omit-a-bit
11 March 2009 at 6:56 pm 2 comments
“I didn’t know you could sing, let alone act! Why didn’t you tell me?”
This was said by in a live radio interview promo for the play I am currently appearing in, “Quilters“. I happened to know the interviewer, and when she found out I was acting in the play, and the play was a musical, this was her response. This hasn’t been a unique response.
Several people of my acquaintance have been surprised by the fact that I am in the play when they come to see it. And while I don’t mind the surprised pleasure on their part, it is inevitably followed by: “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Their offense seems to be two-fold. First, they are offended they don’t know me as well as they thought they did, and second, they are offended that I didn’t take them into my confidence and tell them all my talents.
At first I felt guilty for not being completely honest with the wonderful, supportive people around me, but then I started to imagine how exactly I could tell people about every facet of my personality without sounding like a braggart, or… even worse sounding insane…maybe something like this?…
“Hi, my name is Megan. I can sing and act, you know. I also work at a museum, have 7 younger siblings, 3 nephews and 1 brother-in-law, and I make jewelry sometimes. I do wedding photography, graphic design, and I live an apartment, and when I was really young I scraped my knee while I was running around the edge of the swimming pool, even after the guard told me not to… uh…”
Maybe not.
Everyone omits small portions of their lives from those they talk to or work with or live with just in order to maintain sanity. If I told everyone at work what I did at home each night, and if I told everyone at home what I did at work each day, and if I told everyone at church what happened to me all week, my day would be one long speech to the world until eventually all I could report was the fact that I was reporting.
So we all omit-a-bit. We tell the parts we think our audience will find interesting, funny or pertinent, and the rest, well…
The rest we edit out.
Entry filed under: word of the week. Tags: omit-a-bit, play, talents, why didn't you tell me?.
Blunt Girl 
1.
Rebekah | 11 March 2009 at 9:47 pm
“Why didn’t you tell me?” IS a weird question.
Possible responses:
“I didn’t know you’d be interested.”
“It never came up.”
“I thought you knew.”
“Yo! Lay off!”
2.
Marja | 12 March 2009 at 1:25 pm
And when you get married, your husband is the one that you tell EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING.
Hey, you left out the one fact that when you were little and went over to grandmas house, you used to toss the candy wrappers behind the TV in the familyroom. HAH! Didn’t think I knew about that, did you? Yeah, don’t leave that out next time when you introduce yourself to somebody. It is very important.