Not the song by Adele. I actually think that's her worst song and how it made it into the top 40 airwaves is beyond me.
ru·mor [roo-mer] noun
1. a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts.
2. gossip; hearsay.
I remember hearing this one as a little kid (my abbreviated version):
In a small town lived a nice man with a problem: he talked too much about other people. He could not help himself. Whenever he heard a story about somebody he knew, and sometimes about somebody he did not know, he just had to tell it to his friends. He loved the attention he got, and was delighted when they laughed because of the way he told his “anecdotes,” which he sometimes embellished with little details he invented to make them funnier and juicier. Other than that, he was really a pleasant, goodhearted man.
He kind of knew it was wrong, but . . . it was too tempting, and in any case, most of what he told had really happened, didn’t it? Many of his stories were just innocent and entertaining, weren’t they?
One day he found out something really weird (but true) about another businessman in town. Of course he felt compelled to share what he knew with his colleagues, who told it to their friends, who told it to people they knew, who told it to their wives, who spoke with their friends and their neighbors... His good name and his reputation were gone with the wind. Now this rabbi knew his customers, so to speak, and he decided to summon the man who loved to tell stories. If he was not the one who started them, he might at least know who did.
When the nice man with the nasty problem heard from the rabbi how devastated his colleague was, he felt truly sorry. He honestly had not considered it such a big deal to tell this story, because it was true. “True, not true, that really makes no difference! You just cannot tell stories about people. This is slander, and it’s like murder—you kill a person’s reputation.” “What can I do to make it undone?” he sobbed. “I will do anything you say!”
The rabbi looked at him. “Do you have any feather pillows in your house?” “Rabbi, I am not poor; I have a whole bunch of them. But what do you want me to do, sell them?”
“No, just bring me one.”
The man returned a bit later with a nice fluffy pillow under his arm. The rabbi opened the window and handed him a knife. “Cut it open!” “But Rabbi, here in your study? It will make a mess!” “Do as I say!” And the man cut the pillow. A cloud of feathers came out. They floated over the table and into the teacups and a lot of them flew out of the window in a big swirling, whirling trail.
The rabbi waited ten minutes. Then he ordered the man: “Now bring me back all the feathers, and stuff them back in your pillow. All of them, mind you. Not one may be missing!” “That is impossible, Rabbi. The ones here is the room I might get, most of them, but the ones that few out of the window are gone. Rabbi, I can’t do that, you know it!” “Yes,” said the rabbi and nodded gravely, “that is how it is: once a rumor leaves your mouth, you do not know where it ends up. It flies on the wings of the wind, and you can never get it back!”I'm not Jewish, my kids have a Jew-ish (coined from my best friend) heritage, but I've always, since I can recall, liked the Jewish Law lashon hara (literally, "bad tongue") and their belief that the fact that something is true doesn't mean it is anybody else's business.
What I remember thinking was "if you aren't talking shit about someone who cares?" My biggest concern was that my phone number or address might appear on the wall of someone I had possibly deleted. To maintain SOME privacy, I just went into my messages and deleted anything containing those tidbits of information. I wasn't really concerned about any other messages, other than maybe some confidential conversations I'd had with my confidants and besties.
I've been the victim of many rumors throughout my life (slander, defamation, libel suits I never filed - not just playground bullying). I also heard some interesting rumors from some high school acquaintances, through my hairdresser, that I had had "tons of plastic surgery" even though I had simply had a pituitary tumor removed...
I recall the advice of my mother that "if you can't say it in front of the person you're speaking about, it's best you not say it at all." I take this advice a step further with my own daughter and tell her "if the person you're speaking of is not present in the conversation, it's gossip. Change the subject." Of course this is possibly one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish if you truly make an effort at it. From "mom, my teacher is having a baby and we're going to have a substitute for the remainder of the year" to "did you see what so-and-so wore today?" to "John said that Tom said that Harry..."
So this week my daughter was stuggling with her good friend saying "I don't want to talk about it" in response to her "what's wrong?" This gave me a chance during Car Conversation #3078 to explain to my daughter that when we are a friend to someone we may not always have our needs or expectations met. As much as she wanted to know what had her friend down and out, I took the opportunity to share with her my feelings when I can tell my friends are struggling, not reaching out to me, have inside jokes with others and have other friends besides me that they may feel more comfortable confiding in on certain matters. That there will be times when your friend "needs you just to sit next to them and be still. That sometimes being a friend means just letting them know you're there and do care."
I continued on to explain to her that many times when I see her eyes in a distant place how it pains me not to know her thoughts and feelings but that I am also confident, in time, that she will open up to me for comfort, advice or just to listen. I reminded her that her friend may be struggling with another friend and that gave me the opportunity to cover the subject of gossiping and rumors with my teenage daughter. While discussing this with her my mind went back to the times when her twin brother, having gone to a different school, had to cope with people coming up to him and asking "how's your crazy sister?" and not in a playful way. She had thrown her desk in the third grade in a classroom full of children and this legacy remains with her; she handles this maturely and on her own but I reminded her to put herself in another's shoes and before words escape her lips to think how that might make another feel.
What prompted this topic is that last night, with a visit from members of my church, I was informed that my most recent ex-husband "lives only a few blocks away" from us. I'm not even compelled to inquire with his probation officer. I really don't want to know. In all truthfulness I finally don't care. In all reality it's probably just a rumor.
"Never miss a good chance to shut up."~Will Rogers
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