‘When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.’
~ Seneca
I think I need to give up coffee. At the very least need to give up the coffee from coffee shops. I don’t know what’s so different between the stuff my sweet, sweet husband makes for me at home each morning and the stuff you get at the local mom and pop place, but I highly suspect there’s crack in the stuff – at least I would like to think so.
There’s a woman I work with that has always struck me as quite a lady. I never thought we had a lot in common, but there was something about her that made me think we could be good friends if we ever got the chance to hang out. We communicate a lot via email and have a great working relationship and friendship in that sense, but we decided to take things to the next level by meeting for coffee one morning and talking face to face. I have never felt more sorry for another human being in my life.
I don’t know what in the hell came over me, but I was unstoppable. From the moment I sat down with that poor woman to the moment I got up to leave – I talked. It was like I was possessed. I was the Tasmanian devil spinning around at warp speed. I knew nonsense and gibberish was coming out of my mouth while I was speaking; yet I couldn’t stop. I thought about it many times. Stop! Stop it right now! Go ahead and just stop mid- sentence. Spare her! But I kept on talking. I don’t even know what I was saying, but I’m pretty sure I repeated myself half a dozen times. It was like a train wreck you can’t help but watch. You know it will end badly, but you still watch. I still talked.
By the time I was done my tongue had rolled out of my mouth and was lying on the floor, sweating. I grabbed my purse and gave her a hug so that her arms would be occupied, and she wouldn’t be able to punch me in the face.
I called my sister so she could do a repair job on my self-esteem, and not make me feel like the loser I knew I was. Turns out she has the same problem. Perhaps it’s genetic. Maybe we can pin this one on our folks. She told me about this woman in her mom’s group she thinks is cool.
‘I don’t know what my problem is, but I say the stupidest things around her. I’m sure she thinks I’m an idiot, but I can’t help myself. I really want to be friends with her since she’s the only mom I don’t think is totally lame, but I nearly picked a fight with her last week on the playground,’ she said.
Later that day I went to my friends’ house and we started talking about my experience earlier that morning. ‘Oh you want to hear embarrassing?’ she started. ‘I went to my book club last night, and I really like these women so I usually try to be more demure, but last night I was an animal. I had three glasses of wine and talked so much I raised my own hand to talk while I was talking.’
A good friend of mine once said she hated going to parties because when she gets in big groups she gets nervous and brings up things like abortion and politics. The harder she tries to stop, the worse it gets, and soon taxes and gay marriage make their way into the mix. She once tried to take off her stiletto and knock herself out to get out to get herself to stop.
I guess I’m not the only one that has this problem, but what is it that gives people diarrhea of the mouth? And why is it that when we know our lips are taking us down a long, dark road of nothingness, we don’t just stop?
I called my coffee buddy later that day to apologize. I tried to make light of fact I brought up things like flatulence and the poor air quality in the Midwest. I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer her phone, but I left a message saying we should get together again. I guaranteed her FUN, FUN, FUN, by being MUTE, MUTE, MUTE the next time I see her.
The truly sad thing about this story is that the coffee I was drinking was decaf. I may need to give up my morning cup of joe, or perhaps I need to replace it with a morning cup of gin so that I have a real excuse.
