LJ/DW Idol, Week 10: Topic: Craic

[adoptedwriter]

 

I have one wish in life. Just one. I have a lot of blessings, but there is one thing I want still: I wish I could be a better conversationalist. I’m awkward. Sometimes I don’t “get” stuff people are talking about in the moment. Sometimes I am so over the topic being discussed that I want out but cannot always escape the chit-chat without offending someone. Sometimes I feel like no one would care about what I have to say anyway. I am my own worst critic.

 

The thing I can do best in a conversation in which I feel I am “done” with anything meaningful to contribute is to interject a good pun, joke or other form of humor. For example, this afternoon my daughter called me on Facetime. We chatted for about 45 minutes and RainBowBoy was toddling around in the living room showing me his fire truck and fire hat, etc. The discussion began with my daughter feeling needy for reassurance that she does not suck as a mom and her child is not “stunted” from adhering to all the assorted COVID protocols for the past two years. (She's been doing great, and RainBowBoy is amazing.)

 

Then she put RainBowBoy down for a nap and our talk resumed.

 

It spiraled downward into the age-old political rant about how Trump simply cannot be allowed back in office. (I do not disagree, but her lonely ass wanted to pick an argument regardless.) Then the talk plummeted into the topic of gun control and how she does not want her child slaughtered in his grade school classroom. (Again, I do not disagree but what can I do?) One thing I have learned about having heavily opinionated conversations is that sometimes all I can do as a listener is to acknowledge and be accepting of the speaker’s point of view. That’s super easy when I agree, but in this case, my daughter’s diatribe felt like too much. I agree on point, but I was sated. My emotional spoons had vanished. I had nothing constructive to say that wouldn’t cause our chat to continue to decline further. My husband had entered the room and was trying to get his fatherly words of wisdom in as well, and I let the two of them go at it for another minute. I put my head down.

 

In that 60-second brain-break I found inspiration. Off camera I spied HoneyB’s action figure of Elsa from Frozen and a black cat hand puppet lying on top of the toy heap in the bin. I began by making Elsa dance on the screen while I sang  a very bad rendition of “Let it Go!”. Then I used the black kitty hand puppet to dance around and pull the Elsa figure off stage. Next I turned the cat puppet around and lifted the tail to make the toy cat imitate what our real-life cats like to do on screen to other people: show their anus to anyone watching. 

 

It broke the tension. 

 

Nothing great was resolved, but we were able to find closure and conclude the call for the day.

 

My inspiration to use toys as a diverter tool came from this Mr. Bean video clip: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPgCkntR38A