"How Are You?"

I have the greatest friends in the world and have had the privilege of knowing some of the best people. Every single day I think how lucky I am to know them, and most of them are not even friends, they are just interesting people whose paths cross mine often enough to improve my life. I like to think maybe I offer them something, but really from a selfish standpoint, I am happy just to have the opportunity to bask in the glow of genius! And by genius, I am not talking just rocket science, I know a lot of people like that, but I just mean the genius it takes to thrive in our crazy complicated world.

My lifetime BFF is Kim, and she is the person I go to when I know I am being a little self-centered and I need to give other people more credit. She is the one who would never turn down a homemade offering, even if it's candied hippo liver. She says that when people go out of their way to share a piece of themselves with you, it is terribly wrong not to accept and be truly honored, but I still say, "it's weird organ meat, and possibly dangerous!" She is 100% right, though, and while I will never be the good and selfless person she is--sorry but I will NEVER knowingly eat your gift of organ meats, I at least have learned to blame it on my doctor! Kim has given me so much advice over the years, I could probably write a book, but the piece I think of most is "never ask a question unless you REALLY want to know the answer." Do these pants make my butt look big, isn't this neon green just the best color for me, and what do you think of my new orange ceilings are all questions you really shouldn't ask to anyone but your BFF!

And that brings me to "How are you?" We, as a nation need to come up with an alternative to that seemingly polite quotidian inquiry. I know better writers have addressed this issue, and I have been guilty of asking it way too many times, but until someone gets on the bandwagon and really makes an effort to come up with something more satisfactory, we seem to be stuck with it. I ask that question in some form more than a dozen times a day at the store, and no less than 10 times in the past three years, I have had women and a couple men start crying. I like to think it was because I have a healing aura--a voodoo doctor told me that once--and that for just a moment I was able to let them relieve some stress and make their load just a little lighter. But possibly, they cried because what they really wanted to do was scream:

"Not well thank you. I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown, my marriage is a wreck, my sister has breast cancer and I am taking care of her kids, I have a work deadline I am never going to meet, I am only here because I have ten minutes before dance and I have to take something to a potluck and feed all the kids at my house and you have the unmitigated audacity to ask 'how are you?' can't you tell I am not well and now is not the time to discuss it, but if you have an hour at 7:00, I will gladly clear my schedule because I sure could use the opportunity to unload."

And so now, as I go about my daily life, shopping, taking care of normal ordinary chores, those are the only moments I spend alone, the only time I allow myself the luxury of sadness and fear, only to be faced with the pretty young sales associate who smiles and says "How are you on this nice sunny day?" Fear for the possibility of scarring the poor young lady for a lifetime is the only thing that keeps the tears at bay, but then I am forced to shrug her off without saying a word, so she can only think I am a rude shopper, and it sure isn't in my agenda to want to turn an optimistic young woman into a jaded adult, but I also couldn't risk mascara running down my face when I only had 20 minutes to get back to work with the cilantro.

So, because I know I am constantly surrounded by genius, I implore everyone to come up with some alternatives--try them out and send me your best ideas. As a person who constantly strives to offer the best customer service, what are the best greetings? During football season in Texas, the standard greeting is "How 'bout dem Boys?" Not a bad one, even as a non-fan, it is a totally easy greeting--I can safely reply, "totally missed the last two games" and if you can talk and you know the other person is receptive, you can say, "I missed the last two games because my mother passed away and I had to be out of town." But either way, you can take a safe exit. Of course there is the standard weather greeting "it sure is hot today," or "do you think spring is coming soon?" But they are too old, and now they tread so very closely to being political, so I try to stay away from those. I knew a man who always said "How's tricks?" I never knew what that meant so it always gave me pause and I would just smile and say "Fine." That works for him, and maybe that's the key, we all need our own. In my current role, I could ask everyone "What's cooking today? but that just doesn't feel right, maybe I just need practice. Gas prices rising, economy falling, bees and blue crabs are disappearing--now is the time for a national optimism movement that starts with a new greeting. so let me know when you find a good one! Thanks from the bottom of my heart, Lisa