I was chatting to a friend. Yes, I have friends. And this one was called Adam. And I said to this friend, this Adam, I’m off to see Vanessa tomorrow, Because she’s another friend, And Adam said, Tell her I said hello.
What am I, I thought, Your hello outsourcing service? Offering hellos by proxy Retrieved with none of the actual feeling Of a proper hello? I thought, I didn’t actually say this Because I’m not like that, I thought, if you want to say hello So badly, Then bloody well say hello yourself. But I was off to see Vanessa. And Adam said, Tell her I said hello.
But he didn’t actually say hello. He just said, Tell her I said hello. He didn’t say, Hello, That was for Vanessa. Or, hello, that’s what I’d say If I saw Vanessa. And you can tell her that I’ve just said hello, Which strictly speaking would have been lying, But anyway I said I would.
Vanessa was in a real crabby mood. Her latest money-making venture, Selling fake moustaches to people As they enter the sexual health clinic, Had failed, Because as a society we are more open now About such things, And anyway, The police had told her to move along, And we had a row, And she told me that I was about as usual as an Air vent on a submarine, And I told her that if intelligence Skipped a generation Then her kids would be geniuses And she said That I couldn’t possibly be as daft As I looked, And I said up yours, Because I’d run out of insults, And then I said, By the way, Adam says hello.
I saw Adam the next day. Did you say hello?, he asked. I said hello, I said. And next time you want to say hello, I said, Don’t get me to say hello, I said. Go to the person you want to say hello to, And say hello, I said. And he said, Did she say hello? And I said, Actually, no, she didn’t.
Robert Garnham 