Awful lot of weather we [sic] been havin' lately

Conversation.  Small talk.  I've never felt comfortable with it.  It's because I take things too literally.  I always have.  If you see what I see when you read between the lines, you'll wonder why you thought there was ever anything there to read.

I remember being a kid when I first heard someone say "You need to read between the lines."  I was so confused.  I think I know what it means now.  This notion of the meaning is what I gather strictly from context.  Over the years, I've heard it (Read between the lines) enough to get a general idea of its meaning.  I think it means, "Don't take stuff literally.  The speaker has ulterior motives."

Knowing this - I realize "read between the lines" is not to be taken seriously and whoever says it should not be trusted.

But that's not what I came here to talk about.  Earlier tonight, the family and I went over to the BW3 for some weck and whatnot.   I guess it should be BW4 if you add "whatnot"

If you know Shim, now would be a good time to imagine him saying "What the hell is cube talking about?"

Anyway - at some point, my top 5 daughter was talking about that thing that happens.  I mentioned that there's a comedian who does a routine on it.

It's when somebody says something like "How's it going?"

And you say "You too."

What's funny is - I don't know that I've ever caught somebody giving me the wrong mindless response to my mindless greeting.  But when I'm the one who says "You too,"  I hate myself.

I have done this countless times and every time, I feel like an imbecile.  I vow to never do it again.  Of course this is silly.  The reason nobody has ever called me on it is that NOBODY is listening. At all.  When somebody says, "Have a nice day," and you respond with "Not much,"  You're the only one who hears it.  That guy is already somewhere else.

Unless.

Unless you know something about somebody.  If you accidentally found out somebody's deep, dark secret, and it was really deep and really dark.  The sort of thing that you are sorry you know about a person. You'd take EVERYTHING they say literally while simultaneously reading between the lines.

What is that supposed to mean?

It's natural to rank how wrong certain actions are.  The kids play a game "Would you rather ..."  We grow up deciding what is the lesser of two evils.

Stealing from a poor old person is worse than taking a candy bar from a grocery store.  Shooting a guy in the head is worse than wanting to shoot a guy in the head, and so on.

So this guy I know.  I see him once in a while. As we pass each other, he'll invariably say, "What do you know, Cube?"

He doesn't know that I know what he did.  I found out accidentally.  Let's just say, he'll be lucky if there's a millstone and the deep blue sea in his future (Mt. 18:6).

Since I learned the terrible secret, I always say, "If I told you, you'd have to kill me."

And since people are as I described above, he pays no attention to my answer and simply says, "Hardy Har Har."