Editor's note: I thought to let my dear friend Munson have a "celeb shot" to play Canary for a week. His mind is pretty nonsensical, so it makes for some interesting reading. If silence is golden then Munson is platinum.
-Worley
We are humans. It is in our very nature to be sociable and to engage in frequent social discourse. There are two extreme opposites to this mean, as is the case with any behavior or activity. An example of the aforementioned extremes would be to consider – while we are on the topic – having a conversation. One extreme would be speaking with immense volume and with intense gesturing. While I cannot say I have encountered this in my own life, I am sure such a conversational hazard exists because Nicolas Cage exists. The other extreme pertains to something we have all experienced, either by accident or otherwise; the awkward silence. And since my current job deals exclusively with people, I run into this far more than I would like.
Granted, this has varying degrees of intensity and can occur with even a dash of joviality, as someone might interject in a wordless moment, ‘awkward silence….’ They may even make a face which says to those present ‘My mental age may be that of an infant, but at least I’ve saved us all.’ With that, the conversation usually carries on unless everyone involved is a social troglodyte, which can and does happen. Funny sidebar – the people who say ‘awkward silence’ claim to be saving everyone from a shared discomfort, but let it be known that these people are neither the heroes we need nor the heroes we deserve. These are the heroes that need to get a mildly annoying cold, that need to stub their pinky toe on the edge of their desk, that need to take their clichés into their arms as a mother would a child and jump off a cliff. But I digest: Lettuce get to the root of the potato.
So, the awkward silence…. I can scarcely say it without a mental wince, a sort of reaction akin to biting into a lemon. I feel like it happens to me more often than I should, but then again, most of my social encounters happen at work dealing with estranged and disheveled folk. The one instance I am about to bring up did not happen at work however. It happened at a conference I attended for work (which is a whole other story).
For those of you who are not familiar with conference protocol, I will provide a brief overview of how I understood it. Basically, you go to a place, show someone the thing to get you inside the place, and then you sit somewhere next to some faceless people to hear some words for quite some time. Anywho, I was about to show someone the thing to get me inside the place and I was in a line, as conferences typically involve more than one person. I was behind a bro who never moved even though the line was clearly moving in front him. As social decorum dictates, the polite thing to do, especially if there are people behind you, is to let the person log-jamming the whole operation know that they are indeed holding up the line. Regardless of their appearance, reaction, or smell, this usually should not be an too difficult.
In a feverish sweat, I encroached quite sheepishly upon the gentleman, the interchange was as follows:
Me: S….Sir. Excuse me, sir?
Sir:………
Me: Sir, lika someboooodie.
Sir:………..
*He has yet to acknowledge my encroachment*
Me: Dude.
Sir: *turns to me*
Me: *Motions to the front of the line* Are you in line?
Sir:…………….
Me:…………..
Sir:……………
Me:…………………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sir:…………….Yep *turns around, but doesn’t move*
*Audible reaction from the people behind me*
Me: !
Sir: ……..
*Hyperbolic pauses to accentuate the level of awkwardness*
Long story short, he was not even in the right line. He was attending a conference at the same place, but he did not have the mental capacity to understand what ‘North Dakota Library Association Conference – THIS WAY’ meant, as it said on a massive banner hanging across the room.
What can be gleaned from this story? What lesson am I attempting to impart upon the minds of my audience? If anything, it would be this: make sure you are in the right line, that’s it. Honestly, what this boils down to is a simple problem of reading comprehension and practical application of said comprehension, which is something I will leave in the hands of educators everywhere. However, as much as I would like to leave it at that, I cannot. For what shall be the use of leaving you all without one last thought…..
*awkward silence*
Um, you get the point. Cheers!
"I'm not the librarian you deserve; I'm the librarian you need."
"What you do in life echoes in the library."
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