The Right Question

One problem my determination can't solve is the way people think of me.  I know I have a reputation for lacking the ready response, but it's undeserved.  It's just that none of my friends are around when somebody throws the right question at me. 

Really, I know all sorts of things: the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, when to plant cockscomb seeds, the divorce laws in New Jersey, and when the next eclipse is due.  Without the least coaxing, and sometimes in the face of outright opposition, I will inform people that Uriah S. Stephens formed the Knights of Labor in 1869, Anteros was the Greek god of unrequited love, and that the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is four light years away.  I can work algebraic equations, diagram noun clauses, and put out grease fires.  I have at my fingertips an astonishing amount of useful information; it is exceeded only by my inordinate knowledge of things that nobody, least of all me, will ever put to use.  But somewhere along the way I failed to learn how to answer the questions people do ask.

For instance, I have no trouble getting to Route 38.  I can drive to it blindfolded, as I have proven on many a foggy night.  But just let somebody ask me how to get there!  Blank.  I haven't the faintest idea of the names of the backroads I take.  I can show people, mind you, but I can't tell them. 

I try, of course.  But by the time I reach the third landmark to look for on the second nameless street, I know I'm a voice in the wilderness.  So I give up.  "You can't get there from here," I explain, "but try anyway."

If that were the only kind of question I found a conversation stopper, I might still get by.  But people just don't come up to me and ask what's the difference between a tendon and a ligament.  No, they want to what I've been doing with myself. 

Suddenly, I fall silent.  I brood.  What have I been doing with myself?  I am seized by the unaccountable fear that I've been so busy doing something or other I've forgotten to notice what it was.  So I take a deep breath.  "I teach school," I begin tentatively.

"Yes, dear."  They smile and look patient.

"And I clean the house sometimes."

The smile begins to look strained.

"And the other day I cut my toenails.  Or was that last week?"

"Well," they say, "you are on the go.  Drop around if you have the time; it was nice talking to you."

And they walk away, sometimes cautiously, sometimes quickly.  It takes me a good half hour to recover from a conversation like that.  How long it takes them, I don't know.  I don't usually hear from them again.

On the other hand, I do prove my worth now and then.  Once somebody came running up to me and asked, "Where were you?  You were supposed to meet me at the park forty minutes ago!"

That time I knew the answer.  "I didn't get there yet.  But I will soon."

As long as they ask the right question, I'm okay.