Fools and being made a fool of…

TEN PIECES OF ADVICE ON DEALING WITH FOOLS

1. Don’t even consider giving a fool any awards, any more than you would consider praying for snow in summer
2. To deal with a fool, you need to find the equivalent of a whip for a racehorse or a tiller for a boat
3. If you respond to the stupidity of a fool, you’re just going to look like a fool yourself
4. When talking to a fool, don’t complicate things. Keep it simple
5. If you ask a fool to pass on a message, you’re asking for trouble
6. A proverb quoted by fools
   is limp as a wet noodle. Proverbs 26:7
7. Putting a fool on a pedestal is like putting a mud brick on a marble column – it will soon wash away
8. Never ask a fool to quote a proverb – it will do more harm than it does good
9. Hire a fool or a drunk
   and you shoot yourself in the foot.  Proverbs 26:10
10. Fools go back to their silliness time and time again like a dog returning to its own vomit

Basically – Don’t get drawn in. Choose carefully who you hang around with. Choose carefully who you listen to.

And then there’s this –

People who shrug off deliberate deceptions,
saying, “I didn’t mean it, I was only joking,”
Are worse than careless campers
who walk away from smouldering campfires.  Proverbs 26:18-19

I’m not a fan of practical jokes. Not at all. I was brought up on teasing and I hate that too. ‘Harmless teasing’ it was called. Except it wasn’t harmless. It hurt. ‘You know we don’t mean it’ I was told. Except when you hear something often enough, you start to believe it. For example, my nickname was Smell. Not because I did, but because it rhymed with Hell (as in Helen). I hated it. It meant the first thing a new person did was laugh at me.

So don’t tell me that teasing is just a bit of fun. Or practical jokes. When I was 17, on the first day of a new job in a jeans shop, I was sent to the butchers opposite ‘Pork Farms’ for a pound of chicken lips. And I did it. I was young. I was new. I would do whatever they said. And I was in a strange town – Nottingham – and maybe that was a thing there. I was deeply humiliated. I still go red with embarrassment even now. Humiliation is what these practical jokes are all about. A laugh at someone else’s expense. It is never ever harmless. Even if you do not see it straight away, like a smouldering campfire, damage will be done.

So don’t do it. Especially to me.