In daily life, people are always around me. I don't live as a hermit, tucked away in a cave on a mountainside at the end of a dirt road. I can't get away from annoying people; everywhere I turn, there are people. It wouldn't be so bad to be surrounded by people if they would leave me alone, but I guess I am just too friendly looking. Or something! I wish I could figure out what part of me looks so inviting to those folks who aren't my friends yet just like to unload their baggage on me. I don't wear my Peanuts t-shirt everyday that says "The doctor is in" so I don't understand why I am the target for people with issues.
This has been a problem I have been faced with from an early age. Do you think I am kidding? Here is a very short example from eighth grade. As I was leaving O'Neill Junior High School one afternoon, my English teacher started to unload on me. What would possess a grown woman to tell one of her teenage students that her husbands relatives are annoying and that she would rather not see them that weekend? I wasn't her friend, her daughter or even her friend's daughter. I was her student!
It isn't that I don't have any sympathy. I have plenty of that, for my friends only though. I have stuff to do so, take this as a warning people, stop unloading on me! If you are a friend, I will go have a cup of coffee with you and listen to your issues. I will read letters and give you a call once in a while. If, however, you are a someone I don't know, or even worse, someone I don't like, KEEP YOUR YAP SHUT! That goes for the random old lady who takes the bus and lets me know she has vertigo and can't go up too high in buildings. Also included in this rant are students who don't like spending the full 2 and a half hours in lab. Didn't you read your schedule when you signed up for the class? A lab is a lab folks. Or how about those annoying people that look over your should and interupt you when you are working on your laptop at the coffeeshop? Did I ask you for your opinion on MY laptop? NO! I bought my laptop and now I am stuck with it. Even if yours is stupendous, I won't be getting one myself. Please keep you problems to yourself. I won't be doing your taxes for you so don't tell me how difficult they are. I am not an H & R Block accountant. If I am doing my laundry in the laundromat, let me do my laundry, please. I don't know what temperature would be best for nylons and I don't have change for a dollar. That last one is solved by the change machine. You should be able to find your own friends for unloading your problems. If you don't have any friends, you will have to pay for help from a professional.
Here is the lowdown: I am not here to help strangers with their emotional, financial, or spiritual issues. I will give you the time of day or directions to the gas station if I know them. I won't however listen to you complain about not getting enough child support from your ex-husband. I don't want to know how your brother's suicide impacted your life. I am not interested in how much pain you feel when walking up stairs. I don't have a desire to know who you work for or if they know my boss. If your comment is any more detailed than the weather or baseball scores, keep it to your self! The doctor is not in. Would you really want to take my advice anyway if you only paid five cents?
