You can make a new rule
Every time some blockhead
Transgresses common sense
Or common decency
And fouls things up.
And surely, you’re doing nothing wrong,
For he’s actually helping you―
In his most-aggravating way―
To realize more and more
What’s really important here.
But you’ll not make many such amendments
Before you’ll have seen enough to know
That what’s really going on here is not that
The whole thing wasn’t sufficiently codified already,
But that the blockhead doesn’t have the same
Appreciation for order that inspired the program
In the first place, and that he lacks the refinement
To yield himself to the spirit of the thing.
And if you’re like me, this is probably all
Starting to sound pretty good to you by now.
And having been so affirmed,
You may conclude from here that
Whatever motives your blockhead has
For being here, he’s falling short
In that fundamental upon which
The whole program was built―
And that surely this is the heart of the matter.
But before I go, I must torture you
With an alternative scenario in which
Your blockhead is only
A borderline blockhead like me.
Let us suppose for a moment the possibility
That he may actually love your purpose
While also being inconveniently in need of shedding
Some particular vestiges of blockheadedness
For which he is not, in fact, incorrigible
As so many blockheads prove to be.
Let us suppose that a good talking-to
Would do the trick―
Or failing that, a sharp slap on the head, perhaps―
After which he would come to his senses
And refashion his blockhead into something
More sensible.
One never knows until he has put it to the test,
Yet most blockheads never get the benefit
Of such testing.
They never experience that unsettling moment
In which their lapels have been grabbed
With that most surprising and invasive adamancy
That will, in fact, soften the one heart,
Even as it will harden the other.
Now, you will know already that
Statistics are on your side.
They will cheer you on confidently
To boot the blockhead without delay.
Yet wisdom’s silence looms louder in the room
Than when you were younger
And simply didn’t care as much
To get things right the first time.
But if your blockhead’s like me, he’ll be the one
Still thanking you many years hence
For talking some sense into him that one time.
And you’ll be glad you did.
And what will it have cost you
But the awkwardness of one conversation
And the giving of one more chance?
So whether you boot the blockhead or not,
Do write those new rules, for who knows
When some borderline blockhead might
Read them and turn himself in silently
And without a struggle―saving you the grief
To which you are by now so accustomed?
Write all you like, but do know that you’ll never
Be able to outwrite all the blockheads,
For as much as you have come to love order,
There will always be some
Who love disorder more
And will think nothing
Of imposing themselves upon you.
