Have you ever had someone tell you a horrifying story, but delivered it in a casual, blase way?

Never.

I guess my mom does this. I might do it somewhat also. My mom is interested in medical things like me. She’ll talk about medical mistakes and diseases fairly blasé.

I had an acquaintance once whose wife was an EMC. She worked a car accident where one persons scalp was ripped off, but still attached at the base of the neck. He said that she told him they just flipped the scalp back into place! She laughed about it. If you’re surrounded by that kind of thing all the time, I can see how you can become blasé. I stolz yer blasé @JLeslie. :D

I work with doctors so I hear it fairly often. “Did you see that guy that looked like a dinasour had ate a hunk out of his neck? Turns out it was skin cancer.”

I wish there was, it’s a tiresome burden being the only one around who does so.

Consider the movie Robin Hood: Men in TIghts, in which the Sheriff of Rottingham is told by the King’s brother to tell the bad news (that Robin was back) in a happier way. So Rottingham sings the horrible news, and of course looks like a fool.

Bad news is bad news. No matter how it is presented. Does the way the message is presented alter the message? Only to a point.

And blase-ness may be a factor of shock, or perhaps self-protection.

When I took my course to become a first responder, the paramedics who taught it would recount horrible gorey stories with laughter. Learning to think about things like that is one of the first coping mechanisms that people in emergency medicine develop, apparently.

My sister is like this. especially when she talks about things regarding our mother. I think she has to be this way because, to be any other way it would emotionally wreck her.

This reminds me of a story I heard a long time ago.

It seems that a young lady (we’ll call her Ms Porter) heard a knock at her door. She answered to find a courier, who said, “Telegram for Ms Porter!”
Ms Porter was surprised, as she had never received a telegram before. She said to the courier, “I’ve never received a telegram before. Could you please sing it for me?”
“Ma’am, it’s not a singing telegram,” the courier replied.
“Well, could you please sing it for me?” she cajoled. “I’ve always wanted to get a singing telegram.”
Finally the courier agreed. He put the message to music, and here’s what he sang:

“Hello Ms Porter, I’ve come to your quarter to bring you a message that said:
“The sky is blue, and you’ll be too, when I tell you your mother is dead!”

Oh. My. God. I can’t believe my husband delivered this message in this way. He went to the store. When he came back he went into the bedroom, which is off of the dining room which has my computer. He changed his pants. Then, standing in the doorway he said, “You know Kent?” I nodded. He’s been a friend of Ricks for several years. I didn’t much care for him, but we do have some memories. So, I nodded and Rick said, “He’s dead.” I threw my hands over my face and turned away. I could feel the tears burning. Rick said, “They think it was suicide.” That didn’t help my tears. I couldn’t believe he announced it so casually. Apparently he had run into Kent’s exwife at the store and she talked for an hour about it.
Then he called another mutual friend of theirs, who he doesn’t talk to very often. He said, “Hi Paul! It’s your long lost brother!” And he busted out laughing. I couldn’t believe that was the way he started a conversation when the purpose was to tell him Kent was dead. It was like he couldn’t wait to be the first one to tell him.
Then he spent the rest of the evening, passing along the gossip to me about the condition of his house (trashed) and the fact that it was his 18 year old daughter who found him and on and on. It was so STRANGE. It was just gossip. I finally asked him to stop.
I have to take into account he comes from a very large family and death is pretty common for him. They’re also Greek, and they gossip.
It isn’t for me, though, and neither is gossip.
I’m still upset.