IN PRAISE OF THE GRUMPY
And as you stand there
Arms crossed
Managing to look both
infinitely patient and impatient at the same time
Trying not to roll your
eyes and wonder how much longer all this will take
Let us now praise you.
You: the grumpy, the
grouchy, the grumbling.
You: the beleaguered and
the put-upon.
You: our hidden hero.
Because while you are
Short-tempered with the
witless
Furious with the shallow and
Yelling at the television
It is only because you are
so thoughtful
That everyone else seems so
thoughtless.
And while you insist that
you do not care about
What anyone is wearing or
What anyone said or did or
What so-and-so said or did
back,
Nor do you give two figs
about
The disenfranchised
urban-dweller of today or
The illiterate or
The underprivileged of some
foreign land or
Whomever it is we're
supposed to be caring about today and that
You will not, under any
circumstances,
Attend the choir concert or
The holiday party or
The 12-step meeting or
The neighborhood street
fair or
The fancy dress ball or
The class reunion - for
God's sake especially not the reunion - and that
You mustn't be relied upon
for
Donations or
A ride home or
Free advice or
Help moving in to your new
townhouse or a
Damn birthday present or
Whatever it is that all
those people with all those
Outstretched hands
Seem to want
You must know that we all
know
That you do, indeed, care
and that
You will, if pressed,
attend and that
We all do rely
On you.
We can tell that you care,
Because you so assiduously
refuse to conform to
Some greeting-card version
of caring
And instead insist on
caring about us as individuals.
You remember the
conversation we had about
Ry Cooder's guitar playing,
and
Six
weeks later you slip us a
Homemade cassette tape with
no label.
You shun the collection
plate, and yet
You shove a hundred dollars
into the Youth Group's coffee can
(A check, of course - no
sense missing out on the tax deduction just because you had a weak moment.)
And when you go to greet us,
You look us in the eye and
take our full measure
And if you should
Notice that we look a bit
sad,
You will grab our hand and
Kiss us roughly on the
cheek and say,
"You OK, darlin'?"
You might grouse about
Christmas Eve,
But you do love Christmas
morning.
And while you would never
voluntarily look at a
Photo album,
You forever hold a picture
in your mind of
How we looked in
That Halloween costume
That prom dress
That uniform.
And we know you will attend
(Quit squirming - this poem
isn't that much longer)
Because underneath your
self-proclaimed
Disdain for all humanity
You are curious.
Intensely, insatiably,
incorruptibly curious
And while you act repulsed
I suspect you are truly
fascinated by us -
This clamoring horde of
strangers you are compelled to share the planet with.
OK, OK: with whom this
planet you are compelled to share.
Good grief you can be a
pain sometimes.
And oh, how we rely on you.
And finally,
While you have largely
succeeded in getting yourself off of
The phone tree
(That tactic you had about
boring everybody silly with the excruciating details of your latest Water
Filtration Project did wonders for removing you from any thinking hostess'
guest list)
We do still rely on you.
Oh how we rely on you.
Oh how we rely on you.
You are our voice of sanity
Our comrade-in-arms
Our truth-telling ally in a
world of endless bullshit.
You are our hidden hero
Deceptively chivalrous with
Your tender heart clad in
dented armor.
And you must know that
When you are gone
We miss you.
So go ahead and
Sneak out at intermission
and
Have an extra drink to get
you through the reception and
Just turn and walk away
from the
Over-gesticulating and the
infuriatingly self-righteous.
Save yourself from these
petty cruelties so that
When the world becomes just
too much for us poor mortals to bear
We can rely on you to save
us.
Oh how we rely on you.
Oh how we rely on you.
Oh how we rely on you.
Now stand still, because
we're going to give you a nice, big hug.
Samantha Bennett
© 2009
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