Columnist for Wednesday, 3/28 - Harlock

New Rules for Etiquette: Greetings

In case you haven't noticed, we are now officially living in the future. See the year? 2001. That's the future, buddy. Sure, we don't have rocket cars and teleportation units, but we do have the Internet, robots that mow your lawn, and cars that can tell you where you are and how to get to any restaurant within a 10-mile radius. Ok, maybe only a really small percentage of people have the latter two items...erm...or the first item, I guess. But we at least have the Internet. So we're something like 33 percent more futuristic than before.

So, now that we've established that we're living in the future, it's obvious that we need new rules of etiquette for this brave new world. Specifically, we need new forms of greeting. Sure, "Hi" or even "Hi, how are you?" are fine, but they're so twentieth-century. The year 2001 begs for new, ultra-modern, sparkling-fresh forms of greeting. Where can we find something like this? Why, where all twenty-first century ideas come from: the Internet!

>From now on, the old, dingy greeting/response dialog "Hi, how are you"/"Fine, thanks" or variations thereof are replaced by the following greeting/response: "Are you cute?" /"You've got mail!" For a more informal greeting, use the pair: "Somebody set us up the bomb!"/"It is you!"

Now you're in the know! So spread the new greeting far and wide, so that everyone can truly enter the future.

But what, you ask, about the people who don't know about this? How can I properly educate them? Fortunately, I anticipated this dilemma. Let's say that you see someone that you want to greet. Approach that person, and greet them by saying "Are you cute?" Wait for the proper response. If they respond with the correct phrase, "You've got mail," then either begin your conversation or continue walking. If, however, they do not provide the proper response, and display signs of confusion, then do the following:

  1. Immediately assume a blank expression.
  2. Raise your arm. Stiffly, from the shoulder, not casually from the elbow.
  3. Point directly at the non-responder.
  4. Open your mouth wide and emit a single, piercing note. Do not undulate your voice, but make one single, continuous, piercing shriek.
And if you witness someone educating a non-responder:
  1. Locate the target.
  2. Perform the steps to target education, outlined above.
  3. Continue to point and shriek until the subject flees in shame, horror, and confusion. Or just horror and confusion. Either way, they'll learn.
See? Isn't that easy? Soon, everyone will be educated in the new rules of etiquette, and the world will be a better place for it. Because people will either learn the correct responses, or else they'll just wander off and die somewhere, alone and friendless. But we can't be bothered by those thoughts, can we? No! We're too busy living in the future!

Note: The raised eyebrow thing, where you just raise your eyebrows as you pass someone instead of actually speaking to them, is still perfectly acceptable. Research shows that it might encourage the development of psychic powers, and nothing says Future like psychic powers!

Previous day's column (jasona)