Rumor Has It

Rumor Has It.

Rumor has it. Rumor has what? It has the power to ruin a reputation. It has the power to make people who would never think bad things about you think bad things about you. A rumor in the mouth of somebody who looks wonderful, magnificent, truthful, and trust worthy is absolutely awful. You wonder why I am on this rant about rumors? 

Here’s the deal. A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend and she said something about someone else (not me) and I’m like oh my gosh how could that be! I can’t believe it! My friend looked at me and laughed and said, “It’s just a rumor, I don’t know if it’s true or not.” I was a little upset that it might not be true. Maybe it was. So I continued on with the conversation about the person, adding my own unkindnesses. After I got a really good piece of my mind spewed out like molten lava, I saw the look on my friend’s face and figured I better just stop talking. So I did and I went home. But I couldn’t get the rumor out of my head. I shared it with everyone. I called my mom, I called my great aunt Sally and my uncle Fred. It was the most wonderful feeling. I was sharing something and giving information to the whole world nobody else knew but me, and the friend that shared it with me and of course whoever shared it with her and so on and so on. I enlarged this wonderful rumor every time I told it. Just a little. Enough to make someone’s eyes widen with surprise and perhaps disgust. 

I couldn’t sleep at night just thinking about who I would tell next. My days were getting weird. Work was getting to be a hassle. No one seemed to want to talk to me. They started walking the other way when I even got close. My friend started avoiding me for some reason and that did hurt my feelings a little but honestly I only cared about getting the truth out. People should know just how mean and rotten so and so really was. I listened in on other peoples conversations, just in case they knew more than me and if they had the slightest tidbit of something new about so and so, I would spread that as fast as I could. I was a blaze to share anything that would make someone take notice of me. I started to believe the rumor was truth. I never once paused long enough to find out if anything I was saying was true. I suppose I just wanted to feel important.

Funny thing about that. I did feel important. So important in fact, I started other rumors. They were tiny at first and a little bit cute. People laughed and tried to get more information out of me. I pretended I knew even more juicy details and just wouldn’t tell. It was fun. It became a game I knew I would win.

Then just two days ago someone came up to me, in my favorite tiny Italian restaurant, whom I didn’t know. I was sidetracked from the most delicious entree of spaghetti and meatballs. Sidetracked enough to let him sit down across from me without even asking his name. He was so handsome and so polite. Then out of nowhere he was talking about someone with my name, my name! He said he had heard a rumor, a really juicy rumor, about this person. He talked about me like he had known me all my life. In fact he even had info about my childhood, like the time I twisted my ankle and no one believed me until the swelling was the size of a softball, and the year I made cheerleader and everyone laughed because I was overweight.

I tried to find out who he was, where he came from, how he knew about this person (about me). He just kept on talking. He said things that weren’t quite right. Things that weren’t true at all. And he laughed. I started getting mad, I mean like really mad. I stood up and looked him in his eyes and I said, “Those things aren’t true!” He didn’t care. He didn’t care one bit and he walked away from me with a little sneer. I watched him sit down at a table nearby and start talking to someone; saying the same things he said to me , things that I had never done, things I never said. I was furious. Then my friend joined them at the table. I mean she joined in on bashing me, laughing and being mean. I didn’t know what to do. It was absurd. My friend glanced over at me then whispered something into that rumor monger’s ear. He looked up and nodded his head, got up and wandered over and sat down at another table, probably to spread more rumors. My friend snubbed her nose at me and walked out of the room. I didn’t even know how to feel. It was awful. I got out of there, although I did get a to go box. I walked the short five blocks home. I totally forgot about the rumor I was perpetuating. It didn’t matter anymore but it also didn’t register on my brain that what that man had been saying about me was the same thing I’d been saying about so-and-so. I knew I had to confront my friend. There was no way I was going to let these rumors about me go on and if she knew that guy she better tell me. No one was going to ruin my reputation. I got home and crawled into bed and lay awake all night, plotting what I was going to do and what I was going to say to my friend, now that she was no longer my friend, and everyone else. I actually enjoyed thinking of all the things I was going to say to them.

I still had to go to work the next morning so after I got dressed, ate a decent breakfast, and drove into work I felt like I was prepared for the day. What I was not prepared for with seeing that man sitting in my office. He looked up and smiled at me and stuck out his hand. He introduced himself as my new boss. I was flabbergasted. How on earth could I tell him off now! This was not going to be a good day. About lunchtime my friend walked through the door. She smiled so sweetly at me and walked over to my new boss and handed him a piece of paper. He took it and read it like it was incredibly important, then looked at me. He wagged this finger at me, the one that says get over here now. So I did. My friend stood there with some weird look on her face as the guy opened up the piece of paper so I could see what was on it. In giant letters there was one word, Intervention.

Well it worked. Rumor-intervention worked. Do you want to know what the rumor was that I spread? Or perhaps you’d rather know what the rumor was about me. Well, I’m not going to tell you because I found out it’s a much better life when my lips are sealed.