You’re with a group of people and one woman, Queen Bee, starts to talk about her moral dilemma “blah blah blah” problem. She wants everyone in the group to tell her what to do, that’s how distraught she claims to be.
You remain politely reserved saying nothing, thinking to yourself this isn’t a problem you crowdsource for a solution,while everyone else [oh. my. to. the. goodness. gracious.] tells Queen Bee what is wrong with her. And what she should do. And how she should do it.
Eventually all eyes fall on you so you go all Glinda the Good Witch. You say something like you don’t need any help because you’ve always had the power within you to solve this problem. Just put on your magic slippers, click your heels together, Dorothy Queen Bee, and you’ll find your way home solution.
Well a short time later you run into Queen Bee who tells you that she has no intention of following any of the advice from the group. In fact she says that she only talked about her moral dilemma “blah blah blah” problem because she was testing everyone to see who was on her side.
Oh dear.
In a nanosecond you realize that Queen Bee now considers you a supportive friend. You find yourself wondering how it is that being polite got you into this situation? And how in the future you’ll be politely distancing yourself from Queen Bee?
I NEVER INTENDED TO write about this person, she’s someone I knew a long time ago. I’d guess that I haven’t been in touch with her for over a decade, maybe longer.
I got thinking of her because I found one of her business cards wedged in the back of my desk drawer. I’m surprised I kept it, to be honest– but there it was and memories of her flooded into my brain.
So here’s a story, a character study if you will, of a pleasant someone who had her own unique way of rationalizing that which she said and felt no shame about telling, what were ostensibly, falsehoods.
• • •
ONCE UPON A TIME I knew a lovely woman who introduced me to a college acquaintance of hers; I shall call this acquaintance Nedra. The lovely women moved away but out of respect for her, Nedra and I still got together for coffee every few months.
Our relationship was superficial, but delightful at first. Nedra and I had interests in common, reading and healthy eating. She was dating at the time and had funny stories about her experiences. I was remodeling the kitchen and had ridiculous stories about my experiences.
All would’ve been well IF I hadn’t come to realize that Nedra was making up stories about her love life. And her career. Stories that she told me, doing what I’d describe as, a tango with the truth.
• • •
I STUMBLED OVER THIS dance with reality while we were having coffee one day. I hadn’t seen her in a while and I asked her about a guy she’d been on a date with, a date that she’d described in detail months before.
Well, she looked confused, baffled by my question– and told me I must be wrong about her, that she’d never been on a date like that. Clearly I was mistaken.
Except I wasn’t. I’m not that addled-brained. I remembered quite specifically her conversation and joyfulness vis-à-vis this date. That hadn’t happened, but she said it had. Uh huh.
• • •
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE after that conversation I became more disinclined to believe what Nedra said to me, but I was intrigued because I’m a curious person who pays attention to people– and here was a character for me to watch.
Up close and in action, so to speak.
Time passed, like a year or so, and I was to a point where I didn’t want to meet Nedra for coffee anymore. Beyond her propensity to make up stories, I no longer needed to be in her part of town on a regular basis so getting together with her was a chore. On many levels.
Still, I wanted to know more about her reasoning for making up stories: why she did it and, you know, if she experienced any remorse about deviating from the truth. So I asked her, politely, tactfully, why she made up stories about her life and this is where it got really interesting.
• • •
NEDRA BELIEVED THAT BY making up stories about her life she was showing people how to make themselves whole. She was, she felt, merely using her fictional tales to guide people to make better decisions about themselves.
She justified this by saying that when you think about it, scripted TV shows and movies were often fabricated stories that we accept as having a real impact on our minds, hearts, psyches. We believe the stories and accept the messages contained within.
Therefore she was doing the same thing with her stories on a smaller, more personal, scale so that she could help people become more self-aware and feel empowered to do better. And as such she felt no guilt for what some of us might call lying.
• • •
Have you met anyone like Nedra who does a tango with the truth?
Do you think she has a point about scripted TV & movies being basically lies so why not do it too?
Was she naive or manipulative?
Have you found a business card from someone you lost touch with and got thinking about them, for better or for worse?
It’s a light refreshing alcoholic beverage that is a new take on the old concept of a white wine spritzer. That is, it’s pub cider with carbonated water. Available in a slim can and described as a blend of apple and hibiscus flavors, we found it refreshing, not too sweet.
I’m sensing this is our house drink for the summer.
I watched this movie one lazy afternoon and enjoyed it, not because I was being lazy but because I truly enjoyed the book when I read it and wanted to see the movie. I won’t address how the book differs from the movie, but will tell you I thought it was worth the time I invested in watching the movie.
Not all movies need be blockbusters, right?
• • •
Questions of the Day
Don’t you wish you were as clever as some of these people who can turn their pets into YouTube and IG stars? Got a suggestion for a summer drink? Do you have issues with movie adaptations of books?
HERE’S the dealio. Friend and her husband live in a house on a country road, with an acre front yard, situated on the top of a steep hill.
This is rural. Very rural.
Directly across the way on the other side of the road on top of another hill is Friend’s husband’s parents’ house.
From their front doors they can see each other’s houses in general, but not the specifics, such as what’s going on inside the house or who’s sitting on the front porch.
Because they’re isolated up on their hills, it is private.
• • •
Antique wire-rim spectacles
• • •
EXCEPT that Mother-in-Law recently retired from a full-time job and bought a pair of binoculars to watch the birds in the trees that surround her house on a hill in the middle of freaking nowhere.
However birdwatching has not been enough to keep MIL entertained. She is bored. And clever.
In fact, MIL has figured out that by sitting just so in her living room she can use her birding binoculars to look inside Friend’s house.
Or to see who’s sitting on Friend’s front porch.
To spy, in other words.
This new turn of events has put a strain on Friend and MIL’s relationship. MIL sees nothing wrong with peeping in on her son & wife’s daily life, and despite being asked to, will not stop her peeping.
Friend is peeved.
• • •
Bowl of plastic eyeballs
• • •
BEING a pragmatic soul I asked Friend why she didn’t shut the blinds on the windows on the front of the house. She told me she didn’t want to do that because it was unfair for her to have to do something she didn’t want to do because of her MIL’s interference in her life.
Uh huh.
So I suggested that Friend needed to do something to get MIL’s blood pressure up and offend her enough so that she’ll stop being a peeping mom.
“Amuck, amuck, amuck…”
To wit, I suggested that Friend could join a coven, dress like the witches in Hocus Pocus, and have a witches meeting in her front yard, complete with dancing, spells, and a big cauldron of boiling something, like the witches of Macbeth.
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
And you know what, my gentle readers? Friend told me that I was being silly, unsympathetic to her plight, and that I was: “NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.”
To which, between giggles, I managed to say: “You’re right, because this is not a problem. This is an opportunity to EITHER get over MIL’s interference & shut your dang blinds OR cause some mayhem.”
The choice is hers.
Question of the Day
With a peeping mom directly across the street from your house, would you buckle under and shut the blinds?
OR
Would you stir the pot and cause some trouble to make a “mind your own bidness” point to peeping mom?
I await your insightful answers in the comments below.
ONCE UPON A TIME the Lady of the House was minding her own bidness, standing in her kitchen pouring some granola into a bowl, when she was startled, almost out of her skin, by an obnoxious bird.
THIS BIRD, A ROBIN, made himself known by peering into the kitchen as if he wanted into the house. Which wasn’t going to happen.
THE LADY OF THE HOUSE, in a Tippi Hedren moment, had a sudden horrifying flashback to The Birds, a creepy movie the Lady of the House saw at an impressionable age.
UPON REGAINING HER COMPOSURE the Lady of the House watched as the nosy robin stalked her, boldly staring at her and the bowl of granola that she was eating.
NOT WANTING TO RUFFLE any feathers the Lady of the House, a charitable woman, decided to give the nosy robin some granola. Hence she bravely went outside onto her deck, and put a small handful of granola on the railing.
HOWEVER, THE UNGRATEFUL ROBIN flew away when the Lady of the House walked onto the deck, leaving the granola untouched.
WHILE YOU MIGHT THINK that’d be a good thing, it turns out that what the Lady of the House inadvertently did was chase the nosy robin to the front of the house where he dive-bombed the outside of the window in the foyer for hours. The end.
The next time Karl started hassling me was in class a few days later.
He sat a row in front of me and turned around to torment me, the quiet girl named Alice, by mocking my name in a sing-song fashion: “Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland.”
I was mad.
Following my father’s advice I turned to Karl and said loudly: “So who are you? The March Hare?”
As fate would have it, our teacher, Miss Thomas, a maiden lady [as they used to say to describe unmarried women over 50], was standing at the end of my row.
She was a known disciplinarian, seemingly devoid of whimsy.
However, my adult putdown of a kid who she knew was going to be trouble for years to come caught her off guard, and she burst out laughing. At which point the rest of my class joined her in laughing at red-faced Karl, former bully turned class buffoon, thanks to a few well said words at the right time.
Thank you, Daddy.
From this experience I learned three valuable lessons that have stayed with me to this day:
Words have power;
If you can make people laugh, you can make a point; and
Bullies are weaklings who you can take down, one way or another, if you just apply yourself to making them look like fools in front of their peers.
