Hear All About It

I'm writing this on a Monday evening, and I'm glad it will soon be Tuesday, making it six days until we have to hear the following exchange:

Person passing coworker by restroom, lunchroom or water cooler: "Hey! How ya doin'?" (similarly, "Hey! What's up?" or "Hey! How are you today?")


and then comes the reply:

"It's Monday."


With all the sadness and disenchantment that that day brings.

Whatever happened to the days when "How ya doin'?" was more a rhetorical question, guaranteed to engender the polite "Fine, Frank, and how are you?" response.

Not now.

Now you get a calendar, telling you the date of the week, the weather forecast, wherein they tell you that they would be fine except that it's so doggone (hot/cold/rainy/not rainy/snowy/ sleety/humid/dry/whatever it is) today. Or you might get the Front Page and the reasons behind what's going on in the Gulf, the progress of the war, and what Lady GaGa is wearing to the Yankees game tomorrow night. Or you get an almanac, so they tell you that they'd be much better if they weren't ____ years of age as of next Tuesday. Or you get the society column, where they tell you that they were out late last night having such a big time at the big function down at the Moose Hall that they only got an hour of sleep. Or the sports section. That's the one where they tell you the Orioles bullpen is solely responsible for their hypertension, neuralgia and nausea.

Come to think of it, if the people you work with could just start handing out coupons by the common gathering areas at work, you wouldn't need to buy the newspaper at all!