My Boat

I’ve been joking for several years now about my oversimplified way of classifying people.  My wife often refers to me as Mr. Black&White living in my black & white world.  She says I sort EVERYTHING into one thing or the other. It’s all either THIS or it’s THAT.  Well that’s just not true.

Proof that I sometimes see shades of gray is in the My Boat scenario.

Imagine for a moment that the whole wide world is flooding. Imagine that in this imaginary flooded world, I have the only boat.  With that thought in mind, this is how I usually classify people.  Category I people are definitely getting in my boat.  Whatever it takes, if I have to throw valuable supplies overboard, I will ensure these people in Category I make it on board.  This is usually reserved for family, but more on that later.

Category II people are the ones that I will allow on board if there’s room.  I’m not going to make room or sacrifice my chair for them. But as long as there’s space available, Category II people can get on my boat.  This is by far the largest of the categories.  It would be safest to assume that if I haven’t specifically told you that you are any other category, then this is most likely your home.

Category III people I’m completely apathetic to.  These people will have to be creative in the ways they sneak on board, but if I find them stowed away, I won’t throw them off.  This is the smallest of the categories if you only count the people I know personally.  In reality, well, in the reality of our imagined scene anyway, this category includes all of the rest of the human population that I don’t know so… OK, it’s really pretty big too.

Category IV are the people that I will actively beat off of the boat with an oar.  These are the people that if my chest were a cannon I would fire my heart upon them (all respect to Melville).  These people are not so much hated, because hate is a very bad word and only hurts the hater, as they are disliked with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.  This is a very small group indeed.  Trust me, these people know who they are.

There is one other way to get aboard, however, regardless of the category that you fall into.  There are two sub-categories of Food (F) and Not-Food (N).  The people in Category I, for instance, are USUALLY there because I want to ensure their survival.  Those people would be classified as 1-N.  However, some people may be Category I just because I think they might make a tasty treat if we run out of beef jerky.  Their classification then is 1-F.

That makes six classifications of people with the full range of categories as 1-N, 1-F, 2-N, 2-F, 3-F and 4.  That’s WAY more than just boring old Black & White.

P.S. -I wouldn’t bring anyone from category IV on board as food because I wouldn’t want to risk the chance that we all survive the flood.  There’s no hope for them.

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