I remember growing up and using the the flippant version of this powerful word. You used it with your friends as often as the Federal Reserve cranks up its' money making machine. Bam, there goes another trillion dollars! But I digress. Timed right, "whatever" is a very effective tool in a sardastic bag of tricks. But every good tool not used properly has it's bad side.
I remember the first time I said "whatever" to my grandmother. My grandmother didn't hit, well except for the time she tried to spank me with a ruler and it broke and I started laughing, but that's a whole different story entirely, and I'm sure it was the last time I ever said it. OK, it probably wasn't the last time I said "whatever" to her, because kids really aren't that smart, even if your kids already think they're smarter than you.
So we grow up and become less sardastic and maybe a little more sarcastic and use "whatever" less. But even when we grow up and get a little smarter, we're still really not that smart. This can be evidenced by the first and only time I used "whatever" with my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and quite honestly jeopardized the chances on making my girlfriend my wife and then what would have been of my two children? It's kinda like a sliding door experience. You say whatever and your girlfriend becomes your ex-girlfriend or you don't say whatever and your girlfriend becomes your wife, you have kids, and live happly ever after.
Warning - the video below has suggestive content. You probably don't want to show your kids, but you may, at the right time, want to show your wife. Just don't say whatever when she says no.
Somehow I repaired the damage of the atomic bomb I dropped that day, got married and passed on my sardonic genes. Your kids, who think are smarter than you (because they are) will think they're smarter than you, even at age 7, and tell you whatever! START of PSA - for those of you who don't have kids or your kids are too young to tell you off yet, they will and don't be surprised when they do it. Also, don't spank them with a wooden or plastic ruler, because it will break, they will laugh at you, and this will make you really mad - END of PSA - and so continues the circle of life.
And so where are we going with this? Since I'm not that smart, or funny, or creative, and everything I talk about or write about for that matter has to do with biking, here comes the tie in.
This is me trying to get my game face on at the start of a cross race.
And what is really going on in there (that being my brain) is some version of whatever. It's not a sardastic or even a sarcastic whatever. More like a whatever happens whatever. And as we've have discussed, this is not good. It's not good for relationships, and is not especially good for cyclocross racing.
New Years Resolution #1 - No more "Whatever"
P.S. - I don't really know what the word sardastic means. I think I heard my wife say it once. She's really smart, so I thought I'd use it so that I sounded smart too. You can look it up in the dictionary like I tried, but you'll find, like I did, that it's not in there.
No comments:
Post a Comment