Caterwauling

OK, so this sinner doesn’t go to church (although sitting in Pentagon traffic usually invokes variants on the names of higher beings), but I do go to meetings once in awhile. And I get the equivalent of church giggles, because I usually make remarks to myself that I think are quite hilarious, and then I look around the room to see if anybody could hear my brilliant thoughts and if they were, in fact, laughing at my brilliance. And I am stunned that nobody seems to be as entertained by me as I am, although I do hope I haven’t emitted any unconscious mutterings.

I guess I am ahead of my time, thinking we are in the era of mind-reading just because we want to. And that scared me for a minute — I like having my thoughts private. I mean, sure, you might hear me quacking back at the angry geese in our parking garage (I swear one of those little bastards was following me and blowing raspberries at me the other day!). After I quit quacking at him, I ran into the stairwell (because he couldn’t follow me into it — that, and I needed to, like, get to work and all) and said, “And don’t shit on my car!”

What I forgot to count on was the gaggle of not geese but smokers who are perpetually at the foot of the stairs (who usually hear me grumbling to myself about something or other). And I realized that while, thankfully, mind-reading is lightyears away, the good old-fashioned overhearing of a woman who has just survived another fun-filled commute is alive and well for years to come.

And when I did come out to poop on my roof (what the hell is going on? Between my cats and feathered creatures, I am up to my ears in ca-ca!), I exclaimed something my mom used to say when the ducks at the local pond would shit — “Ducka gucka!”

And, yes, I am grateful that nobody but the birds heard that one.

The thing is, I called my mom to tell her about the poop on the roof. And, without any prompting from me, she exclaimed, “Ducka gucka!”

And now, we see where I get it from.

So, I will continue in my struggle to not emit ridiculous statements in public, but the public needs to promise to not even try to tap into my mind … ’cause they will, in fact, step in the mental equivalent of ducka gucka.

Weep for me. 😉

On iTunes: Fiona Apple, “Shadowboxer”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005 at 9:02 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.