Tonight was my turn to take Caitlin to soccer practice. She had a great time and even scored a goal during their scrimmage. The coach told her “way to go Caitlin, you were on fire!” after her goal. When practice was over we celebrated by ordering frozen yogurt sprinkled with Reese’s Pieces and M&Ms at TCBY and she kept saying proudly, “I made fire mama! I made fire!” Yeah, baby. You sure did.
At one point during practice I was making small talk with two moms and as the coach broke out some insect repellant the subject of bug bites came up which segued into tick bites and the fact that our state’s governor has finally recovered from a mysterious tick borne illness. (Lucky dog, he lost 15 pounds!)
I, of course, had to tell them that I’d been sick last month with the freakishly odd summer pneumonia, but that my doctor initially misdiagnosed me as having a tick borne illness such as Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I realized about 15 seconds into my pneumonia speech that their eyes were glazing over and I’d forever typecast myself as the mom who gabs too much about personal weird trivial health facts that they could give a rat’s ass about. Great. Now my only hope is to lay low and stick to safe conversation starters like the weather. I think I need to brush up on my How to Win Friends and Influence People skills.
If they get bored with that kind of talk 15 seconds into it, that doesn’t say much for them, now does it?
I think that although Dale Carnegie makes some good points with his “Golden Rules” and all, what is wrong with the exchange of a litle personal information? That is how we form bonds with others, right?
If I were there, you could have talked about your pnemonia story…I promise my eyes wouldn’t have glazed over!
Pattie:
You could use your broken toe as a conversation starter!
Jamie
I’m sure it wasn’t you. I’m always amazed at how many people just don’t like to listen, in general. They’re just talkers, but don’t want to hear others talk. I’ll sit here and listen to your ailments all day long, Jamie!
oh well..you need to remember that most people are disinterested a-holes. So long as you keep the conversation going by asking them questions about themselves, they will LOVE you. That is my hint for you on socializing with other moms because mainly they suckass. Especially if you get into any really important topics.
I echo the others. People are often much MUCH better at talking than at listening. Personally, I’d have been riveted to hear about how the doc originally thought you had a tick-borne illness. Talk about drama!
[...] I’m not alone in some soccer misery though. Today Blonde Mom cracked me up with her share of soccer practice. I related a little too well to her comments. Misery loves company after all. I’m posting this in hopes that someone out there can relate to always taking on one more thing, even though you promised yourself you’d stop that! [...]
cool
Girls dogs….
Girls dogs….