Soooo...Any Plans for the Summer?

On the Wednesday January 29, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty One More Thing Podcast...

• There's an appropriate time to start up a conversation....

Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you have any big plans for the summer? Whoa,
it's one more thing. I'm strong and getty, one more thing.
So we've been talking about this for years. People that
try to engage you in conversation, like the person ringing

(00:22):
you up at the grocery store and you know, I'm
buying some groceries. I'm buying a gallon of milk and
some carrots. So what are your plans for tonight? And
I realize are you gonna drink milk and eat carrots?
That is exactly how I answer, usually because I'm a
smart ass and annoyed by these questions and I am.

(00:43):
I feel bad because it's not their fault. I don't think.
I think many times you're told that that will make
the customers feel more welcome or something. And like I
said on the radio the other day, I wish there
was some sort of stamp I could get or thing
I could work around. My knackers says. I'm not one
of those people. I don't feel more likely to come
back if you engage me in conversation. I feel less

(01:05):
likely to come back. It's not your fault.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
But although I do require the basics of polite society,
because occasionally you'll be in a place a grocery store,
maybe not so high end, or person's having a bad
day and they don't even acknowledge your presence. They just
start ringing stuff up. Did we talk about this on
the air or not? About the person ringing me up

(01:27):
who had the ear piece in? Did we talk about
that on the air?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. I'm
at a dollar store and because I agree, hey, how
you doing good? How are you fine? Got to have
that find everything? Okay, yep, that's fine. I have no
problem with that whatsoever. The nothing is weird. And so
I was checking out the Dollar Storm with my two
boys and checking out, and I said, Hey, how's it going.

(01:51):
She says nothing to me and rings me up, and
I said, have a good day. She said nothing to me,
and I walked down and I said that girl shouldn't
be working there. If I owned that store, I'd be
so freaking pissed off to know that I have somebody
work in the register that doesn't even say hello. And
he said that she had her earpiece in, she's listening

(02:12):
to music. I said, called to that absolutely freaking firer.
And he said that in. My son was like really
taken aback by my response to that, Like, everybody has
their ear piece in. It's okay, it's not a big deal.
She's listening to music. And my son always has his
earpiece in, I mean always, and I have to take
it out. I want to talk to you. I want
to be able to talk to you. I want to

(02:33):
know when I talk to you you can hear me.
I mean if we're riding in the car or whatever,
and it's just part of that age group they have
it in always with each other. Like if there's four
dudes sitting around talking, they each have an ear piece
in listen to music. I guess, wow. I don't know
what that is, if it's just like a fashion thing,

(02:54):
or if their brain actually desires it. But I thought,
when I'm dead, and it won't be long I'm in
the winter of my life, the next generation they'll all
have ear pieces in and they won't expect any communication
whatsoever because they're all listening to music or a podcast.
And so I guess you'll go through this stort checkout
and nobody will talk to each other. You know, you

(03:15):
ride together in a car somewhere, nobody says a word
to each other. Because you're all listening to your own
stuff in your head. It's just gonna happen. There's no
stopping it. But it makes me nuts. But I didn't
realize it'd gotten that bad. Oh yeah, yeah, he couldn't
believe that it bothered me that she had an ear
piece in and didn't respond to me, because that's the

(03:35):
way his generation does it. Yeah, it's shocking to me.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, I know, I know well, and it's resulted in
so much unmistakable misery and isolation. I just if I'm
casting my bets for who's in charge of the world
in two hundred years, it's the young and hungry and
backward civilizations right now, although they may well as soon
as they get hold of the technology and the food.
I mean that every every country that goes from like

(04:02):
eleven cents per capita for GDP to like over a
dollar fifty, they immediately become obese and they adopt all
of the modern stuff that's killing us. I just think
we've invented our own doom. We've invented too many pleasures
to resist. No country for old men, right, but back
to like people that aren't teenagers where you expect some

(04:25):
sort of normal give and take with the cashier or
the dental hygh genius came up the other day, Katie
brought up she hates it when they ask her questions
when they got their hands in your mouth, because you
can't answer. Anyway, Katie's not here today because she's sick,
but we got this text about that because we were wondering.
I'm sure the dental high genius is told to make conversation.

(04:46):
It makes the patience feel more comfortable or something like it.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I don't know. It helps distract them from things that
bother you are scary or whatever. Sir, longtime listener, this
person text lived in San Francisco for twenty years. I
now live in Manhattan. Okay, wow, one of those people
that there are only really a couple places you can
live in America Los Angeles, New York, maybe San Francisco
or Chicago, but those are your only options. I know
a number of people like that. The only places they've

(05:09):
lived are those very big cities. But anyway, as a
long time dental hygienist, employers do not tell you to
engage in conversation with the patients. Some patients absolutely want
us to talk and tell them stories to take their
time off the process or their mind off the process. Yeah,
and a good one will get a sense from the

(05:30):
patient whether they want to talk or be quiet, which
I do appreciate that you picked up on my hateful, hateful,
murderous vibe that I don't want to talk. I appreciate that.
It is perfect perfectly polite to tell us how you
want to experience the appointment. It's your money, your time,
so tell them, please talk me through this, help distract me,
or say I'd prefer to sit here and just think

(05:52):
and stare at the ceiling or listen to a podcast
or something. You don't need to talk to me. That's
not a bad idea. Just tell them ahead of time.
I'm not a person that wants to talk. I don't
feel like you have to. I don't know. Has that
come off as being a dick.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
M I would guess among the folks that have bothered me.
And when I say bothered me, it's fine, it's really fine.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh yeah, it's a yeah, first world problems. I mean seriously, yeah. Yeah.
In the list of things that actually bother me, that's
way way way down.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
But the gal who I've worked with at times in
the past. I'll just say that dental hygienist. I could
write a fairly brief but reasonably complete biography of this one,
and that is.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Her Boswell to her Johnson, you you could write a
biography of her, having just followed her around.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Uh yeah, And I just there's no need for that.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Uh but yeah, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I just I'm not going to put on they my
old dentist, and I've I've been very fortunate to have
had two dentists in the last thirty years. They've both
been fantastic. My old dentists.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
I haven't twenty years, so we have that in common. Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
But they would give you headphones, but I would always
just wear one because they have to communicate with you.
Can you till your head a little toward me great
or you know whatever, open a little less.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
That's to help them do their thing.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And so I've never been comfortable with and maybe it's
my generation with being in communicato.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
No, I don't like you're gonna have to communicate with it.
You know. The one that I hate the most, and
this is a different topic, but the one I hate
the most blood draws, and I even if I first
of all, yeah, don't talk about it, and then even
if I tell them not to talk about it, most
of the time they do. Look, just I'm fine with
this will be okay, just I don't want to don't
talk about it at all. Let's not talk about it. Still,

(07:40):
I'm gonna get a ooh, you got some juicy veins.
This will be easy. Or having trouble finding your veins
is gonna be hard to get the needle into your
veins because I need you to clench your Yeah, stop
talking about it. It's all right. I don't want to
hear a word about it. Let me just sit down,
look at the wall, pretend something else going on. You

(08:00):
jabbed me. I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Some people, and this covers every occupation known to mankind,
be they a humble street sweeper or a skilled brain
surgeon something in between. In every profession, Jack, there are
dumbasses or people who are so emotionally not intelligent they
can't take an effing hint and see it from your perspective.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
And it's annoying with me, but really annoying with my son,
who every time but once is thrown up when he
gets a blood dry and gets so anxious and nervous
and out of control and everything like that, and we
have multiple adults have to hold them down. I mean,
it's a horrific experience every time we get there. But
I go in there ahead of time and say, let's
just not talk about it at all. He really struggles
with this. I say what I just said and everything

(08:49):
like that, And almost all the time they say, the
needle's not that big seat here, look at the needle.
It's not gonna no, no, you effing moron, How do
you not get this? Wow?

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Wow, I don't think there's anything you can do for
a person like that.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Here, I'm gonna got me the needle. How do you
like it? Here?

Speaker 2 (09:10):
You're so probably not now, But next podcast, I will
tell you this. Next One More Thing podcast, the discussion
of your Disposable Dog THEORYDT will not die and and
the the responses and thoughts and philosophizings are not getting
less interesting, they're getting more interest.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
So when we're turned to Jack's brutal and hateful dispatch
of innocent dogs and probably cats uh at a.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Future date, So more psychopathy on the next One More Thing.
You know what my next dental appointment. I'm gonna look
at the hygiendas and say, if you don't mind while
you clean my teeth, tell me about the Cuban missile crisis.
Just give them a topic. I'm gonna gi him a topic. Yeah, well,
I guess that's at