The Slow Blink

Have you ever watched someone speak who is a little full of himself (herself)? If you're trapped and have to listen, because the person pontificating is your boss, or an elderly person (like me), or someone you endure because you love the person in spite of that person's bad habit of verbosity (that's a Bill O'Reilly word of the day).

I have always found relief from being the target of the 'learned ones' who want to educate everyone in their paths. Here are some tension-relievers:

1. Count their 'ahs'. Note the time, as you begin counting how many times they use 'ah', 'you know', 'see what I mean', 'and stuff', 'totally', 'to die for'....you get the idea -- now, add your own to the list and you can, if you will think quickly, make a mental note to add these up in columns. At the end of the ordeal, you can up all of the teeth gritters and divide by the number of minutes/hours you've suffered during this particular session. Assign the offender with a score, or, as your golfing buddies would term it, a handicap. It's not uncommon for a really heavy-hitter to reach a score of 50 to 60 in less than five minutes.

2. Watch the way they will often pause, when deep in profundity, to slowly inhale through their nostrils as they tilt their head back in a pre-heimlich maneuver designed to clear the airways for the onslaught of words to come--then slowly, and with great deliberation and theatrics, close their eyelids, as though the effort was commensurate with the closing of the roof of an NFL stadium. The Slow-Blinkers will often, during the middle of this routine, raise one or both hands and extend a finger to emphasize the point, with all the anticipation of one waiting for lightning to strike something or someone nearby. Listen carefully, for you are in the presence of greatness.

3. Count the number of times, after you have listened to an interminable speech, and try to work a word or two in sideways -- how the offender will interrupt you, after one or two errant words have escaped your lips, and say, with great gravity,
"you know, the same thing happened to me...", or, my personal favorite, "I was just gonna say...". After spearing your comment with these verbal harpoons, they will often steal your moment in the sun and run off with comments in another direction, never to return to hear what little you were going to try to say.

If you are full of mischief, you can always feign deep sleep. Allow YOUR head to slowly rock back, while your lips part just slightly. Then allow your eyes to begin slowly rolling upwards into their sockets. This will sometimes allow the offender to begin to get the message "audience fading fast", whereupon he/she will usually quickly break off the conversation, offer a cursory "NICE TALKING TO YOU", and immediately look for the next victim.

Note: I don't want to be THAT GUY, but if I am, have the goodness in you to send me an anonymous note and tell me! You know how it is with old guys (like me) and with old ladies. The older one becomes, the fewer friends we have left in this world. People who, in our youth would have said: "You know, you talk too much"...or, 'that's dumb"...or, much."....or, "that's dumb"...or "too much information." When one begins pushing the envelope of age, the correcting mechanism
found in old friends is lost, and old people lose their mental compass...the mental compass that keeps the rest of us a little more aware of how we dress, what we say and to whom...even to be aware of denture breath!

People become reluctant to 'dress down' the elderly or give them much-needed gentle guidance. I have a friend who is older than I am. Nice guy. Wonderful Christian man. Problem is, when he is talking with me, he is always digging at the end of his nostrils-- first with one hand, then with the other. Won't use a handkerchief or a Kleenex. He digs. He, like all nose-miners, invariably wants to shake hands-- with everybody he meets. He has a sinus condition and when he's not digging in his nostrils, he is snorting things back up into his sinus cavities where they have been 'cooking' for who knows how long. But this is another subject, and I only intended to give 'tension-relieving' tips when listening to 'bucket-mouths'. I got carried away....just like the pontificators and bloviators I was just describing. How humiliating....!