Vernon SikesPicture this.
You're a newspaper reporter and your stories are due to go to press in 15 minutes.
You and your fellow reporters are busily typing up their stories in their work stations.
All's running like a well-oiled machine as the clicking of the computer keyboards fills the newsroom.
Life is good and today's blue-plate special is going to taste soooo good in less than 15 minutes.
And then it happens!
Oh, no!!! she screams as those around her suddenly jerk in startled fear of whatever travesty might have befallen her.
“Her computer has crashed,” one colleague imagines.
“She just got an emergency telephone call from home,” another considers.
“Could her keyboard have caught her hands somehow and mangled them into unrecognizable blobs on the end of her arms? still another surmises.
“What in the name of good sense and productivity is the matter?” yells the screamer's neighbor as he rushes to her assistance.
“I forgot to set my DVR to record “The Young and the Restless” today!”
Surely, there have been government-funded studies surrounding the impact sudden shrieks such as that of the aforementioned female have on those subjected to such senseless and totally unnecessary hollering.
Bellowin' might be a more applicable description.
It would have been totally different if the interruption had been worthy of its decibel reading, which would have rivaled that of a car lot's TV ad during an episode of “The Soothing Peace and Quiet of Oil Painting.”
True. Nobody in the newsroom went into cardiac arrest or had other immediate medical complications as a result of the reporter's thundering, but it's highly likely nerves were rattled to the point of loss of focus, thereby leading to loss of precious moments leading to deadline, and a total loss of understanding how anyone can react so violently over such triviality.
Women are more prone than men to succumb to exaggerated expressions of dismay, i.,e., sudden shouts of alarm, over basically trivial matters.
It doesn't take a 20-car pile or news of massive starvation in Outer Machovia to get a woman to bellowin'. It can be a insignificant as a run in her stocking to initiate the “Oh, no!!!!” yell.
Or “I forgot to add creamer to my coffee!!!”
Or “I forgot all about the exterminator coming today!!!”
Or “Did I take out the roast to defrost?!!”
Or a bug on the wall.
Or raindrops on her glasses.
Or the price of rice in China.
They all qualify for a blood-curdlin' scream that's guaranteed to have some kind of long-range effect on the psychological well-being of those around her.
Sexist though it may sound, you don't find too many man who are so high-strung. About the most you'll get from men upon a sudden realization any of the above situations is a very low-key “Hum! Now would you just take a look at that!”
That's the way God made us, though. And whatever our failings, it does us all well to remember that He doesn't make any junk.