All-season Greeting

As I'm running down the street, about three hundred feet downhill, a woman is getting out of her car, and she's looking back at me. Even though I've my contacts in, my eyes have gotten worse since I got the scrip, so the vision, she ain't crystal clear. I'm right now guessing she was wearing a red top and a black skirt, but I barely remember stumbling back from my run. She stares at me for about five seconds, as I measure two steps to be a second in my oxygen-deprived mind. I'm in a t-shirt and black shorts, just running. The most threatening thing about me might be that I'm hispanic to white people, and the hair is unkempt and shaggy. Beyond that, I'm not a threat.

The weird thing is that as she's climbing the stairs to her house, as I draw closer, she turns back and stares at me as I'm running past. I'm trying not to stare up at her, but this is kind of freaking me out. As a runner, I've grown accustomed to being a ghost, running past as people turn their heads away and pretend I don't exist. When I breach someone's personal space and line of sight, then they acknowledge me, but only then. No one sees me from a distance, and no one turns to stare at me.

The key? I need more automatic scripts. You know what I'm talking about. "Hi." "How are you?" "Good, you?" "Good." I just need to make a comprehensive list of what might happen to me in any given day, and then create an auto-script to deal with the initial exchange. Then, it gets impossible to predict. Some football coaches and chess players script their initial exchange; it must have some merit. Then again, they may have generic scripts, so I may actually need a catch-all script that covers around seventy to eighty-five percent of all situations.

Here's the problem: the only auto-script that could possibly cover all that is:

"Hi." *nod head and smile*

I already do that. Am I reduced to this genericism for the rest of my life? There's got to be a better script...

"Fuck off." *nod head and smile* - Too antagonistic.
"I love you." *nod head and smile* - Too protagonistic.
*punch other person/s in face* - May fight back.
*punch self in face until blood pours out of nose* - Takes too long.
"Sing opening refrain of "It's a Small World"* - Song stuck in head.
"Can you identify this rash?" - Too much potential to be registered as sex offender and/or too cool for this world.
*Execute the running man* - Too 80s.
*turn head away and keep walking* - Too damned effective.
*leaping hip check, like in NBA* - Too much potential to hip check short people in the head.
*Pound chest* - Too hurty.
*Waggle eyebrows* - Too ambiguous.
*Flash gang signs* - Don't know any.
"Goodbye." *nod head and smile* - Too perfect to pull off without looking like a jackass.
"Can you dig it?" - Too obscure a reference to The Warriors.
"Do you have the time?" - Too ridiculous if I am wearing a watch.
"Caw, caw, caw!" - Too plagiaristic of ravens, raptors and D.C.
*smooth eyebrows using index and pinky fingers simultaneously* - Requires far too much coordination and spittle.
*Pull out Nintendo DS, activate Pictochat, text "hello"* - Requires other person to have a DS.

I'll find a better auto-script, somehow. Damn it.