There is a species amongst us I’ll just refer to as the “blowhard.” Its sole function in its less than meaningful existence is to fill a room with hot air and make itself known, usually for no other reason than to say, “Hey, don’t ignore me.”
Blowhards can be dangerous and they’re everywhere. Experts in anything and everything, legends in their own minds. They can make you lose focus if you let them, and make common sense a lost commodity. They do it by being loud, obnoxious and …listened to. Without attention, they’re mundane.
Seamus has a streak of Blowhard in him. Though he can’t speak – at least not with words – he can interrupt, take the attention away from others and squarely put it on himself. He’ll do it with a bark, a whine or just by rubbing himself against you or walking under your hand as your arm hangs over the arm of a chair.
The motivation of a Blowhard is self-gratification … usually profit of some kind. If you’re around a Blowhard long enough, you realize he or she has a short memory – what they’re experts in today can change tomorrow, depending the crowd. Theirs is not to contribute, rather to be heard.
Blowhards, of course, have a function. Blowhards can be entertaining. The next fishing show you attend, check out the hawker with the biggest crowd around him. It will probably be someone selling something “you just can’t live without.” The thing that will turn your kitchen into a place of technological enlightenment. You know, the knife that cuts through bricks. You can throw all other knives away, you only need this one…the thing is I just don’t eat many bricks and the fish I clean aren’t that tough.
Gotta go, Seamus just made his way under my desk and is pushing me back.
THD