Can You Talk?

Then there’s this. You get a phone call from a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. He wants to know how you are doing but before you can even answer begins a long winded monologue about his sciatica, his lousy job, his terrible next door neighbor and something about the government.

Eventually he stops to breathe and you have a chance to talk about your cats or your art work or your hernia, but before you can finish he interrupts, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. The very same thing happened to me,” and he’s off and running again.

You realize the only way to get a word in edgewise is to talk over the friend. But he just starts talking louder and you talk louder and pretty soon the two of you are having a shouting match.

Well, that’s not working so you try the opposite approach and say nothing, just throwing in an occasional “yes” or “I know” to let him know you’re still alive. After a while even that gets tiring and you go stone cold silent.

Finally the friend recognizes that you are not agreeing with him about the high cost of his hip replacement and the jerk who cut him off on the way to Publix. Taking a concerned tone for the first time in the conversation, he asks:

“You’re not saying much today. Are you feeling ok?”