Like, oh my GOD!
Wow... So last night I went to go see "Wallace And Gromit" with my friend Jenn, and I really loved it. One of the most thoroughly enjoyable films I've experienced in a long time. But the realt story of the night came BEFORE the movies, where we couldn't decide where to eat (Red Sauce? Friday's? Naked Fish? Uno's? Vinny Testa's? - Route 1 North / 114 East is just Evil Food Alley!) and finally decided to try Applebee's, where we never eat, just to try something new. Food was okay, service was oddly slow, but again, that's not the real story. The story is that a few minutes after we sat down, five young women came in and were seated in the booth directly behind me. They looked like college students or younger, and all were yapping a bit as they sat down. This then proceeded to change. As we sat and waited too long for our appetizer and attempted conversation, we couldn't help being distracted by one of the voices behind me. This voice started to become an ongoing drone, like the sound of CNN in the next room, or living near Parkway Motorcycle in Everett, only... louder and more annoying. It wasn't just that I could hear her voice over that of Jenn sitting right across from me, and it wasn't just that she proceeded to COMPLETELY, TOTALLY dominate the conversation at her booth, to the point that we heard not a peep from any of the other four, so it seemed as if this woman was ranting on the phone to someone... It was the things, oh the many and varied things, that this young woman was spouting on and on about. I mean, they all looked like Young Republicans, but she especially looked like Reese Witherspoon in "Election", and talked like a cross between that character and the people on "Gilmore Girls" or an Altman film. I swear she was almost talking OVER herself - if she could have interrupted herself, she would have. I don't know how this person ever has any personal relationships - certainly first dates probably go like "Hi!" "Hi, let me tell you everything ever that I've ever heard about everything in the entire world and I really have nothing original to say but I've going to tell you in an attempt to seem well-informed and I'd hate you to think I don't know something, and I want to show off that I know stuff you don't yet and... hey where are you going?"
This woman launched into Bush, then pro-Bush, then how he's a fool but we should really cut him a break, then into how Katrina was such a shame, then how Kanye West's comment was "so rehearsed" and then how other black people then came out and like denounced him, I mean like way to like betray your own race, I mean like how's your tax cut Chris Rock, you know who's house he's living in now, right, and by the way I'm like so proud that Rich, you know Rich, how he's like finally out of that proverbial closet (she actually SAID "proverbial closet"). She then went on to use, in apparently CASUAL conversation, phrases like "societal norms", "today's political climate", and "the inverted pyramid" while name-dropping folks like Horatio Alger and Newt Ginrich. I am making none of this up. By now, Jenn and I are just sitting and enjoying this spectator sport, sipping our drinks and wondering when one of the other four will smack her in the face. I don't know what their story was - apparently they didn't get together often, for why would she be attacking friends like this, and I heard her mention something about the others having a wonderful job because they get to shape the minds of the future (teachers? day-care? crack-dealers?), and she kept mentioning how she was never going back to Vermont, whatever that means.
I swear she was like a character you write into a movie or sitcom, the character that just won't shut up, and is simply regurgitating things she's heard somewhere recently. She was like that character in "Annie Hall", that Woody Allen gets stuck behind in line to get into a theater, and wants to hit with a large polo mallet. She was all OPINION, but without any PERSONAL EXPERIENCE or FEELING about any of it. She might as well have been reading a synopsis of the week's talk radio. It was truly impressive, and mind-boggling. It didn't help her position that she kept punctuating her rants with "like, like, like" and lots of profanity. From such a nice girl! I mean WOW, it kept going and going and going. Whatever medication she was supposed to be on, she'd left it at home for the day. I used to work with someone who was a bit frazzled and talky when she hadn't taken her meds, but it was never this bad. It occurred to me that she's exactly the type that will end up getting punched in the face one of these days, because she's not actually regarding the person she's ranting to at the moment, so sooner or later she's going to say something unthinking and shallow to a gay person or a black person or a poor person, and get smacked. I mean, I have conversations with people where I rant on and on about stuff that I have an informed opinion or some passion about, but I revel in the "conversation" part of it, the interaction with another human brain and set of experiences and emotions. This... person... obviously was not interested or perhaps even conscious of the people she was talking at, and her attitude struck me as, "I am going to talk and you are so lucky to be in my presence and hear me, for there is no way you can know these things that I know from watching C-SPAN and reading the Wall Street Journal, and I am doing a favor educating you." Even if her intent was to pass on interesting information, she moved onto the next subject so quickly that there was little to no opportunity for anything to stick. I mean, like, WOW!
The waitress came over at the end of our meal and asked us if there was anything else we needed, and I came really close to telling her, "Yeah, we need her to SHUT THE HELL UP!"
Anyway, that was my night. How was yours?
This woman launched into Bush, then pro-Bush, then how he's a fool but we should really cut him a break, then into how Katrina was such a shame, then how Kanye West's comment was "so rehearsed" and then how other black people then came out and like denounced him, I mean like way to like betray your own race, I mean like how's your tax cut Chris Rock, you know who's house he's living in now, right, and by the way I'm like so proud that Rich, you know Rich, how he's like finally out of that proverbial closet (she actually SAID "proverbial closet"). She then went on to use, in apparently CASUAL conversation, phrases like "societal norms", "today's political climate", and "the inverted pyramid" while name-dropping folks like Horatio Alger and Newt Ginrich. I am making none of this up. By now, Jenn and I are just sitting and enjoying this spectator sport, sipping our drinks and wondering when one of the other four will smack her in the face. I don't know what their story was - apparently they didn't get together often, for why would she be attacking friends like this, and I heard her mention something about the others having a wonderful job because they get to shape the minds of the future (teachers? day-care? crack-dealers?), and she kept mentioning how she was never going back to Vermont, whatever that means.
I swear she was like a character you write into a movie or sitcom, the character that just won't shut up, and is simply regurgitating things she's heard somewhere recently. She was like that character in "Annie Hall", that Woody Allen gets stuck behind in line to get into a theater, and wants to hit with a large polo mallet. She was all OPINION, but without any PERSONAL EXPERIENCE or FEELING about any of it. She might as well have been reading a synopsis of the week's talk radio. It was truly impressive, and mind-boggling. It didn't help her position that she kept punctuating her rants with "like, like, like" and lots of profanity. From such a nice girl! I mean WOW, it kept going and going and going. Whatever medication she was supposed to be on, she'd left it at home for the day. I used to work with someone who was a bit frazzled and talky when she hadn't taken her meds, but it was never this bad. It occurred to me that she's exactly the type that will end up getting punched in the face one of these days, because she's not actually regarding the person she's ranting to at the moment, so sooner or later she's going to say something unthinking and shallow to a gay person or a black person or a poor person, and get smacked. I mean, I have conversations with people where I rant on and on about stuff that I have an informed opinion or some passion about, but I revel in the "conversation" part of it, the interaction with another human brain and set of experiences and emotions. This... person... obviously was not interested or perhaps even conscious of the people she was talking at, and her attitude struck me as, "I am going to talk and you are so lucky to be in my presence and hear me, for there is no way you can know these things that I know from watching C-SPAN and reading the Wall Street Journal, and I am doing a favor educating you." Even if her intent was to pass on interesting information, she moved onto the next subject so quickly that there was little to no opportunity for anything to stick. I mean, like, WOW!
The waitress came over at the end of our meal and asked us if there was anything else we needed, and I came really close to telling her, "Yeah, we need her to SHUT THE HELL UP!"
Anyway, that was my night. How was yours?