Ever since the day Alanis Morisette burst upon the scene with her linguistically erroneous ditty about unfortunate coincidence, I've been a little confused about what, exactly, constitutes irony. Is it really just a case of having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife? I think not. I think that's just a pain in the ass. Maybe if you can only find 10,000 spoons when you need a knife one day, and then the next day you need a spoon but all you find are thousands of knives? Yes, I think that's irony.
So how about this. Today I was doing research in the archive at the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health. In the midst of reading endless tomes about the importance of promoting good hygiene to reduce levels of contagious disease, I suddenly needed to use the restroom. "Yay!" I thought. "Potty break!" Not that potty time is really all that exciting, but it was a reason to get up from the table and walk around, which made me happy. So off I trotted to the bathrooms, where I found that in THE MINISTRY OF G.D. HEALTH there is neither toilet paper nor soap. Let me repeat. No toilet paper. No soap. Ministry of Health. Is that ironic? I don't know. But I do know this: it'll be their own fault if I inadvertently set off an epidemic of contagious disease. "That's right, you lousy sons'a'bitches!" I'll holler, as they drag me off in handcuffs for being a disease carrier and a menace to public welfare. "You can call me Typhoid Cheasty. Now stock your bathrooms with Palmolive and Cottonelle!"
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9 comments:
i just threw up a little bit in my mouth after reading the link to Typhoid Mary... and then washed my hands 10 times.
i certainly don't claim to know wtf irony is. then again, i don't claim to know much of anything.
no soap and no tp. hmh. i mean, i know you were at the ministry of health and stuff, and forgive my ignorance in asking, but, isn't it common to not have soap or tp in bathrooms in nicaragua?
Maybe tomorrow you'll find 10,000 rolls of toilet paper and plenty of soap, but you won't have to go.
Yes, I think that's irony.
judy -- good! keep washing!
mofm -- good question. yes, it's very very very common. but I've gotten spoiled recently at a few private archives, and thought for some reason that the Ministry of Health might have jumped on their own bandwagon. silly cheasty.
mr. pat. -- ha! yes, that would be ironic. hello, whoever you are, thanks for stopping by!
Ha! That's pretty funny. I'm glad that even if THEY don't get the joke, that you do. Who would have known that you'd have to pack TP for a trip to the library!
well, thankfully you had that trusty hand sanitizer with you. I mean, you did have hand sanitizer with you . . . no?
ummm.... yes?
;)
not a good place for a germaphobe like me! ewww!
That´s par for the course here. I bring a small pack of tissues with me wherever I go. Luckily, the Hemeroteca at least has soap, so I get to wash hands after handling 2 months of newspapers everyday. Whee, newsprint ink. And 30 years of germs.
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