A quick tale 116

A bit of a nonsense story

He always felt embarrassed when he used the word itinerary. Like laughing at someone's funeral. Or remembering a dirty joke during Physics class. Or fancying your best friend's wife. He could never bring himself to say the word. Why couldn't it just be schedule? Or timetable? Why itinerary? Was it Eye-tinerary? Or It-in-erary? He could never decide. And the 'rary' at the end was positively vulgar. And suddenly, the word seemed to crop up everywhere. On holiday brochures. Guide books. Rock star tour dates. World cup football matches. Everyone seemed to have an itinerary. Heck, even his 8-year old son was given one before he went on a school trip. What's with the word? What's with the world? Itinerary this. Itinerary that.

He'd had enough. So one day, he took a pair of black markers and went around town striking out the word wherever he saw it. He would go into libraries, search out dictionaries and black out the word and its definition. It was his personal battle. His holy war against a world that had embraced itinerary. Psychiatrists saw a troubled mind. Oprah-fans saw a deeply scarred psyche. He needs healing, they murmured behind his back. Did your mother not read you books when you were young? Was your cat run over by a dentist's car? They asked silly questions to get to the root of his problem. The simple answer was that he abhorred the word. And the more he ran away, the more he was chased. The man who did not like itinerary, ran the headline next to his scowling face. Neighbourhood kids made up pathetic rhymes and sang out 'He's hoary! He's hairy! He's lost his i-ti-ne-rary!'.

It had to stop. So the man scribbled the word all over his house. itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary itinerary. He surrounded himself with the very demon he was running away from. It seemed to work. He no longer actively disliked the word. And once, when an American friends casually mentioned it, he did not even puke. But just as he was warming to it came a blow. He choked on an artichoke and died instantly. At his funeral service, someone giggled. They might as well have mentioned the word.