Miss Chatty Chatterson

by Tom Edwards

It has been discovered that women typically talk 6 times more than men. In many ways the more a person talks, the less they actually say. Let's call it economy of grammar. Men have it, women don't.

Two men can sit in a room for hours and hours, not say a word to each other, maybe a few gutturals here and there for clarification, and enjoy a highly efficient and mutually rewarding level of communication.

Two women in that same situation could use each other as a sounding board for every solitary thought in their brains. At the end of the day they would have no earthly idea what the other one was talking about. From there they could set forth, recharged and with strengthened solidarity, to do more harm to their respective men.

A man and a woman, after the getting to know all about you talk is over, along with the sweet nothings and pillow talk, will inevitably fall into a communicative rut. This impasse can cause a man to bail out of the relationship just to keep his ever lovin'sanity. So here it is: The breakup note, drafted and presented to you, for worthless male pigs, that is applicable to any and every male who is having their life monopolized by a excessively loquacious woman and wants out . . . now.

My Dearest (Enter Name Here) Who Used to Be Love,

This is honestly one of the hardest things I've had to do in my entire afternoon. I don't know quite how to say this so I wrote it and am now leaving it underneath your windshield wiper like a spineless coward. I am breaking up with you.

You see, the fire within my heart for you was once a roaring, violent quasar of combustible energy. Now it is a smoldering pile of damp embers being urinated on by the redneck camper of passionless complacency.

Where do I begin to explain my restlessness, my need to forage through gardens with sweeter berries, my desire for emancipation from your oppressive manipulations and verbiage?

I'll distill my unhappiness down to its essence: Baby, your mindless chatter simultaneously bores and irritates me like the incessant drone of a late night television test pattern, like the scraping of a fork to a plate, like a tape tutorial outlining step by step, line by line, how to fill out a long form tax return. To be quite honest, I haven't listened to a solitary thought of yours in (enter number) years.

I have simply trained my ear to recognize the way you alter the pitch of your incessant blather when you are preparing to ask me a question. My invariable response is "Oh, I don't know, honey."

"What's your opinion of this swatch of fabric for this quilt?" Oh, I don't know, honey."

"Is this quilt too small to cover both of us?" "Oh, I don't know, honey."

"Would you like a knitting needle through your left eye socket?" "Oh, I don't know, honey."

The only exception is when you are clothing yourself. My rote answer in every solicited appraisal of your garb or body form is, "You look great, love muffins". Sweets, honestly, you could have on a San Diego chicken costume covered in pig manure and I'd still take you out for riblets.

And when we dine in a restaurant, I have become a master at staring deep into your eyes, seemingly soaking in every worthless morsel of data that rolls off of your tongue. In my brain I'm expertly evaluating the spreads and prospective wagers to be placed on every NFL game that Sunday. Meanwhile you spew forth your meaningless internal blather like a hellish verbal volcano.

I have learned to listen to you much in the same way that people speed read. I call it speed listening. I listen to about every 20th word in a zig-zagging pattern of attentiveness. If you ask me a question, I can usually deliver a vaguely intelligent response. If only I could speed listen to the Cliff's Notes audiotapes of your yack-yack gum beating before our conversations even began. That would be ideal.

During particularly long episodes of yappery, after finally sizing up what's on tap that weekend in organized lawn mower racing, I work on riddles, grapple with interesting World War II trivia, and mentally tie you to a railroad track with 2 trains coming from opposite directions at different speeds, and figure out which one will hit you first. But even after a violent creaming by the Amtrack and the freight train, your lips still remain on the track, talking.

Minds typically wander somewhat during conversations. During our "exchanges" my mind embarks on great voyages-far from any cognition of my painful reality. It's a defense mechanism. It helps me avoid your toxic musings. They are released into the ether as if cartoonish speech bubbles of drivel, floating ominously-- just waiting to infect careless, receptive minds that happen to be in the immediate area with illogic.

When you gather with your friends for yackfests, I'm surprised the house in which you sit does not run out of oxygen and implode. We should all plant more trees to offset this atmospheric condition before we all die of asphyxiation.The collective diarrhea of the mouth amongst the female species may eventually doom us all.

Honey, you've given me your gift of gab for so long, yet it came without a gift receipt for easy return. Instead it came with apocalyptic nightmares. They involve seeking out roaring jumbo jets, running lawn mowers and chipper vacs, and pounding jack hammers all while wearing a hearing aid turned up to 10 and a stethoscope. Blood spurts from my ears as I pray for permanent hearing loss. My fellow man surrounds me and stares in horror. I loudly explain my situation, they empathize with my miserable conundrum, and pull foghorns from their pockets to hasten the process. Next thing I know I wake up in a pool of sweat, touch my ears to discover not a drop of blood, and look to my side at you, talking in your sleep.

I ain't goin' out like that, therefore I'm just goin'. See you later. I just hope I don't hear you later.

Goodbye My Ex-Love,

Sincerely,

(Enter Name Here)