Festusitis

That’s it. I’m gonna start talkin’ like Festus Haggen. (If you don’t know the name, Google it.) He had his own little language going on, yet everyone seemed to understand what he was saying. I, on the other hand, have reached the ghostlike status of verbal invisibility, even when making an exaggerated effort to annunciate.

Siri started it, forcing me to focus on my lip movements to form words like a frightened immigrant. But it doesn’t matter. Either from lack of interest or short attention, my apparent semi-intelligible yammering is met with confusion. Even my wife’s dog stares at me in bewilderment with her head cocked, apparently thinking, “Did the giant say ‘TREAT?’ I think I heard ‘treat.’ Yeah, yeah… it was definitely ‘treat.’ So where’s my treat?”

So why Festus? Simple. First, I’m startin’ to get a squinty eye when I think too much. And second, Festus didn’t care who was listening because he talked to himself. If someone heard him and responded, it was a bonus!

My epic communication failure seems to be with women. And it’s been that way since I was five. I’m apparently a goblin and have the uncanny – yet unintentional – ability to set women off with the way I look, a short conversation, an email, or text. I’ve trained myself to be brief, speak softly (contrary to my gene pool), and make limited eye contact when I sense “creepy discomfort.”

I’d like to think it’s just a gender difference. We guys can communicate with full understanding of each other with a couple of grunted words and a head nod. And we get it, mostly because guy communication requires only 60% understanding to decode full chains of thought. (That’s why we understand each other in noisy or muffled environments like stadiums, factories, at the gun range, or when we’re moving furniture.) And we simplify communication by not analyzing each word for some kinda coded meaning.

I understand that women are different and I’ll never stop trying to figure them out. I would take a class if I could find one. Online. But only if it lasted thirty minutes. (Any longer would require explosions and nudity.)

Let’s start with the whole eye contact thing. Women’s perception must be that men are so primal that we’re incapable of hearing unless we maintain blinkless unbroken eye contact: Not because the fairer sex is so soft-spoken that we’re compelled to read lips, but to PROVE that she has our undivided attention.

“Are you listening?”she huffed.

“Yes. I’m driving… watching for squirrels,” I said intently.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Twice,” turning my head to stare in her direction, while intentionally drifting to the shoulder of the highway.

“Watch the road!”

“Make up your mind! You know I can only do one thing at a time!,” I barked with artificial panic.

“This is why,” she said under her breath.

I know It defies logic but men can hear just fine without making eye contact. I mean, we love looking into a woman’s eyes over a drink or when we’re out to dinner. But honestly, there’s no reason for us to crane our necks, risking the lives of innocent squirrels, because the lack of eye attention is somehow perceived as thoughtless and neglectful.

For perspective, next time you’re on a jetliner and on final approach, do you want the pilot and co-pilot maintaining eye contact as they rattle off the pre-landing checklist or focusing on the line of tiny lights that they’re aiming the plane at?

COME ON FESTUS! THAT’S DIFFERENT!

Yeah, but if we’re grilling, watching a game, or doing some mundane task, is it really necessary to have eye-acknowledgement as long as we’re interacting with more than an obligatory grunt or simple “Uh huh?” OK, we could throw in a little more emotion as verbal evidence that we’re listening. I’ve found that certain words and phrases work really well, even if I’m distracted by fourth and one on the six yard line. “REALLY!” “NO WAY!” “WHAT DID SHE SAY THEN?” “DID SHE FIND HER KEYS?” “YOU SHOULD CALL HER!” “REALLY, I’D CALL HER!”

(This is why guys get stabbed by their wives during ball games.)

But for me, it’s a truly amazing gift I have for innocently saying the wrong thing at the most inappropriate time. I used to have a filter. It was a good filter. Words would race through my head and get stuffed way before they would fly outta my face. Through a lifetime of wear and abuse, my filter got damaged. Now I’m like the keynote speaker at a Tourette’s convention.

Last week I was out to dinner with my wife. We were sitting at the bar in a restaurant waiting to be seated. She was talking about Halloween and what costume she was planning for her annual Halloween girl’s night, that she and her golf friends named “Witches and Bitches.” (I know, a guy could never call it that, so I tried to limit what I said; my words fighting upstream against beer and a torn filter.)

But it’s a big deal. She’s a theater makeup artist and does amazing makeup for herself and her friends. This terrifying thing was last year’s makeup.

A couple sitting next to us overheard the conversation and asked if there was a Halloween party at the restaurant. Bekki explained the annual outing, showing them pictures on her phone, and eventually invited the woman (who we had just met) to come along. The woman confessed that she doesn’t usually go out for Halloween because she never knows what to put together for a costume.

I silently watched the exchange. Rainman. I became fixated on the woman’s hair. She was attractive, with big hair. I don’t mean Marge Simpson beehive-high, I mean big curly rockstar hair with multi-colored highlights that framed her face. Her locks flowed in waves when she moved. I was like a penned beagle watching a bunny hopping through tall grass.

“I could do your makeup,” Bekki offered.

“I don’t know…” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to be.”

“A LION!” I offered with unfiltered enthusiasm. “Yeah, she could make you up like a lion!”

She looked down. “Lion!” had shot from my mouth like I was a contestant in a game show racing to answer the elusive $100,000 question. The hair. It was the hair.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Vince, find a way to recover!

“OR A FAIRY! Yeah, a fairy would be cool too. Yeah, a lion… or a fairy…. With stripes or somethin’. Glitter. You know,” I said, as if calling a middle-aged woman with a big thick mane a “lion” is completely ok.

There was silence. Funeral silence. Mine I was thinkin’.

“RUN VINCE!…RUN!” my brain was screaming. I excused myself and went to the men’s room.

Bekki must have explained my special problem while I was gone. The mood seemed back to normal – mostly – when I returned. A short time later we were called to our table. Bekki had turned to walk into the dining room. I glanced at the woman as I left a tip on the bar. She raised her hand quickly in what I thought was going to be a friendly wave. She made a “claw” motion and mouthed out “RAAAAAAAAAR!”

There’s simply no recovery from that. This is probably why older men learn not to talk much. It’s not that they have nothing to say, they just realize that, like knees and hearing, filters wear out.

So if you catch me mumbling to myself and I have the squinty eye, just nod your head. I’ll know you understand.