A Mind Divided

“… I was bitten by a rabbit.  Or rather, I was nibbled by a rabbit, but because I was such a weedy, namby-pamby little pansy, I reacted as though I’d lost a limb.  It was the sheer unfairness of it all that so upset me.  One minute, I was saying, “Hello, Mr. Bunny!” and smiling at its sweet little face and funny floppy ears.  The next, the fucker savaged me.  It seemed so gratuitous.  What, I asked myself, had I done to the rabbit to deserve this psychotic response?

The more pertinent question, though, is: why was I such a wuss?  And the obvious answer is that it’s because I was the only child of older, over-protective parents.  I have a memory (No. 3) to support this.  I’m now about three and am in the Red Crow Inn, the hub and beating heart of Brent Knoll.  Somehow I bang my hand, and just before I burst into tears, I hold it up to my father and howl, “Daddy, look!  I’ve hurt my precious thumb!”

This, to my astonishment, gets a big laugh.  Is my thumb not precious, I wonder?  Dad certainly thinks it is.  When the occasion demands, he always says, “Oh, you’ve hurt your precious _______ [fill in applicable body part].”

I hesitate to criticise Dad, because what sanity I have I owe to his loving kindness.  But there’s no doubt that he did pamper me, and such early coddling was one of the reasons I embarked on a wussy lifestyle.”

John Cleese, from his laugh-out-loud and tender memoir, So, Anyway…