I was an Atomic Robot Jungle Vixen!

I say "bye-bye" a lot. This just occurred to me the other day as I was finished talking to someone on the phone, and it caused me to wonder when this started happening. Except for my roommate's kids, I don't talk to children on a regular basis. It's adults I say this to, and who say it to me.
I can understand the reluctance to say "good-bye." There's something very formal and final about it. "Bye" by itself is somewhat abrupt I guess, which would explain why people don't often stick with just that. "Ciao" only has a single syllable too, but you can draw it out easier. It's also Italian, and that automatically makes it sound nicer.
Maybe we can try saying "so long" more often. Or not. I don't care for it myself. "See you later" works, but only in person. "Take care" isn't really appropriate for business calls. Neither is "toodles!"
The Simpson's predicts that in the future, we will use "smell you later" as our regular parting words. Not only is that silly, but I really shouldn't be using a comedy show as an example, so forget I said anything. In fact, I should probably be going now anyway.
Bye-bye.

posted by Tabby at 5/26/2004 03:51:00 p.m.

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