My father would have been 85 today. Beyond the initial smile his memory conjures for me, my next thought--obviously, selfishly-- is, man, I'm getting old. One thing he liked to say (well, probably not liked, more like, couldn't help but) was, "Stop that! You're making me nervous," usually when I was doing something mindlessly repetitive like shaking my leg under a table. Not nervous like, oh no, I can't possibly speak in front of five hundred people, but nervous like You're Getting On My Nerves Here. I guess I'm sorry for provoking this outburst enough that I remember it so keenly, but how was a young kid to know, in his naturally solipsistic way, that one's inane actions could so irk someone else? In a way, though, I'm grateful. Operating under the assumption that nothing exists without the words that name it, without the memory of my father's momentarily fraying nerves I might have gone through life unaware of all the myriad things that can truly bug the hell out of me. Such ignorance would have made for a decidedly less colorful, more apathetic life. Naturally, armed with this genetic memory, I soon found myself echoing my father. But I always honored him whenever some student of mine was doing something stupid like constantly tapping an empty water bottle on her desk: "Hey Sara(h), as my father used to say, 'You're making me nervous. Cut it out.'" Ah, the tree-hugging fallen apple.
So, as a paean to dad and the wonderful phenomenon of genetic transmission, I offer this bit of poetic whimsy. May it also serve as fair warning if you should ever enter my sphere of existence.
You're Making Me Nervous Here, You With...
Your faintest threats of bagpipes,
Your stubborn cotton wads blocking my path to much-needed aspirin,
Your ravenous clawing through your crypt-like purse looking for three pennies with which to make exact change; I've got plenty of change right here in the register but hardly enough serenity for this transaction,
Your scraggly, starter's-kit moustache,
Your jukebox punching up of Journey,
Your insistence, anywhere but on the first tee, whenever your ball is playable, if not desirably so, on pulling one more out of your pocket and declaring, so dismissively of rules and etiquette, "I'm gonna hit another one,"
Your mildly tapping of my shoulder for emphasis when we've known each other for all of two minutes,
Your failure to flush,
Your neglect of your turn signal,
Your private cellphone conversations conducted so publicly loud,
Your cats,
Your own over-active nerves.
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