Hijacked conversations

Yesterday, I blogged about how a conversation went from college textbooks to whether or not casinos in Las Vegas will ever be willing to stop taking bets on NBA games. Yes, I know, it boggles the mind.

So now, as promised, I will tackled yet another conversation, this time via email, that took a wrong turn and got lost.

It all started with a stupid joke. Then again, aren't most jokes that get sent via email stupid? Anyway, it was a joke that ended with a punchline about used condoms being turned into bubblegum that was shipped to France. Now bear in mind that I was not an active participant in the argument. An antogonist, perhaps, but not an actual participant.

Anyway, one of the recipients of the joke replied to the sender of the joke, and the sender called the recepient a lover of the French and hater of America because he said the joke wasn't all that funny and that he had nothing against France or its people.

So there's a discussion about France and how, to paraphrase the sender, French people act uppity and put us down unless they need us to bomb something. "Us" being America. Somewhere around this part is where I was brought into this. Not kicking and screaming, mind you; I was a willing non-participating participant who happened to agree with the receipient (hereafter referred to as "R") in his arguments against the sender (hereafter referred to as "S").

The conversation turned from WWII to weapons, specifically who was selling what to whom. That's where I got kind of lost until suddenly S brings Iraq into the dialogue. Then the debate/argument turned to whether or not we were justified invading Iraq, were things better or worse for the Iraqi people, who had better information on the subject...meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking how the f**k did Iraq get into a conversation about used condoms being recycled into bubblegum and whether or not the joke was funny?

Pay attention in your conversations with other people and you'll probably find that it happens more often than you think. Make a casual conversation about people not making coffee when the pot is empty, and it will turn into a deep discussion on why we didn't use copy paper that was a 92 brightness all along. Mention the recent rise in gas prices and soon you'll be discussing whether ABC will put Lost on hiatus during the upcoming Olympics.

I think this is why our government gets away with so much crap, and we're shocked when we find out about it. It's because we have no attention span anymore. Case in point: Scooter Libby. Whatever happened with him? It seems like one minute we're talking about his bad-sex novel (no, I don't mean that the book is about bad sex, it's a book about sex that is very very bad...and not bad in the good kind of way) and then there's this flurry of stuff going on and suddenly everyone's attention is on whether Iran will stop and nuke Iraq on it's way to nuking Israel.

And so our conversations and our logic are subject to being hijacked, turned in a completely different direction and set on a new course in the hopes that we forget what we were originally after.

Pass the bubblegum.