This COVID pandemic has certainly brought out the best and the worst in people. I’m sure we all have horror and humor stories of bizarre human behavior seen during these past few weeks, toilet paper hoarding aside. Just a couple weeks ago, after repeated warnings of social distancing, a woman I didn’t even know burst into my personal bubble and wanted to embrace me. When I politely pointed out that personal contact was discouraged in the facility where we were, she replied, “Oh, I’m not worried. I’m a hugger.”
Well. Good for her. Generally I’m a hugger, too, but not these past few weeks. And maybe she wasn’t worried for herself, but I was a little disturbed by the fact she was willing to put other people at risk. At the very least, she might worry about them. Who knew where she had been or what she had been exposed to? There were elderly people and immuno-compromised people in our midst.
I relayed this story to my husband. “I should have told her, ‘careful, or you’ll wind up in my blog,’ “ I said.
“What bone-headed thing did I do now?” my husband sighed. As usual, he wasn’t totally listening to me and failed to grasp the total gist of what I was relating.
This is why I often talk to myself. I’m not crazy, it’s just that I’m frequently the only one who listens to me. If only other people would realize this and stop butting in on my private conversations.
“Nothing. I wasn’t even talking about you. Why do you always think everything is about you?” I replied. “Besides, I haven’t written anything about you for a while now.”
“Good. That means I haven’t done something stupid lately.”
“Nothing I’ve written about, anyway,” I pointed out. “No, I’m talking about the numerous other people who provide fodder for my blog. I sometimes feel I should give people fair warning before they end up immortalized in my eloquent and less-than-flattering words for all the world (or all twelve of my followers) to see. ‘Careful, or you’ll wind up in my blog’ is going to be my new mantra to people to stop acting like nig-nogs and not to annoy me.” Plus I can only envision the reaction those words might evoke.
Maybe I need to make up little cards to hand out to people who are completely clueless as to how exasperating they are. After all, winding up as subject material for my blogs is generally not to be taken as a compliment. My family can vouch for this through experience. Trust me, people don’t want to get on my bad side. I have a little problem with passive-aggressiveness. I also have a little problem with dim-witted people. I am seldom gutsy enough for a head-on confrontation with someone who is behaving like the south end of a north facing donkey. But I can write! Isn’t there an old expression, “the pen is mightier than the sword?” Or in my case, the keyboard. Not that anything is likely to change with the unwitting subject of my blog—as I doubt they even read my blog, or if they do, they would never recognize themselves—but it makes me feel better.
So, if I offer you my card, beware! Otherwise, you may end up as the subject of my blog.
~ Pin for Later ~
Don’t mess with writers! We’ll get back at you in print.
Exactly!