Open Your Mouth--My Foot Is Stuck
May, 1967
For even a mediocre conversationalist, the most frustrating cliché to deal with is the pointless question or comment. It's a kind of imbecile's one-upmanship, because you can neither ignore it nor acknowledge it without sounding like a boob. In the guerrilla war against hackneyed chatter, total victory is never possible. But one can learn how to derail an enemy train of thought. For such a campaign, the following answers are recommended highly. They may not blitzkrieg your interrogator, but they...
