exit strategies.

I don’t really like attending parties. I find all the small talk to be really uncomfortable. But it’s not because I am one of those people who stinks at starting conversations. In fact, I am awesome at starting conversations. I just walk right up, stick out the ole’ hand, and unleash a string of stock questions designed to pull from my new acquaintance all sorts of information-laden, discussion-spurring talk. They’re simple questions like: “Are you from Phoenix? Oh. What brings you here then?” or “How do you know the host?”

Then ensues a discussion of cozy general interest topics like the concept of a “dry heat” or a comparative analysis of the freeway systems of major U.S. cities or why Baked Cheetos far surpass regular Cheetos in both flavor and wholesomeness or the various exchange policies of big box chain stores. (“Bed, Bath and Beyond will exchange gift certificates for cash?! You’re kidding!”) Yet one can only discuss freeways and weather and consumerism for so long. I know that as soon as the word “rubberized” finds its way into conversation, the exchange has run its course.

Like our recent president, upon entrance into this volatile encounter I obviously took no thought as to my exit strategy. So while my counterpart continues talking, I mentally survey my options for concluding the conversation. But by the time I’ve found an appropriate method for disembarking, my partner is already a few minutes into a discourse on his polished rock collection or reenacting one of the plays from the high school state championship football game he participated in seven and a half years ago. As much as I’d like to, I can’t just interrupt and end things. That’d be horribly rude. So I listen, contributing the occasional “Huh. Really?” or “Snowflake Obsidian—you don’t say?” or “Wow. All those practices everyday for three years and you still couldn’t win. Shucks.”

So, I face the fact that I am stuck. But it’s not a benign stuckedness like a decapitated gummy bear beneath a movie theater seat; it’s a stuckedness that gradually worsens, approaching oblivion ever so slowly, like quicksand or aging. Any means that I can conjure for possible escape gets swallowed in the ever-deepening entity that has become The Conversation. Who knows how long the banter will persist or in what mind-numbing direction it will next meander? All that is certain is that it is awful.

Think not that I am alone in my inability to create succinct, apt conversational conclusions. Even those whom our society celebrates as exceptional and exemplary, suffer from this shortcoming. Haven’t you noticed that Batman, the caped crusader himself, bears my same affliction, often silently vacating a conversation before things grow uncomfortable? One second, he’s chatting like a schoolgirl with Commissioner Gordon. The next second, Gordon peers away ever so briefly, and poof, Batman is vanished. It’s a very effective method. I tried it myself for a time. As soon as my conversational counterpart would look away or down, I’d dart off for the nearest pillar, bush or closet. Unfortunately, I’m not very fast. Most of the time they’d see me right before I got myself adequately hidden, immediately turning a potentially uncomfortable situation into an extremely uncomfortable one. Sometimes, even if I knew I wasn’t fully concealed, I’d pretend I was. After a few minutes, the other party would get bored or weirded out and head off to chat up someone else.

Though that approach proved unsuccessful, I still have one trick up my sleeve before I consign myself to a lifetime of driveling small talk. Never again will I attend a social function of any kind without a chain of smoke bombs strapped to my chest beneath my shirt. Just as a conversation begins to sour, perhaps the other party starts playing the do-you-know-so-and-so-person-from-your-high-school game, I’ll reach imperceptibly between the buttons on the front my shirt and pluck a single smoke bomb. At their faintest wayward glance, I will spike the smoke bomb into the carpet as if celebrating a touchdown. The room will fill with smoke. People will become disoriented, coughing violently and inhaling the smoke bomb’s potentially harmful chemicals. Amidst all the fuss, no one will notice that Clint has successfully averted further conversation and relocated to the snack table where he is munching gleefully on a handful of Baked Cheetos.