Childlike Egocentrism

Up until a certain age, children think that you experience and know everything that they do. Children are stupid. There’s no news there, but they are still developing, so we have to let them off. Usually this ends at about the age of three. Occasionally it continues into later life. This is not forgivable.

Once upon a time I had a telephone conversation with a woman from Preston. The details are unimportant, but I wanted to arrange a convenient time for something with her and was negotiating this. For a start I suggested – and ‘suggested’ is of great importance here – that 2pm might be suitable. She was incensed. She was one step away from hanging up, driving over and beating me with a club with nails in it.

“Two o’clock? Er, no. I don’t think so love. What do you want me to do about the pie delivery, eh? How are we supposed to do two things at once? Am I supposed to just refuse the pie delivery? It’s no problem for you. You don’t give a shit. It’s me who’s going to be here trying to sort out both.”

I didn’t know there was a pie delivery at 2pm. I didn’t work in the same shop as her. I didn’t even know that the 2pm pie delivery was such a big deal that it required an hour or more to complete. She seemed to think everyone knew this.

I explained to her that I didn’t know that there was a clash in her schedule and would later be all right?

She talked to me like I was an idiot, as if I should have come up with this idea first. She couldn’t believe that I hadn’t factored the pie delivery into my thinking. As I was putting the phone down, I could hear her telling someone else that I had wanted to do something at the same time as the pie delivery and they were laughing about how stupid I was.

I couldn’t convince her she was being stupid. She was too stupid to know that she was stupid.