Question: Why do I feel so tired all the time?
Unwanted Answer: You drink no liquids other than Pepsi, and you smoke 80 cigarettes a day.
Question: Why is it impossible to rent a goddamn movie all of a sudden?
Unwanted Answer: Market forces have deemed you irrelevant. You’ll need a computer that can run a post-Windows 95 operating system. You’ll need to increase your data plan by an exponential level. To watch movies on the TV you’ll need an HDMI or SJA cable. Ah, oh, ha, never mind. I recall the dark day I offered you my old laptop, and your defiant claim that you’d never use a computer sans mouse. When I suggested a mouse could be plugged into the laptop’s USB slot, you waved your hand dismissively and wouldn’t allow the issue to be broached again. Also, you’ll need to sign up for Netflix, which isn’t going to be any kind of picnic for you.
Question: Why is it so cold in here?
Unwanted Answer: It’s hot as hell.
Question: Why don’t they make music like they used to?
Unwanted Answer: They do. Much of it is downright sublime. You, however, make no effort to seek out anything other than what plays on your town’s two competing classic rock radio stations.
Question: Don’t these pitchers realize they have to throw strikes?
Unwanted Answer: The pitchers realize this and do aspire to throw strikes. Negatively correlated against pitch accuracy are the factors of velocity and movement. Professional ball players spend 80 hours a week playing or thinking about baseball. They’ve got the fundamentals down. At the very least I’m sure they’re privy to the same clichés about strike-throwing that you are.
Question: (At a blues bar.) Piano? That’s not something I’d associated with the blues?
Unwanted Answer: I’m no musicologist, but I’m confident that piano is quite commonly associated with the blues. As instruments go, you are talking about a staple of the blues.
Question: Since when does a hamburger cost $14.95?
Unwanted Answer: Since about 1998.
Question: What’s wrong with your generation?
Unwanted Answer: Access to too broad a selection of pornography.
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Mike Sauve has written non-fiction for The National Post, Variety, and HTML Giant. His online fiction has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Monkeybicycle, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and university journals of moderate renown. Stories have appeared in print in M-Brane, Feathertale, Filling Station, and elsewhere. His novel The Apocalypse of Lloyd is forthcoming from Montag Press. His novella Goodbye Pantopon Rose is forthcoming from CCLaP Publications.