Living upon the consumption of others has to it a parasitic sound.  Our record keepers might call it 'specialization', the more efficient use of time and resource.  The word 'dependence' falls flat on some ears and the word 'interdependence' has an equality to it.  The word 'sharing' belongs to children.  And a long time ago 'banker' was a fulfilling trade.  

    On the dole once the clerk asked my occupation.  Unless I actually wanted a job, with its associated interference with lifestyle, this was a question that required quick wits.

    I didn't dare say 'laborer'.  I could have said 'drunkard' or 'no fixed abode', instead I plucked lamplighter from the ether, which the clerk took to mean 'gasfitter' and he sent me off with a bus token to fail another interview.

    Now call me 'mouse catcher'.  He had bright eyes, large ears and a crooked tail.  The cat's fault he was in the house.  The wife with flashlight and shoe.  The cat apparently quite blind, but full of the chase.  The four of us bounded like giggling kangaroo.  He felt tiny in my hand.   And in the morning there were four sleeping partridge amongst the laurels where we had let him loose.

     These are the incorrigibles that so anger the well-adjusted, until time sometimes changes things.

tim candler

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