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[What the hey; since I had another animal story handy, here's yet another entry for this month's What I Learned From Animals group writing project. If you've ever learned something from the animal kingdom, well, why don't you join us? Just click on that cute little link to read all the details!]

Give any thought lately to the amount of information people pick up about you, just by “listening in” to your words? Stuff like blogs, email, phone conversations, letters - it all contributes to the flow of information.

Psychotic Psychic Cats, and Other Strange Phenomena

Over the years we’ve had our share of critters, mainly cats and/or dogs. Oh, sure, when I was a kid I had the inevitable turtles, fish, and for a short while, a snake, but mainly we stuck to the mainstream, as it were.

One cat in particular, who Mrs. MZM and I named Cookie, was a real piece of work, I’ll tell ya. (She was very similar to the one in this photo.) She had some really, er, endearing personality quirks.

In fact, she had amazing psychic powers. No, really. For instance, like a magician, she could materialize me anytime she wanted, dragging me out of wherever I happened to be through some sort of wormhole or something.

Hey, don’t laugh - I’m serious! Here’s how it worked. Every day at precisely 5 minutes prior to my arrival home from work, she’d come out (from wherever it was in the apartment she spent her days), sit down in front of the door, and commence staring at it.

Presto! After 5 minutes or so of intense feline concentration, I’d magically appear at the door! Amazing, no? I imagine she thought she was pretty good at this sort of thing, in a “legend in her own mind” sortof way. (Come to think of it, I know some people like that. But I digress.)

Another thing she would do was, when I opened the door, she’d flop down on the floor, attempting to bar my path. She did this, of course, as a means to get my immediate attention. It always miffed her when I stepped over her to kiss Mrs. MZM first. (Jealousy comes easy to a cat, for whom the universe exists to serve.) As soon as I stopped moving, though, she’d be right there in front of me once again - and continue this routine until I stopped and gave her tummy a good rubbing.

But that’s not so strange, you say? Well, no, not really. But hold on, pardners; I’m just, um, easin’ you in.

Another strange thing she was good at was, well, how can I put this? OK; let’s try it this way. When she got mad at you (like, for instance, getting shouted at for sharpening her claws on the furniture), she had a way of turning her back and twitching her tail that was quite distinctly, well, rude. It put one in mind of what we here in America call the “one finger salute” (only substitute the tail for the offending digit). Oh yes, Cookie was an expert at expressing here feelings quite clearly!

But don’t get me wrong; all her quirks weren’t bad. Some were just inexplicable. But then again, she was, you know, a cat.

For instance, Cookie was always deathly afraid of strangers, although we never figured out why. When the doorbell rang, or there was a knock on the door (unless it was me - and how she knew, we’ll never know), before the “ding” in the doorbell’s “ding-dong” had even fully formed, she’d make an instant beeline to the farthest corner of the apartment. It was like a Road Runner cartoon; any loose papers that happened to be lying around would get scattered everywhere as they got sucked into the vacuum from her lightning-quick exit.

However, this latter quirk had a couple of additional, er, sub-quirks, so to speak. (You just knew there had to be more to this, didn’t you?)

One evening, our Pastor stopped by to visit. Naturally, at the first sound of the doorbell, Cookie streaked like a grey, furry lightning bolt to the apartment’s nethermost regions. (Good thing we’d had her declawed - or my lap would never have been the same!)

Anyway, our visit lasted about an hour or so, and as he got up to leave, he of course invited us to have a word of prayer with him, which we did. But here’s the weird part. No sooner than we had begun to pray, but Cookie came out of her hiding place, moseyed up to the Pastor as if he were an old friend, and parked herself right on top of his feet!

Now, we’d never seen this behavior before! Somewhat nonplussed, our Pastor nevertheless remained undeterred and kept on praying. When we finished, though, we all had a good laugh. However, we noticed the pastor didn’t, as you might expect, reach down and give Cookie a caress (which, as we knew, was the total purpose of her existence).

As it turned out, he was allergic to cats! We hadn’t mentioned the cat’s presence when he arrived, of course, since we assumed Cookie would pretty much stay in the hole she’d found for herself. But for some inexplicable reason, in this man’s presence, Cookie went completely against all previously observed behavior and acted, you know, normal.

Maybe They Really ARE Psychotic

I’ve often wondered just what it was Cookie sensed whenever our Pastor was around. (She did this every time he came over. Never to anyone else, mind you; just him.) Did her furry little nose pick up a certain subtle, er, aroma or something as a result of his allergies? Or maybe he was unknowingly broadcasting the message I’m allergic to you; please come irritate my sinuses by some other means (the all-cats, all-the-time channel, maybe?)

Who knows; maybe she was truly psychic after all. Whatever it was, there was just something about him she picked up on, every time.

You realize, of course, we humans are pretty much the same way? Whether you realize it or not, you’re actually broadcasting a wealth of information to pretty much everyone you come in contact with. That includes:

• Blogs - Your personality, prejudices, thought processes and leanings come out loud and clear here. Yep; whatever you write is there for everyone to see, and what’s worse - you can never take it back!
• Twitter - I’ve often thought twittering encourages quick responses - sometimes, unfortunately, without pre-thought. Yikes! As usual, the best rule is: think twice, publish once.
• Post comments - Your comments tell others a lot about whether or not you even paid attention. Attitudes can come through loud and clear here, even if you don’t mean for them to.
• Email - Far too easy to be more - harsher, sillier, dumber, whatever - when you don’t get immediate feedback. A one-way channel like email is probably the worst way to communicate, particularly when you need it to be rich in information. Try the phone instead.
• Conversations - Still the best communication on the planet, although the method used can dramatically effect what’s heard and what’s not. We like to think the Internet enhances conversation - but it only gives us the tools. It’s up to us to make sure we actually, you know, communicate.
• Friends - Does anyone NOT believe who you hang out with, or are associated with, affects your reputation? Seriously now, folks; if you aren’t on board with this one, well, your head is in the sand, I’m afraid.

… and the list goes on and on. The fact is, literally everything about you broadcasts information about YOU to everyone else.

So I guess the $64,821 question is, what are YOU telling folks, without even realizing it?

Ah, now that’s the question, isn’t it? All too often we want folks to get one message, but they actually end up getting a completely different message, don’t they? Things like reputation (both online and off), intent, motivations, goals - well they all have their subtle (and some not-so-subtle!) signals.

There might be several problems with that, though. What if your signals aren’t getting out clearly enough? What if they’re mixed? What if the recipient can’t pick up on them? What if - heaven forbid - their own preconceptions cause the message to be misread?

So Tell Me A Story

And now I’ll leave you with some questions for your contemplation.

The list of possible communication channels above is far from complete. What channels would YOU add?

When was the last time you experienced a communication breakdown? How did you find out there was a problem? What did you do to resolve it? Were there side effects of the miscommunication? Did it affect more than one or two people?

What about the other side of this issue? What assumptions and/or conclusions have you made about folks, based on the information similar to the above list? Have you (eek!) repeated them to others without confirmation? Why or why not? Have you ever discovered your conclusions about someone were totally wrong?

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!