2/3/08
How Friendliness Can Cost You.
I didn't mean to make her fall down.
My sisters and I grew up in a rather repressive household. My father was, I believe, severely bipolar. In his 'downswings' he hated to hear noise of any kind, especially laughter. So in those times we learned to keep quiet, stuff a lot inside ourselves.
Then he would have moments of rage, where there would be frenzied activity, arguing, yelling, etc. Because of his charismatic personality, this would rub off on all of us and we'd all fight and holler.
But during his 'upswings' there was a general air of hilarity and noise. Laughter was suddenly ok again, the dam would break on our emotions, and we'd all go a little nuts with jokes, pranks, whatever we could get away with until his next episode of melancholy.
All of this conditioned us to be just a tad unstable. We have this freak humor that bursts out of us, often at inappropriate times, and frightens people around us. Unfortunately (I think) we feed off of that startled reaction and have come to look for it.
I guess all of this is more or less a pack of excuses for my inexcusable behavior. After prank calling got boring, we got into the habit of what I like to call 'drive-by prank assault'. It's stupid, really, and quite common. Driving down the street of our small town, we'd spot a group of people waiting in line outside of the movie theater and that emotional glitch would kick in. Rolling the window, we'd lean out and scream in our best lunatic voice,
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!"
Heads would turn, blank startled faces momentarily visible through the window would send us off into peals of maniacal laughter. We'd drive on down the road, laughing at our own stupidity, snorting at the memory, coming up with new ideas...
From chicken clucks directed at random pedestrians to undecipherable apocalyptic prophecy, our immaturity knew few bounds. To our credit (and probably due to the sheltered upbringing that we mentioned) I don't think we ever unleashed any profanity or coarseness. I don't even think we actually injured people or insulted them directly, just scared the crap out of them while they went about minding their own business.
This habit morphed into the usual goon prank of waving at a complete stranger, eliciting the 'huh?' response. We could never predict when it would strike, but the urge would hit, and there would go that irrepressible idiot urge.
One day as I was leaving the mall that housed our current failure-in-the-making, I was a bit wired and needed to blow off steam. I cannot remember who was in the car with me- might have been a sister, my mom, a friend. There was a woman crouched on the curb, tying her shoelace.
She was a simple enough looking soul, wearing a pink sweater, pastel purse strapped around her torso, ready to go shop. As I pulled up near her, I beeped the horn and waved frantically. She half turned her head, grinned, and lifted one hand up to wave back, not actually knowing who in the hell I was. As her body- perched on one and a half feet- left its center of gravity in order to move her right arm, it began to tip. I remember watching, hoping it wasn't actually going to happen. But it did, ever so slowly, she tipped over and kind of rolled clumsily onto her side, one hand still clutching her shoelace. I was several lanes away by that time, and didn't know what to do. Red-faced, I drove quickly away, alternating between hysterical laughter and complete chagrin.
I've felt bad about this for over a decade now. I have more or less stopped doing scary things to people, content with the occasional inhuman screech out of the side of my car. That woman, whoever she is, I hope she has forgiven me.
But I'll bet she doesn't wave at people anymore.
My sisters and I grew up in a rather repressive household. My father was, I believe, severely bipolar. In his 'downswings' he hated to hear noise of any kind, especially laughter. So in those times we learned to keep quiet, stuff a lot inside ourselves.
Then he would have moments of rage, where there would be frenzied activity, arguing, yelling, etc. Because of his charismatic personality, this would rub off on all of us and we'd all fight and holler.
But during his 'upswings' there was a general air of hilarity and noise. Laughter was suddenly ok again, the dam would break on our emotions, and we'd all go a little nuts with jokes, pranks, whatever we could get away with until his next episode of melancholy.
All of this conditioned us to be just a tad unstable. We have this freak humor that bursts out of us, often at inappropriate times, and frightens people around us. Unfortunately (I think) we feed off of that startled reaction and have come to look for it.
I guess all of this is more or less a pack of excuses for my inexcusable behavior. After prank calling got boring, we got into the habit of what I like to call 'drive-by prank assault'. It's stupid, really, and quite common. Driving down the street of our small town, we'd spot a group of people waiting in line outside of the movie theater and that emotional glitch would kick in. Rolling the window, we'd lean out and scream in our best lunatic voice,
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!"
Heads would turn, blank startled faces momentarily visible through the window would send us off into peals of maniacal laughter. We'd drive on down the road, laughing at our own stupidity, snorting at the memory, coming up with new ideas...
From chicken clucks directed at random pedestrians to undecipherable apocalyptic prophecy, our immaturity knew few bounds. To our credit (and probably due to the sheltered upbringing that we mentioned) I don't think we ever unleashed any profanity or coarseness. I don't even think we actually injured people or insulted them directly, just scared the crap out of them while they went about minding their own business.
This habit morphed into the usual goon prank of waving at a complete stranger, eliciting the 'huh?' response. We could never predict when it would strike, but the urge would hit, and there would go that irrepressible idiot urge.
One day as I was leaving the mall that housed our current failure-in-the-making, I was a bit wired and needed to blow off steam. I cannot remember who was in the car with me- might have been a sister, my mom, a friend. There was a woman crouched on the curb, tying her shoelace.
She was a simple enough looking soul, wearing a pink sweater, pastel purse strapped around her torso, ready to go shop. As I pulled up near her, I beeped the horn and waved frantically. She half turned her head, grinned, and lifted one hand up to wave back, not actually knowing who in the hell I was. As her body- perched on one and a half feet- left its center of gravity in order to move her right arm, it began to tip. I remember watching, hoping it wasn't actually going to happen. But it did, ever so slowly, she tipped over and kind of rolled clumsily onto her side, one hand still clutching her shoelace. I was several lanes away by that time, and didn't know what to do. Red-faced, I drove quickly away, alternating between hysterical laughter and complete chagrin.
I've felt bad about this for over a decade now. I have more or less stopped doing scary things to people, content with the occasional inhuman screech out of the side of my car. That woman, whoever she is, I hope she has forgiven me.
But I'll bet she doesn't wave at people anymore.
Labels: bipolar, forgiveness, laughter, mean, prank, regret, repression
