The spat106 short longform #14

You don’t always get what you expect

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson came over to New Zealand recently, that was a week straight after Donald Trump announced his intention to pull the United States of America out of the Paris Agreement, which was a multinational agreement by all of the world’s nations to pull back on carbon emissions and other various things to help out the environment. A basis for the US was that they want to create jobs in the dying industries of coal mining and also Donald Trump’s belief that global warming is a concept invented by the Chinese to make American jobs uneconomical.
Rex Tillerson’s appearance meant that people would be angry at America especially. He probably wasn’t expecting everyone to carry him high on their shoulders in triumph no doubt but the last thing he’d expect was every time his motorcade drove by Wellingtonians that they would give him the middle finger. Or as Americans call it flipping the bird. In New Zealand flipping the bird is turning the chicken over on the barbeque with a nice pair of tongs on a decent summer’s day.
So back to Rex Tillerson, he was expecting a warm welcome but New Zealanders gave him a cold reception, that is climate change in effect.

So Rex got something he didn’t expect and it’s like the saying goes “Rigid tiles break over your head like a moth to a flame.” Actually the saying is expect the unexpected and the previous sentence is a great example of latter statement. Although you should always expect to involuntarily breathe every so often because if you don’t then you should see a doctor about it. And once you see that doctor, you should expect them to provide you with some care & cure, if they don’t then you’ve accidentally checked yourself into a veterinary clinic. However the vet should be able to provide you with a bit of treatment because after humans are also animals and I should know because I went on Wikipedia to check that fact.

They do say that unpredictability help spice up life and you say who is they and I tell you to shut the hell up. But you don’t want some type of predictability when ordering some food at a restaurant ie you order a steak with salad but then the waiter brings to your table a peanut sandwich. You’d be offended, for one you are a coeliac and also have a nut allergy. Plus the steak and lettuce dish that you will be charged is $15 more than the nut sandwich you have been given instead, So a question to the waiter is why do you give me this, they will say expected the unexpected and you say in response, great you should expect not to get a tip.

Basically the point I’m trying to make here is always expect the unexpected, apart from the last paragraph. So by that it means that instead of expected I carry on calling it Brexpected. This is topical with Brexit going on and also who just uses Brexpected instead of expected, a word that has had a few centuries use I imagine. Nobody Brexpected this when they started reading this and I have to be honest and say I didn’t Brexpect that this was going to happen either. But what a wonderful surprise to everyone, if you count coming up with a nonsensical word as a substitute word is a wonderful surprise. It would actually surprise me if anyone did get think it was a wonderful surprise and if that’s the case that’s a situation of me not Brexpecting the unBrexpected.