“Does my butt sweat when I ride home?” That was the first “intelligent” thought I had today. I’m outside about to jump on my bike to go to school, and I notice there is frost on the back of the seat, the main point of contact. “Am I looking at frosted butt sweat? Gross.” The I realized that I have a hard time sweating ANYWHERE while riding the downhill mile and a half route home in sub 40 degree weather. On top of that, the back of the seat is higher than the rest of the bike and hence more susceptible to faster (read: colder) air currents. The material is some kind of synthetic leather which adheres to moisture more easily than any other part of the bike. Conclusion: I’m not a sweaty, nasty old man…yet.
Yesterday was a big day for offending people. Nothing serious but, I found myself in a very high state of mode 2. This means that though I wasn’t trying to belittle others, I showed very little sympathy for their ignorance (read: Mike talks quickly, manner-of-factly, and provides the other party with little time to respond because, once again, he’s already figured out “every” possible thought they could have on the matter and “knows” what they’re about to say.) ere’s the list of People I probably offended yesterday
Co-workers Chris and Bryce for thinking Star Wars Episode III was an excellent film. (Among other things, I said I thought the movie was proof that Lucas can’t write a script to save his life).
Co-worker Chris for not knowing who Joaquin Phoenix and Christian Bale are.
Co-worker Bryce for not liking Raising Arizona and having an appreciation for the Cohen Brothers.
Roommate Jake for not answering his questions pertaining to my endeavors for the evening.
Roommate Jake and Ben for being pretty-boy shmoozers that girls don’t trust. They aren’t “normal” because they don’t know anything about sports. Ben didn’t even know that BYU had a winning season this year.
Salesman Ben for insulting my intelligence in his usage of 30 minutes of my time to provide 5 minutes of information.
Roommate Ben for not knowing that the U.S. helped put Saddam Hussein back in the 60's and 70's.
Roommate Ben by telling him Captain Moroni probably had family problems. I more or less told the kid that I was plagiarizing my Marine buddy’s thoughts, and that he had no right to argue because he’s never killed anyone.
So I feel a little bad, but truthfully, no one was sorely offended. Nevertheless, I could always afford to be a bit more diplomatic when I talk to people about matters they have an opinion on but poorly understand.
The limecat is not pleased. (Thanks Thirdmango).
6 comments:
Ha Ha, it's always good to see people using Limecat.
...for not liking Raising Arizona and having an appreciation for the Cohen Brothers.
You're saying he should or shouldn't have an appreciation for the Cohen Brothers. 'Cause I might need to be offended too. ;)
Also, I thought you might enjoy this and this.
You've likely already seen them, but now you have links to them from your blog. Smile, man, that's a great thing.
P.S. I love that you have a link to Family Guy Quotes.
Are you ever wrong about what you think someone's going to say?
JB – I am a big fan of the Cohen brothers. I’m not a fan of doing compound negative gerund prepositional phrases or whatever you want to call them. I’ll have to ask Brozy or EG about doing the correctly one of these days.
Katya – Though it may surprise you, yes, I am wrong occasionally. :)
It doesn’t normally take more than a few sentences to get the gist of a person’s thoughts on an idea. From there, I can tell where I stand (i.e. I know more, less, or about the same as they do). If I know more, I’m quite good at predicting what they’re going to say and what they don’t know. Actually, that’s kind of a test in itself. When I start hearing things that I expect the person to say, I conclude I need to ask different questions or change the subject.
I’ve had friends tell me that they thought I was kind of a pric when they first met me. Apparently, I didn’t seem to take what they had to say seriously. (It was during those occasions that I believed them ignorant or overly simplistic. Future conversations tened only to confirm my original conclusions.) Afterwards, these friends would then say that they now understand that I wasn’t a pric because I had to be better, smarter, etc; I was a pric because I only cared about their opinion when I thought it was interesting, useful, or expansive (see my last post, reason 2.). They also mentioned that they only noticed this "quality" when I was in “discuss an idea mode.” I’d get excited about something and not pay attention to much anything else
I realize that these kinds of preemptive conversational maneuvers don’t always apply. If they did, I probably wouldn’t have any friends.
Hmm, I guess I get impatient with people when I already know what they're going to say and they're taking their time in saying it.
On the other hand, I get really frustrated with people who don't really listen to me -- I'll often sneak random things into the conversation just to see if they're really paying attention.
So you’re sort of like Robin Williams in the beginning of Patch Adams. Nice.
The thing I’m always working on; being sure I’m giving the other party a fair chance. Yes, I’m right about them 95+% of the time, but when I’m wrong, it’s quite insulting to cut the other person off or oversimplify their comments as I move on. I don’t have to deal with people doing the same thing to me. They prefer to label me a cynic (for some reason, being cynical invalidates your opinion), inform me that they don’t care anyway, or say I’m full of crap without providing any kind of coherent rationale. That’s when the purple soldering iron of justice gets pulled out, or I just conclude I was right to think them an idiot and drop it.
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