"if it's good news, it must be someone else's"

Thursday, October 7, 2010

a "third person" conundrum

i'm what you might call a "third person" man.
people talk about me in the third person, especially when i'm well within the second person domain—for instance, the dinner table.

actually, it's pretty cool.
it gives me a chance to hear what people are sayin' about me in front of my back.
i guess they figure i can't hear them or don't know they're talking about me or both.
how stupid is that?
i can hear everything, most of the time, and my comprehension is pretty darn good, especially if the subject is around vacuuming, deer spotting or yodelling..

but here's the hitch.
i'm afraid they might think i'm eavesdropping like some sorta self-loathing, low self-esteem loser.
i mean, i'm sitting right there in front of them for god's sake—it's easy to see how that could happen.
so i always look away and pull wax out my ear and play with it, you know, stuff that says i'm still not in the room or have no notion of their subject.
but i can only keep up this charade for so long before i blow my cover and they catch on.

anyway, that's my conundrum.
and it's a doozy by golly.
if anyone has a brilliant idea, i'm all ears, unwaxed to boot.

2 comments:

Robert Crane said...

why, i don't know what you are talking about. didn't hear a thing you wrote. i was busy cleaning my mouse.

itsmecissy said...

bob,
I've read this about a dozen times and I can't for the life of me figure out how someone can talk about you "in front of your back."

That is some conundrum.