K-Mac* walks into the room and says to me “I…”

Though brainstorming a foolproof plan for replacing money with macaroni, I magnanimously put a bookmark in my thoughts. I wait. Seemingly, days go by but in reality it’s more like freeze-dried seconds placed in a microwave where they explode into fat, soggy minutes and somehow morph into a mind-numbing vision of endless box cars on a 14-mile freight train rolling through a railroad crossing in Forever, North Dakota at two miles an hour.

Finally, I say “Er, what?”

She stops. Puts a finger to pursed lips, rolls eyes up into her hair and, in an “Aha!” moment look—nearly identical to the “Wow, I could have had a Glock 19” look—she shakes her head and says “Never mind, I answered my own question.” She then turns and walks out of the room.

I chase her with quivering exclamation points. “Wait! Wait! I didn’t hear the answer! I didn’t even hear the question!”

“Never mind,” she sings sweetly.

But I proceed to mind with extreme prejudice. I feel as if a quarter has been dropped into a slot in my ear. Like one of those coin-operated vibrating beds in a cheap motel room, I start to tremble. A tic of despondency starts winking my right eye, which is not my normal despondent-winking eye. Confused, my mental bookmark disappears like a banjo pick dropped into the cheese fondue.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that you can’t just casually tease someone with the foreplay (and presumption of duringplay and afterplay) of intellectual frenzy and then squirt the cold water of Never Mind on the conversational wildfire hitherto ignited.

You can’t!

So don’t!

But you still do!

Look, I realize that you can’t fight city hall and that the Never Mind community maintains a huge lobby (with that hideous water fountain and the snippy coat check lady). But being never-minded does more to get my undies in a knot than hearing the flossing lecture from the dentist while my mouth is wide open but incapable of saying anything but Grgleglah.

So I am looking for financial backers to start up a system called NMT (Never Mind This). It would take advantage of the same video replay technology now used by MLB, the NFL and NSA. It requires a very modest cash outlay for video cameras, microphones, a booth for examining replays and labor. Let’s say 50k. A mere bag of shells.

Here’s how it would work: each occupant of a home gets one challenge per day upon hearing the words “Never Mind.” Both parties go immediately to the replay booth where the most recent conversation is replayed in high-def, slo-mo, museum-quality Cinerama with ear-wax rattling surrounded-and-doomed-to-deafness sound.

If the video shows the accused never-minder saying something that any reasonable person would agree requires no further explanation (“I wonder if the world will explode today…” or “Do you think this sweater shows too much…”) then the never mind is upheld. (Note: reasonable person availability varies in some midwestern states and Utah.)

However, if four words or fewer have been spoken (i.e., “Where are the bullets…” or “Wanna get lucky…” or “What the…” or “I…”) then the never-minder has to tell the never-mindee what it is that one is supposed to never mind. Has to. Not kidding here.

Fair and reasonable, no? By the way, if you don’t have the 50k, um, well, never mind.

*My love interest, previously known as K*t**r*n* who prefers readers not know it’s her appearing here unwillingly/unpaid/unlawyered-up.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.