Like That's Like, So Like, Totally Annoying!

Listen to this.  I was like, in class yesterday and I saw this girl and she was like, "Hey!" and I was like, "Hey back!" and then we were like talking and stuff and then our professor was like, "Excuse me," and then we had to like stop talking and all that but it was like so cool.

Does anyone else think that sounded absolutely ridiculous?  I am not joking when I say that I had a girl in one of my summer classes that talked like that.   Only she may have used "like" even more than I did in my example.  Listening to her talk was as painful as violently dragging my testicles across a dull, rusty cheese grater.  It might have been more painful since I've never actually tried to grate my testes, meaning I have no frame of reference on which to base my comparison.  Needless to say, I was very pleased to see her in one of my classes yesterday.  Not only was she in one of my classes, but she was trying to get the professor to let her into another.

The problem is that she isn't the only person I hear talk like that on campus.  Its everywhere.  I hear it while waiting in line at Starbucks, when I'm cruising the aisles at Target or at home watching so-called "reality" television. 

Now I know some of you readers might be saying, "They're just kids, just out of high school.  They'll grow out if it."  

I don't think so.  These are upper division literature classes, meaning this girl, based on the fact that she's been in at least two of them and I saw her trying to get into a third, must be majoring in ENGLISH!  Not only is she most likely majoring in English, but she's into her upper division course work which means she isn't some kid fresh out of high school deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

I don't just hear this from the kids either.  In another summer class I had a teacher that talked liked that.  Everything was "like this" and "like that,"  and it scares me.  It just proves my theory that the standards are being lowered.  I used to feel safe in knowing that, if someone were to escape college unprepared and enter the real world, they would be exposed during job interviews, providing they could even get them.  

I can see the interview now.

"So tell me why you would like to work for the advertising firm of Smith and Jones," the interviewer would ask.

"Well, its like, ever since I was like a little kid, I would like see beer commercials and stuff and think to myself, 'Hey, like I bet I could do that.'" Our rocket scientist would answer.

To which the interviewer would respond, "Well, we do make more than beer commercials."

"Yeah, but like the beer commercials are the coolest."

I used to feel safe knowing that an interview that went down like that would surely result in the applicant's resume being filed under N for Never, S for Stupid or B for Burn.  But now it appears that the clowns might be throwing a coup and taking over the circus.

I'm becoming Mr. Hand and the world is full of Spicolis.