No Stupid Small-Talking Week

I saw a story online and was inspired to adapt the text to something that I feel strongly about. The omissions from the original text have been striked out and my additions are in bold.

LOS ANGELES ANYWHERE NEAR TYLER—Pay no attention to that eerie silence in near the nation's most populous county  unpopular person this week; it will simply be the sound of 10 million people not cussing participating in useless small talking.

At least that's the result McKay Hatch Tyler is hoping for once his campaign to clear the air is recognized by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors all four people reading this.

On Tuesday, the board Tyler is scheduled to issue a proclamation by Supervisor Michael Antonovich himself making the first week in March No Cussing Week No Stupid Small Talking Week.

That would mean no blue language from the Mojave desert, where it gets hot as $&# in the summer, to the Pacific Ocean, where on a winter's day it can get colder and nastier than %$#! useless small talk between people that don't know what else to say so instead they waste oxygen with useless exchanges like this:

Small Talker #1: How are you?
Small Talker #2: Good. Thanks. How are you?
Small Talker #1: Good. Thanks.
(What is the point of this unless there is more discussion that follows?)

Small Talker #1: How are you?
Small Talker #2: It's Monday. (insert faked laughter)
Small Talker #1: Yeah. (insert more fake laughter)
(Change Monday to Friday, add more enthusiasm, and you have more wasted oxygen but at the other end of the week).

Small Talker #1: Still snowing out there?
Small Talker #2: Nope.
(Change Nope to Yep and add useless chatter about how you can't wait for Spring to come).

Small Talker #1: How are you?
Small Talker #2 (with fake look of seriousness on face): Busy. Really Busy.
Small Talker #1: But busy is good, right?
Small Talker #2: Yes, your right, your right. Busy is good.
(You are both busy talking about nothing).

Small Talker #1: Nice to meet you. How are you?
Small Talker #2 Good, but surprised that you are shaking my hand when I have this horrible skin condition.

Not that 15-year-old Hatch 36-year old Tyler expects complete compliance. When his No Cussing Club No Stupid Small Talking meets at South Pasadena High School in a cluttered storage closet at a local Denny's "Restaurant" on Wednesdays it's not unusual for a nonmember to throw open the door and fire off a torrent of four-letter words. He's also been the target of organized harassment by pro-cussers pro-small-talkers.

And Antonovich's county Tyler's motion carries no penalties.

"But it's a good reminder for all of us, not just young people but everybody, to be respectful to one another and watch the words we use," said the supervisor's spokesman, Tony Bell Mr. Paid to Not Stupid Small Talking.

The county isn't the first entity to try to put the lid on swearing . Hatch's hometown of South Pasadena Denny's declared itself a cuss-free stupid small talk-free zone for a week last March, and two years ago a high school in Canada threatened to suspend repeat cussers stupid small talkers.

Hatch Tyler has lofty goals.

"Next year I want to try to get California to have a cuss-free stupid small talk-free week. And then, who knows, maybe worldwide," said the 10th grader middle aged dude, who believes if people treat each other with more civility they can better work together to solve bigger problems.

He said his campaign began to form about the time he hit seventh grade when he noticed his friends beginning to swear wasting their childhoods participating in stupid small talking, something his family didn't allow.

He formed the No Cussing No Stupid Small Talking Club and invited others to join. Soon the group had a Web site, bright orange T-shirts, a hip hop theme song and inquiries from all over from people interested in joining. He estimates 20,000 people have formed similar clubs.

"It's not about forcing anyone to stop, just to bring awareness," he says of the movement. "If you can do a week without cussing stupid small talking, maybe you can do two weeks. And then maybe a month."