Furnaces and unpopular opinions

[resonant]

Today the furnace guy came to do a fall inspection for us. He was a big guy with curly gray hair and one of those mustaches that goes straight down on either side of the mouth, as though it's looking to join up with a beard that isn't there. The connection between his jeans and his hips was precarious.

When he was done with the furnace, he came upstairs to the dining room to write me a receipt. "Oh," he said, looking on top of the piano where all the other musical instruments are. "Who plays the dulcimer?"

"Well, it's mine," I said, "but I haven't learned to play it."

"It's easy," he said, lifting it off the piano. (I was thankful that I had at least dusted it.) "Got a pick?"

I didn't, so he got a dollar bill out of his pocket and folded it up. Then he tuned the dulcimer and played "Turkey In the Straw" and a really fast version of "Amazing Grace" while the kidlet danced around the table.

You just never know, do you?

-----

I can't resist offering ten unpopular fannish opinions. (musesfool appears to have launched this one; I first saw it by way of penknife.)



1. Mpreg, in and of itself, won't keep me away from a story. I have read and enjoyed mpreg stories. In my experience, the odds are better with mpreg than they are with, say, rape recovery. (At least in sci-fi and magical universes. I admit that a Due South mpreg would be a tough sell.)

2. I don't want to read about anyone inflicting physical pain, either consensually or not. The more detail there is, the less I want to read it.

3. My time here on earth is limited, and if a writer has a pseudonym that's excessively fangirlish (Mrs. Severina Marvolo), pinkygirlish (Lady Rainbow Fyre), wicca-Gothish (Lady Raven Darkness), or sophomoric (Mighty_Penis_Bitch), I'm probably going to give her work a miss.

4. Much as I love the whole concept of Trekishness, I don't read K/S slash. I don't like to think about Leonard Nimoy's and William Shatner's bodies having sex.

5. Real people aren't as interesting as fictional characters. And I'm afraid that singers and actors are even less interesting than other real people.

6. Most drabbles are completely pointless.

7. If the people and/or the relationships aren't different after the sex than they were before it, why should I be bothered reading about the sex?

8. Gen bores me.

9. Sibling incest bores and baffles me. I have a brother. I love my brother. I would have sex with my brother only if the last two humans on the planet were him and Donald Rumsfeld.

10. I really don't like television very much.

Comments

[aretina.livejournal.com]

I seem to have taken "you never know" to new levels, now expecting the unexpected from even the most ordinary looking (or poor or old or apparantly dimwitted) people. It beats expecting the worst, most times. I'm not sure when this happened-- guess I just had a lot of experiences like yours. Also, there's a lot of refugees who live near my house. You never know when the person walking to work at the factory might be a published poet and translator in their native languages, or a doctor or other professional. The only time I'm ever disappointed (as opposed to merely still wondering) is when people turn out to be truly cruel.

#3 scares me, as I can never seem to come up with a name that isn't one of those dreaded things.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Well, Aretina is a perfectly lovely name, and doesn't sound like you stole it from either Anne Rice or Mattel, so I'd say you're fine.