I can’t stand a slow talker. I’m not crazy about fast talkers either but I prefer them to slow talkers. Slow talkers are people who begin to speak long before they have actually formed the thought they wish to express. There are pauses while they wait for the rest of the sentence to come in on the wireless. They often realize half way through they have forgotten some relevant preamble and the conversation goes into flash-back while they explain it. Then they forget where they were up to and have to re-tell the whole thing from the start…except now it conflicts with the first version and if you point that out you know you’re never going to get out of there so you let it go and try to piece it together later if it was important. I know slow talkers who are so slow you think they’ve finished until you start to walk away and they start up again “so anyway….” and you have to come back. I have a five step rule – if I get five steps away and you start talking again I pretend I can’t hear you and I keep on going.
“There was ….. across …. no wait. Ok, why did the chicken cross …. oh this is a joke I heard from Larry yesterday …. he was picking up his …. uh … kids …. from the daycare next to .… where my doctor is ……… and ……… so anyway…”
There are also slow listeners. Getting information into a slow listener is like trying to pour syrup through a drinking straw. You have to let the information dribble down their ear canals to pool at the bottom and gradually seep into their brain, sometimes overnight. They have to manually disassemble each phrase hold it up to the light, put on their little eye thingy and have a good look at it before they are prepared to accept any more. And if you try to go on while this is taking place they throw up their hands and say
“whoa whoa, go back, a chicken? On the road? Where … out front?”
I suppose it works out if you have a slow talker talking to a slow listener but not for people like me. I already had the conversation in my head on the way over, twice, and I’d like to move things along. I’ll start talking when you’re in sight and if I time it right I shouldn’t have to stop walking.
“Your chicken is dead. It’s on the road by the doctor’s office. That’s all I know. See you at lunch.”
“There was ….. across …. no wait. Ok, why did the chicken cross …. oh this is a joke I heard from Larry yesterday …. he was picking up his …. uh … kids …. from the daycare next to .… where my doctor is ……… and ……… so anyway…”
There are also slow listeners. Getting information into a slow listener is like trying to pour syrup through a drinking straw. You have to let the information dribble down their ear canals to pool at the bottom and gradually seep into their brain, sometimes overnight. They have to manually disassemble each phrase hold it up to the light, put on their little eye thingy and have a good look at it before they are prepared to accept any more. And if you try to go on while this is taking place they throw up their hands and say
“whoa whoa, go back, a chicken? On the road? Where … out front?”
I suppose it works out if you have a slow talker talking to a slow listener but not for people like me. I already had the conversation in my head on the way over, twice, and I’d like to move things along. I’ll start talking when you’re in sight and if I time it right I shouldn’t have to stop walking.
“Your chicken is dead. It’s on the road by the doctor’s office. That’s all I know. See you at lunch.”
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