Sometimes I need a filter between my brain and my mouth.
This is not the way to get one.

Monday 15 August 2011

Over-sharing & Innappropriate Timing: A Talent

They say sharing is caring, which sounds all fluffy and lovely, but I've been doing this wifey/parenting lark for a little while now and one thing I have discovered is that, while sharing is a vital function, it's not always about caring as much as it's about proving you're right and voicing your opinion on how it's being done wrong.

Or maybe that's just me.
As a wife it started with sharing wisdom on how everything could (read: should) be done. Because:
  1. You are always right when it comes to how the washing is pegged out for maximum drying speed and airflow.
  2. You are the only person in the house who knows how to correctly stack the dishwasher so that dishes are clean.
  3. You know exactly when the rubbish needs to be taken out - it's a complicated equation based on the number of pooey nappies multiplied by the quantity of decomposing foodstuffs divided by the number of times you'll have to ask for it to be taken out. It usually equals at least once per day.
  4. We all have our talents and skills...yours are just more correct.
As a Mum, it began with sharing personal space and internal organs...
  1. It then spread to sharing your external appendages...and teaching the existing man-child and the new actual-child that, while you only have one set of breasts, they can be utilised differently. Neither one of them could claim sole ownership because, the last time you checked, they were YOURS to being with.
  2. Suddenly you're sharing your half of the bed. Yes, I mean YOUR half. Because the man-child has an ability to maintain control over his 50% of the mattress whilst you now sleep balanced on the edge of the bed frame.
  3. You have a greater tendancy to share a towel with your significant other because your muddled brain forgets that you have a towel too. Sharing's not so bad...as long as you don't ponder too hard the possibility that the section of towel now wiping your face could have recently been drying a pair of testicles.
  4. You continue to share your personal space, even though you've given birth - never again will you shower, toilet, burp, fart, sneeze, eat or just generally function, alone. It's an adjustment but, compared to having a room full of people stare down your birth canal and listen to you make noises like a herd of recently castrated cattle, it's not as concerning as it might have been post birth.
All of this is pretty normal, and I would be happy if that's as far as it went for me. The trouble is, I have an inability to stop at just sharing.

I have a refined talent for over-sharing and inappropriate timing. Examples of this include:
  1. The time I openly shared my thoughts on a questionably manufactured pram model...only to discover that pram was the main feature at the baby shower, purchased by the grandmother-to-be.
  2. The time I mentioned that I wouldn't want to be in accounting because all the work people in finance seem to be a humour-less, too-serious, possibly sex-starved and therefore unapproachably cranky, bunch. While they were making coffee behind me. (And they totally didn't laugh or dish the goss on any recent sexcapades, so it simply proved my point.)
  3. The time I told the South American police they were a bunch of useless fuckwits and had more talent for taking bribes than they did for doing their jobs after I got robbed by a taxi driver and they wouldn't do anything about it because I was a 'silly western female tourist'. My Dad shuffled me out of the station before I could open my mouth again and become a prison guest. 
I'm the first to admit that I'm sometimes in need of a filter between my brain and mouth...or at the very least I should look around and see who's making coffee behind me before I offer my opinions. But this ability I have for over-sharing and inappropriate timing seems to be something I've always had and it doesn't appear to be hereditary.

It wouldn't be so bad if I was from a family of innappropriate over-sharers because we all know that if someone else is doing it, it's okay to do it too. But my family's main talent - the ability to be loud enough to drown out a freight train - fails, just as I need it.

Every. Single. Time.

They're awesome like that.

But I'm sure I'm not alone - there must be many people like me, otherwise the term 'foot-in-mouth' wouldn't have an application. So pull out your best moment and share it with the world. As over-sharers, it's what we do best.

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