There are many moments in life where people use a default phrase to brush something off, or to feign disinterest. Usually it’s “whatever” or a roll of the eyes and a scoff. Or they’ll say an emotionless “huh.” Not me — no siree, I do it differently, because I find mine is a lot more useful. I’ll say:

“My butt itches.”

Keep in mind that I say this with a look of pure exasperation on my face. What this effectively does is confuse the other person so thoroughly, that it is almost like a magic word forcing their brain to freeze momentarily in time for a few seconds. These precious seconds does a number of things for me. It can a) give me enough time to make a clean escape b) make them quickly change the subject or c) off-handedly announce to them I am totally not interested in whatever they are saying.

However, there has been a couple of instances where my butt really did itch, and when I blurted it out in the presence of others, it has the unfortunate side effect of not only confusing the other person, but me, as well. For what this does is not only unintentionally suggest to the other person that I am obliviously crazy, but it was done needlessly because I could’ve been actually interested in what the other person is saying, or in the case of the lady with the wonderful plunging cleavage, not saying. Oh man … did that suck.

Anyhoo, go ahead, try it someday, you’d be surprised how effective it is. Just be careful of saying it when your butt really does itch.