Recently, friends of mine were affected by a fire. They're fine. But what was probably your initial, perfectly natural reaction ("Dear God, a fire!!" or "AIIIIIIEEEEE!!!") to that information is kind of what I'm talking about. This fire caused enough havoc to cause a social gathering to be postponed. Today, I found myself communicating with a mutual friend who hadn't heard about the postponement or the reason why it was necessary. My dilemma was how to discuss the subject without freaking them out:
- "First of all, don't worry, everybody is fine..." Nope, that won't work.
- "Well, did you see that fire on the news the other night?" Uh-uh
- "There was...an incident" Too vague, sure to induce panic
- "There was a fire. So no party." Too blunt, and more than a tad insensitive to boot
- "Since the dawn of time, man has struggled to control the power of flame. Many times, he has failed..." Too dramatic
- "I guess if you think having a party is something that people who are putting their lives back together after a fire would enjoy..." Too passive aggressive
- "Fire! Bad! Arrrghh!!" Too Frankenstein
Fortunately, there had been an email that explained the whole situation and this person hadn't seen it yet. So I was able to defer to that saying, "oh yeah, we're not getting together tonight...it's all in the email." Whew! If that hadn't been the case, I still don't know how I would have gotten out of that one.
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3 comments:
"Mouth writing". That's great -- and with more truth in it than people realize.
I once had to tell an actor friend that while he was on stage, his car, parked in front of the theater, had been broken into. My lead-in: "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but..." Classic example of poor mouth writing.
I think it was ridiculous that they cancelled the party. I really wanted some bean dip. Fire shmire, I say.
"Do you have a minute? When you're in a place where you won't embarrass me by over reacting, we need to chat."
How's that?
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