Questions that I never want to answer or even hear….

So, this list has been building in my head for sometime and I really wanted to set it down in black and white before these questions burst into my brain like so many sparklers during Diwali. Why do people really ask such questions and do they honestly expect rational answers?

So, in no particular order, here they are:

1. Why did it take you so long to answer the phone? (It rang for 4, 5 … fill in your own number here… times). I am sure the questioner is not interested in knowing that I was searching for the phone when it started ringing or that I was in downward dog pose and it takes time to straighten out. 🙂
2. What are you doing? This question usually comes in telephone conversations right after the Hello….
3. What else is news? This when we have exhausted all topics of conversation and don’t know what to speak.
4. If you are a working mother, then you get – How can you go to work leaving your kids behind? Wonder if the asker wants to know about your mortgage or whether he / she would help in paying it off.
5. If you are a stay at home mother, you listen to – Now that you don’t work, what do you do all day? Really – can we just give them an time wise breakup of the entire day?
6. Why did you lose / gain weight? Can we answer – because I wanted to?
7. Why don’t you accept our loans for a home, a car etc? Telecallers favorite 🙂 Oh – there are multiple ways to deal with this. I am sure we can figure out the one that works best for us.
8. How many times have I told you to do/not do xyz? Fill up your own in the blanks. Are we seriously expected to keep count of this? And I seriously hope the kids don’t read this because this is one sure Mommy line.
9. Why do / don’t you watch television? Why would you care?
10. What does your husband do? I am sure nobody asks any guy what his wife does. Anyway why drag him into this conversation?
11. What did you have for breakfast / lunch / dinner? How did this come into a conversation? Are we depleted of any sane topics?
12.  Are you sure you are ok? Well, now that you ask – I have a migraine and severe back pain – you know it catches me in the lower back blah blah blah..

There are dozens more cliched questions that we come across everyday. What are some of yours?