What does how was your day mean?

 

JUST what is the day? Isn’t the day that time between sunrise and sunset; from dawn to dusk, when night takes over? Am I right, friend?

 

So if that be as it is, how many states can that part of our mandatory 24 hours take? Shady question? Yeah, I too agree. Which is why I don’t understand the traditional message ‘how was your day?’. 

 

How was your day? Ah, I get it. Pardon the slowness. You probably mean whether it was chilly, hot, rainy or dry, don’t you? No? But that is what happened during the day. The rain you experienced at your end of town wasn’t a local issue; it actually crossed to ours, too. Strange day, sweetheart.

 

Just like yesterday, when the sun shone in your division of the city; it shone here, too. So when you asked how MY day was, you actually had the answer: Sunny. Bright, romantic sunny day.

 

The hitch now remains with the personal pronoun ‘your’. I own no day. The day is uniform. When it’s rainy for me, it’s also rainy for the new girl at the office, the green overall-clad cleaner and the professor of history, who normally comes to see my boss during the lunch hour. It is not my day, it’s everybody’s day. 

 

Having said all those things, why then do some women feel mad when they ask the innocent men in their lives ‘how was your day’ and the poor man says ‘okay’ or ‘good’ or ‘manageable’ or any other such succinct answer? You asked about the day. He tells you what he thought of its being warm, chilly, rainy or whatever else. What more do you need?

 

Or do you want the man to make your mistake of answering the same simple question with the wrong answer? If I am constrained to ask the same question, what I have in mind is — let me administer the same vagueness to you, so I see what you’ll say your day was.

 

Then you replace the day with yourself, and get into this treatise on how you were today. ‘I woke up around 6:03am, put first one foot on the floor, then the other… I was still drowsy, you see, and…’ Good gracious me! At that rate, when will we get to your leaving the house, let alone getting to your scandal-ridden workplace?

 

I have nothing against you telling me what happened to you today, but here’s just a couple of things:

One, be pithy. Pick out the main items.

 

Surely which foot touched the ground first can’t make news, can it? You cannot tell me about the happenings at the office, and you include the obvious like making yourself a cup of ‘coffeed tea’ (tea to which coffee is added), unlike there’s something unique which happened as you made the coffeed tea, like spilling it onto the boss’ shirt as he tickled your side.

 

Two, why is it so special to you that you tell me about ‘your day’ only when I am into something else? Why oh why? If I am filling out a scholarship form, which I have to hand in tomorrow morning, why can’t you wait before you fill me in on your day’s happenings? Why must I handle two complex issues at a go — filling the form with incessant questions, and listening to your tirade of a report on the day?

 

Finally, life is not formulaic. We don’t have to have a routine of how was your day every evening, every work week, all my work life.