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"If only I'd read this book earlier," the old man sighed. He shook his head sadly. "I was at the wrong end of the cut-off age. I'd have made a champion swimmer...". His voice trailed off.
"Hmmm."
He sighed again. "Then there's this 10000 hour rule. What the hell am I supposed to do about it now? The only thing I have 10000 hours practice is of scrunching my nose when my wife farts. And even that is more due to habit now. You get used to the smell pretty quickly." He shook his head again. "It's the cabbages. She loves them too much."
"I guess."
"I wish I was born in a 'culture of honour'. If I had been, I would not have just stood there and nodded meekly when my boss told me that I was the love child of a donkey and a pigeon. I would have given him one - right in the kisser. Right in the kisser, I tell you boy."
"Er...but wouldn't that have landed you in jail?"
"Ah, I would have done good in prison, boy. Would have run the prison library and made it famous, like that guy in Shawshank."
"Of course."
"I wasn't ever meant to be an outlier. Life dealt me the wrong hand."
"Then how would reading the book earlier have helped?"
He looked at me incredulously. "Why, it would have changed my life! I wouldn't have felt sad at my failures. I would have regarded them as inevitable. I would have waved the book at everyone who looked at me as a loser. I would have...I would have..."
I was distraught. "Oh, Mr. Blake, why couldn't you have bought the book 35 years ago when it came out?" I felt really bad. This wasn't fair.
He shook his head and sighed prodigiously. "Ah boy, that's the worst part. My boss gave me this book on my 30th birthday. But I hated him so much, I threw it away in the dustbin."
I burst out crying.