Can you hear me now? 12.21.04

Mocking people is a dicey business. Sooner or later, you will find yourself turning your biting wit and keen sense of the absurd right back where it belongs: on yourself. A friend of mine and I like to do this thing when people say something say totally expected, clich�, or otherwise hackneyed, tedious, or boring. We call it a �can you hear me now� and sometimes go as far to turn to each other and say that line in a very, very, very deadpan style. It kills us. And it is perfect because the tedium of socially acceptable (and expected) self-expression is inescapable�sooner or later we all come out with the totally dumb scripted line. We. All. Do. It. This is what they like to call irony; I like to call it an incredibly effective and frighteningly insightful advertising campaign. Whoever thought up that commercial should be in a corner office nicely equipped with a fully stocked liquor cabinet and a killer view of Madison Ave. Or whatever the epicenter of advertising is these days.

Anyway, some classic examples of a �can you hear me now� include:

1) �I have been trying to call you all night!�
�Oh, my cell is turned off�

2) �I can�t believe she�s going out with him!�
�She is a total slut. And you are way cuter!�

3) Various phrases you tend to hear so often, you want to scream, e.g. �I don�t think Interpol sounds like Joy Division at all.�

Perhaps some of the most painful �can you hear me now�s� occur in the arena of the heart�yes, the romantic cop outs that have persisted for so long precisely because they work so well. But while the insincere �I�ll call you� is certainly dreaded, it is important to point out that many of the romantically inspired �can you hear me now�s� exist for a good reason�they make things easier. Sometimes it�s so much easier to hear, �it�s not you, it�s me,� or �I�m just not ready for this,� rather than the much more complex and potentially hurtful real reasons behind people�s emotional muddling.

Also, here�s something I just learned: sometimes it�s easier just to stick with the safe, standard response, like someone�s holding up the prompt card for you. You know, when someone says something like, �I really miss you,� the correct response is �I miss you too.� The correct response is not, �I am totally paranoid that you�ll stop liking me during this longish-distancey kind of thing we�re doing.� No. That�s not the correct response.

I have a really bad habit of saying exactly what pops into my head with little to no editing involved. Sometimes I hear something come out of my mouth and I see the text of what I just uttered clicking past like a teletype on CNN and I�m thinking, �No, what the hell is that? Did I really just say that?� Sometimes, the things I say kind of hang around for a moment, like big, annoyingly clingy cartoon conversation balloons. Lately my brilliant comments have tended to hover dangerously overhead, awkward and filled with ill portent--more like blimps heading for the electrical wires. Oh the humanity.