I’M TIRED OF MY VISIT TO HELL, I NEED A CHANGE OF SCENERY.

I am a very hard person to read.  People look at me and think I’m unfriendly and mean and foul tempered.  They are only partially correct.

What I am, is in a lot of pain.  All the time.

I’m actually quite friendly but I don’t talk much unless I know about the subject.  I’m a listener by nature.  Getting right to the heart of the matter, I’m an observer.  I usually keep my observations to myself except when I’m online.  This is where I express my opinions about what I observe.  I keep my mouth shut out in the real world.

I can see how I might seem rather mean spirited.  I call stupid stupid.  If you’re an idiot I will tell you so.  I guess that isn’t very nice but I’m past caring about good manners.  Again I do this online not out in the world.  Out there I go off and rant to myself.  I am a curmudgeon.  And a damn good one.

I do not suffer fools gladly.

My job requires I smile and be nice to people even if they are total morons.  Even if they are rude.  Even if they deliberately try to provoke me.  The rudest comment I have yet received from a customer followed 20 minutes of trying to explain what a network is to an elderly couple.  They absolutely refused to accept anything I said as factual.  Finally they asked, “Is there anyone here more intelligent than you who could explain it to us?”  That is rude to a professional level.

Just the other day a customer went out of his way to make sure I knew he was a minister.  He wanted one of those little foam microphone covers for his headset.  When I told him that we don’t carry parts like that, he very pompously informed me, “Well, I was informed that you do.”  The utter contempt in his voice was unmistakable as he stormed out the door.  He can take his ministry and shove it up his ass.

But of course I can’t respond, the customer is always right, you know.

But we don’t have that here.  I can say what I want.  So I do.  I frequently stick my foot in it and do not come up smelling of roses.  But I keep on.

Foul tempered?  Well, not exactly.  I feel anger more than I feel any other emotion.  Pain has a way of making sure of that.  Constant pain even more so.  I really don’t want to lash out at people.  So I usually internalize it and blow up when I’m alone.  I cuss myself out a lot.

I don’t smile much especially now that my teeth are half missing (damn burrito).  I’m not paralyzed or suffer any muscle distortion so when you look at me there isn’t anything to indicate that there’s something wrong.  That’s a big reason why I think people don’t believe me about the pain.  Another is simply that most people would do anything to alleviate pain instead of living with it.   But I would rather suffer than sit in a chair drooling on myself for the rest of my life; that’s what those wonderful narcotics do to me.

I think that’s why blogging appeals to me so much.  You can only go by my words, not by the impression you get of me according to my appearance.  You can decide that I’m a jerk because I write like a jerk not because I look like one.  Looks can be deceiving.

In reality I’m a tenderhearted old softie.  I cry at chick flicks.  Good grief, I even shed a few tears during STAR TREK!  I’m a hopeless romantic.  Simple little things delight me as much as complex technology.  Have you ever looked closely at the wings of a dragonfly?

When I mock the religious I do it because I lived it.  I was an absolute nutcase.  When I think back on some of the boneheaded decisions I made because I had faith, I wonder how I survived this long.  Some of these things were literally matters of life or death (like letting my wife drive when she was having problems with seizures).  As befuddled as my brain is now, it was completely missing in action during my religious days.

So I’m not cruel and heartless.  I’m not exactly a grumpy old man, either.  I will admit to being way too sarcastic.  I speak sarcasm fluently.  I’m actually friendly and approachable.  A gentleman and a scholar, if you will.  A smart and wise guy.

Don’t believe me?  Come over here and pull my finger.

This entry was posted on 30. May 2009 at 01:30 and is filed under wild guesses, hearing, emotion, religion, stroke. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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