In which I make an ass out of something or other

There�s a little green car parked outside my office window. It�s clean on the outside, though the inside is packed to the roof with stuff. There�s a woman resting against the hood, engaged in spirited conversation with what I will guess is an invisible but thoroughly attentive audience. She�s been talking for at least an hour, and for any of you looking to up your self-righteousness quotient by playing Devil�s advocate I will add that, no, she is not talking on the phone through a headset. I pass this woman several times a week, and she is always talking to herself. Or, as I mentioned before, an invisible audience.

The reason I believe she has an audience is primarily because of her expansive hand gestures. These are not crazy, wild arm-swings, rather they�re controlled, as if accompanying a series of important points or giving directions. She�s neatly dressed, and wearing earrings. Her hair�s in a neat ponytail, and she has burgundy-colored reading glasses perched atop her head.

Now, she has spread out a paper towel on the roof of her car, wetted it with some water from a bottle, and wiped her face and neck with it, reaching down into the neckline of her sweater. Now, she�s applying moisturizer. I assume it�s moisturizer. I�m making a lot of assumptions about this woman I don�t know, and have only passed on the street or observed from my window.

I am more aware of the role assumptions play in my life, thanks to the great, great voluntary (mandatory) training I attended last week on the subject of good judgment. I�d been postponing taking the class because it seemed to promise hours of pointless boringness. Thanks to my training, I realize now that I made an ASSUMPTION, and that when I make an ASSUMPTION, I make an ASS out of U and MPTION.

This class, which is split into two sessions of four hours each, taught me many valuable facts, which I will now share with you (you�re welcome�see, I�m ASSUMING that you will thank me, hence making an ASS out of U and MING). For instance:

EXAMPLES OF BAD JUDGMENT

  • Fatally shooting yourself in the face by accident, during a bank robbery. While it wasn�t explicitly stated, I guess (ASSUME) that the reason this is considered poor judgment is that you then can�t enjoy the fruits of your labor, i.e., the money.

  • That hair-do you had in high school. Like, if you had a mullet, what were you thinking??? (That was the instructor�s example. I think that mullets should be lovingly cultivated and displayed for all the world to see.)

  • Interrupting, especially interrupting the instructor.

  • Making decisions without enough information, like for example, if someone refers to a person named Chris who is a performer in a drag show, you should not assume that person is male or gay or a transvestite, because Chris could be, like, a total straight woman playing �Passerby No. 3� in an otherwise drag production of �Streetcar Named Desire,� and you would have shown your prejudices by thinking anything else, you homophobe breeder.

  • Thinking that one of the men in the class might not, during the �personal introduction� segment of the class, choose to reveal that many years ago, he proposed marriage to the woman sitting next to him, and that she turned him down.

It was such a great class. I say that (ASSUMING you will not know why) because at one point, the instructor announced that my name comes up frequently in her �Be A Customer Service Star!� class. That made me very happy. Although, thinking about it, I realize that I ASSUMED that my name comes up as a shining example of stellar customer service, and not as, say, a chronic troublemaker/ingrate. I will have to ask for clarification when I attend the second half of this class.

Assuming I attend.



Star of the day. . .Felix Unger
posted @ 11:35 a.m. on April 02, 2007 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......