People instinctively push buttons. I am not sure why. Perhaps we marvel at the results. But relationships can suffer.
Our fascination with buttons starts innocently enough. Toddler toys sport buttons of all sorts. Animal heads pop up, sounds abound and giggles burst forth.
We move on to doorbell buttons, pushing them repeatedly until Mommy yells. I was born long enough ago to push Auntie’s light switch buttons. The top button was “on,” the bottom one “off.” Auntie tolerated my persistence . . . until Mommy yelled.
Other fond memories include Uncle Rube’s antique Chevy with the pushbutton start and Mammaw sewing buttons on sweaters while watching her “stories” – soaps. My daughters argued over who got to push the next elevator button. Oh, the magic of buttons. (Their bickering pushed my buttons!)
Some folks still push my buttons:
The KNOW-IT-ALL button – I get somewhat annoyed when people fancy themselves authorities of what they are not. Often they are mere know-a-tads. As an attorney, the self-anointed Clarence Darrows especially unnerve me. I could be wrong, but my view is that watching an episode or two of Perry Mason, reading the latest John Grisham tale or filling in blanks on a store-bought Will kit don’t equate law school.
The INTERRUPTUS button – There are folks who inadvertently interrupt, truly thinking I have finished my sentence. No worries. Then there are the habitual ones who think they know where my sentences are going. They’re inevitably incorrect. They’re also rude.
The SEMANTIC ANTICS button – No less than two antagonists in my life persist in strutting about to the squawking of their self-imagined skill of word analysis. I am an attorney and journalist myself, so I can pick nits with the best of them. But only when it truly matters. Their nonsensical habit gives me a rash.
The BONEHEAD TONE button – Some speak as though a tone-deaf geranium is manning their internal soundboard. They speak with either a boom-box bass or an about-to-throw-a-piston-rod treble. The volume is pushing woofers to the max, with reverb set at exaggerated echo. I push index fingers into my ears and chant “na, na, na, na, na, na, na . . . I can’t hear you!”
The STOOGE button – Curlys and Shemps of the world bring out the Moe in me. You know the type. The eight year old in an age 40 body, who mocks your words, actions and misperceived body language. His or her mockery magnifies the mundane to ultimate peeving. As a closet stooge myself, I want to poke them in the eye, slap their scalp and twist their ear. They might respond with a nyah, nyah, nyah or a whoop, whoop, whoop, to which I would shout “Why, I oughta!”
The CHARLIE BROWN button – Someone very dear has mastered the art of derailing me with two sarcastic words. Her “good grief” instantly irritates me plumb down to the bowels. Every word she mutters thereafter sound akin to Charlie Brown’s teacher – “fwanh, fwanh, fwanh, fwanh, fwanh.”
Petty? Yep.
Buttons – tiny round pieces of plastic – relatively worthless in and of themselves. But they serve the worthy purpose of keeping things fastened. I will never understand fully why humans insist upon playing with buttons, pulling on them and pushing on them until they break, pop off and reveal what is better kept covered.
© Russ Riddle. All rights reserved.