In one of the rare human disorders that is actually more painful for one's friends and loved ones than it is for the actual sufferer themselves, an area farm/ranch wife, Eunice Snopes, age 42, was tragically diagnosed with the dreaded 'Blabbermouthicus Obnoxicus' - also known as the "Why can't she just shut the heck up for 1/2 a second, for Pete's sake!' disease- an all too common ailment in certain rural segments of the Palouse. The victim, Eunice, from the moment she wakes up until several hours after she falls a sleep at night, (including eating, brushing her teeth and taking her weekly shower) is seemingly forced to comment on any old thought that pops into her shockingly disorganized head, regardless of it's relevance to actual events happening around her and irrespective of who happens to be in the same room at the time."Oh, the humanity! My ears! My ears, I say!" said a local man who just stopped by to return a garden rake. "Oh, that was horrible! Why can't human beings shut their ears like they can shut their eyes, for goodness sake? What a tragic design flaw that is!" said the now traumatized yet genuinely quizzical man. "I was only in the room with that woman for 45 minutes (That seemed more like 45,000!) before fleeing in blind, self-preserving terror after being bombarded by a seemingly endless stream of mindless drivel, unrelated trivia, mundane observations, endless stories with no overlap to my life or personal experience and a quite breathless encore 'stream of consciousness' that will take me a dadburn month to get out of my doggone head! Half way thru that random and merciless diatribe she even started coughing and that didn't slow her down one bit - like a semi-truck hitting a wind-blown plastic shopping bag on the Interstate or something! And the more she coughed the more she wanted to talk - like it was a bitter battle between ancient enemies or whatever! (No wonder her husband has feigned deafness since 1992!) All I wanted to do was return that dadburn rake! That should have been a 30 second transaction - AT THE MOST!! Next Fall I will just pick up those stupid leaves by hand rather than expose myself to that auditory torture chamber again!" whined the cheapskate who needs to buy his own garden tools! "And why did she have to tell me about her corns and how she had to get special shoes for her niece's wedding even though the niece is in 'the motherly way' and will probably show in that 'too tight dress' of hers? (and the dress is white, too!). Some things a man should just not know!!!" he bellowed insanely!
"Well, I believe the Good Lord gave us two ears and only one mouth for a reason!" said an area 'man of the cloth' (from a neighboring town). "One does not have to venture very far into the Book of Proverbs to find dozens and dozens of pearls of wisdom about the sanctity of keeping ones lips closed, but sadly many people in this day and age fail to follow the Good Book's prescriptions in that regard. If I had a dollar for every time one of my flock came to me on the verge of tears, longing for an end to this bitter world because some spouse or relative or whatever was a 'non-stop talker', we could build that new addition to the church I have been dreaming about!" he gushed sagely and with only a tinge of avarice! "But instead, I am reduced to listening to these outrageously meaningless ramblings second hand until the poor soul can get it out of their system! It can really try a man's faith, let me tell you! And sadly, after many of these episodes I am forced to unburden myself on my wife, which more often than not just starts the whole vicious cycle once again! Oh, these are the times that try men's souls! Silence is golden! Why can't we all just see that and only talk when we have something meaningful to say?"
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