The Recipe for Really?

I realized some time ago that most arguments (esp. bad ones) can be deflated with a few well-placed words. If they’re really good words, they can also deflate the person’s ego and get a laugh from nearby bystanders.

I found a way to do this all with one word. The titular “Really?”

However, you can’t just say “Really?” in any old way. You have to say it in the particular proportions I’ve discovered. Like any recipe, you can modify it slightly to suite your own needs, but don’t try to work off book unless you know what you’re doing. Okay?

Here goes:

How to make a Really?:

Ingredients:

1. Tone of voice with 60 percent inquisitiveness, 10 percent condescension, 5 percent bewilderment, and 25 percent curiosity.
2. A stare that is simultaneously blank and mock ‘caught-off-guard’
3. A working neck
4. Facial expression with 40 percent grimace in embarrassment and 60 percent sympathetic questioning. Imagine you’re a lawyer desperately trying to defend an innocent person who keeps saying stupid things.

Instructions:

1. Wait until the appropriate moment. Usually this will be shortly after a bad argument escapes the lips of the person you’re debating. For instance, “Buildings can’t fall like that, Bush must have planned 9/11.”
2. Look at him blankly for precisely one moment. It is important for the silence to stretch for one full moment while you seem like you’re momentarily caught off guard by the argument.
3. Tilt your head to the right while simultaneously grimace and scrunch your eyebrows together while raising them.
4. Say “Really?” as if they just embarrassed themselves.
5. If needed, say “Seriously?” Or “you really believe that?” Each time make your grimace more pained.

While I generally hate rhetoric or sophistry, sometimes its the most effective tool in your arsenal. Try saying this sometime today. It’s surprising how well it works.

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Goodie Grab Bag XII

We brought you to this bar to have an intervention.

Man, I’m so rich, I use $100 bills for toilet paper. And I use toilet paper for something equally frivolous: like currency.

Sorry, I have to go. My pedicurist is calling me: it might be important.

1: I remember when this guy was a neoluddite.
2: You were? What convinced you to like women?
3: Nothing convinced me to like women!
2: A-Ha! I knew it! I knew you were still into the chocolate!

Why do they call it sexual assault? It’s such a negative term. They should call it “sexy assault”

2: I went to school, stopped for a bit, went for a bit, went back…
1: You dropped out?
2: No, it was just the summer.

Holy Water is my anti-drug!

1: Do you take this woman to have and to hold, in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do you part?
2: …. Umm… LINE??

Hey, look at that dintinguished old gentleman walking that fluffy dog! I hope I look that way when I’m a dog…

2: I know him better than you do.
1: No way, I’m his brother, he trusts me way more.
2: Uh-uh, I’m hella more trustworthy, I’ll prove it! Let’s have a secret revealing contest to see who knows the most things about him!
1: You’re on!

Every century has been better than the last, with the exception of the box office disappointment of the 17th century.

“Man, even I feel too tired to go with you to drop me off.”

My phone will be out of service for the next week, so if you really need to get a hold of me before then, the quickest way will be via smoke signals.

1: I keep wanting to talk, but he just ignores me. It’s like he wants nothing to do with me!
2: That’s the same thing that happens with me and my priest.

And now, the Star-Spangled Banner as sung by the Flatulence Brothers!

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