Don't Ask Me About My Weekend

Not my weekend.

How was your weekend?

Does that innocent question cause you to clench your fists and/or sigh pathetically?

Everyone knows how the question How are you?, particularly around the workplace, can be an open-ended query with the potential to open a Pandora's box of misery.

What I realized recently is that there's an even worse question you can ask a person in my state of life:

"How was your weekend?"

For starters, Saturday and Sunday haven't comprised "my" weekend since 2003 or so, perhaps earlier. I know I'm preaching to the choir to many of you, but when I'm asked about my weekend I'm forced to remember how much of my weekend has been chewed away like the income of a rich person without a smart accountant.

A worse question is What did you do this weekend?, but there's yet a still more horrible question...

I'M GOING TO POUR GASOLINE OVER MY HEAD AND LIGHT A MATCH; THAT IS, I WOULD, IF GAS DIDN'T COST SO MUCH THAT I CAN'T AFFORD A MATCH
"Got any plans this weekend?"

At least with How was your weekend? you can grunt out a "Fine, fine." What did you do this weekend? you can answer with "This and that" or "Stuff with the kids" or "Mowed the lawn."

But when you're asked about your plans before the weekend begins, as I was by the guy cutting my hair, you're dealing with the potential that isn't there, not fallout from the Bomb of Depression that begins to seep in at around 7:30pm on Sunday night.

I can't tell the truth, which is something along the lines of "I have no real life right now, so I ask my wife which sporting event/birthday party from hell I'm supposed to attend and with whom and what other things I'm required to do, most of which involve chores I hated doing as a child and no amount of age or maturity has given me any sense of responsibility to weed the front of the house or bring the garbage cans all the way to the side of the house instead of leaving them right in front of the stoop. I actually escaped the house in order to get this haircut, and just sitting in this chair with my eyes closed, despite having to reluctantly engage in conversation so you don't think I've completely slipped into some weird smiling waking coma like the Jonathan Pryce character at the end of the director's cut of Terry Gilliam's Brazil is going to be the highlight of my weekend!"

LET'S CHANGE THE SUBJECT
With that in mind, because I don't feel like talking about this anymore, here's another spam e-mail I received today.

The e-mail was sent to"antoniosofia," even though I (and probably about a million other people) received it. I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a conversation between her and Monica.

I know I'm beating a dead Barbaro here, but I am still baffled by these e-mails. Is there really someone out there (who can read English) who would read this and think, "THIS is where I'm gonna buy my new...what is it they're selling? An iPad?"

I'm going to start sending out work e-mails like this — with random, scattered letters and links that go to dangerous malware sites — and maybe I'll get that paid medical leave I've been seeking.

Scamming my employer would make it a great weekend, indeed.