Tuesday Nights. 8.45

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"Small Brown Dog's Bad Remembering Day" is a book I used to read to Ferg when he was little. I can't remember where we got it - but I do remember reading it out loud for the first time, and saying to Mark, "We're never reading this again. It's completely inappropriate."

For those of you not familiar with Small Brown Dog's Bad Remembering Day, here's the plot: Small Brown Dog wakes up one day, and he's lost his collar and he can’t remember his name. So, he goes round the neighborhood asking all the other dogs if they can tell him what his name is. Spoiler alert: They can't.

Tess the Terrier tells him he likes splashing in puddles. Dan the Dalmatian tells him he likes chasing squirrels. And Bobby The Bulldog tells him that he has a bad case of fleas (Yeah, thanks Bobby). Yet none of these supposed friends can tell the dog his name. Small Brown Dog is a veritable John Doe of the canine world until he ends up at the police station where they have his collar, and thus inform him his name is Patch.

"Clearly," I said to Mark, "Small Brown Dog is a blackout drunk. He wakes up and can't remember his own name. What’s the follow-up book? 'Small Brown Dog goes out for a wee sherry and wakes up three days later in Tijuana with a tattoo on his arse?’ We are never reading that again."

But, in the way of things - and, as any parent will tell you - those books that annoy you the most are always the ones your kid wants to hear again. It's like they can hook on to some tone in your voice and they know. Then once they've heard the story a couple of times, they're comforted by the repetition, and slowly but surely that story becomes the only one they want to hear.

Nowadays, both my kids don’t want me to read them Small Brown Dog or anything else for that matter, and I haven't read that particular book in over a decade.
Yet, I've thought about Small Brown Dog a lot of late. You could even say, I've identified with him. Not because I'm a blackout drunk - well not as yet anyway - but sometimes, looking at the world right now, I feel a bit lost. Like it's permanently 8.45pm on a Tuesday.

Years ago in Glasgow, I worked as a barmaid in a few different bars. The atmosphere in each would vary because they were different styles of bars and had different styles of clientele. But what they all had in common was Tuesday night at 8.45. Because whoever was still in a bar at 8.45 on a Tuesday night was there for pretty much the same reason: They'd come for happy hour, then stayed for another after happy hour ended. Now they’re on one after that, but not ready to go home yet because the bar is still open. They know that nothing good is likely to happen, so they’re hoping maybe a fight will break out or maybe someone will fall off a chair.

So they sit nursing a glass, telling tales of when times used to be better, and of people who did them wrong. They spout jokes that aren't really jokes, but just brutal and cruel comments about women or minorities (Funny how so few jokes begin with a white, male, heterosexual, entrepreneur went into a bar) and revel in the same old sad stories about the life that, by rights, they should have had. They had no solution to any problem and didn't care to look for one either, because everything, after all, was always everyone else’s fault.

Because, children aren’t the only ones who enjoy repeating ridiculous stories. Drunks do too. As do gaslighters, fascists, and frauds.

Make up a story. Repeat it. Repeat it so often enough, it gains brevity. Weight. When lies are told often enough, fiction can be presented as facts. The biggest pile of bullshit can become a ‘universal truth’. And if you can connect with others who are also repeating the story, you have a tribe. Then you have company for your misery, and all other members of your tribe are heroes and anyone not in the tribe is an enemy.

"She’s nasty."
"He's illegal."
"They’re eating the dogs."

And drink in the lie. Because it’s always somebody else’s fault. And rinse and repeat.

When I told the same stories over and over to my kids, it was because I wanted them to go to sleep. So when I hear the same old story told over and over again, I try to work out what the storyteller is looking for from me. As children, we are comforted by simple repetition. But there comes a time when we must grow up.

I can’t find news anymore. Anywhere. It’s just a selection of stuff to get mad about and possible absolute catastrophes that could happen at any time. So I don’t really know what’s going on. And I find myself panicked, anxious. I don’t have any more headspace for the next possible shoe to drop, and the next predicted impending possible disaster. I feel stuck inside some worldwide Tuesday night at 8.45, and I have to keep reminding myself, as I used to all those years ago as a barmaid, that just because a story is told, doesn’t mean I have to join in.

Life is meant to be a sequence of new experiences. And I feel at my best when I am moving forward, not looking back. I know myself well enough to know that I am happiest when there is harmony, but I can handle a challenge. And seeking an answer to my current worries on the news channels is as practical as asking all the neighborhood dogs if they might happen to know my name.

And I am over the repetition now. It’s time to reset. I want the story to move on.

Unlike Small Brown Dog, I'm not particularly fond of splashing in puddles. Though I haven't done it for a while, so I actually don't know. Just for the Hell of it, I've decided I’ll splash in the next puddle that seems splashable (though here in LA that might be a while).

Like Small Brown Dog, I do occasionally chase squirrels, but only because they're ripping up the garden. They annoy me, but I don't need them eradicated. This is a big wide world and I don't get to be the boss of it, though neither, for that matter, does anybody else. And also if squirrels are the reason I give myself for sleepless nights, then clearly I have bigger problems to worry about.

And as for Bobby The Bulldog who tells Patch he has a bad case of fleas…
I don’t have fleas. (Mosquito bites, yes) but, oh FFS have met a ton of people like Bobby. The instigator, the disruptor, the one who’s always "just telling it like it is.” The jerk who yells that you’ve got a fat arse when you’re trying to rescue a cat from a burning building. The guy on the news channel that reports that even though a good thing has happened, that only means a bloody terrible thing is going to happen any second now.
I have to remind myself not to be that kind of person, and to have compassion because, frankly, even assholes have a right to exist.

I like Elvis Presley, and Lenny Kravitz, and movies with Alastair Sim in them. I don’t like shrimp or prawns or anything seafoody, and I occasionally find myself daydreaming about a Scottish square sausage sandwich that is somehow miraculously gluten-free.
I am pro-choice. Pro-Planned Parenthood. Pro Universal healthcare. I believe in gun control and that trans rights are human rights. I am a lifelong friend of the LGBTQ community and am absolutely convinced that science is real. I believe you have the right to your religion, as I have a right to mine, and I genuinely believe the world is richer because of its differences, not in spite of them.

I am married to a man I love and I have two sons I used to read books to.
You could call me a liberal, a feminist, a snowflake, an idealist. But for short, you can call me Lynn.

xo

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