Interpersonal Skills

This morning, I thought I saw a dead body. Turns out a guy was just napping in his driveway (who naps face-down?). As I passed by, his adult son came out of the garage and through smiles communicated, "it's funny to see a guy sleeping face-down on his driveway."

At Starbucks, I chatted with a CHP officer. His name is Louie, which is easy to for me to remember, given the cockapoo that goes everywhere I go. Louie (the CHP, not the cockapoo) said my name would also be easy to remember, because he’d once dated three Michelles in a row.

On the phone with United Airlines, trying to get Louie (the dog, not the CHP) a primo spot in my leg room, I realized no one—not even computers—want to talk with you if you’re in a sour mood. Like the deviant Disney artists who embed naughty pictures in their films, voice-recognition software programmers create applications that can recognize accents from all over the world, but not any words spoken with malice. Which only warps your voice further, until you are put on hold and eventually hung up on. Which is where communication stops.