Good afternoon, medical practitioner! Before we begin would you mind if I laid out some parameters, rough guidelines, for our conversation? No? Great! I'm going to keep this simple. During our chat where would you like to set the honesty level? Yes, all but one point applies to both of us.
Imagine a knob, like an incremental volume knob except this sets the degree of honesty that we both try to adhere to as we talk. There's certainly some subjectivity involved so don't feel nailed down. The knob has 10 steps each of which aligns to a percentage of truth in what we say. 1 would be like trading stories from Mother Goose while 10 would be like a no holds barred seriously pious Catholic confession. Space the numbers in between as evenly spread out as you see as fairly reasonable. The content and tone of our back and forth will over a space of time settle into a functional scale.
As I trust you remember, at the beginning I said that there was one more level just for you. Only I can turn it to 11, like a Motörhead amp. That act will only occur if you become close minded, arrogant, hostile and/or incredulous OR obviously incompetent. In such an eventuality I will turn the control knob to 11, setting a sequence of events into motion. First, Motörhead's "Dancing On Your Grave" will blast out of the not-so- innocent-now device (which until now has just looked like a bakelite box with a power switch, a 1 to 11 meter and the aforementioned knob. Then, due to your absolutely and unforgivably vicious behaviour, you shall receive a blow across your mouth with a baseball bat which will propel the shattered remnants of your choppers down the tubes in your throat with the vast majority of the detritus finally settling in your appendix (after their twisty turny journey that's just where it all goes and nobody really knows why.…)
Do try to not think about gloomy stuff like Republicans, Teflon flaking off of pans, the threat of the return of corduroy and faux velvet pants, having your car radio get stuck on a 24/7 channel that talks you through randomly chosen surgical procedures. And all of that time you are stuck in your car in a traffic jam beneath a bridge that's blocking all of YOUR fave channels and ratcheting up your tension and anxiety to record levels that no one will ever know. Ever think about subways much?
