The Plastic Boy Called Me Mister

I learned long ago that communication involves not only giving and receiving information, but it also entails managing perceptions. Get any of that wrong and you have the makings for a comical situation.

Shortly after I had gotten married and moved down to North Carolina, twenty-some years ago, I went out for a run one day after work. I had been enjoying running through new neighborhoods as I explored the community, acclimating myself to the Old North State, and this particular run was no different. The late afternoon August sun was bright as it hung just above the horizon, caressing the tops of the Carolina pines and oaks with its amber fingers.

I turned onto a street I hadn't previously explored, and the first thing I noticed was the plethora of lawn ornaments. One family had two deer on the front lawn; another family had two plastic geese in the side yard, next to a fountain and goldfish pool. Presumably the deer and the geese were friends, and they probably all kept their distance from the plastic lion crouched next to the front door of another house on the block.

My guess was that somebody in the neighborhood had joined a pyramid marketing company that sold lawn ornaments, so of course all the neighbors and friends would be talked into joining as well. I'd have to keep my eye out for them. Selling lawn ornaments, moi? Never! Velvet paintings? Now there you may have something.

Anyway, a couple houses further down, I noticed a large plastic boy out on the front lawn. He was holding a rake and was slumped over, giving the impression he had been raking and was worn out.

That's a funny statue, I thought to myself. Realistic, but funny.

Then it moved! That's a very realistic statue they've got! Then it turned its head my direction and waved. Remarkable!

At some point in that process I, of course, realized the boy indeed was real.

He ran down the hill and bounded into the street, landing right beside me.

"Hi Mister," he said. "Mind if I run with you?"

Now, that's a more complicated sequence of sentences than you would think.

Let's look at this again. "Hi Mister," he said. "Mind if I run with you?"

I had never been called "Mister" before, except one time in middle school theater when I played some guy named Mr. Wilding.

I'll never forget that play. I had worked so hard to convince our teacher / director that I should be in it. He reluctantly agreed to give me a line, and he wrote an extra scene.

In that scene, I sat in a chair at a table in a restaurant. Mr. Jones would walk in and say, "Mr. Wilding!"

And I would look up from my soup and say, "Mr. Jones!"

My mama cried, she was so proud.

Anyway, so I was running through this neighborhood, and this boy called me mister.

I was going to tell him that he didn't have to call me mister, but I kind of liked it. Then I was going to not say anything, but how could I not respond to the very first time that someone called me mister?

Having taken an effective communications course earlier in my corporate life, I knew just the right thing to say. I cleared my throat, looked into the camera (well, where the camera would be if this event were being filmed), and said, "Hi."

Now the next sentence he uttered -- "Mind if I run with you?" -- is complicated for other reasons.

When someone asks if you mind if such and such, and you say yes, then that usually indicates that you do not want the request to be carried out. That is, you do not want "such and such" to happen. If you say no, meaning you don't mind, you are acknowledging that it is okay for "such and such" to happen.

People tend to get this mixed up though. I think that some people believe that "mind if I" and "may I" are synonymous, when in fact they are opposite.

"Mind if I eat your pet chicken?"

A response of "sure" indicates that you do mind -- you do not want your pet eaten -- but the inquisitive friend may misconstrue that and end up eating your bird.

But again, in my effective communications course, I had learned how to deal with this kind of ambiguity. I knew just the right thing to say. I cleared my throat, looked into the camera, and said, "You may run with me."

Problem resolved.

The boy sauntered down the street with me, huffing and puffing and talking. He told me his name, his age, where he went to school, his shoe size, and what his favorite cereal in the whole world was. I don't remember all the data -- I should -- but I remember his favorite cereal was Captain Crunch.

After we ran four or five blocks, he turned to me and asked, "How long you been running?"

Well, it was 1987, and I had taken up running back in the spring of 1985, so I told him, "Oh, about two and a half years."

He froze in his tracks. He looked at me in admiration, whistled, and asked, "Without stopping?"