Ok, people think I'm crazy when I talk about this because everyone does it. I mean, everyone says "How you doin'?" or "How's it goin'?" or whatever. I do it myself, all the time. But there's a difference: If I'm walking past you and I say "What's up?" I don't expect an answer and I'm going to keep walking so if you plan on actually telling me what's up, you'd better do it in the .002 seconds that we make eye contact.

 

People don't get it. They don't see. Like, there's this new guy at work and I barely know his name, but everyone is saying like "Hey did you meet the new guy" and I'm all "Yeah, he bugs me" and they actually think it's funny and they say "What does he do?" and all I can do is stare blankly and say "He....talks to me..."

 

Like I said, I don't know where this guy is from or whether he has a wife or kids or what, and quite honestly I would prefer that he keep that information to himself. So I'm sitting at my desk and he comes up to me and says "How's it going, John?"

 

And then he just stands there, patiently, waiting for me to tell him. Like he thinks that I would actually give an honest answer and he's so concerned about me that there's something I could say at this point that would change the course of our conversation in the next 30 seconds. Like this earnest, eager little approval-seeking twit honestly believes that even if there was a full-blown nuclear exchange and everyone else on the planet was dead and my eyeballs were melted out from being too close to ground zero, that there might possibly be a one in one hundred and fifty three gajillion chance that I would actually tell him how I felt about it. And so I'm sitting there in silence trying to formulate an appropriate and tactful response that will somehow make him go away and at the same time prevent any further meaningless conversation (while maintaining my image as a nice guy too), and for some reason I'm feeling like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that first Terminator movie where he's trying to make plastique and a fat guy is yelling at him through the door and his computer brain calls up a pop-up menu of possible responses until it settles on one that says "F*** you, a**hole!", only the difference is that my own responses are limited to "Pretty good" and "Not so great, I've come down with a bad case of shut the hell up!!!"

 

So I just said "Pretty good." It's not the ideal option because there's really no way with just those two words to convey how deeply uncomfortable I am and how much I wish he would go away because he's already taken up more than 2 seconds of my time and mental energy devoted to a subject I care absolutely nothing about, and to be frank, in fact, I could compose symphonies and compile a 7-volume omnipedia about how little I care about this conversation, and it still would not give you an accurate idea. And so I stare at my computer screen and hope this will give him some sense of how little time and thought I'm willing to devote to this conversation, but he apparently isn't getting the idea.

 

Because he's still standing there.

 

Grinning.

 

And then he says something like "Are you having a good day?" but I'm not sure what his exact words were ; not because I'm not listening but because my mind is in shock that he's even spoken again. And then I waste half a brain cell and 3 nanoseconds analyzing a conversation wherein I've neither given nor received any information that I can apply to better myself or those around me, and now I find myslef having to formulate a response to a second query that is seemingly designed specifically to elicit an inane and meaningless response. But since I'm a cock-eyed optimist, I also use this half a brain cell to imagine another world entirely, a far simpler and better place that exists about 2 seconds in the future, where this guy is standing on the other side of the room in silence and minding his own damn business just as he should have been doing this entire time.

 

Before I tell you how I answered, let me take a second to clear something up. I don't hate this guy, or wish harm on him; in fact, if I had my way and was absolute master of all that I survey, with power to alter the lives and destinies of every living being in the entire universe, this strange little guy would go on his way whistling his strange little tunes and just having a good old time. A good time, I mean, somewhere else. But the thing is, I barely even know him. That's the whole point. I don't hate him. At least, not yet...

 

I'm starting to wonder, though, who is this guy? What does he care how I'm doing or what kind of day I'm having? What if I've had a horrible day, and my wife is having an affair with the milkman, and I just found out that I have bone cancer that's spread to every cell and tissue in my body? What could this guy possibly say that would make it even a little bit better? And doesn't his even asking just bring these things to mind, and in that sense couldn't these seemingly benign questions actually be worsening my situation? And maybe he even knows this, and maybe he's counting on it because for whatever twisted reasons he has, he actually holds me in that much disdain  and that's exactly the reason he conceived this bizarre little sadistic game of cat-and-mouse to begin with.

 

So now, I'm really starting to get pissed.

 

What had started as a petty annoyance had suddenly taken a far more sinister turn, and I began to see this good-natured, dopey co-worker of mine in a new light. We were no longer dull, ordinary men with dull, ordinary lives working dull, ordinary jobs, but bold warriors, grimly facing one another across a psychic battlefield in a contest of wills from which there could emerge only one victor.

 

So here's what I said: "Yeah, real good." Just like that. Flat, with no inflection, and just the slightest pause between "yeah" and "real". Now, you have to be real careful with this, because your instinct is to hit the word "real" and kind of roll your eyes. But if you do, it's going to come off as very sarcastic instead of disinterested and aloof, which in this case is bad. Sarcasm implies that you've given any thought at all to this conversation and creates the danger that he may think you're joking and may even take this as light-hearted banter between friends. Like he's in on the joke. Like it's even possible that in the depths of his vile and dark soul he can even conceive of friendship, or perhaps this pathological little monster just goes through the motions of friendship while scheming to destroy you.

 

And then he just says "That's good" and walks away. Just like that. Just like that. All this build up, the probing questions, the interrogation, like I'm under a heat lamp and he's beating the soles of my feet with a stick:

 

"How you doin'?" (*thwap*)

 

"Did you have a good (*thwap*) day?" (*thwap)

 

All the sweating, all the torment...but I'm not down yet. I've got a few tricks of my own. So you know what I do? I just go "Uh huh". Just like that. Just like that! Like it's all ok and I haven't seen through his sadistic charade. And I know...in my heart, I know, just as Captain Kirk must have known in minute 47 of the 1967 Star Trek episode entitled "Space Speed" where he finally defeated Ricardo Montalban in his multi-layered portrayal of the genetically superior Khan....we would meet again...

 

Or, I don't know, maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe it's just me.