“I don’t wanna hear it!”

Usually we hear that refusal when the utterer of the admonition says, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up.”

We also hear it in the context of refusing to hear the bad news: a firing, a loss of a game or an announcement that follows, “Hey Dad, you remember that can of paint on the shelf by the car in the garage?”

I’ve used and heard that expression on different occasions. Remember back in the ‘60s, when the UNM Lobos would play a game that was televised not live, but on a delayed basis? The game would start at the regular time, and fans either in the Pit or those with a powerful radio could keep up with the game.

For the rest of us — we lived in Cuba, N.M., at the time, and any kind of TV reception was iffy — we’d wait a half hour after the game for the delayed broadcast. I remember driving around the little town with some teacher friends, listening to a live radio broadcast of a game. Cheers erupted when Ira Harge, a Lobo superstar and father to current Highlands hoop coach Joe Harge, worked his magic to win it for UNM.

Well, Tom Salazar, Bob Romero, Jack Bradley and I walked into a late-night Cuba cafe to celebrate.

Big mistake.

Both the owner of the restaurant and several customers “thanked” us for “spoiling it” for those who wanted to wait until later to watch it, as if it were live. Clearly, “I don’t wanna hear it” would have applied. Our bad. I’ve learned never to be loose-lipped over information people didn’t want to hear. At least not yet.

In a way, inadvertently, my friends and I were like the bratty kid in the movie theater, who’s seen the flick a million times and announces, quite audibly, “Don’t worry! He’s not really gonna get killed. His friend is gonna save him. Just watch.”

Two other media instances come to mind: “Here’s Pat” and “The Simpsons’” home state.

First Pat: An androgynous being, played by Julia Sweeney acquired fame on Saturday Night Live, years back, by frustrating those who were dying to know whether Pat was male or female. The dual-sex name itself gives a clue as to the intentions of the writers of the SNL skit. Once, Will Ferrill thought he was on the verge of finding out Pat’s sex. He buttered him/her up by saying something like, “I’ll bet your parents were thrilled when you were born. Now what exactly did the obstetrician say to your parents at your birth?”

Nonplussed, Pat answered, “Congratulations! It’s a baby.”
Not quite what Pat’s fellow cast members wanted to know. And another time, after plying him/her with soft drinks at a campsite, several friends waited as Pat made his/her way to one of the restrooms, clearly marked. “That way, we’ll know for sure.”

But would you believe that the instant Pat walked toward the proper powder room, the network cut in with, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin.” I loved that move. The trouble is that once we learn for sure whether Pat is man or woman, the suspense, and thus the quest, is over.

I realize there are different kinds of “I don’t wanna hear it” situations. It could mean we don’t want to be hit with bad news, or we could be saying we don’t want to know just yet, or that we want to find out on our own.

When Gina Medina, her nose commonly buried in a book during slack time, worked at the city recreation center, I’d pass by her and utter, “The butler did it,” as if I were saving her the trouble of reading the rest of the book. She usually reminded me that no butler had appeared in any of her 20 recent reads.

And as the No. 1 fan of The Simpsons, I loved it when, in numerous episodes, the producers would bait the viewers with the weak assurance that we’d discover in which state the Springfield of the Simpsons is located. I’ve been to Springfields in Missouri, Illinois, Massachusetts and Ohio, all of them good-sized cities, one of them a capital. Thirty-five states have a Springfield, not counting those with a compass point in front, as in West Springfield. New Mexico, by the way, lacks a Springfield.

In school, Lisa, the Simpsons’ daughter was asked to point on the U.S. map where Springfield is located. As she did so, some kid would get in the way, blocking our view. I loved the feeling that forever we’d be wondering about this mythical Springfield in an unidentified state.

But wait — there’s more. The suspense is now over.

For reasons I can understand but not forgive, the producers have identified the mystery state, which has a real Springfield, with a population of about 60,000. It’s been in the newspapers, but for those who would rather not know, simply play the game of “I Spy” and skip the last word in this column.

The television sports announcers whose station would later carry the taped telecast of the Lobos would announce that the final score would appear on the screen in 10 seconds, and for those who didn’t want to get the results prematurely, they could simply avert their eyes.

• • •

American Profile, the mini-magazine that comes bundled with the Optic each week, reports that New Mexico is growing. The magazine says, “New Mexico is stretching like a piece of taffy.” It adds that every 40 years the state grows by about an inch.

The Rio Grande Rift is forcing Albuquerque and Santa Fe farther apart. As one who’s obviously experienced almost 2 inches of that growth, I now see why a simple trip from Vegas to Albuquerque seems to take so much longer.

(Oregon)