I Am A Giant Ear

Or so it would seem. Maybe the problem is the fact that 'ear' is singular, not plural. Because when there are two, one would assume the path is clear for stuff to go in one ear and out the other.

No, lately it seems stuff has just gotten stuck in there and rattles around in my head for a while. And drives me nuts.

The other night, I overlapped shifts for one hour with another employee. One solitary hour. If I make a rough tally, in that space of time, this person filled my head with tales of woe and doom and gloom that involved approximately 4 people with life-threatening medical conditions, two animals with life-threatening conditions with vet/surgery bills totalling to nearly $4000 (one of which died), two hyperactive teenagers who won't take their medication, one woman suffering from Alzheimer's, and her own upcoming foot surgery. Oh yes, and the toil involved in canning 100 pounds of tomatoes.

I gradually understood my role was simply to quietly listen and nod at the appropriate places. Certainly not to insert my advice, or questions, or heaven forbid, try to top any of these tales. But in my head popped a mental image of the Wizard's doorkeeper in the fuzzy green hat from the 'Wizard of Oz' as he's overhearing Dorothy crying about never being able to get home. The tears gushing faucet-like off the ends of his mustache and all. 'Stop, stop, I can't take it any more...'

Later as I was venting about this to another employee, she with razor sharp insightfulness asked me if all this made me feel inadequate. To which I answered 'YES!!'. Sometimes I wonder when the other shoe is going to drop for me, so to speak. Am I so unchallenged and untested in my relatively calm and peaceful life that I ain't gonna know what hit me when I finally do have to deal with some terrible life crisis?

'Kathy, you just know how to live right', she said with a laugh.

That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I think I'm going to take the comfort from that and run.

A dirty piece of gossip landed in my Giant Ear last night and I'm still waiting for it to fly out the other side of my head. It seems, and this is from a reliable source, that several people have been overheard to claim they smelled alcohol around an employee.

I wish people wouldn't tell me crap like that. Because now I have to shut up and say nothing about it at work. Because if it really isn't alcohol, what a terrible rumor to let loose in the old rumor mill. Repeat the following phrases as often as needed: innocent until proven guilty; time will tell; see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil...

Except that *I* smelled it this morning, too. The corner office of my brain that deals with such things immediately issued a memo to the effect that: A, that's got to be some kind of screwy base note from perfume, cologne, or some other toiletry product. B, you're reacting to the power of suggestion, C, this is THAT week of the month when your nose is hypersensitive, so disregard anything weird until THAT week is over.

Anybody got a friggin' huge Q-tip???