When Tolerance and Intolerance Clash

It all started after this party got a bit out of hand and next day I woke up to find a hole in the wall where there never used to be one. And I swore not one more party, at least until that hole is repaired. And since swearing that, I figured I might as well have a few more out of hand parties and repair all the holes at the same time.

And let me just say this: It is not my policy to stick my arm into the wall cavity and go feeling around in there. But sometimes, as these parties progress towards that point of getting out of hand, sometimes people get curious. And I would never do it myself dear reader, but over that period between parties I’d look at the hole and I’d wonder. And then I must have another party because that’s the only way to share my curiosity. What if there were love letters in there? What if there was money? What if there was an old bottle of wine? And suddenly there’s a lineup of gold diggers, a drink in one hand and rolling up the sleeve.

One of the partygoers, a wiry girl, who had seen enough of the feeble attempts to step up to the challenge. She claimed she didn’t even like wine, before contorting herself just right, getting in deep and up to the shoulder. Then she pulled a face, she said “what’s this?” and everyone gathered to see. Imagine the disappointment when no aged wine emerged! Only an old cassette tape. Written on the label, in scratchy faded handwriting it looked like the word “Dave”.

Photo by Cristián Vogel on Unsplash

It’s not easy to get your hands on a player these days dear reader. And I was only hoping for some groovy tunes. But it turns out that wasn’t to Dave’s audio tastes.

Instead, after a lot of muffled background noise, the recording was of a conversation between two men. It doesn’t seem like either was aware they were being recorded.

“My knee’s in rehab,” said one, “Years of abuse has lead to this”.

The other claimed his backyard had been built over an old Roman cemetery, which he thought was strange because no one knew the Romans had made it all the way to the Great Southern Land.

“Give me another look at that photo,” said one, “not im”.

“There are some good people in the world but geez, there are some nasty ones,” added the other, “I met this radical commie down the pub. He said they have this list, and if you’re on it, when the time comes, they’re going to have you all lined up in the football stadium. And he was serious too!” There was a pause, and he said, “I just wanted to know if I was on the list”.

“How long are we waiting?”

“For the commies, or for this guy?”

There was a huff.

“Good question though. I mean, how long do you wait? I sound like a broken record. How many times can you tell someone to just ignore them and they’ll go away?”

It works dear reader. People have been ignoring me for years.

“Look I get it. They’re a peeve. And they go on and on and you can’t shut them up. And their head is all muddled up with ideas that just don’t work. And you tell them whatever just so they’ll go away. And eventually they go away. But then Jimmy starts telling us all how he’s dead against everything that guy was on about and how he needs to be shot. And before you know it Scotty’s saying how he can see where he’s coming from. And that was just what Jimmy was hoping for, because now he has someone to argue with. And Jimmy can’t help himself, and Scotty, who was a passive observer until Jimmy picked a fight with him, has now become earmarked as a diehard opponent.”

“And I just want em all to change the bloody channel before someone starts crying about it to their Mum.”

“And now they’re arguing about it, it’s the only talk in the whole bar. And whoever is head muppet down there, their name is getting repeated over and over until everyone in the bar knows who he is. And I grab Jimmy and I tell him how no one knew any of this until he just had to kick up a stink about it. And I tell him he’s doing a great job of giving them all the publicity they want. And Jimmy agrees with me. And then he keeps going! And he tells us we should stand up against it. You’ve got your freedom now, but not once they get the keys. There’s just no talking to Jimmy when he’s like this.”

“But he did have one good point. How long do you just ignore them?” he said, “How long do I stand up for these idiots to let them say their idiotic things? Because at some point they’re going to start threatening my freedoms, and we can’t have that. So, how long before I start making my own list? Because the sooner the better for that kind of thing you know.”

“They’ll get bored of it,” reassured the other voice.

“See that? Every second guy down here must be on the witness protection program!”

“Just as well you’re a moderate.”

“I didn’t say I was a moderate,” said the other voice, “I just know when to keep my trap shut.”

And he’s right dear reader. I wish someone would give me this advice once in a while: Just because someone throws the ball doesn’t mean I have to chase it.

“Did you bring those knuckle dusters again? Don’t you find them messy?”

Photo by Ali Muhammad on Unsplash

The tone changes. “There he is.” [The sounds of car doors - then silence… end of recording.]

And if you know Dave, you can let him know we found his tape quite amusing. I don’t know that we can give it back since the tape deck chewed up the tape. I forgot that could happen.