I was driving home from work today and happened to look in my rearview mirror. There was a mustachioed man in the car behind me, and he was smiling big as anything. I don't know if he was talking on the phone, or thinking of something funny, or was just genuinely happy to be driving. I mean, when I get to go home at the end of the day, I know I sometimes can't keep the smile off my face. So I was enjoying sneaking peeks at this very happy man when I realized he was coming very close to the back of my car. Suddenly, instead of feeling buoyed by his smiles, I felt a bit threatened. What had been pleasant became sinister. The man behind me transformed into an evil traffic wedgie! He followed me off my exit, then in my first turn, on my tail the entire time. As I turned onto my street I cast one last nervous glance in my rearview mirror to check that he wasn't following me still, and I saw that the smile was wiped from his face and he was shaking his head at me. Like, how dare you turn! Or maybe he was disapproving of my street? I think it's a nice street... People are weird.
You know something that I think is getting worse lately? People's ability to listen. There are very few people I have conversations with anymore who ask how I am and actually want to hear the answer. And they get freaked out if I give a real answer instead of the standby "fine" or "good" or whatever other generic word you can think of. It seems like conversations have been reduced to little more than competitions, where each person uses the time the other is speaking to formulate what they want to say next, or to look for a way to bring the conversation back around to them. It's sad really. How often are we really listening to people? How much difference might it make if we took time to listen? Just thoughts bouncing around. Haha.
Sorry for that seriousness. Tonight I was contemplating the age old question: Why, oh why, so they make packs of hot dogs with 10 in them and packs of buns with only 8??? Seriously. Why should I have to buy four packs of hot dogs and five of buns just to make things even out? It's silly. I think it's a conspiracy. I think the hot dog and bun companies do it on purpose just to make people buy more. But really, it ends up making people waste food, or eat more than they need. The hot dog companies are responsible for the obesity in America! I've solved it!!!
Ahem.
I spent this past weekend in Sioux Falls at the Christian music festival Lifelight. It's one of the largest free outdoor festivals in the country. Pretty sweet. Kristen and I met up on Friday and headed west. There were some pretty awesome bands, and I ran into a ton of people I knew and hadn't seen for a while. Amazing how you can find so many friends in crowds of thousands of strangers:) Anyway, I'm assuming everyone out there has been to a concert at some point in their lives. I was thinking this weekend about the phenomenon of what I like to call "concert-speak." When a band is up on stage and they say, "How's everyone doing tonight?" the reply is always, "Whoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" You never hear a chorus of "oh great!" or "wonderful!" or even "well, I'm having kind of a bad day, my toe hurts and my monkey ran away." Same with any other question. "Are you having fun??" "Wooooooo!!!!!" "Would you like to hear another one??" "WOoooooooo!" "Who here is from the area?" "WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Can you imagine if we did this in every day life??
Susie: Hey, Johnny!
Johnny: *hands in the air* Wooooo!
S: Yeah... So how are you?
J: Wooooooo!!!
S: That's good...I...guess... Um. So what did you think of that presentation today?
J: WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
S: So you liked it? I thought it was kind of boring. Aren't you presenting next week?
J: *jumping up and down with hands in the air* WOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
S: Yeah...uhhh...I gotta go. Nice talking to you... *walks away quickly*
J: *whistles* Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That would be weird. For sure. But kind of funny to do to someone. I dare you to do it. Seriously. Do it. DO IT NOW!!
hehe. I'm going to concert speak all day tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that you should start answering people's questions with a WOOOHOOOO!
ReplyDeleteBut that's a great observation. People don't scream an actual answer usually, do they? or even grunt. Haha. That'd be funny too.
Traffic wedgie. I tell you what, in Sioux Falls, the capital of "I don't use my blinker" it seems to me that we need to invent padding for our cars for that specific purpose.
And I agree with the conversation seriousness. People dont' listen and think before they respond, quite often.