How's Your Dago-ing?

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Some day I'm going to count the number of times someone tells me to have a nice day or asks me how it's going?

Just now as I was typing my last report my beautiful wife headed by the office and said, "How's it going, Clifford?"

"I'm working!" I said.

"I was just checking in," she said. "I don't really care what you're doing."

And that's about the extent of it, right?

No one really cares. There are the people we see every day. The woman who accepts the $1.75 for my copy of the Buffalo News and the USA Today.

"How you doing?" she asks.

I try to come up with something clever. Something more original than 'Same shit, different day.'

"Better than Anthony Weiner," I said today.

Yet my favorite is when someone says:

"How's your day going?"

"Dago? Why do you have to start a fight?" I'll ask.

That little gem of a line has been in our family for about a hundred years. I'd be willing to bet all of my brothers and sisters have used it, multiple times...right gang?

And I suppose it's true. The other day I asked a woman how she was doing. It was in the grocery store parking lot. She was an older, normal looking woman, but unfortunately for me her car had been side-swiped in a different parking lot.

My simple question left her talking about her personal tragedy. She showed me the damage to the car. She told me about her battle with the insurance companies and the fact that she pissed off her old codger husband.

Ten minutes later I was walking through the parking lot, muttering, 'What the hell was that?'

How I wish I hadn't asked her.

Seriously folks, do you really care? Wouldn't life truly slow down if the question was answered honestly.

Think of my exchange with the clerk at the gas station.

"Hi Cliff, how's it going?"

"Well, the swelling on my knee is a little better. My back is still tight, but I'm hoping that with rest and ice, it'll be okay by the weekend. The Yanks lost to the Red Sux last night, but Wakefield is pitching today and I can hit him, so their lead should be safe. I have the breast cancer walk on Saturday followed by a party with my family and golf on Sunday, and work has been just fine although a little busy."

When do you think she'll stop listening.

How's your dago-ing?

Comments

Carrie Lynn Fazzolari said…
Had the "Dago-ing" conversation with Larry Bowman this morning... funny!
09 June, 2011
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