Chapter LXV: What's Up?

It's funny how in America, greetings and their responses have become so automatic that they're effectively meaningless. How many times have you overheard (or participated in) the following ubiquitous exchange?

A: What's up?
B: Nothin' much, you?
A: Nothin' much.

or its cousin...

A: How's it going?
B: Not bad, you?
A: Not bad.

If extra-terrestrial archeologists ever tried to decipher English, they would think 'nothing much' is another term for the sky. That said, I overhead a strange variation on my way to class today. Two guys were walking briskly in opposite directions, and had the following conversation as they passed one other:

A: What's up?
B: Not bad, you?
A: Nothin' much.

Me (silently): Um, what the fuck?

For the rest of my walk to class, I tried to determine who had been stupider, A or B. Clearly, B's response to A was non sequitur. In my Stupidity Rating System (SRS), that's worth 1 Stupid Point (SP). A also gave a non sequitur response though, since B's 'you?' actually referred to the unspoken question of 'How's it going?' Of course, it must be accounted for that A's response would have been appropriate had it not been for B's mistake.

Therefore, I only allotted 0.5 SPs to A and concluded that B was the stupider of the two (1 SP to 0.5 SPs).

When I explained this reasoning to my lab partner, she concurred that A's non sequitur response was less egregious than B's. However, she argued that A should have recognized that B screwed up, and called him on it; that A did not do so is certainly worth an additional 1 SP.

A, she asseverated, was in fact stupider than B by a score of 1.5 SPs to 1 SP. I commended her insight and we proceeded to do the lab.

Perhaps you have already realized the flaw in our logic. For me, the epiphany didn't occur until I was on the elliptical machine at the gym, eyes closed and mp3s blaring. The fact is, if A had realized B's mistake and acknowledged it, A's own illogical response would never have occurred. It is unfair to penalize A both for not recognizing B's slip-up and also for acting on that incognizance, since the second blunder is an 'error carried forward' of the first.

Recalculating the Stupid Points, we have B at 1 SP for his non sequitur response, and A at 1 SP for not catching it. In the final analysis, then, A and B are equally stupid (1 SP to 1 SP).