insplanation.

Having just written about first impressions, I find it a seamless segue way to how you sometimes really can’t judge a book by its cover. I’ll vaguely allude to people in my office as inspiration+explanation (insplanation? Yes. I like it. Use it. It will catch on). Anyway…

Little old ladies are supposed to be adorable, moderately cranky to the point of being amusing, and pitied to an extent (because they will probably die before you). In a way, you assume they are as sweet as your very own grandmother or the kindly gentlemen in the Werther’s Original commercials of yore. I unfortunately assumed this and let my guard down. There is a woman I work with who looks and sometimes comes off as sweet as homemade apple pie. But underneath that homely façade, she is evil. She is so unpleasant and unfriendly that I don’t want anything to do with her until her retirement party… or possibly her wake.

What of the books that have covers somewhat similar to yours? Case in point: fellow gay at work. You might think that this common ground would serve as a connection that could make us office BFFs… But then I remembered the rainbow is the LGBT flag because it represents all of the differences prevalent in this community. Some of us are bright, beautiful and vibrant human beings… while others suck at life. It’s even worse when other office gay thinks that you have some reason to have any sort of conversation just because neither of us can play volleyball Top Gun style. The few times we have even run into each other at some gay bar, I avoid him like the plague.

Finally, the worst of this entirely library… You’ll see this particular coworker, and from a far he looks like a perfectly normal, middle aged man. Then you realize that every time he opens his mouth, somewhere an Amber alert goes off. This is the kind of creepy that makes you feel like a ghost just walked through your body (and touched you inappropriately on the way out). I’m not effing around. This guy makes me want to scour every post office in the Metroplex for his picture, call John Walsh, collect my reward, and then immediately take a Silkwood’s shower. And every time he talks about his ‘wife’ I just picture a dead body in a freezer. Bleck!

While I’m sure the phrase was coined to avoid prejudgment that would deprive you of meeting a really great person who may have an off-putting physical feature or unsteady gait, no one ever warns of the stinker books who happen to have moderately appealing or harmless looking covers. Well, consider this your warning… Also, to add insult to injury, all of these people are inept, not very good workers, and practically unemployable anywhere else.

PS – Use ‘insplanation’ today in a sentence.