I talk to myself a lot.
Usually this is a positive because of all of the interesting things I have to say, but every once in a while it leads to some problems.
The other day at work, for example, one of my contact lenses got stuck up in my eye, so I went to the restroom to try to fix it. I hate it when the lenses get stuck above the iris because there is always this fear in the back of my mind that I won’t be able to reach the contact. What if it gets stuck up there forever? Would that cause a problem? What does that area above my field of vision lead to anyway? What if it gets actually stuck in the back of my mind? Is there any way I could sneeze the contact lens out? That was be awesome.
So anyway, I walked to the office restroom, which is in the center of the building and near an open stairway, and went to the mirror to try to fix the problem. It took quite a while to find where the contact was and I had a difficult time pushing it back towards my iris and trying to grab it. I am always nervous about touching my eye (because it is terrible), and after a while I got quite frustrated and anxious.
“C’mon, get out of there!” I said loudly in frustration. “Why won’t you come out? What is the deal here?”
That’s when I remembered that I was in the bathroom next to a busy hallway and that everyone nearby could hear me.
“That wasn’t what that sounded like,” I said a little more quietly this time, and then I shut up and ran a bunch of water for no reason.
And of course, when I finally did get the contact lens back in place and emerged from the restroom, my eyes were all red so it looked like I had been crying.
I went back to my office as quickly and quietly as possible and tried to avoid everyone for the rest of the day.
Also, often when I get out of the car in the morning when I get to work, I am talking to the radio station telling ESPN Radio personalities Mike and Mike about how wrong they are or why I don’t believe what is being sold in a radio station commercial. I can’t believe anyone could sell carpet for such low prices! Several times, I have continued this conversation after getting out of the car only to see other people in the parking lot who are looking at me strangely to see who I am talking to.
Then, my only option is to continue the conversation with myself and pretend that I am using Bluetooth even though I don’t really know how that works.
“Sure, sure, I agree, that does seem like a good price for an oil change, but, and I can’t stress this enough, I am not going to pay a lot for this muffler! All right then, we agree, Michael Jordan is not the greatest basketball player of all time. Ok, then, I’ll talk to you later,” I say into my pretend Bluetooth while holding my lunch bag close to my ear.
In addition, I have noticed myself saying some things out loud to myself recently that were so stupid that I was embarrassed for myself.
For example, when I get home from the grocery store the other day and couldn’t find enough room to put the groceries away neatly, I honestly said out loud to myself and the pets, “Why do we have so much food here? I can’t believe that there’s no room to put things away. This is terrible.” And then I realized I was a moron because even the dog was looking at me like I was crazy and self-involved.
An even worse example of this was when we needed to have some home repairs done and the expert called to say that he wouldn’t be able to get there on the day he originally planned because he was in the hospital.
“Rats, I wanted to get that fixed today. Why do I have all of the bad luck?” I terribly said to myself even though it would disappoint my parents if they had heard me. I quickly realized what I was being a jerk and went back to talking to the radio instead.
“I mean, it’s my money and I want it now.”
And finally, on one cold winter morning not long ago, I was walking to my office from my car while desperately trying to keep my hands warm, but there wasn’t enough room in my coat pockets because I had other items stuffed into them.
“There’s no room to keep my hands warm with these stupid gloves in the way,” I absurdly said to myself. Of course, it seemed like way too much work to put on the gloves and my hands would get too cold while doing that, so I just tried to pull my hands back into my coat sleeves and continued my conversation.
I have now decided, though, that because it keeps causing problems, I am going to try to stop talking to myself so much.
I think I can do it because even though I like talking to myself about all of my stupid/genius thoughts, I like even more the idea of writing all of these things down and then sharing them with anyone who stumbles across these columns. And if anyone thinks these written conversations that I am having with myself are bizarre, I’ll just pretend they are a letter to my mom.
That’s all for now. Have a nice rest of your day and I’ll talk to you again soon.
Love,
Nick
nickclaussen.com 