40 impossible things

Oliver Roberts watches men doing aerobics, women searching handbags for cellphones, and realises it's just impossible ...

1. For a man not to steal a glance at a woman's cleavage when she's wearing a low-cut top.

2. To be civil to someone whose phone has just rung in the cinema.

3. To not swear when you stub your toe on something.

4. To reply "Yes" to those e-mail receipt requests.

5. To watch the end of Shawshank Redemption without crying.

6. To sneeze with your eyes open.

7. Not sometimes fantasising about being a sniper who keeps a ready-to-be-assembled rifle in an aluminium briefcase.

8. To find the sport of curling engaging.

9. Not to have Google as your homepage.

10. To take pleasure in filling your car up with petrol.

11. To enjoy paying a speeding fine.

12. For any woman not to enjoy Dirty Dancing.

13. To find the R2 coin that fell down the side of your car seat.

14. To remove the tight plastic wrapping from a new CD or DVD without getting annoyed.

15. To like, in any way, someone who scorns and demeans you for not recycling or caring about the environment and blames you for killing polar bears every time they see you drinking mineral water from a plastic bottle.

16. To not eventually get bored on a game drive.

17. For any man to look good in a Speedo.

18 To tell yourself, after a heavy night of drinking, that you will never drink like that again, and actually making good on that promise.

19. For a man to look wholly heterosexual in a convertible.

20. For a woman to locate her cellphone in her handbag before it stops ringing.

21. To eat pasta in a new white shirt and not splatter sauce on it.

22. To not grimace inside when someone uses the word "kudos".

23. To not be filled with love and awe whenever you see or think of Nelson Mandela.

24. To board an airplane and not, for at least one second, think it might crash.

25. To not like fresh cherries.

26. To be in the company of bubble wrap and not want to pop it.

27. To find anything decent to eat in your house at around 10.30pm on any given Tuesday.

28. To look at a photo of yourself as a baby and identify with it completely.

29. To fully understand the purpose of why you are here on Earth.

30. To finish a whole jar of anchovy paste before it goes off (you once had a craving for some on toast and then forgot you had the stuff so it got lost at the back of the fridge with the cottage cheese and a half-full tin of peas).

31. After you've have a bad day at work, on your way home you declare that you are going to quit and go live on a Pacific island and wear a loin cloth and spear fish but, because you have a bond to pay off and children to bring up, this is impossible.

32. For a man not to look like an idiot in an aerobics class.

33. To not like the smell of jasmine.

34. To play Trivial Pursuit without it resulting in some kind of argument.

35. When you go out to a restaurant with a group of people, to like that person who grabs the bill and insists on working out what everybody owes to the last cent, and then steals an extra mint.

36. To expect stimulating conversation with a man who is wearing a cap backwards on his head.

37. To feel any sympathy for people who get thrown into horrible jails in Thailand for being drug mules.

38. For anyone to think they're a bad driver.

39. To not stare up at the floor numbers or fiddle with your phone when you're sharing a lift with a stranger.

40. And, finally, people are impossible. Impossible.