Six Degrees of Do-You-Know

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha. This is Laura calling from Sacramento.

Hi, Laura. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Laura.

Actually, I have something that I wanted to share with you guys and also all of your listeners, and I was hoping to spread it around, a phrase that we can start using, that one day when a future caller asks future Grant and Martha, where did this come from, then we’ll know the answer.

Oh, okay. Let’s see. Let’s hear it.

Okay. Well, so I was thinking a few weeks ago about the slim chances of running into someone that you know in a big city like Sacramento. And that started me thinking about the little town that my boss Joyce grew up in. And somehow that inspired me to think of a phrase that one would use in the following situation.

So you meet someone, and then they find out what city you’re from or what college you attended or whatever, and then they ask you, oh, do you know so-and-so? And all of us, I think, have that happen to us. And I know it’s, yeah, people are just trying to make conversation and make connection with your story. But I think most of us city folk have a somewhat sarcastic reaction when people ask us that, because the chances are so small that you actually know them. And it’s not like you live in a tiny town like Heartline, where Joyce grew up.

And so I was thinking that when someone asks you that, that your answer could be, well, it’s not Heartline. And it’s based on the tiny town of Heartline, Washington. It’s in eastern Washington. It’s spelled H-A-R-T-L-I-N-E. And it’s a really tiny town. And I have all kinds of really cute stories because Joyce likes to talk about what it was like growing up there.

One of my favorites is how she says that every Monday the lady from the newspaper calls everyone in town to get the news for that week. And I just asked her today if she’s been in the newspaper recently. And she said, I don’t know. It depends on if my mom was home to answer the phone. And so there’s all kinds of cute little things about being in that town. Her brother’s the mayor now of the town, and it has, I think, less than 200 people in it.

Oh, my gosh. And when she was growing up, their actual shipping address was half a mile east of Post Office Box 54. That is so adorable. So the rest of us who don’t have that experience, you know, when someone asks us that, we’re thinking, it’s not a little tiny town like Heartline, so we can say, it’s not Heartline.

I kind of like that, it’s not Heartline, because I’m not sure that we actually do have a term for this. I have another friend who calls that kind of question six degrees of stupid. But that’s kind of mean. But you know, I lived in New York City for 16 years and I cannot tell you the number of times that I went to a party or waited for the subway or had an encounter in a store where I stood next to somebody that I knew and didn’t know that they were going to be there. You know, or I stood next to somebody who I vaguely met at a party once before. And it happens.

Even in a big place, it happens. You have these accidental connections and you tend to go the places where people who are like you tend to go, if that makes absolute sense.

Oh, well. But not hard line. I like it.

Well, what do you think, Grant? Should we try to popularize this?

Sure.

Yeah, let’s see. So the way it works is you run into somebody and they say, hey, oh, you’re from such and such place. Do you know so-and-so? And you say, well, it’s not hard line, meaning how dare you ask that because there’s no chance.

Right?

I guess so.

Okay. We can give it a try.

I guess so.

Yeah, let’s turn on the sirens, if you don’t mind.

Oh, a close listener. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Here we go.

All right, Laura, we’ll see what we can do, all right?

All right, thank you guys.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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