Oogway

Confessing this could be the stupidest thing I'll ever do, but the internet must be told that I quite enjoy stereotype-spotting. Once a stereotype has been spotted, this mere merriment turns into a full fledged self-employed occupation. Regardless of what the dictionary says, the stereotype has to be given a patent-worthy name from the reservoir of my patent-worthy silliness. An in-depth, often senseless, research and evaluation soon follows.

One such Home Production is the Oogway stereotype. This giant Kung fu Tortoise is pretty cool, no doubt, but one ought to tape his mouth and shut him in his shell sometimes. I've had to endure too many Oogways in life; if they were all rounded up together and set ablaze, you'd see a spectacular bonfire from the moon.

I'm going to generalize this stereotype as male for easy monologue, but my studies have shown that he is most often a she. That's just a minor inconvenient detail which we shall be overlooking for the rest of this post. 

He (the Oogway) is anywhere between 5 and 120 years of age, and can be broadly classified into three types:-

The first type is usually either a bit of a know-it-all or a bit of an I-think-I-know-it-all. You definitely don't like him, because he is not afraid to slap you with information (mostly useless) and knowledge (mostly irrelevant) that you could very well live and even die without. If you can't beat him (with a stick or a spade), join him (by asking ridiculous rhetoric topic-changing questions).

Another type could manifest in friends and relatives you actually unpretentiously like. While in Oogway mode, he will talk to you about things you've swept under the carpet, when you'd rather talk about anything but that. Your only hope to have the best of both worlds is to tune him out, nod at regular intervals and let out a laugh (or a sigh, depending on the seriousness of what's under the carpet). Sometimes he gets offended by something you say, don't say, do and/ or don't do. Those are good times to take a toilet break or to announce a power nap.

This next type is not a person you actually know or are acquainted with, he is a total stranger. This one usually has a bird's eye view (useful for pooping on your unsuspecting head) and a long nose (useful for poking in businesses you never knew he had). Beware of such eyes and noses, unless you like the feeling of being watched whilst naked. You could ignore, blink at or walk away from him, but nothing really works unless you spit in his face, which is not very polite and is definitely not very hygienic.

Identifying him is useless if you don't master practical ways of restraining yourself from committing murder. If all the above tips fail, play dead, and if that doesn't work either, get up and make a run for it.

- O for Oogway (My A to Z Challenge)