Cherry Pop

People who mishear things drive me round the bend. But it goes much deeper than that, and I need to be more specific: I’m talking about those people who not only mishear things, but then misinterpret their meaning. Within minutes a chain of events has been set in to motion that can not be stopped. After some time things can spiral wildly out of control–

Take my colleague at work, for example. His name is Lenny. I have nothing against Lenny. He’s a nice man with a good heart. But Lenny is impossible. No matter how much I enunciate my words or explain things to him, he will misinterpret it. Recently the following happened:

I had been to a meeting about Team building. Lenny had missed it (he’d been looking after his mother who had probably got sick due to Lenny mis-interpreting something) and came and asked me what the meeting was about. Sweating and scared for my safety, I looked him in the eye and said, “OK Lenny, are you listening?” As ever, he said, “Yes, of course”. This prompted me to pull the shirt from my back and say “You say that–but last time you said that you remember what happened?” Lenny smiled menacingly: “That was a one-off,” he said confidently. I said, “Let’s hope so”. So I bit the bullet: “THE MEE-TING WAS IN THERE AND IT WAS ABOUT TEAM BUILDING”, I said clearly. Lenny said, “Team building, fine”. Then he walked away.

Two hours later I was up against the wall with a work-mates hands around my neck. Let me tell you, there was nothing affectionate about it. “Did you say I was having an affair with Sheena Wielding?” he asked. And then the penny dropped. The guy’s name was Ling and I should have been much more careful–