Something

Current mood: I am Jack's Listening Skillz

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Listener

After reading this article about how to be a good listener, I really wanted to practice. This desire came out of nowhere, maybe because the article is slanted to make you feel like an inadequate listener.

So I took a walk at midnight, contemplating the mistakes of the day. To be honest, today was amazing, but I stepped out of line a lot. I'm quite the screw-up.

The walk calmed my nerves. I saw a dumpster and leafed through it and found a metal case for catching tennis balls. Awesome. I took it and walked on and saw an old man dumpster diving in another dumpster across the parking lot.

I decided to talk to him, to tell him there were probably other good things in the first dumpster, to be a nice guy. I've been working on being more polite too. He told me that he was looking for scrap metal to sell and then started talking about how he couldn't get enough money on a small senior citizens check.

I thought, Perfect! Even though he's a stranger, I can practice my listening and polite skills. The man went on to say that people from the East Coast had invaded Arizona, stripped us of our natural resources and destroyed this state.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He started talking about the materials to make cars and how Henry Ford made good cars, but GM made shitty cars because they imported their metal from some evil factory in Germany, meaning GM is Nazi owned. (His assumption, not mine).

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He started talking to me about how stupid women are, especially the ones on the bus because they all believe that sex is money and that they don't have jobs or cars because they are on the bus. The man told me how he likes to start conversations with women about their jobs and then laughs when they tell him they have cars and houses. He asks them "what would you do if an asteroid the size of Jupiter was heading toward a collision course towards the Earth?"
I decided to use my listening skills and asked, "Well, what would YOU do?"
He snorted and said, "Well, I've tried to talk to people about the UFO, but no one listens."
"Wait, what?"

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me that Hitler was crazy and evil and that killing the Jews was still okay, because they were criminals. He told me that some Egyptian Pharaoh predicted the Holocaust, so did Buddha, so did Jesus. He told me that the Jews were killed because they HAD to be with God. It was destiny.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He said something about how NASA is imperialistic and Nazi owned, and the rockets are made of sand and aluminum and that's why they blow up so much, because the Nazi's couldn't make good machines.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me everyone on Earth is stupid. Why? Because if you asked them what 2x4 is they will answer 8. He told me it's actually 3. Using my listening skills, I asked him to explain. He pointed to a car tire. "360º, right? Well, that's natural and consistent so you don't multiply, you DIVIDE. You divide by three because that's human nature, and you get 90º."

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me human beings only care about sex and they are evil and perverted.
But at this point it was almost too hard to keep from laughing, and I was feeling stupidly uncomfortable. So I kept looking for an exit. I told him, "Wow, that's a lot to think about, but what time is it? Midnight? Oh, wow, I gotta go. It was nice talking to you, Mr. . ."
He said, "My name? Well, you know my uncle, don't you?"
"No, who's your uncle?"
"King Basha. He's a Pharaoh and he owns Bashas." He babbled off a lot of grammar and geography and then told me, "That makes me King Lasbahs."
I said, "Goodnight, King Lasbahs. I will talk to you later."
He screamed after me, "People evolved from monkies, and you wonder what aliens look like and why they don't talk to assholes!"

So maybe that was not the best way to practice my listening skills.
The funniest thing is, I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he wasn't the crazy one, and it was I with the skewed sense of perception. I'm left with a lot more questions than answers, except for one definitive truth, which I choose not to share.