Frankly Amazed part 2

A lively discussion has ensued round here from the considerations touched on in the previous entry. In the drafty outhouse that passes for an office, Shuffling Sid our roving sales clerk was ‘in’, resting between vigorous bouts of recondite sales technique, which, as far as I can tell, seems to involve rather a lot of phlegm-streaked coughing. He assures me that this approach produces quite startling results. Who am I to comment? I just pay the man’s wages.

Sid approached the issue as one of Democracy, which he insisted came with a capital D. He regarded the issue as of one of elitism and the creation of an underclass. He posed his most trenchant observation thus; “Should a sufferer from advanced Knucklum Shufflerosa not also be treated with compassion, be able to find inclusion within the big tent of society? Surely, it’s not asking too much to be included cheek by jowl with those other outcasts of our culture; the uniformed bus conductress, the photographic model, or the pouting topless tractor driver of the month?” He dissolved into a coughing fit induced by the heightened intensity of his engagement with the subject. I think I got his drift, but lost interest in it and sent him on his way with a flea in his ear, which rapidly became lost amongst the teeming multitudes already inhabiting his wretched tweed mackintosh.

Gloria, ever attentive at her desk, tush-tushed, and reminded me that I had failed properly to consider Sid’s line of reasoning. “I didn’t want to”, I said. “Get out of that if you can.” She couldn’t.