Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Paralysis

I'm not one for pet peeves. I tend to think people should get over them and move on in life. However it occurred to me that I have one. Well, other then the other one. Now that I think on it, it also occurs to me that they are both deeply rooted in childhood. interesting... but I digress.

When I was in grade school there was a certain boy in my class that loved to ask me "what's up?" I hated it. There's only so many answers that you could say to that, none of witch I even thought sounded half interesting. School? Nothin? The roof? The sky? Frankly I just ended up flustered every time I saw him which resulted in me saying absolutely nothing in response but instead leaving me standing in the middle of the room, looking confused and well...dumb. Or so I felt.

I approached my teacher about my dilemma one day. She really didn't see the problem, as most people don't. But she decided that the best answer would be none other then, *drum role please* ...Carrots...yes carrots...Carrots? Right. ok. According to her this would stop him from saying the stupid phrase all together! Fantastic! So being the trusting individual that I am, I tried it. "Why in the world would you say that?" "Cause teacher told me to! ha ha, yah know it's kinda funny really cause what if carrots really were up... ha ha. uh..ha?" Yeah that went over like a lead balloon. Should have just stood in the center of the room and looked dumb.

To this day I still have not found a suitable answer. And to this day it still seems to be the question that everybody still likes to ask. Just the other day in fact, "hey Stephanie! What's up!?" "errr uhhh *mind goes 800 mph* nothin much!" and they keep walking while I stand there in the middle of the room paralyzed in thought, looking none other than...you guessed it, dumb. Friendly gesture I suppose, but quite honestly I don't think they realize that it leaves me in shambles.

I wish somebody would erase it from daily vocabulary. But unfortunately I don't see that happening. So I suppose I am destined to the cruel paralysis that it brings...

1 comment:

Ryan and Jaclyn said...

I think this goes along with when people ask you "how are you?" because everybody does it... the crux of the problem is that they really don't want to know how you are most of the time. They want you to say fine, or sometimes you could say "my monkey father brother" and they wouldn't even know you said anything because their mind is off to the next subject. I think what's up and how's it going and how are you are just other words for Hi... So they basically mean... you guessed it, NOTHING.