Southpaw Jones

Archive for June 12th, 2007

Tuesday can’t stand to watch herself on screen.

June 12, 2007 By: Southpaw Jones Category: Interesting? 1 Comment →

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

I cannot just say “bless you” all dang day long!

I’ve never been a big fan of the traditional call-and-response system we’ve attached to that particular expulsion of irritants, but I am now entrenched in the worse sneezing war I’ve ever seen, and it’s killing me.

I work in a cubicle. Work station. Dork farm. Whatever you want to call it.

The two women on either side of me are chronic sneezers, lovely people who must have spilled ground pepper in their keyboards at some point. One sneezes about seven times after eating anything; the other lets ‘em rip randomly in sets of two or three.

Positioned between them, I am the catch-all “bless you” distributor.

Sneeze! Bless you.

If I don’t give a bless you to the woman on my left post-sneeze, the woman on my right will snag the honor, and I’ll come off like a jerk in the middle.

I’ve already come up with all the variations in tone and pronunciation I can muster. The sequence of responses to repeated countenance explosions is pretty much set in stone:

Sneeze. Bless you.
Sneeze. Bless you. (once more with feeling)
Sneeze. Gazoontite. (however you spell that)
Sneeze. Goodness…
Sneeze. Gracious!
Sneeze. You gonna be alright?
Sneeze. Well, bless you all to heck!
Sneeze. Blessssss yoooooooooooooou.
Sneeze. Get the #$@# out!
Sneeze. Get out of here!
Sneeze. See a doctor!
Sneeze. Quarantine! Quarantine!
Sneeze. B.Y.!

Today, I have a modest proposal. The “bless you” is so devalued in this office, the only way we can save it is to raise its price. From now on, each “bless you” will cost TWO sneezes. The first sneeze earns no mercy from me, especially when I know there’s another one or five coming. Is that rude?

Yes? Well, if politeness is what you’re after, well beware, lest the Sneeze Chain of Society develop into something like this:

Sneeze.
Bless you.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Oh, you’re too kind.
Nah, you need to hear it! All that mucous and whiplash…
It was a nasty one.
I know, I felt some drops over here.
Sorry.
No need to apologize. May the Lord God expel demons from your soul with every heave of your melon.
Sneeze!

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
Albert Camus

Online Museum of the Week
Cereal Box Archive: