Report: Mildly Interesting Anecdote Projected to Extend Conversation 2-3 Minutes

After an illuminating discussion at a mutual club event regarding general weather patterns and how stressful midterms were, Michael Lasky (C'23) assumed that all conversational avenues had been used up and that his interaction with John Kessler (W'24) was finished. Suddenly, though, he remembered an astonishingly mediocre story from his econ recitation that he had yet to tell anyone.

“Ohhhh shit dude, I forgot to mention this really funny thing that happened in my econ recitation today,” Lasky said enthusiastically.

With it, he projected that he could eke out another two to three minutes of conversation with John, which, unbeknownst to Michael, John did not care for. Nevertheless, John sat through Michael’s middling anecdote about how a maintenance worker walked into the recitation room and started drilling as the TA was trying to talk. This moderately interesting story generated forced chuckles out of John, and with an overabundance of unnecessary narrative detours, John wrapped up his little tale in 2:46, and Michael and John went their separate ways.

Michael then proceeded to tell the same aggressively mundane story to every other club member after coming to the false conclusion that he’d struck an anecdotal gold mine.