{"id":731,"date":"2012-04-30T11:05:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T09:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=731"},"modified":"2012-11-04T11:23:20","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T10:23:20","slug":"731","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=731","title":{"rendered":"?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Why\"<\/a>I wake up at 7:30 a.m. and my mom walks into the bedroom.<\/p>\n

The first words out of her mouth are: \u201cIs Dad in the bathroom?\u201d<\/p>\n

From the confusion inherent to early mornings matched with the weirdness of my dream about Danny Glover singing me the Hora, I respond: \u201cHeh?\u201d<\/p>\n

In my family, that constitutes a question type C.<\/p>\n

Mom leaves. Her work here is done.<\/p>\n

There are three sorts of questions to ask in my family.<\/p>\n

A. A question so random that the chances of your companion having a prepared answer are equal to those of him having a scorpion in his wallet.<\/p>\n

B. A question that your companion has no interest in answering.<\/p>\n

C. A question that your companion has no possible ability to answer.<\/p>\n

This morning interaction with my mom is a question C. I didn\u2019t handle it well.<\/p>\n

Having been a member of my family for 37.6 years, since the circus dropped me off on the porch in Langhorne for being too unwilling to get fired out of cannons, I have developed a system for dealing with these types of questions.<\/p>\n

A. Random Question: There is one way to deal with this line of questioning: counter with another random question.<\/p>\n

Dad: \u201cSo, what are your three favorite movies about the Spanish-American War?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cIf you had to lick four bugs to win $1 million, which bugs would you choose?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stalemate. This method requires preparation.<\/p>\n

B. Question you have no interest in answering. This happens constantly in my family and always involves someone\u2019s marital\/relationship status, why their relationship status is what it is or how much alcohol someone consumes on a daily basis. The best way to deal with this is to answer in a ridiculous manner and keep a straight face. This confuses the questioner and gives you an opportunity to divert the subject to food, which is the subject of ultimate respect in my family.<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cWhat happened to that girl you were dating?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cThe last one? Uh, she was eaten by a pack of rabid honey badgers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cNo, not the last one, the one before that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cShe was carried away by a band of angry midgets at a Pink Floyd concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cDoes Collin have a girlfriend now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cSo he\u2019s single?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cHe\u2019s gay now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cYeah, do you want to eat Chinese for lunch?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cOk\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignoring the confused look on the interrogator\u2019s face is an imperative tactic, as is pursuing the gastronomical discussion.<\/p>\n

C. Question that is impossible to answer. This one almost always involves the physical whereabouts of another person or any number of questions about complete strangers. The only way to handle this is to sing. Warning: Do not try to answer with anything in hopes of ending the line of questioning. It does not work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that guy German?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, he\u2019s Finnish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know? Is it his shoes? Are those shoes Finnish?\u201d<\/p>\n

As observed, the questioned party made the mistake of trying to truncate further questions by answering the one simple question given him. This, however, led to many more questions, all of which are impossible for him to answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that guy German?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the moon is in the second star and Jupiter aligns with Mars\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

This has been a short educational essay brought to you by children of other people. Any further educational material will be appreciated.<\/p>\n

NB: No parents were harmed in the writing of this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wake up at 7:30 a.m. and my mom walks into the bedroom. The first words out of her mouth are: \u201cIs Dad in the bathroom?\u201d From the confusion inherent to early mornings matched with the weirdness of my dream about Danny Glover singing me the Hora, I respond: \u201cHeh?\u201d In my family, that constitutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1EvEu-731","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}