can't i just build you a blessing machine?
[personal]
posted by tom / January 28, 2005 / 
This rings a bell. When Catherine and I started dating, one of the most confounding things I had to learn was that failing to say "bless you" after a sneeze is a clear indicator that you don't really care about the sneezer at all and wished they would die. Apparently the germ of this idea comes from a speech by a female character in Reality Bites. I've never seen that movie, but I can assure you I hate it.
Comments
Ah yes, I remember that moment well. The elevator. And how it taught me all you men are insensitive louts.
I'm a woman, and I appreciate it when people don't say "bless you." I never remember to, and I think it's a stupid custom, largely because it arbitrarily elevates the sneeze to some hallowed status, with cough, burp, and fart in descending order down the totem pole. Why should a sneeze be so favored that you have a right to expect something from your onlookers for it, but every other kind of expulsion from your body you have to apologize or shame yourself for?
Milhouse, of course, warns us that sneezing is your soul trying to escape. Saying "bless you" crams it back in. Would you rather Catherine not hang onto her eternal soul?
Katie, that is an impressive treatise on the social merits of various bodily functions. I think I'm going to try blessing people from now on when I catch them farting.
So, which came first? The comic or the post?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-01-28
Doh. Must remember to read whole post before commenting.
actually, it was Singles, not Reality Bites.
actually, it was Singles, not Reality Bites.
exactly. jeez, tommy, can't you get anything right?
I think that sneezing is considered impolite in Japan, I might have read that somewhere.
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