Speech Therapy

As anyone who has talked to me for any period of time knows, I have something of an issue with speaking. Namely, that I don’t do it very well. In fact, I’m pretty darn horrible at transferring information via language. I tend to under-enunciate everything, whilst talking incredibly fast. Add to that a mild stutter that I develop whenever I get nervous or hyper, and it’s fair game as to whether anyone will be able to understand a single word out of my mouth on a given day.

I’ve made strides to correct this. When I think about it, I try to slow my speech down and avoid alliterative words that cause the stutter. Lately, I’ve even been working on the enunciation thing, so people can actually hear me from a distance greater than 0.32 feet away.

Sadly, these preventative steps do nothing for me when they are most needed. Because all these speaking issues really only come out in their full, painful glory when I’m very stressed out or nervous. And I ain’t got the time or composure to remember to slow my speech down when I’m tweaked out by the world at large.

So when my new job started to get me a little tense, man were we all in for a good time. But we’ll get to that in good time.

Because, oh yeah.

So there’s one other thing about my speech issues that I forgot to mention. And by “forgot” I mean “avoided talking about like one avoids the black plague, because it makes me look completely batshit insane.”

Sometimes, when I’m hyper or nervous (or just being myself in general) I talk very fast (as we’ve covered). The problem is that when I do this, occasionally I think to myself “Self, did what you just say make any sense?” And when I do, I have a little internal dialogue, wherein I repeat what I just said very quickly, to myself, in my head.

That’s normal, right?

Whatever, shut up, I’ve got miles to go here.

See, the problem is that when I do this, I sort of have the habit of silently but physically mouthing the words as I’m repeating them to myself. This is bad, you see, because this repetition happens to seamlessly follow the quick talking that I just did.

If you can imagine this, you would hear me say something unintelligible and incredibly fast, but sadly my lips would continue to move silently afterwards for some time. This gives me the effect of being the only human being in the entire world who is, in person, a badly dubbed Japanese film.

Sigh.

Let’s all pause for a moment to digest this little nugget of information before we move on.

Okay, so yeah. To recap: I’m a horrible speaker, especially in tense situations.

[Scene: It’s the first full week of Jason’s new job, 4:35pm. Jason is at his desk, writing three emails, sending out 2 faxes, and trying to make 3 calls (while learning how the new phone system works), all before 5:00pm. To put it mildly, Jason is tense.]

Jason [talking incredibly fast]: Hi, thanks for holding. So have you found those papers yet? [silently repeats to himself]

[In walks Jason’s boss]

Boss: Hey Jason, where are those papers at?!

Jason [on the phone, talking a bit, but not much, slower]: I’m sorry, I said ‘have you found those papers yet?’ [does the repeating thing]

Boss [misinterpreting the mouthing]: What was that Jason? I’m bad at reading lips.

[Jason cocks his head quizzically, completely oblivious to the fact that he has indeed become Reporter #3 from Godzilla Vs. Mothra]

Jason [still talking way too fast]: Oh good, well if you can fax them over here that’dbegreatthanks. [again with the mouthing]

Boss [confused]: What are you doing?

Jason [hangs up]: Hmm, I’m not doinganything, am I? [sigh. Does it again.]

Boss: There! What was that!

Jason [dawning comprehension, as this is not the first time his brain has betrayed him]: Oh! Umm….nothing. Really, just a habit….it’s nothing, really, I promise…[wanders off into unintelligible mutterings as he realizes this is helping nothing. Not that the muttering did him any favors.]

Boss [now believes Jason has truly gone batshit crazy]: Oohh-kay. Do you have those papers?

[Jason hands them over.]

Boss: Thanks.

[She slowly backs out of his office, apparently afraid to turn her back to the obviously insane new secretary she’s hired.]

[Jason dies]