Non-Sequitur as a Coping Mechanism

In his essay, "Easy, Tiger," David Sedaris details some of the lessons he's learned studying different languages while traveling.  He says: 

The drawbacks [to programs like Pimsleur] are that they never explain anything or teach you to think for yourself.  Instead of being provided with building blocks that would allow you to construct a sentence of your own, you're left with using the hundreds or thousands of sentences that you have memorized.  That means waiting for a particular situation to arise in order to comment on it; either that, or becoming one of those weird non-sequitur people, the kind who, when asked a question about paint color, answer, "There's a bank in front of the train station," or, "Mrs. Yamada Ito has been playing tennis for fifteen years.

Now, I agree with Sedaris that people like that are weird, but I have recently contemplated the potential benefits of becoming precisely one of those people.  

We all work with people we don't like, or they are in our families or a friend of a friend or whatever.  You know someone who bugs you but they don't know they bug you and you don't want to be rude so you just let them bug you because you are nice and a little crazy.  We have all been there.  What if, when we encounter those people, instead of being annoyed or pleasant or, my personal favorite, a bumbling moron who vaguely agrees just to avoid any further communication; what if we just said something completely random, totally straight-faced, with utmost confidence and without a trace of irony.  I have been thinking random Zen-like sayings would be my choice.


For instance:

When that idiot at work comes up to me and says something like: Man, I really miss my guns.  You know, in high school I would take girls out on dates and teach them how to shoot.  Hey, I could teach you sometime, what do you say? I can reply: Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes, grass grows of itself.

When your weird family member comes up to me and says:  Kids are the best aren't they?  I just love my four cute little babies.  Hey, when are you going to have kids yourself?  You aren't getting any younger.  I could reply: I would rather sink to the bottom of the sea for endless eons than seek liberation through all the saints of the universe