturally evolve into humans over millions of years or go extinct (more likely).

Somewhere in between, are the Smartasses. These are people who THINK they are smarter than the rest. Dont we have enough of them in daily life? Well, they are just as common on road too. They think they can beat the market. They stare at the traffic ahead and take it as a challenge to barge their way through. They will cut lanes without indicators; all the way left, then all the way right and sometimes into the emergency lane as well. Oftentimes, I wonder if they drive more sideways than forwards. Infact, I personally know a smartass very well who is, thankfully, leaving the city for good. I couldnt feel safer while driving.

I was thinking about some punchlines that these guys could put on their car. See below:

If you dont like the way I am driving:
- get off the road
- stop trailing me
- get a life
- that makes two of us
- take a number
- Huh?

Any further suggestions?