A Quart Low

Sometimes I consider myself clever because I can figure some things out. Today the cable guy came to clear up dropping channels, and I think it was his first day on the job. His first remark was he'd never seen a TiVo, and I figured that must be what he's taught to say, since it's not Comcast-supplied equipment. To his credit, he didn't blame it for the problem.

The channels that had been dropping, of course, were all coming in fine once he showed up. Still, he had something to do since NBC was coming in with all sorts of pale diagonal lines and ghosts. That, he blamed on the TV.

I objected.

The TV, I reasoned, is on channel three and gets all it's information from the cable box (after being run through the TiVo). I don't think it knows, or cares, if the signal it's receiving is HBO or the Food Network, and this talk of the picture tube crapping out sounded like a reach. If that were the case, I'd figure it to show up on all of the channels, at least occasionally, and not only and always on NBC.

He made some calls, climbed a ladder, and another guy showed up who had to climb the pole out back. In the end, the first guy said they replaced a ground block, the second guy said that wasn't it, but the picture's fine now.

Still, there's less on NBC than there is on Fox News.

But that's not the point.

The guy knows his stuff, sure, and talked about readings and had a great bag filled with tools that made me drool, but he never listened to me. I've been noticing that a lot, lately, that I've lost my charisma or charm or some such thing, and most people when I talk to them cut me off and tell me what they want me to hear instead of hearing me out.

It can be a gracious thing, just a total disregarding of what I was saying, with the other person picking up her end of the conversation as if I hadn't said a thing, or, more likely, I start a anecdote and am met with a look that says "Is there a point to this?" or "Does this story have an end?"

Man, that hurts. I used to be entertaining, or thought I was, and people would come and visit or welcome me and beg me to talk and tell them things. I have a different way of talking or something, I guess, and they'd hang on my every word, enjoying hearing the tale as much as I'd enjoy telling it.

Now, not so much. I must have lost somewhere a connection with the world and what it finds interesting. I'm missing a quart or two of relevance but what's worse is that what I say is no longer of interest, almost as if I've outgrown my welcome.

Maybe I just need to buck it up, drop the cute diversions and personal insights, and act as if I'm talking to Sgt Joe Friday. Maybe that's all people want now, in these hurried times.