The Desk Chair: Banter

Elyse (not to be confused with Elise) suggested a great topic last night: banter. It sprang from a conversation we were having about how I keep accidentally flirting with this one guy at work and how, in my desire to be non-flirtatious (there's no actual interest there), I over-correct and say ridiculous things like, "Well that's a sharp portfolio you got there!" Yes, that is an actual thing I said to another human. The problem is, he always comes up with a witty response to my nonsense and the whole thing circles back and feels like flirting again. Just not talking seems to be the best solution. 

Turns out, though, that writing about "banter" wasn't as fun or as easy I was expecting. I went down this whole weird road from flirting to feminism to my concern with the "Lemonization of the American female" and I started to have no idea what I was talking about. So I scrapped it. 

Elyse had other sub-suggestions. Some of her, uh, requests - for instance, that I should post a picture of Vince Vaughn because he's "good at banter" - I was confident she expected me to ignore. But really, what can you say about it? Nothing. You just do it. And it's fun. And if you're me, you try to win at it because it's totally a competition. 

So instead I looked into another question that arose from the whole incident. My use of the word "portfolio." I realized as soon as I said it that what I really meant was simply "folio," which, as far as I can tell, is just a Trapper Keeper for grownups. I don't totally get the point of it. Especially if you're just going from one room to another within the office. Can't you just... carry whatever it is you need? Are you worried someone's going to come around the corner and everything will shift to black and white and suddenly they won't be able to maintain a hold of their coffee cup and your document will be destroyed? 

Anyway, it's obvious to me now (and surely to you) that I should have stuck with my original plan to write something about Thanksgiving. So here's something about Thanksgiving: if you say "turkey day" to me I will slap you with the force of a thousand wattles.