I'm totally serious, dude.

"Seriously. "

It's my verbal tic of the moment. Along with the throw-back of "totally" and the perennially popular, "dude." Seriously. As in, "I am not kidding," as in, "Can you believe that?" as in "What the hell is he/she/it thinking?!" as in, "I am completely sincere," as in "Dude, I totally spend too much time around high school kids. "

Seriously.

It's getting quite a work-out this week as I keep wading into conversations that would otherwise leave me speechless.

"Obama scares you? Seriously?" The straightforward question.

The power of inflection: "She said no one is that perfect and it makes her uncomfortable."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."

The buffer against the literal exploding of my head:

"You seriously are telling me that you take the word of a website that refers to him as a 'damned, sneaky bastard,' as unvarnished, straightforward, truth?" SERIOUSLY?!

Those are four damn useful syllables.

I am totally not kidding.

Dude.