Sort of Irritating

By Erika Hoffman  

“The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent person ignores an insult.”    (Proverbs 12:16)

It’s good not to take oneself too seriously. I know this, but sometimes my thoughts and ruminations don’t show that I apply this mantra. 

The other day an editor of an e-newsletter rejected an essay I’d sent her by telling me that the piece “sort of irritates” her, and that if it irritated her, it would irritate her readers. She asserted I was “shooting at other people” while “patting myself on the back.”  Of course, I hadn’t viewed my article like that!  I became peeved at what I thought was harsh, unfair, and mean-spirited commentary. “Why not just say the usual? ‘This isn’t for us. No thank you.’?”

At any rate, I mulled over her remarks for a while. Then, I got back to my life.  My neighbor told me her brother had to have seven liters of fluid drawn off his stomach.  I called her the following day to see how things were with him, and he was better. I asked about her day.  She said she’d gone to a new hairdresser, one that another friend had tried recently and had been pleased with since the haircut made her pal look years younger.  “How did it work out for you?” I asked.

She liked the coif very much and was over-the-top pleased until the beautician asked her about the back of her head. “It has a blunt look to it,” the stylist said. “You cut your own hair, don’t you?”

“Why no! Never! My husband and I have been going to the same hairdresser for eight years,” my neighbor replied.

“A barber,” stated the cosmetologist matter-of-factly, nodding her head. “I see.”

Over the phone, my friend then burst out laughing. “To think, she thought I cut my own hair and even the hair at the back of my head. How bad did it look?” 

We laughed together.

I told her I’d had a conversation that same day, which was also full of misunderstanding. At lunch with several women, I had announced that my son in New Jersey was engaged, and Elaine replied, “Oh yes, you told me, to a tour--ris.”

“Tourist?” I asked.

Elaine nodded. The others at the lunch table listened intently.  “Yes!” she said with a big smile.

“No, she’s not a tourist.  She’s a New Yorker. She was born and raised in New York,” I explained.

“You told me you liked her. I said you certainly would because she is a touris…,” Elaine said.

 “My son doesn’t routinely go around picking up tourists in New York City,” I said with a laugh. All the ladies now peered over at Elaine with quizzical looks.

“Remember?” Elaine asked. “I said you’d like her because, like you, her birthday is in May, and she is a ...”

“Taurus!” I exclaimed. “Got it now!”

The other ladies murmured, “We all thought you said ‘tourist’, Elaine. “

 We hee-hawed over that homophonic mix-up.

By the time I returned home following lunch and reread what the editor of the e-zine had written about my piece rubbing her the wrong way, I decided that it was, after all, a petty thing. Why let myself be out-of-shape over one person’s misunderstanding of my intent? In my composition, I was telling fellow writers that my getting published didn’t have as much to do with good fortune as it did with persistence and priorities. I enumerated all the things I don’t do each day because I need to find time to write. I listed all the fun I sacrifice to carve out time to research markets. My message was: “You reap what you sow.” Unfortunately, the editor didn’t hear that.  She heard a braggart. Similarly, I didn’t hear an astrology sign “Taurus,” I heard “tourist” and wondered if my lunch mate had gone daft.

Sometimes, we make mistakes and don’t realize them until something better comes along like a better beautician and a fresh style.  And sometimes, we get ourselves all worked up because we feel we’ve been misinterpreted and maligned.

What’s best to do is “laugh it off.” Forgive, forget.  We all misunderstand at times, and we are all misunderstood at times, and we all discover our best selves in the process of living and working and enjoying this gift we’ve been given---life! And a writing life at that!

Erika Hoffman is a happy and long-term resident of beautiful North Carolina.  She’s a member of three writing clans: North Carolina Writers Network; The Triangle Area Freelancers; and Carteret Writers. During the past 15 years she’s been pursuing “her scrivener dream,” she has succeeded in getting published 580 times. Often, she teaches an OLLI class on penning personal narratives at her alma mater, Duke University. Although Erika taught in public high schools, which takes perseverance, a sense of humor, and intestinal fortitude, Erika deems her best achievement, besides being married forever, is having raised four functioning citizens. Without a doubt, her proudest moniker is “Ama’ to six grandsons and four granddaughters. She also cherishes the nomenclature, “favorite mother-in-law,” by three wonderful people as well as being designated as a “good friend” to cherished, lifelong, genuine buddies.