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Quotes that stick with you...
3 days ago
General
It was about 20 years ago now. I was still in school. Recess had just ended and my best friend at the time and I were making our way back into the building.
As always, there was a massive pile up at the entrance and going was slow. Other kids all around us were talking as they went, that familiar cacophony of hundreds of voices, made unintelligible by the mere number of conversations going on all at the same time. But... sometimes, you just so happen to catch a random fragment of a sentence from somewhere in the crowd.
"...but one of us has to be stable boy!"
I looked at my best friend in disbelief. He looked at me with the same expression. He had heard it too. We both started laughing and for years to come, that one random quote became a running joke for us.
To this day, I sometimes remember that one overheard half of a sentence. I never learned who had said it or what could have possibly been the context in which it was said. I still wonder, but ultimately, all I have is speculation. This is a mystery that will never be solved. All I know for sure is one thing. One of them had to be stable boy that day.
As always, there was a massive pile up at the entrance and going was slow. Other kids all around us were talking as they went, that familiar cacophony of hundreds of voices, made unintelligible by the mere number of conversations going on all at the same time. But... sometimes, you just so happen to catch a random fragment of a sentence from somewhere in the crowd.
"...but one of us has to be stable boy!"
I looked at my best friend in disbelief. He looked at me with the same expression. He had heard it too. We both started laughing and for years to come, that one random quote became a running joke for us.
To this day, I sometimes remember that one overheard half of a sentence. I never learned who had said it or what could have possibly been the context in which it was said. I still wonder, but ultimately, all I have is speculation. This is a mystery that will never be solved. All I know for sure is one thing. One of them had to be stable boy that day.
It's funny what sticks with you, though, isn't it? And how something you overheard so many years ago could provide such an enduring mystery. Life's kinda neat like that. Though I'm a little disappointed. Here I am, in the self-proclaimed "Horse capital of the world" where half the boys I went to school with were in the FFA* and I've never even met a stable boy! But then, I went to the poor kids' school instead of the swanky county school, so there's that, too.
*Future Farmers of America, if you were wondering.
Really now? I know jobs in agriculture and animal husbandry are a lot less common nowadays, but I would've expected some stable boys to be out and about in the Horse capital of the world. I bet some of the kids in your school turned out to be future stable boys though. Which means both of us met stable boys before they became stable boys in a kind of roundabout way? Not sure what exactly that tells us, but it is a fact, I suppose?
I suspect most of the agriculturally inclined kids I went to school with probably went into tobacco instead. Whatever anyone might think of it today, it's the crop that has kept this state going pretty much since we've been a state. The horses 'round here are mostly Thoroughbred racehorses, which means serious money and the kind of care, and caretakers, even most people couldn't afford! Though who knows, I may be giving my fellow students too little credit at that, and maybe we both did know future stable boys. Or girls.
"When I get high I get high on cheese."
was a running joke between us both. Miss him awfully, but proud he stepped up to be a dad instead of being afraid he wouldn't be a good one.
Teach: -...because Infinity is not that much.
Me to myself: -DAFAQ????
Me to the teach: -Excuse me! Could you please repeat that last line for us?
Teach: -Infinity is not that much.
I look around confused and in slight panic.
Whole class: O_o
That was the straw, that broke the camel's back for me. I have NEVER again tried to understand Math after that sentence. It broke Logic for me. It broke Reality for me. That is a sentence only an OLD GOD from H.P. Lovecraft would understand only: Infinity is not that much.
To be fair, math wasn't amongst the stuff I needed to have a test to graduate or pass the year, so I had like 4 months of free time when I was in Math class. That sentence freed me from thinking about Math ever again. NEVER AGAIN I used Sinus and Cosinus and shit like that in my life. Just add, subtract, multiply and divide...those are enough to have a normal life.
A quotes that stick with me for the rest of my life???
Infinity is not that much.
Changed my life...
slightly more context:
Teach: - Infinity is not enough...
Me: -Hmmm. Okay?
Teach: -...because Infinity is not that much.
Me to myself: -DAFAQ????
I was desperately looking around and NOT ONE understood this lesson. We were looking at a madman!!!!
This time they stopped mid way accross when they look to me and ask. "Why are you standing there daddy?" I reply "in case you get stuck" with confidence he replied "I wont get stuck" before looking at their position and without missing a beat says "Well im stuck now". A quote we recite often and usually with a smile.