My Folks Pre-Me
Ever have one of those days where you couldn’t get your foot out of your mouth to save your soul from Hell? Last week it seemed that all I did was hop around on one foot, sucking the toes of the other while I batted the flames scorching my bottom.
Normally, I’m a pretty good conversationalist and can generally think fast on my feet. Making small talk with total strangers, most notably under uncomfortable circumstances, like parties, conference meetings or even funerals is perhaps, my strongest asset. Odd? Yeah, a little. In fact I had a psychologist tell me that mine was a weird talent. But it’s a talent that my father taught me years ago.
Basically the Old Man’s theory was simply. He felt that in situations like those listed above, most people are shy, scared, downright miserable and genuinely don’t know what to say to each other. Therefore Dad figured anything upbeat that he could talk about would break the ice and let others relax enough to get over their nerves and act naturally. As a kid I admired my father’s ability to morph, despite his overweight belly and balding head, into a bubbly butterfly flitting from one knot of socially terrified gatherers to another bringing them, via his endless happy talk, relieved smiles and lowered blood pressures.
My mother was not amused by my father’s particular expertise and, unless the crowd was a family one, she refused to go with him on his merry or not-so-merry rounds. Still, Dad liked company and I liked ice cream…due to this unique combination of reveler meets hot fudge lover, I ended up with lots of practice in communing with the happy, the anxious and the communally clumsy. As a result, when cheering up is needed I’m as articulate as the day is long.
Dad was not much of a politician. He lived too much in the here and now to be a historian. Science? Forget it. These were topics that my Old Man avoided like the Plague. And so do I. If the dialogue turns to historical mumbo-jumbo, presidential timelines and anything Einstein, my intelligence seems to sink like a rock and not only am I suddenly inarticulate but, not unlike Dudley Moore in the original movie ‘Bedazzled’, I can’t even say multi-syllable words like ‘inarticulate’.
I also learned early on how to cover my cerebral failings. Then and now, I quickly strike a thoughtful pose, knit my brow, paste a profound expression on my face, and nod my head knowingly. But mostly, I keep my mouth shut. Very, very tightly shut.
Unfortunately, sometimes, for some unknown reason, I get caught up in the moment. My lips fly open, my brain disengages and my foot just flings itself right into my mouth. I end up sounding like a gibberish-speaking nincompoop. The truly awful part happens when my nincompoop-ery begins to snowball. I simply can’t be quiet. I get my facts screwed up until even I don‘t know what I‘m trying to say. Then I’m completely sunk.
When my father was in his mid-fifties and I was only eleven, he began a ten-year battle with chronic heart problems which left him essentially speechless. That aside, he still loved a good party and remained as faithful as his physical detriments allowed him to be to his dwindling circle of shut-in relatives and those who’d left this ‘vale of tears’. Only difference was that now I provided all of his verbal effervescence.
Anyway, as I said, lately I’ve been besieged by a virtual epidemic of ‘foot-in-mouth-disease’. Undoubtedly, Dad suffered his moments of discombobulation, too, although I can’t remember a time when he fluffed his lines or got caught looking dimwitted. My father’s been gone for nearly forty years and yet, in my blithering desperation of last week, he still managed to cheer me up. Guess some things never change.
P.S. To all of you with inquiring minds who want to know what it was that I did that ended with me sticking my foot in my mouth in the first place, I have this to say: If I’d wanted you to know what it was that I had done, I would have written about it in the blog. 
