The impeccable irony of a perfectly balanced life is that it may fall apart any second. Something similar happened to Mr Woundcogs Smith, whose life resembled the working of the cogs of a clock, which kept the perfect time. His fastidiously organized and extensively punctual routine hardly left any space for mistakes. This attribute of his helped him quickly ascend to the premier seat of Workaholics International, where a duality of attitudes persisted with regards to his tightly wound up functioning. While he was lauded for the perfectionist ability to never be caught unawares, his stipulation that his co-workers and subordinates adhere to the same standards of work holism at the bare minimum remuneration, with the slightest aberration leading to the granting of a pink-slip before one could bat an eyelid. Thus, it was only palpable that he gained the reputation of sadist and punctuality Nazi.
The events leading up to our story highlighting how fate lays paradoxical snares for its little rabbits to be trapped into the battle, to wriggle from which only results in the snapping of the neck; start on the fateful day when Mr. Smith received a genteel embossed and sealed envelope in his mail. The letter within revealed that he was chosen by the venerated Federation for the Businessman of the year award. Additionally, he was mesmerized to find that he was also beseeched to deliver a keynote speech at a flamboyant convention which would have the bourgeoisie faces of the nation. Euphoric at the prospect of such appreciation, Smith, the egomaniacal narcissist that he was, hung huge posters of himself flashing his full set of dentures in self-glory.
When the momentous day arrived, he clad himself in his finest suit, specially created by a seamstress to fit like a glove. He also donned on his fancy neck tie which he claimed to have procured from an auction selling the items of Adolf Hitler. En route to the airport, he meticulously rehearsed his grandiosely constructed speech repeatedly only stopping to savour the befuddled and slightly pukish expression which had housed itself on his drivers face.
Little did he know that the moment he set his foot down from the car, a series of unfortunate yet hilarious misfortunes would be unleashed by fate to savour his befuddled expression for its own amusement.
While checking in his luggage, a verbal confrontation with the airport authority was initiated when he tried to bypass the procedures conducted by a “sloth-paced” personnel due to the fact that as per his assembled itenary, he should have been checked exactly three minutes ago. Failing which, he tried to bring into play the lustre of the envelop proclaiming his nomination as the businessman of the year and he suffered the dual humiliation of being both thwarted and flabbergasted when it was revealed that ego of this particular official meant more to him than Mr. Smith’s nomination. Having being detained for clearing procedural anomalies, leaving only 3 minutes to actually catch the flight, it shall suffice to say that only Mr. Smith’s luggage made it on board.
However, Mr. Smith’s fate refused to take pity on him, as his speech was crunched up in the front compartment of his briefcase which made it aboard. Hence, he ran hysterically towards the exit gate frantically looking for a cab which would drive him a couple hundred miles to his destination. Nonetheless, the continuous rejection that he was faced with from every cabbie reeked of a premonition. Scanning through the crowd, he seemed to distinguish a face in the hulabaloo of the airport parking. Sprinting in his eccentric way, he acknowledged it to be Mr. Slaphappy Johnson, who was an employee of his company, a man who was barely making ends meet due to his casual behaviour towards his work. Yet, giving a testament to the same, he was currently seeing off his girlfriend in the peak hours of work. Mr. Johnson, in a state of panic after seeing Mr. Smith, started hurling towards his car but was caught hold of.
Infuriated but helpless, Mr. Smith begrudgingly struck a deal with Mr. Johnson as to not fire him for bunking work if he dropped him at his destination.
Hesitant but vulnerable, Mr. Johnson agreed.
The car journey was no picnic for Mr. Smith as he was never familiar with the idea of rash driving and also, after a few kilometres into the road, they were pulled by the cops for speeding. Mr Smith ranted thereafter, ‘Try driving like a sane person this time’. The next hour of the journey was much less bothersome for him as he only had to bear the ‘hard metal’ tracks that were irritating the brain of a person who had forcibly cultivated a taste for the Aria’s of Opera in the quest of presenting a more polished image. However, while they were taking a turn from the interstate, a big brown cow appeared out from nowhere, causing Mr. Johnson to swerve so hard that they ended up in a ditch by the side of the road. The petrified cow stood perplexed at its place.
Mr. Smith, being fully aware of the time crunch, jumped out of the car and started to utilize all his energy to propel the car out of the mud. After some super-human efforts by his own standards, the car came rambling out of the ditch spraying his suit with mud. The immaculately dressed and groomed businessman now depicted an uncouth cowboy with a very little taste for hygiene. It seemed that he had chosen to drive through the forests of Amazon instead of a quick drive across the country. Just when he thought that that was the last jolt of misery, Mr Johnson proclaimed that the gas line was ruptured causing them to lose so much gas that they could not reach the place even if the Almightily himself came down and resurrected the vehicle.
Mr. Smith, infuriated, disconcerted and smeared with mud, desperately tried to hitchhike. One benevolent soul stopped by and agreed to look at their engine. Just when he was checking their motor, Mr Smith, in a state of utmost despair, rolled his eyes while he gestured towards the person’s car to Johnson. Not even waiting for Mr. Johnson’s nod or approval, he jumped right in and zoomed past both Mr. Johnson and the thoroughly confused traveller, who later pounded Mr Johnson into a pulp.
Mr. Smith finally reached the convention, much to the perplexity of the audience as he entered the snazzy auditorium in a ripped suit and a shredded neck tie, trousers which had abstract mud patterns and a face that could shush a pandemonium. Highly flummoxed by the incidents of the day, he approached the podium to deliver an improvised and exceedingly ridiculous speech that anyone in the audience had ever heard.
Thus, was the end of Mr. Smith, leading us to the epiphany that the tightest of the wound clocks keeping the time as precise to a second can be unwound by the slightest of glitches. Also, the barest minimum of deviation of one cog from the schedule can render the entire system haywire and our lives provide us with such glitches in abundance. Though it is prudent and efficient to assimilate the cogs and set them working for a particular result, it is wiser to distinguish life from the running of a clock.
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This is part of the series on Descriptive Adjectives and words for Creative Writing
To learn the ” meaning ” of an adjective or word from the story. Stories are known as fiction because they have fictitious characters.
An acerbic criticism of some imaginary
( gulling, gamey, clamant, exigent, blabbing, gabbling, palavering, crotchety, inveigling, cantankerous, blarneying, wheedling, chousing ) women.
Strange is this world …. Even the most harridan woman expects her husband to be uxorious.
Reading all the stories will teach you most useful, practical, adjectives for women. The verbs explain what women do in the stories.
Humans enjoy a lot to listen to stories 🙂
It is much easier to remember a word by associating it with stories. That’s what has been done in this site.
Make sure you see
and
https://skmclasses.wordpress.com/accolades-and-appreciations-received-from-students-and-parents/
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acerbic – Sour or bitter in taste. Harsh or corrosive in tone. “an acerbic tone piercing otherwise flowery prose”.
gulling – Make a fool or dupe of. Gull – Fool or hoax. codding. twitting – Harass with persistent criticism or carping.
carping – Persistent petty and unjustified criticism. Raise trivial objections.
caviling. chicaning. chousing – Defeat someone through trickery or deceit. jockeying, shafting
gamey – Suggestive of sexual impropriety. racy.
clamant – Conspicuously and offensively loud; given to vehement outcry. Demanding attention. “clamant needs”. clamorous.
strident – Being sharply insistent on being heard. “strident demands”. Unpleasantly loud and harsh. sibilant. spirant. fricative. continuant.
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exigent – Demanding attention. “regarded literary questions as exigent and momentous”. Requiring precise accuracy.
“became more exigent over his pronunciation”.
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blabbing – blabbering – Divulge confidential information or secrets. Speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly. gabbling.
maundering. prating. clacking. gibbering. palavering. peaching. piffling, Piffle, prattling.
tattling – Prone to communicate confidential information. Speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly.
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inveigling – Influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering. blarneying.
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wheedling – The act of urging by means of teasing or flattery.
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harridan – A scolding (even vicious) old woman. nagger.
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vicious – (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering. “vicious kicks”. Having the nature of vice.
Bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure. Marked by deep ill will; deliberately harmful. “vicious gossip”.
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uxorious – Foolishly fond of or submissive to your wife.
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huffy – Quick to take offence. Roused to anger. “stayed huffy a good while”.
hollering – A very loud utterance (like the sound of an animal). Utter a sudden loud cry.
beefing – Complain. grousing. squawking. Utter a harsh abrupt scream. skreighing. screaking. whining. yawping. yammering. wrawling. yowling.
scheming – Concealing crafty designs for advancing your own interest. “a scheming wife”; “a scheming gold digger”.
Scheme – Form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner.
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A truthful summary of huffy women is given at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIpmML49hMU
The best site to prepare for GRE, SAT, GMAT, TOEFL, IB, English skmclasses. Learn tough, rare words by reading short stories.
All short stories free for you.
Top 10 rare words, Top 10 adjectives for women, Top 10 rare words are tiny compared to
Top 100 rare words, Top 100 adjectives for women, Top 100 rare words;
or say Top 1000 rare words, Top 1000 adjectives for women, Top 1000 rare words. You get all of these here.
You also have top useful words, most obscure words …. etc.
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