“The walk to the bus may have looked like any other, but Monday 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.
Honestly, 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 the woman pinching the tomatoes know, but 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.”
My lips don’t move when I do this, so it’s perfectly normal.
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 “My-mother-was-right-and-I’m-leaving-you-you-cheap-SOB” speech as they push their grocery cart through the dairy section, the odds are actually much better that the words they are speaking into the world’s smallest phone are 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.
I’ve been known to narrate my life. Not aloud, of course, because that would be unseemly. No use in frightening my fellow citizens.
Honestly, 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 the woman pinching the tomatoes know, but 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.”
My lips don’t move when I do this, so it’s perfectly normal.
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 “My-mother-was-right-and-I’m-leaving-you-you-cheap-SOB” speech as they push their grocery cart through the dairy section, the odds are actually much better that the words they are speaking into the world’s smallest phone are 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.
14 comments:
We humans are an endless buffet of free entertainment.
Hari OM
...and we, our readers, hope you don't stop with the lip-reading either...
On another note; what IS it with folk who can't check the fridge before going to the store??? By all means put the shopping list into the digital device. Butt fur crying out loud, don't be using that thing and driving your trolley one-handed...... jus' sayin'..... YAM xx
Living in your head is surely more exciting than living in Aisle 1 at the supermarket.
I had a great aunt who moved her lips as she talked, moved her lips while anybody talked. I once tried to ask her about it, and was promptly shushed by my mother. Turns out she was crazy. Don't know if the lip moving was voices she was hearing or what. But I was shushed.
St. Louis takes the prize for people talking to themselves. It's epidemic
I used to do this too, in my early teens, when I was still in my "write the great American novel" phase.
Whenever possible I try to walk on the opposite side of the street to the 'lip movers'. Scary bunch.
It's all too clear what the narrative actually is these days, what with people using their outdoor voices to talk on their telephones. Yeesh. Why bother with an actual phone when your spouse/whatever can likely hear you all the way from here without it?
By any chance were you a screen writer for the movie,"Stranger than Fiction? " I loved that movie.
There was a woman in the grocery store today who must have had one of those teensy telephones mounted to her skull. Look as I might, I couldn't see it but she was walking around carrying on a conversation with someone. It's kinda scary.
I was a little shocked the other day when I realised I was now one of the lip-moving people. Not all the time, but I'd seen something that irritated me and was walking along muttering to myself. Now I'm wondering what other people thought about me!
The real me is me when I mumble to myself. It is best that I stay away from lip readers.
They should thank you for jazzing up their boring lives with more interesting stories! :D
I have a habit of talking aloud to myself while shopping, I know I do it and I know I must look strange to others but it is just something I do, I am saying aloud things I am looking for or have to get so I don't forget
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