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The Grump has become downright chatty in social situations.\u00a0 *gasp!*\u00a0 I know, right?\u00a0 He talks to people in public.\u00a0 Willingly.\u00a0 He makes idle chitchat with complete strangers.\u00a0 In line at the grocery store, in an aisle when we’re both scanning the shelves, even in public restrooms.\u00a0 (Yes, it’s become that bad.)\u00a0 He… initiates the conversation.<\/p>\n
Sometimes people join in the conversation… this IS Iowa, after all, not California… and sometimes people who aren’t as jovial and friendly as The Grump look at him like he has two heads.\u00a0 When The Grump lived in California, in a past life, this response was not only acceptable, but preferred.\u00a0 People were rude.\u00a0 It just was.\u00a0 The Grump fit right in.\u00a0 Oh, there was the occasional person who suffered from “Dawn Syndrome” (inside joke for about three people) and who would always smile and try to start conversations with strangers, but those people were always and properly dissuaded from doing so simply by the surly responses they’d get from their intended targets.\u00a0 This is the environment where The Grump was raised, and in that sense The Grump flourished.<\/p>\n
Then The Grump moved to Iowa.\u00a0 He’d be in line at the grocery store and people would openly talk to him and try to start conversation.\u00a0 People who didn’t know The Grump, they’d just… smile and talk as if we had been friends for decades.\u00a0 Initially, Then The Grump joined Toastmasters roughly eleven years ago.\u00a0 The Grump met people.\u00a0 Good people.\u00a0 Friendly people.\u00a0 People he’d run into in the store and who were actually happy to see The Grump.\u00a0 Whoa, this was new. Toastmasters, without knowing it, taught The Grump how to be sociable, how to talk and have a conversation.\u00a0 Even “small talk”, which is more important that people think.\u00a0 And this eventually evolved to The Grump taking the first step and starting the conversation.\u00a0 Where did this come from?<\/p>\n Of course, the downside to knowing people is that one has to behave while in public.\u00a0 No more can The Grump ram carts in the grocery store.\u00a0 No more can The Grump give Iowa drivers the bird for being idiot drivers, even if they do deserve it.\u00a0 It might actually be someone The Grump actually knows, and that would be awkward.<\/p>\n Fast forward to 2019 and The Grump has become one of “Them”.\u00a0 A Chatty Cathy,\u00a0 a talker.\u00a0 The Grump has become Dawn.<\/p>\n This is unacceptable.\u00a0 The Grump must purge himself of these disgustingly social tendencies and become grumpy in public again.\u00a0 Yes, we do know that The Grump is an ultra sweetie guy, but we still have a reputation to uphold, ya know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Grump has become downright chatty in social situations.\u00a0 *gasp!*\u00a0 I know, right?\u00a0 He talks to people in public.\u00a0 Willingly.\u00a0 He makes idle chitchat with complete strangers.\u00a0 In line at the grocery store, in an aisle when we’re both scanning the shelves, even in public restrooms.\u00a0 (Yes, it’s become that bad.)\u00a0 He… initiates the conversation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life","category-disbelief","category-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/disbelief-150x150.gif\")
The Grump’s reaction was something like in this photo. (That’s Tim Curry, btw, an awesome actor.\u00a0 Not just as Frank-N-Furter, but check him out as Winston Newquay on Wiseguy<\/em>.\u00a0 Awesome story arc.)\u00a0 Utter disbelief.\u00a0 Why are you talking to me?\u00a0 Turn around and mind your own business.\u00a0 Go away.\u00a0 Leave me alone.<\/p>\n