Cashew Joy

This is one of those days where I just start typing and see what happens, so watch out. It's kind of like how I talk. I have several options for what I could say, but the first one that comes out is usually the one that is most clearly a poor choice in hindsight. At least in writing I can go back and erase the awkwardness that doesn't serve my purpose.

In small talk at work it's the worst. I am one of those poor misguided saps that has an internal dialogue going on in my head at all times. It's like an announcer at a hotdog eating contest, only my life is about 90% less interesting than a hotdog eating contest. So I'm giving the play-by-play on scratching my nose and what shade of blue on jeans says "Hey, I'm a fun guy, look how blue these jeans are" when someone comes up and says,

"Sloan, hows it going?"

Suddenly torn from my wonderland, I respond with:

"There's a good one today!"

This is accompanied always with a big cheesy smile and direct eye contact. Someone told me once that smiling and making eye contact helps make up for always saying stupid things. I think they are wrong. I think it just makes people look at me like I'm an immigrant or something -- theres a flush of confusion followed immediately by this little hint of sympathy.

"Oh, he's adjusting to a new culture."

On the worst of these occasions there was a guy named Jon that I kind of knew through friends of friends, you know, we had talked before. A couple of guys went with me to Walmart and walking down the isle and I spot this guy from 15 feet away. Dead collision course, we both see each other, but I am not at all prepared to greet him.

"Hey, what's up?" Jon asks.

"COOL!" I loudly respond.

I catch that look of complete loss as we pass and I don't look back. We make it another 10 steps in silence before one of the guys next to me finally says, "Did you just say, 'cool' to that guy?"

Yes. Yes I did.