Real Kato Blog: Whatchew Been Up To?

... and other unanswerable questions.

"Whatchew been up to?" People ask me stuff like that all the time. Sometimes they'll vary it: "What's been going on with you?" "Been keeping busy?" But mostly they phrase it exactly as, "Whatchew been up to?", with particular emphasis on the "CHEW".

I never know how to answer this question. I've gotten to be somewhat proficient with small talk (out of necessity, from all that blind dating I used to do), but this particular question vexes me. "Whatchew been up to?" Exactly to what timeframe are you referring? Do you want me to recount my activities from the last decade, the last month, or the last ten minutes?

"Well, I graduated from college, I saw that 'Wallace and Gromit' movie, and I ate a ham sandwich. And a pickle."

Does that even count as being "up to" something? Do you even care about the pickle, or should I omit that detail?

If I actually had some grand scheme that I was working on, maybe that'd be better. "Well, I'm about halfway done with building my spaceship, which I will use to colonize the moon and eventually destroy the Earth. I'm in the process of trying to get my hands on a billion jars of peanut butter, a space heater, and a new cell phone service provider that has coverage on the moon. MUWAHAHAHA."

I think if you can end a story with MUWAHAHAHA, that would definitely count as being "up to" something. But if you don't have anything like that, you just have select from a short list of boring stock answers. "Whatchew been up to?" "Nothing much." "Same old same old." "Mostly, working." "Have I told you about the pickle?"

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