A not-so-good catch

What is the fascination with being able to catch? We spend large amounts of our lives feverishly trying to catch something. So much time, energy, concentration, and resource is dedicated to the pursuit of ‘catching’. 

Early morning we run down the street, slice of toast between our lips, shoelaces half tied, trying to ‘catch the bus’. 

People down on their luck, out of work, out of relationships, broken and downhearted pray to ‘catch a break’. 

If you are seemingly attractive, successful, wealthy, healthy, generally desirable, you are viewed by society as a ‘good catch’. 

If you are absent from work or school and there is work that needs to be done, your boss or teacher will invariably remind you that there is ‘a lot of catching up to do’. 

If you are able to drag yourself out of your warm bed on a cold winters morning, braving the chilly air, people will tell you this is a positive thing as the ‘early bird catches the worm’. 

I have never been a fan of catching. When I was a small boy I was unable to catch; catching was a skill I had to be taught. Catching does not come easily to a lot of us, it is something we have to strive for, something to relish when attained. Well, not all catching. 

I have been very successful these past few days in the catching realm. I have achieved something that many of my fellow Sydneysiders have been unable to this flu season. I have caught a cold. Why anyone would want to catch a cold is beyond me. 

Surely it is a case of the Cold catching us. I see the Cold as a dark, spectre like being, akin to the grim reaper. This wraith follows us all, waiting for an opportune time to strike. 

It is not like any sane person would trail Cold around town, down darkened alleys, in and out of hospitals, doctor’s surgeries, schools and shopping malls. We have better things to do with our time than track a Cold, the prize of catching him being spending a rotten week in bed, doped to the eyeballs, full of mucus, watching daytime television. In short, Cold is someone you don’t want to catch.

Now that I have learned to catch and have proven I can catch something as revered as a Cold, I am turning my attention to another important pursuit, cutting. I have so much work ahead of me; venture to a university to ‘cut class’, head to the supermarket to ‘cut in line’, annoy my boss so she tells me to ‘cut it out’; there is a lot to this cutting escapade. 

In fact I think it is time to cut this piece short.