Wednesday, November 7

"Please...Just Go Away!"



You know this person. She's (or he's) the one that tells you to look on the bright side of life just after you've slammed your shin into the side of a desk. This is the same person who will, after you sadly reveal that your significant other has just run off to live a life of uninterrupted sin with the UPS driver, that "Into life a little rain must fall." Were an umbrella handy, you'd beat the living daylight out of her.

Listen, I'm all in favor of maintaining an upbeat view of life. The benefits of an uplifted spirit most certainly outweighs dragging around an Eeyor-type countenance. Being perpetually unhappy seems to me to be a rather poor formula for embracing life, as there will always be enough of those trying times in a person's life when circumstances beyond one's will or power to control will drag us into a pit of despair. Why then spend even one additional dejected moment hiding beneath the bed covers wondering whether or not the sky is going to fall? My attitude? "Buck up, Wilma. Life is passing you by!" That's sound advice. But there is a time and place when such cheerful homilies are more appropriately given and hopefully appreciated.

It's the over exuberant individual that drives me to distraction. These are the people that seem to come out of woodwork at the most inopportune times to spread their special brand of cheer right in the middle of some personal calamity. Your head is throbbing from a late night's embrace with far too many Margaritas and she comes bounding into your presence to announce with unbridled enthusiasm that her guppies gave birth in the middle of the night to a whole school of the little buggers. "How swell for you," you dully reply. "What's the matter with you, sourpuss?" she beams. "Did someone lick all the red off your candy?" "Well, if you must know," your muffled voice dripping with disappointment, "I just learned that our company is down-sizing and I have to let a lot of folks go...and you're first on the list." "No kidding," says she and, without missing a beat, turns on her heels and exuberantly shouts over her shoulder, "Gotta go! Talk to you later! Have a nice day!" Your left wondering if the sky in her world is the same color as yours.

Just one of these "way too much sugar in their coffee" type individuals can be a tolerable cross to bare, but assemble a whole room full of these joyous adrenaline junkies and it's what the military euphemistically calls a "target rich environment." You just want to suck the air out of the room to see if they would even notice. Picture a conference of Amway adherents seriously plotting how to sell their products in the middle of the Amazon and you get a pretty good idea of what I'm trying to convey. A little bit is quite enough, thank you.

So if you don't mind, when I bang my shin on the corner of the desk, don't come charging over to kiss my boo-boo to make it all better. "I appreciate your apparent concern. But I'm a big boy and, if you don't mind, would you just please go away. That's a good scout. You have a nice day too. Mine is looking up already."

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