Said no one ever

 There’s a man that lives in my head. I only met him once. A guest lecturer. Salt and pepper beard, patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, slip-on beige loafers with no socks and a slowness of speech that made you stop and listen to him. It was a throw-away comment that trapped him. Now, he pops up; his image as clear as the July day I met him, whenever the phenomenon he was talking about happens.

“The Taoists believe that you should pay attention. If you hear the same thing three times then you are being sent a message.”

This possibly stuck in my head because another student commented. The boy said, “When I got in the car this morning my gear knob came off in my hand. It was the third time that’s done that.”

Genuine embarrassment for the boy but hilarity for the rest of us. 

In the last three days I’ve heard the phrase, ‘said no one ever,’ or a variation of it three times and now this Zen-chap is sitting in my head, asking me to consider what it all means. 

It wouldn’t have been in any way remarkable if it had been 2015, when the phrase was dropped into conversation like punctuation. However, it fell out of favour after a Guardian journalist wrote a column suggesting it was no longer funny and should be retired. Maybe she didn’t have the influence I’ve given her and only wrote the article because she saw how bored people were getting with this particular locution. 

This week I heard someone say it in response to someone who said that they loved Christmas Jumpers day. Fair point. It might be fun in an office but with the rise in home-working, most people wear  PJs and a Christmas jumper all year round. And in schools…Well…the horror of one extra level of excitement when they’ve had chocolate for breakfast and are completely exhausted from all that being a pig in the nativity (pretty sure Jewish farmers didn’t keep pigs) But I do genuinely love a Christmas jumper. I would wear them all year round. 

Then I was watching the new Christmas film, That Christmas, where the line was repeated again. 

“Everyone loves watching children perform a Nativity, said no one ever.”

To be honest, it felt like a harsh criticism on my life. 

Music teachers in a library

Then, my lovely choir were singing at the library. A smattering of children from the senior school, who have thick enough skins to play music despite being called a nerd, were also there and I was having a chat with some fellow music teachers (a rare treat) when one of my kids came bouncing up. 

“Can we sing the song in Latin that we learnt last week in music?” she asked earnestly.

Before I could reply, the senior school teacher laughed an addendum. 

“Said no child ever!”

“Except those I teach,” I smiled back.

The child was affronted, “What’s wrong with that?”

“You’ve made my day,” the other teacher told her, “A primary school child wanting to sing in Latin. You’ll go to Cambridge, you!”

“Where’s Cambridge?” the girl asked, looking worried about how far she might have to travel. 

So, now the beardy man is sitting in my head. He’s just lit a pipe and is waiting while I consider the message the universe is sending. 

Maybe, like the idiom, I’m past my best and need to be retired. Or maybe I’m still enjoying doing the things that no one really wants. Maybe I get a perverse pleasure from torturing the world with Christmas songs, jumpers and Latin. 

“Could be,” the man in my head says.

He isn’t specific about which of those it could be. When I push him he shrugs his shoulders and says that he never had any answers and had only ever suggested I listen.