ESSAY: Somewhere A Grandpa Dies

The mundane question of “how are you?” by the company’s water fountain at the corridor invokes true horror in me. And I love horror. But this question always discourages me. First off, I HAVE TO answer, because it is just the appropriate and expected social norm, then, second of all, I HAVE TO lie.

I once had an eye-opening conversation at university. Unbeknownst to my partner, I rarely took notes, as I had always been a lazy student, and was taking advantage of my friends that were way more diligent. She must have wanted my notes so she started with a “how are you?”. It was springtime, and we were standing on the corridor, which was insanely busy with students walking and shuffling around, because it was a nice morning. Morning classes were the most popular in my opinion (not to be confused with the early morning ones), because students would show up to their friends and teachers, showing “hey, I am a responsible student, I take this seriously” delaying the opportunity to use the excuses for the afternoon or evening classes, which they might skip in favor of grabbing a beer and sticking to a deep conversation with others. Or this is how I’d imagine it.

If I remember well she was a very busy student — kind of having the impression that her busyness was a facade of showing people how important she was going to become. When she asked, I could only answer with a lie: “my grandpa died last night.” Because of the noise, or carelessness, she went on: “yeah, and do you have notes on Social Linguistics?”

That opened up a portal that pushed me into the dimension of eternal hatred for the shallow “how are you.”