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| At it again...all for you. |
The Most Brilliant — and Funniest — Woman in the World
Part One:
"Nature abhors a vacuum."
You've heard the phrase before, but what does it actually mean? When I was a kid, I didn't even know what a vacuum was. If somebody had told me there was a machine that could suck dirt out of a carpet, I would not have understood because both things were alien to me. Carpets? Vacuums? What are these things? I was fourteen before I saw my first vacuum. Looking back, I now realize that we had never needed one before.
But when I was fourteen, we somehow managed to come into possession of a huge, blue-green, shag rug. It was so big it took up most of the living room floor. It was so big it could not be taken out the door to have the dirt shook off it like our braided oval rugs that were scattered throughout the house in a randomly haphazard fashion with no rhyme or reason to their placement.
For some reason, only I was tasked with vacuuming the carpet. My mother said, "Here. Do the rug." Do the rug? Do the rug? DO THE RUG? What the hell does do the rug mean?
I stared at her blankly. She sighed and hollered for her husband. My step-father patiently explained the concept, walking me through all the steps. Plug it in. Hold the wand. Step on the power button.
My little mind was blown. This was fabulous. But not why you are thinking. I saw this flat rug get fluffy before my very eyes. My stepfather knew at that time he would never have to use that machine ever again. I was hooked faster than a thirty-five year old Admin Assistant at her first whiff of methamphetamine. The rush was immediate and I couldn't wait for my next hit of vacuuming.
But, much like meth, turns out vacuuming is a hard addiction. How hard would it be?
Come to find out, it was quite difficult and time consuming and I will tell you why. It was because of the lines the vacuum left in the shag rug — and I was OCD. My family eventually learned to avoid me when they saw me jonesin' for another hit of vacuuming.
The lines had to be exactly straight from one end to the other. They could not cross each other. They had to be done in one long pass, no short bursts of random strokes would do. And the lines had to — no, must! — run longways. If one of my siblings happened to cross the rug while I was vacuuming and they disturbed the pattern, I had to start all over.
All. Over. Start again. From the upper left corner, methodically, line by line, work my way to the bottom right corner whereupon I could step off onto the hard floor.
Angela came to abhor a vacuum while craving it at the same time. Panic attacks would occur upon plugging in the machine and prayers would ascend. "Please, God. This time...this time, please...let no one cross the rug until I am done. And, please, God, if you would be so kind, allow me at least one lousy minute to stand back and admire the perfection of the vacuum before those brats ruin it."
Every now and then God would answer Angela's prayer and Angela would stare at the perfect lines and have her soul salved like...like...oh, I don't know...like balsam in Gilead salved the collective souls of Abraham's children.
Part Two:
Fast forward some years. So, there I am, on a panel of Subject Matter Experts. Or maybe at a book signing event and I am one of the Featured Authors and the other Featured Authors are boring the hell out of the audience, or just saying really stupid stuff. In any case, thereby forming a vacuum sucking the fun out of the whole event.
What does Angela do to straighten out this mess? Why, she plugs in the metaphorical vacuum.
Yes, Angela has been known to feed lines, much like a straight man in a comedy duo, only to have them ignored by the idiot who can't figure out that I'm giving them the perfect setup that, when they deliver the punchline brilliantly, will make them look awesome.
It's called Marketing 101. I should be paid to teach this stuff.
However, Subject Matter Experts and most Featured Authors do not get how helpful I am. I usually get nervous laughs from my fellow panelist or author. Sometimes I get stares, which of course makes the audience laugh because they think that is the joke, but does my fellow panelist or author understand they now look brilliant?
No, they do not. And now who abhors me thus making the vacuum ever larger? It is at times like this I sigh like my mother.
It isn't only nature that abhors vacuums. Audiences do, too. If the person on the stage doesn't fill that vacuum, trust me on this: The audience will and that will not be pretty. Given my OCD, that simply will not do.
Part Three:
Who else abhors a vacuum? Why, bullies and dictators, that's who. Bullies and dictators are simply spoiled children looking for someone with strength enough to set — and hold — strong boundaries for them. We have recently seen this truth in action with North Korea's 3gDL* when Donald "The Hammer" Trump said
And who stopped it? 3gDL, that's who.
* Third-generation Dear Leader
