I'd tell you, if you cared.
"How are you?" In the course of a normal day, I
get asked this question 2-10 times. That says a lot considering I have almost no
life and spend much of the day glued to a computer screen or reading. Each time
I am asked, I think to myself, "Haven't we outgrown silly questions like
this?" I feel like we've already addressed the stupidity of asking this
question to people we don't know.
But if we've already addressed it, it's not gone away yet. I don't know about
you but when someone asks me this, I don't even think any more. I just supply a
quick answer. 90 percent of the time, I am lying. In some sense, I am lying 100
percent of the time, because I'm not even really thinking about it for long
enough to say anything honest.
Here are a few responses...and what they mean when I say them.
"Fine"
........................ Please go
shoot yourself pronto.
"Good"
........................ I hope I don't
have cancer.
"Well" ........................
Hungry. I would eat you, but you don't
look fit.
"Okay"
........................ I won't even
pretend to answer that. WHO are you?
"Great"
....................... Bad.
It's come to the point where I just start trying to say something different, so
that the "conversation" isn't exactly the same as 300 others I've had
in the past month. Again, delving deep into the colors of my tone, more subtle
messages can be detected.
"Awesome, YOU?"
.................. How you like that,
bitch? What's my name?
"Fabulous"
........................ It's creepy
when people answer you.
"Stupendous"
................ I'm quite the
sarcastic smartass. Can you feel it?
"Oh, I'm doing just amazingly
well." ... You like a
little gentle mockery now.
"Fucking great"
.................. Better than you are,
in my estimation.
Then sometimes for fun, I'll just mix in an honest answer and see what they say.
How am I? "Shitty," I'll proclaim. And the best proof that nobody
wants an answer to this question: they laugh about 75 percent of the time I say
I'm doing shitty. I may as well say that I just found a treasure map and I'm
beginning a voyage within 5 minutes. It really doesn't matter. No one cares.
I believe that the full damage of speaking without even beginning to think is
not appreciated. So the next 50 people who don't know me and ask me how I am
will be met with the following answer.
OH, YOU DON'T CARE.
I beg you to also adopt this policy if ever we're going to put an end to the cycle of speaking directly from that little corner of the brain that lets one live without living and talk without thinking.
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© 2006 FussyPucker.