To tell this story, I need to share some background – a prologue, if you will – that tells you a little bit about me and a little bit about someone else. Details that may assist you in understanding why I later might refer to someone as an “oaf” “clod” “buffoon” or even a “bombastic blowhard” – insults you might hear in some zany 1940’s detective story wielded by Katherine Hepburn or Myrna Loy. (In other words: insults that keep this post PG.)

Let’s start with something I can’t stand anymore – finger guns pointed at your temple (or any part of your head, face, or mouth). You know the gesture. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. It’s the one you whip out when something is either intolerably mind numbing or you’re having a bad day. You don’t really mean anything by it. It’s not a notification that you’re in crisis. You just want to convey “I’m over it” in an easy gesture that’s understood by anyone in our immediate line of site. The gesture runs the gamut from fairly simple to pretty explicit based on the what’s happening and the intended audience. And I’ll be honest, I was often on the far end of that spectrum some days until the day I wasn’t – until that gesture meant something more to me. That’s when I stopped.

So, I’m going to ask you to stop, too.

Hey, if I can drop a lot of my language habits to help others feel more comfortable in this world, then you can give this one up for me and others.

Do it because no matter how bad you may feel your day is going, it’s probably not at that level.

However, I don’t necessarily know you or your situation. So, let me encourage you to dial 988 if you are in crisis,

The story I’m going to share is really about a particular incident.

To start… the oaf in this story didn’t transform into an oaf on the day of this particular story or because of this story. The oaf was an oaf probably from conception. He probably had an oafish tendency which was reinforced by his oafish environment. (The nature and nurture of oafishness – a condition I’m 0% sure is defined in the DSM-5-TR.)

Now, the oaf has always held this special disdainful place in my heart since the get go, when out of the gate I had to endure him putting down women (from his wife to the average addlepated broad on the streets – bless my silly little lady heart, it’s a wonder I can make whole sentences and understand his man words as well as remember to do things like breathe both in AND out. Thankfully he’s around to guide me and also thankfully, I’m an apex respirator (it’s a noun because I say so) – go go autonomic nervous system. Women not only have boobies, but we can be so dang funny! I can’t believe they can drive and vote. What a truly wacky world we live in). He re-earned the title the day he chose to share a story lamenting his poor former underlings who were taken advantage of by girls (not women) in a foreign country who had been trafficked – a story where he acknowledged the fact that these same girls had come into a country believing they were bettering their situations only to have their passports stolen and forced into the sex trade. He earned it again when he spent a conversation talking to my breasts (I have since donated the piece of clothing I wore to Goodwill – I don’t care how much I like it – someone else will enjoy it) and again every day he loudly spouts any number of conspiracy theories.

But I accept that he’s tolerated and dismissed as a jolly imbecile by other friends who are around him much more regularly than myself, and I just make myself scarce when he’s around, because he fills me with considerable disdain.

So, that’s the background that could have been summed up with: I don’t see eye-to-eye with this guy, and I don’t care for him.

Here’s the story – Last week I was hassling a friend, because it was a day ending in the word “day,” which turned into me hassling a ton of extra people (collateral wit damage) where I was getting everyone’s energy up – people were being boisterous and laughing. (Note: “people” may have been just “me” but let’s pretend there were several others for the sake of my ego and this story.) That’s when this guy shared that he was raising money for a fundraiser and asked me to support it.

Oh, we’re collecting money for causes? Well, hey now, I’m raising money, too!

I’m very quid pro quo when it comes to fundraising. If you give to mine, I’ll happily give to yours. (Psst, share your fundraisers with me, and I’m happy to donate.)

The conversation…

“What are you raising funds for?”

“The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We’re one of the top teams and raise funds every year.”

And that’s when things “went plaid” as a friend would say.

He giggled, “You don’t want to leave them in the wind?”

“Excuse me?” (My mouth translated “What the actual… did you just say?” into “polite-speak-uese.”)

“It went over your head.” Then he made gestures with his hand in case I needed visual cues because his statement was too much for me. “Oh, you don’t get it.”

I locked in. “Please tell me what I don’t get.” I wanted him to speak his stupid out loud.

“Well… ” He paused to consider a moment, then shook his head while still tee-heeing, “oh, you just don’t get it.”

“Tell me.”

In my mind, my tone and demeanor invited the opposite, but my gender makes me simple so what do I know?

The friend I had been talking to hopped in and told him to stop speaking again. I glanced over, “I want to hear what’s funny.”

The derp continued.

“See, ‘leave them in the wind’ – like hanging in the wind” and then he pantomimed tying a noose around his neck, tightening it, and then stuck his tongue out so it lolled to the side while laughing. “I’m making a joke about suicide.”

At this point my friend became more emphatic about asking the guy to stop making words, which only invited the guy to carry on with his knee-slapping suicide standup routine. He had to keep going. How was I clearly missing out on his raucous humor? But I was.

His not shutting it down caused my delicate lady brain to go offline as my hackles went up.

I can’t remember what I said next, because I was seething but I became more still and I said something along the lines of, “I’m going to let this person tell you why I don’t find this amusing” and pointed to my friend.

My friend followed, “and I’m telling you to stop talking.”

… and the oaf kept going, so I handed him a bigger shovel, until he declared something like, “I’m just being funny!!”

“TELL THAT TO MY HUSBAND.”

My friend immediately stood up, looked directly at the guy, and said pointedly, “Stop talking NOW.”

The oaf and his little henchman, who also happened to find the oaf to be pretty hilarious, skittered away.

He later apologized and explained it was his coping mechanism after losing people to suicide. I accept that this is his truth.

There’s not a great ending to this story, so I’ll leave with a couple of thoughts:

I have mentored people since I was in 4th grade, and I’ve have done it off and on throughout my life. As a mentor, I can teach you all kinds of skills. Unfortunately, I can’t teach you softer skills – things like how to read a room or when to bow out. And the truth is you don’t necessarily need these set of skills to thrive. There’s always a great chance people won’t challenge you and you’ll fail up. However, it might save you from being punched in a bar.

But what do I know, I’m just a silly woman.

Please sign up to walk with our team on October 26th and say no to oafs. Suicide isn’t a punchline. (Reminder: You don’t have to donate to walk, and you don’t have to physically be with us. Just send me a photo (or link to your photo) of you getting out there and making a statement.)