Happy Monday everyone! This week, we’re continuing with our series of Table Talk conversation cards. If you missed the previous cards and want to go back and print them out so you can use them at your family table, or with your book club, or at your next meeting or holiday party, you can get them here:
— Conversation Card 1 click here
— Conversation Card 2 click here
— Conversation Card 3 click here
— Conversation Card 4 click here
— Conversation Card 5 click here
On the porch today, we’re moving on the Card # 6, which comes from Shellie Rushing Tomlinson’s book, Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy:
Have we ever had a miscommunication cause something unexpected… hmmm… let me think…
As a mom living in a house filled with men and mini-men, I think the question for me would be: When have we not had miscommunications cause the unexpected? We live for miscommunications around here.
With so much testosterone in the house, sometimes I feel like I’m the only one around who is communicating. I read a study not so long ago that said it’s actually not their fault — people of the male persuasion are genetically predisposed to tune out sounds that are in the tonal range of a woman’s voice. I’m not sure how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on that study, or who funded it, but boy-moms like me could have saved them the money. Those scientists could just hang around our houses for a while and listen to conversations like this:
Me: Do the dishes before you go to school okay?
Boy: How come I gotta to do the dishes?
Me: Because yesterday, you had your choice between doing the dishes or doing the laundry and getting everything packed them in the car for your baseball tournament, remember?
Boy (looks as if this is all new information): Huh?
Me: Yes, we had a whole conversation about it. You picked dishes over laundry, so make sure you do the dishes this morning. We’re leaving for baseball right after school.
(Boy sneaks out door unnoticed. School day passes. Dishes sit.)
Boy: (rushes home, rattles around bedroom, emerges looking panicked): My baseball stuff’s not in the closet and it’s not in the laundry! I can’t find it anyplace!
Me: have you checked in the dishwasher? Clearly, no one’s opened that thing in a while.
Boy: Mom, seriously!
Me: Okay, let’s backtrack. We talked about all of this before you left for school, remember? You were supposed to do the dishes, and what was the reason you were going to do the dishes?
Boy: Huh?
Me: You were going to do the dishes, and I was going to do the laundry and put it in the car, remember?
Boy (scratches head): But I didn’t ever do the dishes…
Me: Obviously. I did do my part of the job, though.
Boy: But… what’s that got to do with my baseball stuff?
Conversations like this can go round-and-round forever, just moving on their own power. It’s amazing, really. It’s a pretty decent form of entertainment, if you’re not depending too seriously on the outcome. If the fate of the free world hangs in the balance, well then, it’s a good idea to cultivate a basic knowledge of grunts and body language. It’s important to know how to distinguish the “I heard you and processed that information” grunt from the “There was the weirdest buzzing in my ear just now…” grunt. One produces results. The other produces lively, if strangely circular, conversations.
No matter what the mode of communication, life in an (almost) all male household is an adventure. These guys keep life interesting, and God bless them, I wouldn’t know what to do without them. Every day around here is an adventure in miscommunication 🙂
Lisa
New On Shelves — The Latest Moses Lake Book
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