I don’t like it when I get confronted with questions about favorites. Like, “What’s your favorite food?” or “What’s your favorite movie?” Because I have no idea what my favorite anything is. One time I went on this job interview, and the guy handed me a photocopied list of questions, mostly about my relevant experience. But at the bottom, there were all of these questions, stuff like, “What’s your favorite song? What’s your favorite restaurant? Who’s your favorite writer?”

And I sat there and stared at that piece of paper for way too long. Eventually the man came back in the room, and I had to tell him something, explain why I hadn’t finished those last several questions. “Listen sir,” I tried making my case, “These questions about favorites, it’s not that I don’t enjoy things like songs and writers, but there are lot of songs and restaurants and writers in the world, and to make me choose one, it’s like, jeez, I can’t choose just one. And if I had to, I can almost guarantee that that one answer is going to be different if you ask me two weeks from now.”

This guy nodded along, but I could tell it was over. I could all but read his mind, him, standing up over that desk where I was seated, he must have been thinking, come on dude, just write something down, I don’t care about any of this stuff. Do you think I came up with these questions? Do you think I’m really going to go over any of that nonsense? I mean, unless you wrote down “Raining Blood” by Slayer, whatever, I really, truly don’t care. And you’re not getting this job, because this is one of the most annoying interviews I’ve ever given in my life.

I mean, I can’t read minds, so I don’t know for sure if that’s exactly what he was thinking, but I never heard from them again, even though he definitely said, “Thanks, we’ll be in touch,” after he assured me for the third time that it wasn’t a big deal that I’d left the last few questions blank.

What’s the point of a question like that? Sure, people want to get to know you, maybe in an interview setting it could be seen as something to lighten the mood, maybe lower your defenses somewhat. But all questions like that do, to me anyway, are to put me on the spot. It’s like, “Hi. Nice to meet you. Quick, tell me your favorite band.”

And it sets off a thought process in my head that’s too much for me to deal with in real time. My favorite band? Like, if I could only listen to one band for the rest of my life, is that the band that you want to hear? Because even if I were able to narrow down my top three favorite bands, whatever that even means, I promise you that if I were forced to listen to only those three bands, I’d get really sick of them in almost no time at all.

Like, did you ever go to school with one of those kids that ate the same exact packed lunch every day? Doesn’t that get old? You really don’t mind the taste of baloney and cheese over and over and over again?

There’s too much, all right, there are too many good bands for me to pick a favorite band. If you ask me who may favorite author is, I have no idea what to tell you, because I’ve read tons of different books, and they all say different things to me at different times. And the favorite restaurant question, come on, what are you trying to take me out to lunch? Because after I eat something like four or five times, that’s it, I won’t crave it for another year or two.

Did anybody see Guardians of the Galaxy? I loved it. I thought it was such a cool movie. But one thing kept bugging me. He’s listening to this cassette mix-tape that his mom made him, and that’s cool, I get it. But he’s dancing around to the songs, like he’s really into them every time he hits the play button. You expect me to believe that a human being is able to listen to the same twelve songs for twenty years without getting sick of them? Don’t get me wrong, it was a great soundtrack, and it fit the movie nicely. I even left the theater with a bunch of those tunes playing on repeat in my head. But after like three or four days, that was enough, how many times can you listen to “Come and Get Your Love?”

Come and get your love, come and get your love, come and get your love now.

Come and get your love, come and get your love, come and get your love now.

Come and get your love, come and get your love, come and get your love now.

Over and over and over again. No way. I’m not buying it.