Don’t you just hate it when you have to deal with people that are eat up with “Well I disease?” I mean, you’re having a pleasant conversation with someone you think is listening and then, you realize they weren’t listening at all, just calmly waiting for you to hush so they may speak and set you straight. For example, you say, “My wife and I just returned from the mountains, Boone is lovely this time of year.” They say, “Oh I never stay at Boone, Blowing Rock is so much prettier.” You find yourself just staring at them with your mouth hanging open and thinking, I didn’t need to hear that crap. Why can’t you just say something nice about our trip, for heaven’s sake!

Now I haven’t traveled much, nor seen a lot of the world’s seven wonders, but if I see a butterfly land on my butterfly bush and its real pretty, I might want to tell you about it without hearing about your trip to Istanbul where they have the butterfly festival and nothing can match what you witnessed there. O-k, I give up, you win, I get it, allow me to now retreat to my lowly abode where I will busy myself writing eulogies to your greatness. PLEASE!

All I ask is a smile, a nod, maybe a “that’s nice.” You would think I was asking for a loan, or something. There are people who carry it too far the other way too. When you tell them about your trip to Boone they respond, “Where did you stay, what did you see, where did you eat, what did it cost, where are the pictures, how long did it take you to get there, how long did it take you to get back, what roads did you travel on, how much was the gas, and on and on and on. PLEASE!

Ten minutes later after talking and explaining, your trip comes up in conversation and they say, “You went to the mountains?”

You again find yourself staring with your mouth hanging open, and thinking, where were you?

I guess there are worse things than “Well I Disease.” I find myself getting louder and louder when I run into someone not listening. When they respond with something they have seen, or somewhere they have been, I get up real close to them and say, WELL, ISN’T THAT SPECIAL! TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT! Then I laugh at them staring at me with their mouth hanging open. I’ll be right back.

You can reach Joe Lee at clevelandtidbits@yahoo.com.