Example Essay
I introduce to you the great, the mystifying , the mind-boggling Mackov the Psychic. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, a seer of secrets from the past, a diviner of untold truths. He is able to read your thoughts from simple notions to complex home remodeling desires. Ok enough of that, I’m not psychic, I barely have five full senses, let alone a sixth one. My wife swears up and down that I am indeed a mind reader due to some strange, (to her), happenings. Once I baffled her by knowing what she was thinking so precisely she had to pull the car over to stare at me mouth agape. Another time she only had to utter two words and again I stopped her cold with my cosmic foresight about a household appliance. And the biggest show stopper was when I read her mind from two-hundred miles away, it involved a complete overhaul of two of the rooms in our house. After the details of these strange events I’ll let you in on my secret but don’t tell Chickey, I told her I’d let her in on it when we celebrate our fiftieth anniversary and frankly, it’s just too much fun to watch her get freaked out.
We had just spent the weekend up in Greenville with my in-laws. We had been up there for the Fly-in and were on the car ride home, tuckered out and ready get home and veg. Chickey was driving as she always does and I was laid back in the passenger seat with my nose crammed in my current read. We had just entered Abbot and Chickey breaks the silence. “Hey babe, you know what I was thinking?” I didn’t take my face from the pages I just said, “Yup.” In a mock challenging tone she says, “Oh yeah, what?” I’m stop reading, look at her and tell her. “You would like to stop at Walmart on the way home and pick up Mona Lisa’s smile and stuff for tater-tot casserole for dinner tonight. How’d I do?” She slowed down, pulled over and just stared at me with her jaw slacked and a look of bewilderment in her pretty eyes. She stumbled over questions trying to get me to tell her how I nailed it that accurately and like a good hubby I played it up until she gave up and continued the journey home.
A few minor events happened between that and this next one and it became an ongoing joke slash mystery. We were at home enjoying a stormy winter day in the house. I was sitting in my Archie Bunker chair whittling a set of camp utensils and she was puttering around the house. Now a little side note here, we were expecting a small return from our taxes that year. She pokes her head in the room and says, “Hey Hon?” It had the tone of an oncoming idea she was having and I took the opportunity. I told her to hang on a sec, I ran into my man cave, (my office) and came back out with a folded piece of paper. “Yes dear what’s on your mind?” Chickey informs me that she thinks we should take that return money and replace our refrigerator. I hand her the folded paper, she reads. ‘New Fridge With Taxes – TA-DA!” Again, mouth agape, eyes bugging out. “Seriously? Do you have a chip in my brain? I just had that thought ten seconds ago.” I egg her on a bit, give her my blessing on the fridge and she shuffles off scratching her head.
Now for the biggest and best example of my Madam Cleo style powers. Chickey was away on a long weekend. She was staying with her cousin down in Boston. When she arrived home, the bathroom had been remodeled with new flooring, counter, sink, shelving, crapper and a fresh coat of paint. In the kitchen, I replaced the counter and sink, got rid of the archaic returnable bin my father and I built fifteen years ago and built a shelving unit for the toaster oven. Oh yeah and her new mountain bike was sitting out in the shed waiting for it’s maiden voyage. She was absolutely floored because she hadn’t said word one about any of these things but she wanted it. She was mixed between speechless and hammering me with questions about who told me or how I was able to use ‘my powers’ from Holden to Boston. But rock solid me wouldn’t give in. I was loving every stammered word of her confusion and happiness. She gave me a big hug and kiss and whispered, “ I love you but any chance you could stay the hell out of my head?” Nope, not a chance in the world.
So, I’ve already told you I’m not psychic. What I am is clever, quick and observant. That, coupled with a lesson my Pepere taught me when I was a very little boy has given me the appearance of being a mystic. That lesson was that you can learn more about someone by watching and listening rather than talking and asking questions. The more exposure I have to someone the more things my brain picks up and catalogues. The way they do things, the way they like things and the little comments they make to themselves or in conversations they don’t think I hear, all these things get filed away for later use. As an added bonus, I usually have the mannerisms that I’m not paying full attention so it’s assumed I’m either not listening or can’t be bothered. In my Chickey’s case, she has been a major part of my life for fourteen years my brain has three vaults, a self-storage unit and a Chevy conversion van filled with harrumphs, sighs, looks, phrases, habits, likes, dislikes desires and the list goes on. So when she thinks she’s having the thought for the first time, she’s actually had notions and fragments of the thought before, this is just the first time she’s fully formed it . And of course I’m clever enough and know her habits and brain enough to put two and two together and quick enough to make it seem spooky. This sort of stuff happens with friends and family on a less frequent basis. And it all boils down to just observing with my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
M/3=X?
Mack/3=X
One of my former employers used to get a bit bitchy when I’d inform him of a shortage in my pay check. He couldn’t understand how I could get upset about twenty-five to fifty dollars when he was dealing with deficits in the range of a grand to two hundred thousand. I tried to explain to him that it’s all relative. His dollar volume for his company was as important to him as mine was to my house hold and family. That fifty dollars is my hundred large. I think the same goes with people’s beings, their problems and issues. I think I am extremely different than my peers and that not many would understand what goes on in my head but in all honesty there are several million humans thinking the same exact thing. However, this five grapher aint about them, it’s about me. I am three different people depending my environment and who’s around me, or better yet, who’s not.
Jovial ol’ Mack, fun loving, charming husband, goof ball, bread winner for the fam, that’s what my wife, friends and family see. I do love to have a good time and want those around me to be happy, but truth be told most of my personality and behavior when surrounded by those closest to me is charade. I’m a loner, not like dark rebel sorts portrayed in the classic movies, nothing so glamorous as that. I just love to be alone. I’m so nervous when I’m around people that I wind myself up tighter than a turkeys touch-hole. So, I’ve become a pretty good actor, I plan what I’m going to do and rehearse what I’m going to say to steer things in a certain direction. I don’t stay up at night scripting tomorrow’s events or practice in the mirror. It is usually a lightning fast check list to make sure I don’t let what I’m really thinking come to surface. If I did it would probably go like this; “Attention-attention! In an orderly fashion, could all y’all asses please line up shortest to tallest and promptly leave my planet?” Since we all know that’s no way to be, I’ve trained myself to say “Yes dear.” Opposed to “What the hell makes my time less valuable than yours? Go get it yourself and leave me be!”
Work is a different story. I’m still grossly uncomfortable having to deal with people and shy away from any in depth socializing at work. But I think most of my coworkers would label me friendly and personable with a slight chance of temper flares. I’m still plotting my actions but fortunately I work in a field where it’s accepted and somewhat expected that attitudes and tempers will snap from time to time. I keep my head buried in my work as much as I can so I don’t have to deal with them too much and save my blow-outs for situations where I need a pressure relief. A prime example happened just last week. My co-worker and I were knocking tin when another crews foreman came up and tried to bully us out of our area as his work was more important. As our foreman wasn’t present he thought he’d get away with it. Sorry chief, real Mack is coming out. “Maybe you need to go to the tool crib and get a glass stomach, because apparently your heads up your ass and you can’t see you’ve walked into our area. You want us to leave, go talk to Mike, if he says we go, we go.” Wow, that felt good, now back to pretending to be a nice guy.
Solo-Mack. My favorite person to be. As I said I’m a loner. I can’t explain in words how I feel when there’s no one around, I’ve got the house to myself or I’m out in my shop. I don’t have to watch my language, I can think freely, mentally comment on people, things and ideas without feeling judged. I only have to deal with one ass and that’s me. I don’t get this time nearly enough for my tastes but maybe that makes it all the more valuable. I get more accomplished during these times because my mind is focused on the task at hand or no task at all and not fractured into thinking about what to say next, who’s around me, what should I do in this situation. There is a song by Garth Brooks and it’s one of my absolute favorites, it’s titled The man that I am when there’s no one around. Not all the words match up with me but the message is true. When I’m alone I am at my truest form.
Those are my three masks and I’m not sure what that makes me. Does M/3= a con artist? Does it equal a guy clever enough fake it to survive? Am I different from everyone else or just as different as everyone else? Would a profiler label me as a schizophrenic, anti-social narcissist with anger issues? Frankly I don’t care what it makes, it’s hard enough for me to do it, let alone break it down and understand it. And I don’t mind if the profiler profiles me like that, as long as he does it remotely and doesn’t have to actually talk to me.
One of my former employers used to get a bit bitchy when I’d inform him of a shortage in my pay check. He couldn’t understand how I could get upset about twenty-five to fifty dollars when he was dealing with deficits in the range of a grand to two hundred thousand. I tried to explain to him that it’s all relative. His dollar volume for his company was as important to him as mine was to my house hold and family. That fifty dollars is my hundred large. I think the same goes with people’s beings, their problems and issues. I think I am extremely different than my peers and that not many would understand what goes on in my head but in all honesty there are several million humans thinking the same exact thing. However, this five grapher aint about them, it’s about me. I am three different people depending my environment and who’s around me, or better yet, who’s not.
Jovial ol’ Mack, fun loving, charming husband, goof ball, bread winner for the fam, that’s what my wife, friends and family see. I do love to have a good time and want those around me to be happy, but truth be told most of my personality and behavior when surrounded by those closest to me is charade. I’m a loner, not like dark rebel sorts portrayed in the classic movies, nothing so glamorous as that. I just love to be alone. I’m so nervous when I’m around people that I wind myself up tighter than a turkeys touch-hole. So, I’ve become a pretty good actor, I plan what I’m going to do and rehearse what I’m going to say to steer things in a certain direction. I don’t stay up at night scripting tomorrow’s events or practice in the mirror. It is usually a lightning fast check list to make sure I don’t let what I’m really thinking come to surface. If I did it would probably go like this; “Attention-attention! In an orderly fashion, could all y’all asses please line up shortest to tallest and promptly leave my planet?” Since we all know that’s no way to be, I’ve trained myself to say “Yes dear.” Opposed to “What the hell makes my time less valuable than yours? Go get it yourself and leave me be!”
Work is a different story. I’m still grossly uncomfortable having to deal with people and shy away from any in depth socializing at work. But I think most of my coworkers would label me friendly and personable with a slight chance of temper flares. I’m still plotting my actions but fortunately I work in a field where it’s accepted and somewhat expected that attitudes and tempers will snap from time to time. I keep my head buried in my work as much as I can so I don’t have to deal with them too much and save my blow-outs for situations where I need a pressure relief. A prime example happened just last week. My co-worker and I were knocking tin when another crews foreman came up and tried to bully us out of our area as his work was more important. As our foreman wasn’t present he thought he’d get away with it. Sorry chief, real Mack is coming out. “Maybe you need to go to the tool crib and get a glass stomach, because apparently your heads up your ass and you can’t see you’ve walked into our area. You want us to leave, go talk to Mike, if he says we go, we go.” Wow, that felt good, now back to pretending to be a nice guy.
Solo-Mack. My favorite person to be. As I said I’m a loner. I can’t explain in words how I feel when there’s no one around, I’ve got the house to myself or I’m out in my shop. I don’t have to watch my language, I can think freely, mentally comment on people, things and ideas without feeling judged. I only have to deal with one ass and that’s me. I don’t get this time nearly enough for my tastes but maybe that makes it all the more valuable. I get more accomplished during these times because my mind is focused on the task at hand or no task at all and not fractured into thinking about what to say next, who’s around me, what should I do in this situation. There is a song by Garth Brooks and it’s one of my absolute favorites, it’s titled The man that I am when there’s no one around. Not all the words match up with me but the message is true. When I’m alone I am at my truest form.
Those are my three masks and I’m not sure what that makes me. Does M/3= a con artist? Does it equal a guy clever enough fake it to survive? Am I different from everyone else or just as different as everyone else? Would a profiler label me as a schizophrenic, anti-social narcissist with anger issues? Frankly I don’t care what it makes, it’s hard enough for me to do it, let alone break it down and understand it. And I don’t mind if the profiler profiles me like that, as long as he does it remotely and doesn’t have to actually talk to me.
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