When I was in high school, an employee of my father’s had a vasectomy. Now, you may be thinking that this is a strange thing to tell the Internet, but bear with me.
After the surgery, the man in question (let’s call him Fred, shall we?) had a very bad reaction to healing, and somehow managed to end up with chronic nerve pain as a complication. Thereafter, he was essentially unable to work, and while my father kept him on for a while, it eventually became clear that he would have to leave, but he remained for quite a while as a sort of a family friend.
Everyone felt terrible for Fred–after all, he must have been in immense pain–but the CAUSE of his pain was a little odd for us all to deal with. I mean, you don’t exactly want to discuss the man’s junk all the time, right? I was a 14 year old girl, for god’s sake! This was just about at the edge of my tolerance for discussing the reproductive issues of a person my father’s age.
Our collective discomfort/desire to giggle about vasectomy complications (we’re cruel, we’re awful, WE KNOW) was compounded by the fact that Fred had never really glommed on to the idea that “how are you?” is something of a rhetorical question.
When one asks the average acquaintance how he or she is, one expects the answer to be something along the lines of “good,” “not so good,” or “fine.” One does not expect a detailed inventory, and yet, with Fred, this was what one got.
The question became like a sort of minefield. You didn’t want to NOT ask Fred how he was feeling and therefore be rude, but you also REALLY didn’t want to ask how he was and BE TOLD THE LITERAL, DETAILED TRUTH. I will spare you all a horrific example of the details I personally was told, but suffice it to say that we all learned not to ask pretty quickly.
“But Mary,” you ask, “how does all this pertain to your sudden return to blogging?”
Well. It seems to me that the POLITE thing for me to do upon returning would be to tell you all how I’m doing, how life is going…you know, the usual things, but I have been conflicted.
After long deliberation, I have decided that I will learn from Fred and give you an answer off the “acceptable” list, rather than an actual, literal inventory.
I’m fine.
Things are fine. Have they been better? YES. Have they been worse? YES. Will they continue to get better? Gee, I sure hope so.
And I’m going to leave it there.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled posting.