But there are many other pauses in our lives that we all experience but for which we don't have names. Well, didn't have names - until now.
Sucropause - when you lift a spoon of sugar from the bowl, you take the sucropause. This allows the stray grains to fall and the little cone of sugar to form a stable enough structure to get the spoon to your coffee without spilling. Parents know this with medicine too. You've poured the medicine into the spoon and pause to ensure that the surface tension will keep the dose stable long enough to convince the patient that it really will taste great this time, despite it tasting like a combination of aniseed and hydrochloric acid on all previous occasions.
Adipause. The adipause is the few seconds you take to let the calories vanish from a cake, biscuit or other sweetmeat.. It comes between "Oh, go on, have another one" and "Well, maybe just one more." The recipient knows that they shouldn't eat it - their waistline has been discussing this issue with them for some months now - but they have very little self control. The adipause of indecision allows all the calories to evaporate so that it doesn't count towards their WeightWatchers points.
Popopause. A little archaic now, the popopause is the time needed to ensure that all the popping of corn that's going to happen in the pan has finished - then you can take the lid off. Get the popopause wrong, and you'll have your own little Chernobyl as the popping grains, uncontrolled, set off a chain reaction that contaminates your kitchen for months to come.
Lovapause. Is the time taken gazing into someone's eyes before the mutual chemistry has gotten to the point where the first kiss is now going to happen. Or not. I don't think it's actually possible to gaze into someone's eyes from that close to, is it? I've only ever managed one eye; I can't focus on both at the same time. Is this a universal truth that we only don't discuss because there is limited romance in a statement like "I gazed lovingly into her left eye"?
Ejacupause. Gentlemen - you know whereof I speak.
Bankrupause. At the supermarket, you pay by card, key in your PIN and then you experience the bankrupause - the irrational dread that your transaction will be declined and you will have to make some lame sounding excuse to the cashier. You could have three quarters of a million dollars in your savings and be buying $11.50 worth of apples but you will still experience the bankrupause. It's the reason for the popularity of self-service checkouts around the world.
Pumpause. The time taken between squeezing the trigger on the petrol pump and the fuel starting to flow. In some parts of the world, this can be as long as half an hour. I think the fuel is being pumped up from deep underground and refined in real time at my local servo.
Monkeypause. When you have to tell someone something that you know is going to enrage them, you will experience the monkeypause. It's the time between the end of your explanation and them climbing down out of their tree and going ape at you. If you don't get your explanation out fast enough, they monkeypause could, in fact, be of a negative length as it starts before you've even finished blushing.
Loadupause. Has the click you made on the "Confirm payment" button worked or not? The weird little spinning "loading page" circle thing isn't going around but it doesn't always do that for Javascript. Did it not register my click or is the server just thinking about it? If I click again will I be billed twice? Does the vendor I'm buying from even really exist or is it a sideline for people selling Russian brides? This is the thought process of someone experiencing the loadupause.
Twittapause. This is the time, measured in microseconds, between an event happening and someone tweeting about it or posting a picture of it on some form of social media. It has become a real problem in metaphysics these days: cause and effect are being disrupted because no one actually has time to be involved in events, we have become a race of chroniclers. To pose the problem from the neo-Zen viewpoint - if something happens and no one is there to tweet about it, did it really occur?
Pause a moment for thought - can you think of some more that I've missed?
Note.
In inimitable Australian style, "servo" is an abbreviation of "service station" - what Americans would know as a "gas station". We can abbreviate almost anything and stick "o" on the end. Arvo, sambo (not a racist term, slang for sandwich), bottle-o (a bottle shop, liquor store or off licence) and avo (short for avocado). What can't be abbreviated with "o" can be shortened with "y" as in footy, chippy (fish and chip shop or carpenter), sparky (electrician) and brekky (breakfast).
Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday morning, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
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