I've mentioned some of these details to Prole, but I guess I should start at the beginning for the sake of the rest of the class. This may or may not be long-winded, but there is a legitimate question at the end, so for chrissakes read my post, or GANG LEADER FOR A DAY which is probably better than this post.
I recently learned that an uncle of mine had one of them there brain tumor things that make people die. Uncharacteristically, he's one of the few family members I have that I actually care about, so if he died I would have to be inconvenienced with flying to fucking Falls Church, VA to attend his funeral. Since that would affect me and possibly make me miss seeing Girl Talk at the Capitol Hill Block Party, I decided to pay attention to the situation and try to figure out what his chances were by harassing his family.
And this is where things get lame. His wife and kids are religious distinguished mentally-challenged fellows that think praying is just as important as surgery. So I'd ask, "Hey, how goes it with that there brain tumor?" and I'd basically get back "He'll be fine. . .if YOU PRAY." I found this annoying, but I figured that if they weren't actually taking the situation seriously enough to forget their fairy tales and care about relevant shit, chances were he'd be fine. Fast forward a few days, post-surgery, and a biopsy reveals that the tumor was MALIGNANT and that they couldn't get the whole tumor out and that my uncle is basically brain damaged now. I asked if anything had metastasized up in that bitch and I basically got "PRAY MOAR." I've since stopped caring since I am clearly dealing with people significantly more irrational than myself. And I'm a budding sociopath!
But anecdote aside, the question here is how do I deal with people that ask for prayers? They always ask for prayers prominently so it's very conspicuous if you skip mentioning it in your response. And I mean, I can't lie and be like "Sure, yeah, I'll pray, whatever," because I am too much of an honest person to do that. There's always the lame deflection of saying something like "I'll keep him in my thoughts," but not only is that a very conspicuous deflection, it doesn't even mean anything, and I think it's basically the same as lying or patronizing the person making the request.
So, what the fuck do I do? One of the very few people I care about in this world of cum and piss and shit is surrounded by complete distinguished mentally-challenged fellows. Since he may or may not have some sort of cancer, any strategies have to be somewhat soft and non-confrontational. There has to be a way via politicking to get the information I require.
