When I was a teenager we had one phone in our house.  It was in the kitchen.  So, almost every time I was on the phone with a girlfriend, it seemed that my mother was washing dishes or tidying up ten feet away.  The strangest thing happens to kids whose mother’s are around a lot.  They forget that they are there.  It happens in carpool, too.  The kids start talking and before you know it—-they have blabbed the whole enchilada about the teachers and the dweebs—-much to both the horror and relief—of the person who appears to be ‘just driving the car”.

So, at about the time I entered junior high school,  my mother was getting an earful. I had discovered the phone as my new lifeline.   It never occurred to me that she was listening until she started making this loud MEEEEEE-OOOOWWWWWW noise.  She sounded like our cat with its tail caught in the screen door.  I would talk again.  She would CAT ATTACK again.  After one particular phone call, of incessant CAT CALLING, enough was enough.   That’s when she explained that she was being “catty”, just like me. 

GOSSIP is something usually attributed to women.  But plenty of men do it too; they are just more mono-syllabic about it.  Husbands and wives do it with each other about other husbands and wives. Columnists and entertainment shows make fortunes touting REAL or RUMOR.   And, if you have happened upon THE REAL HOUSEWIVES of ATLANTA, NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES or now, NEW JERSEY—-on the way to CNN,  HOME SHOPPING, or the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNNEL (or me, on HGTV)—you know all that gossip and back-biting is what they promote on these silicone support groups and raunchy displays of clever, competitive conversations.  This hissing vitriol is considered “content”. 

Gossip is like a hand gun.  The only reason to buy into it—is to hurt someone.  There is a tone of voice that goes with gossip. We all know what it sounds like.  We lean into it to participate, out of reflex.  But as one friend said to me, after her phone had inadvertently recorded one of her catty conversations with a friend—–as she replayed it—thinking she was going to listen to several messages—-at first, it stunned her.  She almost did not recognize the mean-spirited voice.  Who could possibly be so cruel?  She could.  It made her cry, listening to this voice—the voice of someone she could not stand.

So, think about what might be true for you.  When the juicy tidbits are flowing, when “the girls” get together, when you could be the center of “breaking news” about someone’s life that is flying into a million bits—–before you open your mouth (and shut off your heart) here is what gossip really means.  

GO—SIP………from the poisoned cup.