Man Uncomfortable With Lack Of ClichÉs In Recent Conversation
Matt Brecker, 31, of Schaumberg, Illinois, complained to reporters of a highly uncomfortable conversation he had with a fellow co-worker, Damien Horner, in which Horner stubbornly established his half of the conversation without the use of any clichés or truisms.
Brecker described the conversation, held at the suburban office of Daigle & Daigle Engineering, as being "as tough as nails" to endure.
"From the word 'go', the whole thing was really awkward. I mean, I've never heard of anyone managing to maintain conversation without at least one or two lines that you've heard a million times before, you know, just to let you know where they're coming from," said Brecker. "It's like I've always said: 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.' And I literally got out of the kitchen!"
Added Brecker: "We were talking in the office kitchen."
Following the strange and unusual kitchen conversation, Brecker returned to his desk immediately, where he unleashed a tweet reading, "Warning: unless you want your ear talked off, don't ever ask Damien [Horner] from the drafting department how his weekend was."
Despite the catharsis resulting from telling strangers his feelings in less than 140 characters, however, Brecker said that his work has still suffered in the aftermath of asking Horner basic questions like, "What's up?" and "How you doing?" and receiving not thoughtless responses like "okay" or "shitty", but multi-minute-long explanations of his recent experiences and ventures.
"I mean, get on the gravy train! Know what I mean?" expressed Brecker. "I have work that needs to get done, so when I ask a question, I'm expecting to receive a cool, funny answer that only takes a second, not some detailed whatever of what's really going on in [Horner's] life. What a freak!"
Others have joined Brecker in expressing consternation towards Horner's thoughtful and original responses to questions.
"I asked him about how he feels about Obama's healthcare reform plan the other week," said project manager Tom Broadson, "and he didn't even mention the word 'socialism' once, even though he said at least five whole sentences. It's a simple question: do you like socialism or not? Come on, you gotta speak my language!"
The majority of the office seems to agree that nothing is safe from Horner's loquacious discussion of every topic presented to him, even among subjects traditionally prohibited from thoughtful analysis, such as the weather.
"If you're around him, you can't even complain about how cold and disappointing the summer has been," said human relations manager Susan Sweeney, "because he'll go the other way and talk about how it's been nice to sleep with the windows open, or how he and his girlfriend find other things to do when the beach is too cold to go swimming. What the hell does that even mean?"
Matt Brecker has vowed to never fully trust Horner again after the disturbing lunchtime exchange, but Horner, for his part, has expressed indifference to the hornets' nest he's stirred up in the office.
"I knew [Brecker] was trying to lead me into a cliché when he asked me, 'How's it hanging?', to which I responded with a description of exactly what I did last weekend, which he obviously wasn't expecting at all. That's the kind of thing I like to do, just to shake things up a bit, get people out of their comfort zone."
"I think," Horner continued, "it was Jack Kerouac who said something like, 'The people for me are the mad ones, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn.' I'm paraphrasing, of course, but I guess I live that."
