Hush!

I am often told I speak softly. Too softly, in fact. So softly that I cannot be heard at times, apparently. I’m flattered, though, that people are unhappy they can’t hear me and it isn't the other way around.

I know my habit has irritated many who have had the misfortune of sitting across me in a lengthy conversation. I didn’t know it was another thing I could irritate people with. It almost excited me when I learnt about it first.

It takes so little to annoy people, sometimes.

I, for example, get irritated by the exact opposite— someone talking loudly. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why someone has to scream on top of their lungs, when I’m so close to them that I can see their uvula tremble with fear every time they open their mouth. Like a dog that gets startled by its own fart.

My friend’s father, once told a man who was talking very loudly on the phone— “You don’t really need the phone, do you?”.

My father once told two people who were unbearably loud in a seat next to him— “Hey you guys, don’t fight. C’mon.”

Are fathers like that? It does feel like an ‘old man’ thing, getting annoyed by someone speaking loudly. I’m not a father. Even though I’m a very old man, approaching my mid thirties.

It probably takes years of internalising an annoyance to turn it into sarcasm.

I want to be an old man with the patience of a three year old.

Guess I’m ready to be a father.