Brain Bits To Go

Overheard On Holiday

“You seem irritable today.”

“I’m not irritable, I’m irritated.”

“I would think that if you weren’t irritable, you wouldn’t be irritated.”

“If you would stop irritating me, then I wouldn’t be irritated.”

“Well, if you weren’t irritable, you wouldn’t find me irritating.”

“You are irritating me because you are an irritant, not requiring any pre-existing irritability on my part.”

“That, is exactly the sort of thing an irritable person would say, especially if they were trying to deny their basic irritability.”

“Do you want to know what would make me less irritable?”

“What?”

“Punching you until you stop talking. If that’s not something you fancy at the moment; you could just go away and stop talking to me until I feel less irritated.”

“Seems a bit of an over-reaction. Besides, how am I supposed to know when you’re less irritated if I’ve gone away?”

“I swear, punching you is sounding like the better option right now.”

“There’s no call to raise your voice; or to punch me.”

“Why did you stop reading and start talking to me anyway?”

“You seemed a bit out of sorts so I thought I might help take you out of yourself a bit. Change the old mental wallpaper sort of thing.”

“Does that seem to be working for you?”

“Well, I suppose it has. I mean you’re so irritated with me you’ve probably forgotten what was on your mind earlier.”

“No, it hasn’t. Now I’m busy being annoyed with you, and I’m still thinking about the same thing as I was before you decided to irritate me.”

“Your tone is still a bit sharp you know.”

“You’re still talking to me, and that is still irritating me.”

“So, what’s on your mind that has you so out of sorts?”

“If I wanted to talk about it, I would’ve said, ‘Do you want to know what’s on my mind?’. Did you at any point in this conversation hear me ask you that?”

“Well, no, but you could’ve just been trying to be nice, not wanting to interrupt my book.”

“I certainly wish you hadn’t interrupted your book. My day would be going so much better if you were still reading instead of standing there irritating me.”

“You’re irritable. Exactly like I said before. You can try to make it my fault, but your emotional state is on you, not me.”

“I’m not irritated anymore.”

“Really? That changed quickly.”

“It wasn’t really that quick. It’s taken all this time to get from irritated to angry.”

“That’s why I wanted to change your mood. If you stay irritable for too long, it always changes to anger.”

“That’s because you ALWAYS irritate me until you make me angry!”

“Now you’re yelling again. There’s no talking to you when you’re in this kind of mood.”

“THAT’s literally what I’ve been telling you this whole time! Stop Talking!”

“I’m just trying to help!”

“No, you’re not. You’re trying to get me to say everything is fine even though it’s not, because every time I seem sad, or ‘out of sorts’, you feel guilty. You don’t want to help me; you want me to help you.”

“Because I’m the one who’s lashing out at people. Clearly, I’m the one with the issues right now.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you just letting this go before it turns into some huge fight over nothing?”

“Okay. I’ll just read my book and not say anything about anything.”

“Great!”

“Great!”

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Every day is a different challenge. Today called for creating a scene with only dialogue. No exposition. No dialogue tags.

I’d love to know what people think of this one.

Cheers,