Anytime I really feel like being an ass (which seems to be way more often than necessary) I remind my wife the time our boss complemented her on how nice she looked on one particular day, only to receive, Oh yeah, what was wrong with me yesterday! as a retort.
Women are crazy; and I know just how to keep my marriage running smoothly.
My boss learned that day, when dealing with employees it is better to keep your mouth shut than to be misinterpreted.
Years in business has painfully taught me the same lesson. I recall on one particular occasion, after I emptied the shop trash cans and hastily dropped them inside the back door because the phone was ringing, that one of my employees had stayed in a particularly vile mood all day slamming drawers and banging stuff around maintaining a very bad attitude. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked him what the problem was. The previous day I had asked him to clean up his bench which he had not done, and his tool box sat next to the back door where I had dropped the trash cans. Turns out I was sending him a message that he was a pig for not cleaning up his bench and that’s why I had left the trash cans next to his tool box. Go figure.
So I’ve learned that saying something can take place, not only through my writing, but verbally, physically, and even clairvoyantly!
Since I’ve started writing this weekly column I have received quite a few compliments on my writing abilities, not that they are so extraordinary, it is just that most of the people I know are busy working in manufacturing businesses where hard work and diligence is required in earnest while intellectual political analysis is about as useful as a boat in the middle of the desert.
It is not that there isn’t some entertainment value in today’s politics, it’s just that knowing Chuck Schumer and Al Gore are jackasses doesn’t help get widgets out the back door. I’m the only one among my little blue collar buddies nutty enough to get up at three in the morning to write about some newscast that really irked me.
Recently one of my accolades included the description articulate and I thought that was pretty cool. After ruminating just a tad bit, however, I started getting angry.
It dawned on me, my admirer was insulting me. Instead of being a successful entrepreneur and a self-made man, this compliment was suggesting I was nothing more than a junior Illinois Senator with two years tenure who decided to run for president!
When Senator Joe Biden complimented Mr. Obama as articulate Jesse and Al went into high dudgeon, the nerve!
Obama was the first African-American man to run for president with this particular quality. Oh no. The media interpreted Biden’s comment to insinuate that Obama was the only articulate African-American in the country! Perhaps Mr. Biden did not learn as I have that saying something can take place even when you don’t say anything.
Poor Senator Biden had to apologize, and like a pusillanimous moron, he did.
I know when I picture articulate Jesse Jackson is the first vision to pop into my head? Jesse gives new meaning to the word Ebonics. I don’t know if Al is articulate, but at lest I can understand him when he talks.
As for the assertion that articulate suggests everyone else in the race is dumber than the recipient of that particular accolade on second thought I guess I like being articulate.
Something tells me, however, I’m not really brighter than all others in my race, but I’ll defer to Jesse and Al.
Copyright 2007 Jim Pontillo