We often preprogram many of our interactions and use simple rote rules rather than actually thinking about the input and output that is occurring

@rocksg commented on my reposted Excuses post today. It reminded me of a period in my life I look back at with some amusement.

It happened when I was walking around college campus in the early 1990s. I had a whack up the side of the head moment after the dozenth "How's it going?", or "What's up?" that I received from people. The realization was that they were asking questions and didn't really care about the answer. I also noticed that my response to them was generic as well. I referred to this as a programmed response.

As I did then, and still do today my mischievous streak kicked in. I started kind of attacking this programming in a couple of different ways.

The first and most common method was that I would seriously answer their question with something not programmed or generic. I would truly answer the question.

It was amusing to me to watch them blink, as they realized "why is this guy telling me this?" without having a clue about the programmed question they had just asked me.

Sometimes I'd intentionally hold them up while engaged in conversation with them. This was the in the middle of a period where I enjoyed what I called "mind fucking" people. I grew out of that. I did not like to hurt them, insult them, or anything like that. I just enjoyed looks of confusion, wonder, and fear from ideas and challenging the norm. I did get off on it. Though I eventually tired of that game.

Now my roommates and friends at the time also enjoyed the game. Sometimes we'd tag team it. We could be total asses...

We would eat at some restaurants fairly frequently. One place we really liked to hang out was known as Mario's Pizza. We'd go buy their lunch special which at the time gave you a small calizone, amazing salad, and a drink for a fairly affordable price. They'd also bring saltine crackers and a bowl of ranch dressing to dip the crackers in. Sometimes there would be some of us there that couldn't afford to buy a meal that day (college days) and we'd indulge in the crackers and ranch.

Well the mind fuck mentality in response to programmed responses got targeted on the waiters and waitresses. We kept it light hearted and brought them in on it after the fact so they were not angry at us. In fact, they got it. It made them think.

We noticed they tended to show up and say "Do you need anything else" the moment our mouths were full. We noticed this happened more often than we would expect.

So we took to the habit of holding up our hand and finger as to say "please hold on for a moment" while we very visibly finished chewing and swallowing our food and then we'd say "no thanks". They might have stood there a minute waiting for our response only to be told we didn't need anything.

I wouldn't do that now. Yet, it does show some of my early mentality and it shows I wasn't alone in such activity.

It was a game, and we saw it, and changed the rules. ;)