WHAT CAN I SAY?

Have you ever found yourself in the position where that was your only real response to a problem? I think it normally happens mainly when somebody is pissed about a problem and knows you can’t change things, but wants an opportunity to gripe just the same.

And believe me I get more than my share of these moments as Mayor. Most of the time I don’t mind listening. But the one thing I do have to be concerned with is when the person becomes addicted to knowing I’ll listen.

That’s because they are so starved for attention that they start expecting me to listen to problems that have to do with life in general and not just related to anything in our city. Those are the ones I have to try and put the brakes on since I don’t care to let them get carried away in that regard. Otherwise sooner or later they end up gradually drifting from real problems to imagined ones. And I for one am not interested in somebody else’s paranoid ramblings over things like shadow governments, the infamous “they” or even some supposed conspiracy involving alleged aliens who the person is convinced has a secret arrangement with the government.

But outside of those incidents I don’t get to bored taking time to listen when somebody in my employ or a concerned voter wants to vent a thought or two about life in our city. It actually shows me that they are paying attention to his or her surroundings. Which in Mediocrity is truly amazing since most people couldn’t even tell you the headline story on a given day that appeared in our local paper.

What I appreciate is that this is not the only place in the world where life my dwell in a state of constant comatose awareness. Like that little stab at a poetic comment? Well I tried at least.

Anyway my inherit struggle is to walk the tightrope between action and in-action. To listen and yet know when my only real question to a given situation is “what can I say?” And that is the place where I balance myself by shear experience.

Plus a little common sense too. To give you an example then let me just show you how I categorize the times I know for sure to ask this question. To start with it would apply to any meeting with the following people, Colonel Stickemstill who wants to carpet bomb everything just on general principal, the Reverend Analbe who wants to eliminate all fun in the world and Lance Allworthy just because he is a pain in the butt.

Those examples are easy to deal with. I can count on them bringing me a totally worthless observation about something that can’t honestly be changed. As for the rest of my community, well they vary. And it does take some time in certain situations to ferret out those who fall in this “what can I say” category.

I have just learned there are more of them than the ones that bring me a problem I can help with. And even fewer who drop by that also offer to actually help with the problem. I only wish that was the majority of the time when I could ask “what can I say” out of admiration for somebody actually volunteering to solve problem.

Alas it is the stuff of dreams in my case. Hopefully it will happen in my lifetime. Probably about the same time I win the lottery.