'Show Off'

Imagine yourself running up the side of a mountain. Not terribly fast, but relatively quickly and completely under control.

Now, imagine seeing a pedestrian coming down toward you. Imagine this man looking at you strangely. Imagine yourself greeting this man with a friendly, "hello. enjoying the day?"

Now, what if the 'man' responded, "show off".

Fast forward 10 days. You are running up a lesser mountain. It is still a climb of a few miles within the frame work of a gentle 18 miler on the trails. You bee-boppin' along and in your own blissful existence. Now, you hear some noise... 'what is that? music? singing? music and singing?' You turn the corner and see a man and his boy approaching down the hill. They are blaring their voices to the sound of a portable music device. Some generic 80's rock 'n' roll is crackling the cheap Chinese speakers. The anthem is being enjoyed glaringly by the two 'hikers'.

You are now a few steps from them. The proximity demands a greeting.

You ask, "How are you?"

The 'man' responds, "show off."

Now maybe you could say something back. Maybe you could allow this man his defense mechanism against whatever he feels he needs to defend. Maybe you could wait to return to the desktop and blog against this type of psychology. Just what is going on here?

My guess is that each of these subject's lives has been full of missed opportunities, poor choices and a heap of dreams piled out front of the proverbial mobile home. Of course, I am just speculating here. This is simply a brainstorm exercise. I don't know what would cause anybody to say such a thing. Maybe it was a joke? Maybe this is diarrhea of the mouth... but each subject has said the exact same thing. Next time I will just stop, eat a cheeseburger, sing an AC/DC tune and put down anything remotely resembling an achievement. Yeah... that'll be great!