Small Talk

Anyone who has ever spent more than a few minutes in my presence is well aware of two things. The first and foremost is my unadulterated hatred for those bubble lids that come on some specialty drinks from Starbuck’s. As inexplicable as it is, this device throws me into a tizzy every time I see it covering my beverage. I have come to the conclusion that this reaction stems from some sort of childhood trauma involving a backseat, a quick brake by my mother or father, whoever happened to be driving at the time, and a 16-ounce Icee covering the face, chest, and crotchial regions of an eight-year-old boy.

Besides my parents vividly teaching me that 16-ounces is too much of anything for a eight year old, every five minutes or so they told me, just as your parents told you, never, ever, ever to talk to strangers. Like the bubble lid, this is something that I carry with me to this day. Well aware that in the adult world, a few exceptions must be made, I keep my conversations with the random Joe as short and sweet as possible. Anyone and everyone who has spent any time with me are aware of my distaste for small talk.

For anyone who I might run into in public, who I have not known for more than a few months, let me quickly fill in my part of the conversations you so want me to be a part of:

I don’t care about your sports teams. I will never care about your sports teams, even if they are my sports teams. I watch sports for the joy of watching sports, sitting back in front of the TV or at the ballpark and relaxing for the day, not to argue with you yahoos about who has the best pitching or quarterback.

I have a phone that makes it rather easy for me to look up the weather for the next few days. If I am waiting for my food and you are a cashier, I do not need to speak to you of the forecast. If I want the current conditions, I will glance out the window.

Finally, and most importantly, if you are not a friend or a member of my family, I do not give a damn about your political or religious affiliations. If you want to vote for whomever or pray to a geode, that’s fine and dandy, but you have no business imposing your views onto anyone else.

All this being said, whenever I am in a public situation that requires a fair amount of waiting, such as a doctor’s office, I do my best to bury myself in a magazine, a book, or if readily available, a gaming apparatus such as my GBA or PSP.

Most women, although more outgoing and social creatures will by their natural distrust of anything with a penis, are kind enough to leave men to our own devices when in a waiting room. This arraignment works to the benefit of both the female and the male in any given situation. First, the female can rest assured that she is not going to be psycho-killed by a loner who she happened to be nice to. The man, on the other hand, can get a few minutes of respite from women. When it comes to doctor’s offices, the chances of being left alone are increased considerably, due to the fact that (and I am saying this as a warning to everyone out there) doctor’s offices are the worst place to pick up a date. This goes doubly for the waiting room of an urologist. Common sense should suggest that there is a good possibility that the potential date has some sort of disease that you should avoid.

Most men, when coming into contact with other men at a medical facility, will keep their space such as the women will. They will pick up a magazine, sit in a corner, and wait for their turn like all of the other infested people in the office. Although the threat of disease still exists, a man is much more likely to open a conversation with another man in this situation. First of all, men do not feel as threatened by men as they do when trying to converse with women. Second, chances are that the first man that walked in the door took the only copy of Time or Sports Illustrated off of the magazine rack, which is full of Conde’ Nast and Oprah magazines, and now the second man has nothing to do.

Such was the situation early last week when I stumbled into my doctor’s office. As I usually do, I showed up at the requested time, fifteen minutes before my scheduled appointment, so that my doctor could see me forty-five minutes after my scheduled appointment. I grabbed the only aviation mag’ left on the rack, checked myself in, and took a seat.

At the front desk, there appeared to be a gentleman in his mid to late forties, complaining and causing a scene because he was on his lunch hour and couldn’t be seen immediately. After the receptionists finally got him to shut the hell up, he took a seat next to me.

“Man, these doctors always take their fucking sweet time…” He said as he took a chair next to mine.

“Don’t you think?”

I could see by the look in his eyes that he was waiting eagerly from a response from me, and knowing that people pester me more when I ignore them than they do when I give them short answers, I mumbled out a, “yeah…whatever…” Which was much more polite than the, “I think you should leave me the hell alone…” that was sitting at the tip of my tongue.

My strategy, when dealing with these social butterflies, is to keep the answers as short and as sweet as I possibly can, without sounding rude, in the hope that the guy will lose interest in the conversation and fade into oblivion.

“Whatcha reading about?”

“Planes…”

“No shit! I was a pilot a few years back… lost my license because of a back injury I had in a crash. It was nothing serious, no one was killed, but I broke my back in six places and my son broke his arm. It was a damned miracle that we walked out of that heap in one piece! Such a shame I can’t fly anymore, I used to take my family everywhere. What’s your interest in planes? You a pilot?”

I should have just said ‘no,’ but instead “I am studying to be an aerospace engineer.”

“Is that right?! Well, I just keep seeing the darndest things on Discovery and TLC, you know, like Seconds From Disaster, where they show how engineers screw up the plane and hundreds of people die-“

Needing to change the subject on him before I punch him in the teeth, I interrupted.
“I never got your name…”

“I’m Rick! And you?”

“Jake.”

Rick stuck his right hand out in hopes that I would shake it.

“Sorry man, I never shake hands in a doctor’s office, you know how it is.”

Seemingly dejected, “Yeah, I guess…”

I found a crossword puzzle in the back of the magazine and started to fill it in. Seeing the puzzle, Rick took it upon himself to look over my shoulder and start giving me answers.

“Aileron!”

Confused, “What?”

“Six across is aileron!”

Well aware of what the answer was, and annoyed to all hell that the man refused to leave me alone, I decided that it was time to end this conversation.

“So Rick, what are ya in here for?”

“Oh ya know, routine checkup type thing. How about yourself?”

“Do you know what a stressed induced psychotic episode is?”

Stunned, Rick leaned back. “Uh… kinda…”

“Well let’s just say I am recovering from one, and need to refill my meds.”

“Meds?”

“Between you and me, Rick, I don’t think I need the meds, it was an isolated incident, but if I don’t take them they revoke my parole.”

Hook.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“Well, towards the end of last semester, I was sitting at a dinner downtown studying for a math final. If I were to do poorly on the final, I would have to retake the class. A guy sat down next to me and started making small talk, asking me what was good there, what kind of math I was doing, and interrupting the work I was trying to accomplish. Finally, I snapped.”

Line.

“What did you do?”

“I took my pen and stabbed him in the leg with it.”

For added affect, I clicked the top of the pen I was using for the crossword.

Sinker.

“I…I…I’m gonna grab a magazine…”

“That will shut him up…” I said to myself as I smirked. My turn to see the doctor was only a few seconds later.