Actually, getting to the point may be more entertaining than the point itself. Eye of the beholder.
My day yesterday. I have to make some stops on the way to work. I go to the water company to pick up a contract. I go to the bank to pick up a new ATM card. On the way out of the bank I plop down in the car and hear a sort of crunch, and I think to myself, "I hope my wife didn't hear me crack the passenger seat!"
The next stop is the first of two work stops, first at one of the faculties, then on to my office. As I get out of the car the wife tells me to stop and turn around. What's the matter, stain on my ass? No. Remember the crack I heard? It wasn't a crack, but a ten inch rip in my pants' crotch. Luckily my sport coat was long enough to hide it for the first stop, but I couldn't spend the rest of the day like this!
Luckily we found a seamstress within a block, and I got it sewed up immediately. The price? Oh, just a symbolic few lits...no we've gotten to the point: I don't think people here understand symbolism.
If I tell you to pay me symbolically, that means you give me a button, or just shake my hand...you don't give me a few coins. That's not symbolic, it's just not a lot of money.
I've heard the word used countless times to describe a drink. When a drink is offered and declined in this country, the offerer will insist that the decliner have just one small drink, symbolically. As the decliner, in that case, I will put the glass to my lips and pretend to drink, then put it down...shocking all present! They'll insist I didn't drink, and I'll say, "Of course not: if I had it wouldn't have been symbolic, it'd have been real!"
As you may have guessed, that doesn't quite fly. But I did get a giant rip in my pants sewed up in three minutes for three lits, and that's a good deal.
1 comment:
Think of it in terms as a "token," then, or as a "representative," instead of as a "metaphor" or "substitute." I have one dude representing me and thousands and thousands of other people in Congress. Here one drink stands in for a night of pisstankery, and the few coins stands in for a real price.
I like "token," since it maintains the ritual, though in symbolic form: money still changes hands, and drink goes to your lips.
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