Having a job to do

Some things really hack me off. Occasionally, in the middle of a relatively sedate and otherwise unremarkable conversation -- or even a meal time, someone in the room finds an opportunity to deliberately misunderstand something somebody else said. Not just that, they deliberately choose to make their own apparent understanding of what they heard distinctly unsavoury, do it in a way that the rest of the room can hear their 'take' on the conversation, even when it is grotesquely inappropriate to the subject and the setting. They seem to think that the guffaws and bursts of laughter that follow somehow justify their behaviour. There always has to be somebody doesn't there? What really hacks me off is -- why, why on earth is it always left to me to be the one who does it? Why can't they take that responsibility for themselves? Honestly, I don't know how they would survive without me voluntarily shouldering that burden.

Sadly, a couple of the residents with intriguing attention spans and/or cognitive quirks seem to have a slightly erroneous understanding of what the original laugh was all about but, because people laughed, it was obviously funny, so they will mention one of the words used at odd intervals, not always the same word, waiting for the response that never comes. Except, of course, from one or more of those other, similarly mis-oriented residents. Surreal? It is to this resident but I keep that thought myself. I don't think they're ready for me to try and explain that to them.