Tales of Overheard Conversation

Okay, I was walking across the street in the Haight (Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco) with a friend of mine. We had just finished laying on the hill in Golden Gate Park listening to a percussion circle and unsuccessfully trying to spot anyone selling magic brownies for about an hour or two. That experience must have heightened my perception. The repeated cadence of the drums combined with peeking over the shoulders of several Generation Tech Hippies might have created an extra-sensory ability or something, because on a normal day I would have never caught this moment so vividly.

In the middle of the crosswalk, walking in the opposite direction were a guy and a girl in their early twenties bickering back and forth. As they passed us, I heard this piece of wisdom from the guy:

"... yeah, but at least I wouldn't have to live the rest of my life being known as the pussy who didn't have the balls to jump off the motherfucking cliff"

As we got to the other side of the street, my friend and I, in unison, gave each other the "What the fuck?" and "Dude..no way" sequence of looks. Now you don't have to be Billy Dee Williams* to figure out what was said a few seconds before. First of all, obviously, the guy had done or was going to do something stupid with his friends and the girl was nagging him. Seriously, have you ever walked by a nagging couple? It shoots off this aura of nag that can make even innocent bystanders cringe. There's an 92% chance that the exchange went like this:

Girl: So if all of your friends were going to jump off a cliff, you'd jump too?
Guy: Yeah. (can be interchanged with "Bet", "Sho' nuff", "Word, booty!", "Yup, yup!" or "Dern, tootin'!")
Girl: ...but you'd be dead ____ (insert pejorative term insulting the guy's intelligence)

Now the friend I was with was my mentor of sorts and we came up with the following:

The guy? In one word...Awesome! Seriously, that response rolled off of his tongue so naturally and he said it with such conviction that he either had used that response before, or had it cocked, ready, and waiting to be used. He probably came up with the response when he was caught in an "aura of nag" once. There's a reason that women should never come at guys with these seemingly unbeatable cliched argument openings. It's because we're ready for it. Chances are what is going to come out of our mouths in response is approximately 8.37 times dumber than the dumbest response you could ever fathom. Don't believe me? Reread the block quote again. Why do you think that guys have arguments like "Dude" or "Come, on man" with a lot of gestures and head nods? You don't waste your time with leg sweeps and crane kicks when you know that the other guy is just gonna Cobra Kai your ass.

The girl? If it was a friend, depending on the girl she was either 100% sure to be sleeping with him soon or he would never ever get into her pants. Either way, any middle ground was blown to smithereens with that exchange. If it was a girlfriend? They would have the same argument two and a half years later followed by this question: "You're never going to change are you?" Naturally, he'd be ready for that one too.


*yes, I am fully aware that Billy Dee Williams is not well known for any role in which he played a character with detective skills. It's just that every once in a while you gotta give it up for Lando Calrissean, yo!

Tags: Tales of Overheard Conversation