May 30th 2012
Motor Mouth
By Therese Guy
My friend posted a very funny and interesting post this week about how she attracts motor mouths as friends. I must say I would have to put myself in the chatterbox category of personalities. My brother use to taunt me with,
“Therese when you open your mouth your whole body disappears.”
If I were quiet as a child my mother would immediately take my temperature, cause if I was not talking--I certainly must have been ill!
My first grade teacher queried once, “Therese, why do you talk so much?”
My simple answer was, “Because I have a lot to say.”
To top it all off I married a man who can talk as much, if not more, then me. Our children had no chance, between heredity and environment; they could be nothing less then experts in the art of babbling.
I usually win in the duels of disseminating my vast knowledge (yeah right) only because I also inherited my dad’s loud voice. I have the highest amps.
One difficulty with all being talkers is our listening skills leave a little something to be desired. It is hard to focus on what another is saying when your busy thinking of the next thing you are going to relay.
My youngest daughter went through a teenage stage where she did not wish to talk or share information with me. I was so hurt and missed her noise. She is twenty now and has seemed to gotten over that. Trouble is she now wants to share and it usually is at eleven at night when I’m extremely tired and cannot seem to focus.
The other night she tried the above scenario. I tried to use some listening tricks I thought I had perfected. As she talked I interjected a few well placed, “uh-huh’s” and “really’s”. Even a few, “You don’t say’s.”
As she exited my room it took a few seconds to register what she had last said. I guess she recognized my zoned look and decided to be ornery.
She said, “Mom I’m pregnant and my boyfriend and I are broke, so we are gonna go knock off a bank.”
Not focusing I replied, “ That’s nice honey, have a good time.”
It did register though before she had gone too far down the hall and I rallied.
“Hey Erin, if it is a successful heist could you pick me up a pizza on the way home!”
Almost all jesting aside, I feel I have improved with age; I no longer get in trouble at the library, church, and hospitals. Thank God for texting!
