No, But Thanks For Asking (And Other Weird Utterances)

So I've been on the new job for two weeks now. It's always fun to meet new people and discover personalities and the politics of a new work place. It's another bookstore job, but there are many differences, some I like, others I don't. I belong now, though, because the other day I had my first experience in the new place of the age-old dumbest question. As I was kneeling on the floor, clutching a stack of books and trying to squeeze one of them onto a bottom shelf, a customer asked me, un-rhetorically it always seems, "Do you work here?" The day I snap and fire off a "What do I look like, buddy, Rosie O'Donnell's hair stylist?" retort, I'll know it'll be time to retire. Until then, I'll silently endure.

But you get that one all the time. There have been two recent sentences spoken to me, though, one a question, one a statement, that have got me scratching my head a bit. A friendly new co-worker generously offered me one of her Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. As I thanked her and dug my hand into the tiny cookie pouch, she said, "I love cookies." Hunh? Think about that simple sentence for a second. I love cookies. Isn't that really a universal euphemism for "I'm alive"? I asked her, "Does anybody hate cookies?" If someone does exist who actually hates cookies, is that not the saddest sack of humanity alive? One simple declarative sentence. Three words, one used dozens of times a day (I), one used probably a few times a day, if not always aloud (hate), and one that if not spoken must be thought of at least two hundred times a day (cookies). And yet I'd be willing to wager that in the conversation with my co-worker I was the first person in human history to put those three very common words together in a sentence: I hate cookies (just as I'd be willing to wager this paragraph is the first written expression, in any language--dead or alive--of that sentence, I hate cookies). You're living history as you read, folks.

But it was the question posed to me last night, in all sincerity, mind you, that perplexes me more than any other sentence directed at me this past week or over the past several decades, when I think about it. The question put to me roughly twenty-four hours ago was this: "Are you in a bowling league?" Now let's be clear right up front. I have nothing against bowling. I enjoy the game every time I bowl, which is about once every five years. It's like golf (a sport [yes, bowling is a game, golf a sport; start the boycotts and protests and letters of condemnation to the U.N. now] I am passionate about) for unimaginative people--you basically are playing against yourself, which really lends a great existentialist edge to the sport (game). I likewise have nothing against bowlers, (keglers, I believe is the technical term). Some of my best friends are bowlers (or would be, if my best friends indeed bowled). And if bowling leagues are good enough for Donny and Walter and Lebowski, they're fine by me. I can safely say I never see myself joining a Dungeons and Dragons _______--what, club, organization, cabal? or a quilters' circle or a parents of mimes booster club, but I would not, categorically, rule out the possiblity of joining a bowling league sometime in the future (the future of flying cars and holographic sex, ideally). Got it? Bowling, bowlers, and bowling leagues are all fine by me.

But what, pray God, what does it tell me about me that a nice young woman asked me, in all sincerity (fine, two nice young woman, totally separately, within about five minutes) if I bowl in a bowling league? Now I realize that context is 90% of Compos mentis; I was bowling at the time (the company Christmas Holiday party), and as Donny says, I was "throwing rocks" last night, but still. Can't a guy throw a couple strikes and pick up a couple spares without reeking of "Bowling League Guy"? These people have gotten to know me for two weeks, isn't that enough time to cross Bowling League Guy off the list of possible personality traits? Now it's probably obvious that I am neither a frequent shopper club card holder at GNC nor a Civil War reenactor, but the thought that I might be a Bowling League Guy makes me question more than I want to question about my outward demeanor. Do I need a (literal or metaphoric) wardrobe make-over? Or, God forbid, a total aura overhaul? All I know is I haven't slept, and I think I'm hearing automatic pinsetters in the gutters of my mind.

I know, I know, it's not so bad. The two nice young women didn't ask me if I was a member of the Hair Club For Men. They didn't ask if I had a metal detector they could borrow. They didn't ask me if I had any old issues of O The Oprah Magazine lying around. They didn't say, "With that form, I bet you're an expert curler, too." But then again, they didn't ask me if my Ferrari was in storage all winter. They didn't ask me how much I can bench press. They didn't ask me if Mensa Club meetings were as wild as they sound. And they didn't say to me, "Haven't I seen your bust in some Hall of Fame or other?" (I've long harbored a secret wish to be asked about my bust.) As Dirty Harry said to Briggs, "A man's got to know his limitations," I guess. I'm a guy who two weeks after meeting him you could plausibly see in a bowling league.

Truth is, in fifth grade, 1973-74, I not only bowled in the Huckleberry Hounds Bowling League at Severance Center Lanes, I will have you know I took home the hardware for best average in the league (a robust 100, as I recall; hmmm, another would-be career path I should have considered more seriously). No man should go to his grave without having won a bowling trophy.