Too Much Information

My whole blog could probably fall under this category.  The thing is I tell too much sometimes.  It's a nervous habit.  One I think I inherited from my mother.  I recall standing in numerous lines at the customer service desk of dozens of stores listening as mom told the bored cashier why exactly she was returning a pair of shoes, or a set of sheets, or what have you.  I didn't understand the glazed look that would come over the cashier's eyeballs until I became a cashier myself.  Behind the mask of apathy that cashier is thinking Listen I'm getting paid peanuts to stand here on my aching feet and do this lousy job in which the highlight of my day is the moment I get to clock out and run for my car.  I'm not your therapist.  Tell someone who cares!  

And yet as I returned a bathing suit the other day for my baby girl I found myself telling the cashier the in and outs of why I had purchased the wrong size in the first place.  She smiled and nodded.  She asked how old my baby was.  I turned the cart around so she could see my four-month old and replied, "She is a year old."  It was only as I was walking away that I realized I had told the lady that my baby was a year old!  I rushed back to the counter and said, "I told you she was a year old.  She's four months.  I have no idea what I was thinking.  I haven't been getting much sleep blah blah blah blah blah."  The cashier looked at me like I was crazy.  In fact I'm prone to agree with her.  I ended up walking away feeling more embarrassed because I had talked and talked and knew that she didn't care what I was saying. 

There was one time I mortified myself and a co-worker whose upcoming nuptials were imminent by communicating to her what my honeymoon night was like.  Not in detail, but enough to freak her out.  We weren't strangers.  We talked every time we worked together.  I definitely crossed a line though.  And the thing was I knew I was crossing it.  It was like I got flustered and embarrassed.  It's like when you get to the top of a water slide with a whole line of people behind you and your feet start to sweat and you feel a bit dizzy from the height.  All you can think about is whether you will go down the slide that didn't look that tall from below until you got up there and realized that the life guard is the size of a ken doll from up here, or if you will turn around and say excuse me dozens of times while everyone knows you're the coward who didn't dare go down the slide.  Once I'm in an inappropriate story I either have to commit to it and push off down the slide, so to speak or fumble down the steps gracelessly.  I'm pretty sure said co-worker began avoiding me, especially after she got back from her honeymoon.  I'm bet she thought the dirty old bird she worked with wanted to know all the intimate details.  For the record I did not. 

My husband is a quiet man.  Not shy.  Don't mistake his quietness for shyness.  He's quite comfortable in his own skin.  And in complete silence.  I on the other hand am not.  This is why when we meet new people together as a couple I often overcompensate.  In my mind I'm panicked at the silence.  I know he's not talking, but I am.  I'm talking, talking, talking.  Suddenly I find myself spilling out conversation like this: Did you know I once plastered my hair with Vick's Vapor Rub because I ran out of hair gel?  Why didn't I go to a store and buy more?  I grew up in a small town.  It's like Siberia out there.  I once went to school with a Russian girl, did you know that?  I saw her on a college shuttle bus years later and thought she was enthusiastically calling out to me by yelling, "Hey D!"  I waved back and then realized that she was waving to someone else.  No I wasn't known as "D" in school.  No she never called me that.  I can't remember ever having more than a two sentence conversation with her....."

If only I could control myself.  Catch the copious amounts of nonsensical words mid-air and shove them back into my mouth.  Unfortunately I believe this is a trait I passed on.  A woman in the neighborhood stopped by shortly after Brielle was born.  I don't know her well, but she was dropping off a card and a gift which was sweet.  She was talking to Ava.  Maybe it was the stress of a new child in the home, I don't know but out of nowhere she started in with her story about when she was an 18 month old and while I was neglecting getting her right out of her crib after a nap one hot afternoon she began finger painting on her crib with her own feces.  I stared at her dumbfounded.  How does one explain to one's offspring that it's not polite to share gross out stories with near strangers the first time you speak with them?  The woman said things like, "Oh my goodness!" and "Really?" All while backing towards the nearest exit.  Freaks.  We're a bunch of freaks in this household.  It's genetic.

P.S. I wanted to acknowledge all the nice things you said in response to my rambling break down last post.  I had just tried on a swimsuit I bought over a year ago because I had to take Ava swimming the next day.  Who knew a navy blue swimsuit could send me over the edge?  I'd like to report that I stared cellulite in it's ugly mug and won.  By won I mean I threw a cover up over it waded into the kiddie pool like a soldier marching off to battle.  I told myself to get over myself and for once I listened.