WHAT'S THE QUESTION?

Here’s a good bit of advice; “If you don’t know what to say—SAY NOTHING! It will keep you from looking clueless while taking up less oxygen in the room.

The other day, when I was in the grocery store, I heard a woman ask, “Do you have any regular bananas?  These are green.”

One time when I went to a movie and sat down, a friend sitting in the row behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hi, what are you doing here?”  And, I love it when the tooth cleaning lady at the dentist’s office sticks her hand, and metal sticks, into my mouth and says, “Let me know if it hurts.

When I asked my pharmacist if he has ever heard a dumb question, he rolled his eyes                              and said, “A man just asked me, “‘How often should I take a one-a-day vitamin?”’

I live in Arizona where, in June, people start taking bets on the arrival of the first triple digit heat wave.  Well, it has arrived, and it’s not like a friendly wave from an air-conditioned car. When you have a week of 10l, 102, 105, 108 and 107 it not only gets your attention but, in some cases, seems to dull the mind.  It is at this point I feel obligated to answer some of the dumb, dumber and dumbest of questions.

Hiking in the heat is not recommended unless it’s done early in the morning. Consequently, I am out and about at around 5:30 a.m.  Yesterday, I passed the fenced-in dog park and saw a medium sized, caramel colored dog standing outside the fence. He was looking up at a very old man, hanging there.  One of the man’s legs was over the fence and the other leg was hanging over the dog park. Suddenly, he levitated  himself and then disappeared as he fell flat on his back.  

I ran to the other side of the fence (where the dog stood looking at his prone master) and I said, “Are you hurt?”” Do you want me to get help?” “Can you stand up?”—all reasonable questions.  Covered with foliage, he gingerly stood up and said, “That was dumb of me to do.”
I said, “Everyone does dumb things, but I don’t think you should do that again. Use the gate!”

As I continued my hike, walking with my two walking sticks, another man said to me,”Are you going to climb Mt. Everest?” Whereupon I answered, “No, I just got back!” Then I went home to change clothes into my bathing suit.  Walking down the hall to the pool, wrapped in a towel, wearing sunglasses, a hat and carrying a pool noodle, I passed a woman who said, “Are you going to the pool?”  “No,” I responded, “I am going horse-back riding.” Then on the way back there was, “How’s the water?”   I replied, “Wet.”

When I went down for dinner, I was stopped by a woman who said, “I heard that the books in the library are now alphabetized. What do they start with?” I replied, “A.”

Of course the blessing of offering smart aleck answers to stupid questions is that most people would rather talk than listen.  I know that because everyday I am met with many of  the same
questions. Must be the heat!

However, if anyone ever asked me,”What is your least favorite question?”  It happened to me after every book was published, every column was written, every speech given and every play produced—-“You are a writer—So, how much money do you make?”  And, my answer was always the same—-“ENOUGH!”

Esther Blumenfeld