We are surrounded by perkiness, apparently an affliction primarily of girls, but a lesser number of older women as well as men of all ages. It manifests as a chirpy tone of voice, a vacuous smile and an unshakable conviction that its practitioner is a fascinating conversationalist. It is also associated with the lamentable delusion that those lacking these symptoms are in some way infirm if not clinically depressed, and need to be snapped out of it one way or another.
I dread my biannual trip to the dentist, not out of fear of dentistry in general or my dentist in particular but rather because the first phase of any such visit is half an hour at the mercy of a perky young thing, whose name might be Tiffany, wearing a smock with puppies on it who is apparently unable to spend a single moment free of light-hearted commentary on food, dogs, her children, other people's children, the weather, today's political scandal, something that happened on American Idol, amusing anecdotes involving almost anybody, the shocking price of gasoline, and any of a hundred other topics that crash through her mind like a trapped Dragonfly in a doomed search for the exit.
I tried once just to file the tumult away as mere background racket, like bad music in another room, a meaningless annoyance that could just be ignored. It worked pretty well until, after a few blessed moments of indulging in my own thoughts, I noticed that all sound and motion had ceased. Then I noticed that Tiffany was giving me a good hard look. Clearly I had missed something, something that required a response, and now Tiffany was annoyed. I tried to look cheerful and attentive and vocalized something that I hoped was sufficiently vague that she could read into it whatever she wanted. Unconvinced, she went back to work with greater than average energy and thoroughness with one of those diabolical hooked things they use to clean the plaque out of the very marrow of your bones. Which is how I discovered that it was necessary to listen to these monologues at least well enough to respond appropriately as needed.
In another memorable instance, my ancient cousin, Chrissie, and I went to a chop house in Burlington with the idea of eating, perhaps, a steak and a salad and discussing this and that. A quiet evening for a couple of old dolls with bad eyesight to reminisce and gently gossip. So imagine our dismay when an eager associate (I believe they are now called) with a metal thing through her eyebrow and a skirt barely long enough to cover her pubic hair slid onto the bench right next to us and, with a kilowatt smile through perfect teeth announced, “HI, MY NAME IS CAROLINE AND I WILL BE YOUR SERVER THIS EVENING!” Then she slid a couple of menus to us as if they were secret messages from Chinese intelligence. Then she propped her elbows on our table and counted off the day's specials on her long, blood-red nails. “CAN I BRING YOU A DRINK WHILE YOU'RE DECIDING?” she trilled. And here she counted off all the beers they had on tap on her lurid claws. Being the bolder of the two of us, and having heard of none of the beers on the list, I ordered something completely at random, Chrissie had the same, and we were briefly left in peace.
When our beers came we instinctively moved closer together for safety, but the Lioness merely flashed us another kilowatt and left us. Then we picked out our food and waited. And waited and waited, wondering whether our lioness had been devoured by some larger predator, but finally she came, we ordered, our food arrived, and we were eating it as old farts often do, slowly, methodically, with many rest periods filled with conversation. Our Associate had an uncanny knack for sensing when we had hit a really interesting place in some story and she would materialize at that moment, crouch down so as to be at eye level and inquire “IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT? DO YOU NEED ANYTHING? HOW'S YOUR SALAD? OOH GOOD!”
She did this at least twice, apparently not having considered the notion that we might have called her over if we had found a Band-Aid under the steak or a spider in the salad.
It was never made clear whether she thought that, old and decrepit as we clearly were, we were also stone deaf, although how she thought we were communicating is hard to guess, or whether she always trumpeted like that to everybody. In any case, the volume of her remarks was not so much the issue as the delivery, which took the form of the sort of relentless cheerfulness often espoused by well-meaning nurses aids conveying information of any sort to one of their elderly charges. A jolly, happy Mickey Mouse voice announcing “Time for our bowel movement, Millie,” or “Your daughter was crushed under the wheels of a train this morning so she won't be in today, Mitch” or “I'm sorry you seem to have run out of money, so we have to throw you out into the street now, Maud.”
Here's what worries me: I imagine that time has passed, I am feeble and half-blind and evil-tempered and installed in some place that employs nurses aids. And one day one of these moppets rustles up to me there in my wheel chair and snatches away the Dorothy Sayers with the torn front cover I am reading for the third time. Then she loses my place and bleats for the tenth time that week “C'mon, Debby, you don't want to read that gloomy thing again – let's go down to the common area and play bingo.” And then I imagine gathering up the last dregs of strength left in my porous old bones, and springing up out of the wheel chair and grabbing the miserable wretch by the throat and choking the bumptious life out of her.
This is where my fantasy ends as I lose interest after this happy ending. But if there is any lesson to be taken from this story it is this: Do not tell me what kind of day to have.
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