I Might Recite A Small Prayer/If I Ever Said Them/I Lay Down On An Iron Frame/And Find Myself In Bedlam
This morning my kid's school had it's "Donuts with Dad" event. That's where before school starts, fathers are invited to take a pretend interest in their children by showing up before the first bell for free donuts and painful small talk with other fathers who'd rather be elsewhere.

I looked for the special table acknowledging the dads who show up there every goddamn day to shuttle their little sprogs off into the care of an institution with a strong history of buggery (what is the matter with these people? No common sense, I tell you). Normally it's just me and one other dude in the mornings, then all moms.

Next year I'm going to petition that we rename the event "Let's Everybody Steal Pops' Fucking Parking Space". Honestly, let's just call it what it is.

Plus, they should probably reschedule the event for April or May next year. Holding these forced-interaction events when at a time of year when it could possibly rain is an exercise in futility. 99.9% of the talk was weather related, as far as I could tell (it's hard to be sure as I was only in the hall for about 30 seconds, a blur of motion as I whisked in and burgled a pastry). There was one pair of men as I was walking out (I swear this was true) telling each other how much they weighed. I don't want to know what their larger discussion topic was, but past that, I think my conversation sampling is reliable. "Man, can you believe the rain?" "Yeah, that was some rain." "Well, thank God we've got a break now." "Yeah, thank God." "I almost forgot what the sun looked like." "Haha yeah, the sun..." "I'm about 187, 189 somewhere in there."

There are two problems I have with small talk. First, it's everybody's default, which is to say it's the lowest common denominator. Being entirely socially retarded, it's simply a reflex I do not possess, so in that respect it's frustrating.

Secondly, in order to have a more interesting discussion, small-talk is required in order to gauge common points of interest and general conversational aptitude. I think a much better system would be if everyone got t-shirts printed up that listed their areas of interest or expertise. For instance, I could wear one that said: Hi, I'm [Pops]. Baseball. Sports in general. Politics (Democrat). Sharks. Midget porn. Vanilla Ice. Decoupage.

Then people could just walk right up to me and ask "Hey, which do you think would win in a fight, a mako or a hammerhead?" or something and we could get right into that without having to slog through what kind of car I drive or where I bought my socks.

OK, so it's not the best idea, but something must be done. I think I read somewhere (I think it was here) that 90% of workplace shootings are caused by Acute Small-talk Fatigue. It's a plague, America. Worry about avian flu all you want, but you're far more likely to be killed by a co-worker after asking if they watched Joey last night.

That's a loaded example, but you get the idea.

Speaking of congregated Catholics and imminent death, I would just like to--once again--thank the press for their careful and considered coverage of the Pope's illness. I haven't seen such morbid necrophiliac blood lust since the Anna Nicole Smith-J. Howard Marshall wedding.

In case you forgot what that looked like...



Hope you weren't eating.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.1


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:37 AM