You Talk Too Much

Some people just don’t know when to shut the hell up. It amazes me how some individuals, namely my brother, can talk ad nauseam about ANYTHING–regardless of their listeners’ interest level–I’m guessing because he likes to hear the sound of his own voice.

There is no keeping it short 🙄

He can call me one evening to “tell me something very quickly because he’s tired and wants to keep it short,” then talk non-stop for the next hour and a half… wait, I thought you were sleepy? I guess not.

I can appreciate good conversation. I do not consider conversation to be one person monologuing while the other person desperately tries to answer the questions being posed, all the while knowing that no one is listening because the soliloquy continues unpaused.

By the standards set in The Incredibles, my brother would make a good super villain from his monologuing alone.

Too much talking is genetic

And yet, some days that is what talking with my brother is like. He talks, and talks, and talks. He asks me a question, but before I can answer, he tells me an entire backstory for why he is asking me this question. Who does this? I don’t need a million reasons. If I have agreed, you can pretty much stop explaining. Otherwise, you run the risk of talking yourself out of the sale. How does the saying go?

Anyway, it is so flipping frustrating. My mother suffers from the same condition of verbal hemorrhage. It must be catching, because I think that’s who my brother got it from. Or it could be hereditary because I recall an incident from when I was thirteen. (A time that predates cell phones 😵)

The hurricane window incident

It was a humid afternoon, the day burned sunny and hot in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, and we lived in an old house. As anyone who has lived in old homes in the Northeast can affirm, the wood around window and door frames swells after a good summer rain. At my semi-oblivious age of 13, I did not know this.

I had managed to sleep through the worst of the storm; it was over, and now the house was stifling hot. I woke up with the single most important thought in my mind: “MUST OPEN THE WINDOWS“. That house had no central air, I had no window AC unit–that was a super luxury– and the only way to get a good flow was to open the window in the corner of my bedroom, then prop my fan right in front of the window to suck in the cooler outside air.

Remember the windows are swollen shut…

So here I am, smartly banging on the upper portion of the window frame, attempting to hammer it up. The only thing I managed to hammer was my palm and wrist through the glass window, slicing my wrist. I don’t panic, but I know I need to call my mother at work. I realize that I need to go to a hospital ASAP since the cut is going to need stitches because I am in the bathroom trying to ebb the flow, and it’s not stopping.

But guess what? My brother has apparently spent the better part of the storm on the phone with his best friend. I was yelling for him from the bathroom to get off the damned phone and call mom because I was bleeding, and do you think he hung up? (I know I would have if my sibling was screaming bloody murder from another room…)

Hell no. Instead, I hear him go off on some tangent about how he needs to hang up because I am yelling, and then he proceeds to continue talking.

It is at this point that I faint from blood loss. (or shock idk)

I came to, and this asshole was STILL ON THE PHONE.

OMG. Could he be a bigger asshole? I don’t think so. Long story short, I had to rip the phone from his hand (this was the old school corded phone, kids!) and scream at his friend as I hung up: “He will call you back!”

I got a hold of my mom, she came and took me to the emergency room, where the next level of hell was revealed as began the questioning looks and interrogations from every medical attendant who questioned my true story (because in retrospect, the slice seriously looked like aborted self-harm, so I get where they were coming from, but still).

However, to someone who has never contemplated suicide or the mechanics of it at that age (or ever), I had no idea what they were alluding to, and I took offense to being questioned repeatedly like I was stupid (at least that is what I thought at the time). I realize now it was for my own safety, but whatever, it was still annoying.

The moral of the story is my brother talks too damn much when he shouldn’t.

And yes, he did get back on the phone once I hung up with my mother.