Family | So Many Words...

I believe that people have a talk quota, with some having larger quotas than others.

I am not a talker. I don’t mind talking; I just don’t have much of a quota to fill. I know how to start and maintain a conversation and can work a room if needed. My wife even says I’m a ‘charmer,’ which I think is impossible. However, my small talk requirement often leaves me ready to bail out the back door if I am forced to say one more word.

On the other hand, my wife is a ‘social bug’; not a butterfly but a bug. She thrives on talking and has a social need that she must get out of her system. Lucky for her, I am a good listener and am perfectly willing to let her talk my ear off. I am only obligated to say ‘oh,’ ‘ah,’ or ‘really?’ in the appropriate places. I do have to listen to her, though – I’ve learned that lesson – because there will be a quiz!

My oldest daughter is much like my wife. As a teenager, I compared her to a shark: ‘if she stopped talking, she would suffocate.’ She never saw the humor in that.

Our talk quotas appear to carry over into social media, where we have replaced talking with other things: TikTok, Facetime, Twitter, Insta-whatever, etc. Watching a TikTok from a celebrity that will never know you exist apparently counts as being friends now. It may not be talking in the old definition of the word, but some social currency is exchanged. I’m willing to admit that. It’s not the usual one-for-one relationship, more of a one-for-.000001, but it still counts and ticks the necessary buttons on someone’s social quota.

The average person in 2022 is connected socially to more people than has ever been possible. Yet, because of the digital distance, I think we are lonelier for it. When was the last time you had a long conversation with anyone other than your spouse or sibling? I can’t remember…

I am afraid that our social skills are becoming as fleeting as a Tweet: a couple of words and we scroll past.

Technology is making us lonelier and less social, not more.

Heck, people even spend most of their time at a concert watching it through their phones! The singer is RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, and they are watching through their phone! But…. that is a rant for another day.

The point: We all have a social quota, large or small, that I believe can only truly be met by interacting one-on-one with other living humans. So, put your phone down and talk to someone. We don’t bite… usually.

Says the man that hates to leave the house!!

My wife and I are looking for an old house to rebuild and found a 120 year old Queen Anne style house that needs some extreme love. We were able to crawl into the house by way of the fallen back wall. A newer addition had fallen and dragged down the rear wall of the kitchen. The rest of the house is in amazing shape. But what really surprised me were the belongings still in the house.

When people move out, even in a hurry, they take the important stuff like the good furniture, the family pictures, records, and books. But this house still contained good antique furniture filled with dishes and knickknacks, pictures of the family still on the wall, books, records, old bills, closets with clothes still on hangers. It was eerie, to say the least. In the front room was a hospital bed along with a cot in the adjacent room. Some elderly person had been cared for here in…I look at the calendar on the wall…2005. It all seemed much older than that.

But for some reason, they had left almost everything behind. There are personal photos in every room.

The creepiest thing I discovered was in the basement. A room deep in the dank dark dusty basement had been painted pumpkin orange. The rest of the basement was full of discarded furniture, clothes, and other belongings. But this room had been cleaned out and held an old single bed, a small table and single chair. It appeared to have been abandoned at the same time as the rest of the house. It just made me wonder what the family life was like that they would not only live like this but leave it in such a hurry.

In my experience when someone dies, the remaining family sorts through their belongings and disposes of the house and anything they don’t find a home for. But in this case, it was almost as if they simply walked away.

We are seriously considering buying the house as a project, a last home for us. If we do, I want to include pieces of the previous owners as mementos. Yes, that’s kind of weird, but I think there is some mystery to the house, and playing with it could be fun.

“Who’s that in the picture in the corner?”

“We have no idea. It came with the house,” I say with a smirk.

“What’s with Orange Room in the basement?”

“What Orange Room?” I say mysteriously.

Regardless of whether we end up taking the house or not, I got some pretty cool ideas for stories out of the process.

—So Many Words…

So little time.

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Mystery House

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