“The walk to the bus may have looked like any other, but Tuesday was the day that changed everything.”
I’ve been known to narrate my life. Not aloud, of course, because that would be unseemly. No use in frightening my fellow citizens.
And frankly, the commentary in my head is usually more entertaining than what’s going on around me.
I don’t limit my narrations to my life, though. I’m willing to narrate yours as well.
“Little did she know that the person next to her at the Farmer’s Market, the person inspecting the turnips, then the rutabagas, was her brother Frank, the man who had left for the Navy 15 years ago only to be struck by lightning and left wandering, witless all these years, in his pursuit of the perfect root vegetable.”
But my lips don’t move, so it’s perfectly normal that I do this.
Now if my lips moved…
I sometimes see people’s lips moving. They’re walking down the street, fully engaged in something or other. Before Bluetooth and teeny-tiny headphones, this was more amusing than it is now. Like the 'rahr, rahr, rahr' of a dog with a mouthful of peanut butter, one could envision any monologue one liked. Now, however, rather than imagining someone reciting the “I’m-leaving-you-you-rat-bastard” speech as they push their grocery cart through the dairy section, the odds are actually much better that the real-life conversation they are having on the world’s smallest phone is more along the lines of “I’ll be home soon! Do we need milk?”
Boring!
So I’m going to continue to create little fantasy lives around them, what they’re saying, where they’re going, why they’re meeting.
Oh, if only they knew how happy they make me, these lip-moving people, or how much I love them.
Or how rich and wacky their lives really are.
ReplyDeleteAh, the unseen lives that people have in our imaginations! So much more fun than their real lives...
ReplyDeleteWhat a rich source of material your vivid imagination can be! Sometimes when in a crowd of strangers, I like to look around and cast the people in movies by their looks--the Russian spy, the village butcher, the old crone with the secret... And it's harmless bun.
ReplyDeleteWell, actually harmless FUN (let's leave their "buns" out of this)!
ReplyDeleteEllen, that's the beauty of it. We just don't know, do we?
ReplyDeleteLadyfi, exactly!
Ms. Sparrow, I'm still smiling at the idea of harmless buns.
I like to think there is no such thing as a harmless bun. :-D
The pharmacologically induced epiphany I had hoped for never came. Instead I was stuck with a headache and a dead hooker beside me.
ReplyDeleteLike that?
PS: I miss pay phones. People never seemed to use payphones unless something was wrong: "...yeah, and the @#$% threw all my clothes out in the front yard!" "...just lock it up and leave it there and I'll get you after bowling practice!" "...I paid my cable TV bill on the tenth and I was told that made me current!" etc. Cell phone conversations are boring: "...they don't have the frozen taquitos, just the burritos . . . yeah, with the picture of the dead burro on the front..."
ReplyDeleteRoy, it's JUST like that! :-D
ReplyDeleteYou've been doing this for a while, haven't you, the internal narration? :-) Very funny.
Pearl
A great number of years ago, there was a character who hung out at the bowling alley I also used to hang out at. He, however, often walked away from the bowling alley actively engaged in debate with his invisible companion. And I did not. That I can recall. Or admit to. I digress...
ReplyDeleteToday one sees a person wandering through a parking lot actively engaged in a debate and he looks for the Bluetooth ear piece before writing the babbler off as a nutcase.
I rather liked the old days where you could more easily identify the nutcases.
Douglas, I agree with you. I prefer to think of the muttering folk as being slightly unhinged rather than continually "wired", if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleterubatugas?? ReallY??!!
ReplyDeleteRoshni, the rutagaba is a delightful and often overlooked vegetable. It needs its own soft drink or something. :-)
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. Rahr, Rahr, Rahr...flipping cracked me right up. And thank you Roy for the little bit about the hooker. It is a good day.
ReplyDeleteRead my lips! I dare you!
ReplyDeleteIrish, I'm glad you liked it!
ReplyDeletecatlady, after courtreporting, I read lips like nobody's business, baby. :-)
Or at least I pretend I do!
Once when I was at South Station in Boston...waiting for my train I saw this man writing furiously in a notebook, he'd look up every once in a while to think. He'd nod in approval and continue on writing. Page after page... Curiousity got the better of me so I had to amble over and see what in god's name this man was writing...it was nothing Pearl...nothing at all. Just a whole bunch of zeroes.
ReplyDeleteOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
But the passion he put into each and every one of them?
Priceless.
Peace - Rene
Every time I read your blog, I have yet another "so this is why I love Pearl so much moment"--usually because I realize I'm not alone in the world when it comes to fun-making-inside-one's-head.
ReplyDeleteOh, if you only knew how happy you make me with your Wacky nonsense!!!
ReplyDeleteI like taking walks at night and looking at peoples houses.
ReplyDeleteOH GOD does that make me a peeping tom? Or do you have to intend to see someone naked for that?
Much better to create an aura than to know the horrid truth
ReplyDeleteI do the same thing, especially when I'm waiting (perpetually).
ReplyDeleteSome people just look like good stories that need to be told. Even if you are telling them to yourself.
Yay, someone else admits to this. Thanks.
You've once again stumbled on to a blog goldmine.
ReplyDeleteMy husband will deny it 100 times over but if he has an important meeting to run, where he has to give a speech, he will walk around for days lip practicing what he will say. It cracks me up because I wonder what people think of him when they see him doing it!
ReplyDeleteHallie