Tag Archives: thermometer

Creep

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Creep: (n) an obnoxious deviant

I have been called many things. Fortunately for my soul and psyche, most of them have been positive or relatively neutral.

Yet I certainly have had my share of profane labels attached to my doings.

But nothing—I repeat, absolutely nothing—came close to the day that beautiful Merrilee called me a creep.

It was many, many years ago, but I can still relive the moment, taste the adrenalin in my mouth, and feel my face flush with humiliation.

I was in one of those moods—trying to be clever with everything I said. Although dear Merrilee was extremely attractive, she did have some sort of cardiovascular situation—or maybe it was just a skin disorder—which caused her face and arms to turn red, leaving patches of white skin beneath.

On this particular day, apparently my candid and joking spirit had made her nervous, and she sprouted the symptoms, in ruby red. At that point, feeling I was on a role and drunk on my own wit, I said:

“Dear Merrilee, you look like a thermometer.”

Of course, it wasn’t terribly funny, but because she was a little strained and nervous, she burst into tears.

This caused everyone in the room to gyrate to her cause and move to her side, comforting her. If we’d been on a ship, it would have tipped in my disfavor.

Defensive, I began to explain that I was “just kidding,” and it was the first thing that came to my mind.

Amazingly, this did absolutely no good and just increased the welling of the tears.

One of the girls who was holding Merrilee very close spat at me, “You are such a creep!”

Before I could stop myself, I responded, “I’m not a creep! You’re a creep!”

Well, since I was the one who made little Merrilee cry, it was pretty obvious to everyone that I had won the “creep award.” At that point I finally got the sense to quickly apologize and leave.

I cried like a baby on the way home.

I felt so stupid.

But I have to tell you this—the chance that you will one day be a creep is pretty high. Whether you are an actual creep depends on whether you stay defiant—or if it sinks in, even many years later, what a creep you really were.

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Celsius

Celsius: (adj) a scale of temperature in which water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°

I was terrified.

I had to believe it was true because my Weekly Reader printed it.

This was the small newspaper handed out to me when I was a young boy. It had stories about recent discoveries as well as projections on
 what would happen in the future.

The Weekly Reader informed me that the metric system would take over in the United States in the next few years.

I believed it.

I was so frightened that I went out and tried to learn it.

That was many decades ago, and aside from a few signs adding the word “kilometers,” two-liter bottles of Coke and packaging putting milligrams in parenthesis, the United States is still metric-free.

Likewise, we still honor Farenheit over Celsius.

Even though the contention for metric and Celsius is that it’s easier to comprehend, we Americans–a sturdy lot–choose to pursue abstract numnbers, like “36 inches makes a yard” and “freezing is 32 degrees, Farenheit.”

Occasionally when my travels take me to the border of Canada, the local newspaper will list the daily temperature in Celsius. The numbers are so ridiculous. How can a 90-degree day be captured in a 40-plus Celsius?

It’s confusing.

Do I think we will ever go on the metric system or that Celsius will become the rule of the thermometer? Probably not.

It gives me pause to wonder what else was in error in my Weekly Reader. Does this mean we won’t have flying cars by 1999?

 

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