March 29, 2006

• Overheard

  Not to give myself too much credit, but basically there aren’t too many things that really
  get on my nerves.  Apart from the usual stuff like bad drivers on
  the Stevenson Expy at 6am that is.  But today I realized that
  there is one thing that fits in that category of real irritants for
  me. 

  I was sitting in the waiting room at the dr. office and a couple walked
  in and sat down.  It was their first visit to the office so they
  had the usual reams of paper to fill out.  The woman read every
  question on the endless form to her husband and they deliberated each
  answer out (“Do you have diabetes M-E-L-L-I-T-U-S?”  “Have you
  ever had genital problems?”  I was hoping they wouldn’t go into a
  long detailed discussion of that one.)  I would have been able to
  tune them completely out and enjoy my book except for one thing. 
  The woman had this high, thin, piercing voice that had the same effect
  on my auditory nerves as fingernails on a chalk board.  I don’t
  know how to describe it but there was absolutely nothing pleasing or
  soothing about her voice. 

  I suppose a person has the voice they are born with but it seems to me
  that you could train yourself it lower it a pitch or two if it occurred
  to you that your voice really has a nasty timbre.  How would a
  person sense that, though?  I guess you’d really have to be aware
  of your effect on people.  If she was aware of it, there were
  waves of irritation emanating from me this morning.  Bad, bad
  me. 
  

  • 2:24 pm
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