Near Misses

galby68, , ,

One of my favorite George Carlin bits, that there’s no such thing as a near miss. You either miss something or you don’t. I believe his position was that a near miss was technically still a hit.

Makes sense to me. Literally.

Ever more precious to me is that his audience was made up of the same group he was lambasting with the observation: Americans.

Stupid, stupid Americans.

And we loved it. Iself, included.

Well, one of my weekly tasks at the new gig is covering the payroll portion of the company’s weekly onboarding. Guess who follows me and sometimes comes in early? Safety. So each week I’m reminded of how many times near misses came up throughout the day when I went through the onboarding process – which was an odd experience, since I was contracted through my temp agency.

My inner dialogue was working overtime that day correcting them every time one of the presenters reminded the participants to report unsafe conditions, even near misses.

I mean, at least say it ironically.

I watched the other captives participants for any recognition of the devil may care attitude that was being programmed into them – “My safety doesn’t matter, I only have to report injuries”. But there was none.

I guess when paired with the word “American”, stupid takes on some of the same qualities as “fuck”…it can mean a variety of different things, contextually.

I’m one of the self-aware stupid Americans. It’s misery. I envy the Americans who are too stupid to understand how stupid they are.

For what it’s worth, my favorite mental near miss scenario of the day was the bride whose groom was late, but eventually made it to the church. Better luck next time, near miss sis.

Near Misses

13 thoughts on “Near Misses”

  3. Did I miss something? You got a job? I made OSHA movies for $ back in the Stone Age. Don’t smoke when you work in a refinery. Duh? Being a semantic buffoon, miss and collide may share qualifiers. A miss is as good as a mile, right? Near or far. A near hit or near miss. Almost is almost. My favorite airplane-ism is “final approach”. And two great quotes – “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” Kurt Vonnegut and “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” George Carlin
    Okay, yay for employment! Yes, no?

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    1. Ok, right before I read this I read a daily newsletter whose headline today was “Catch-22”, so your Vonnegut quote was a really good add!
      I guess secondly, I should have taken a picture of a 30 year old magnet I have that quoted the “stupid people/large groups” Carlinism. And, third of all 😬 yeah, a job. There’s a draft about it, I promise! But every time I belly up to finish it, people mistake me urgently tapping on my phone with some pathetic cry for intention! So I have to stay home and drink to finish it, I wreck-on!
      Plus, I’m super behind on reading because of it, too, and anything over 250 words isn’t getting my focus – it cuts both way with word count these days. 😭😭😭

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      1. That’s OK, I’m just wanking away at a Detective thing that riffs heavily on character, not systemic racism, and in the end it’ll be one of those everybody kills their personal demons, grenades and a hallmark moment and the detective and the hitman drink coffee.

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  6. I nearly missed this post because I have no system to manage my WordPress activities. It works out though because then I get to see all the comments. I had never seen the Carlin riff on near misses. Love it.

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