Civilization has made remarkable progress. We have put men on the moon, invented indoor plumbing, and developed a machine that will answer almost any question except why the neighbor insists on telling you about his gallbladder.

Yet we have failed to invent a polite way to end a conversation that has outlived its usefulness. A man can spend forty minutes listening to another fellow explain something he doesn’t understand, doesn’t care about, and wouldn’t recognize if it bit him on the posterior.

Instead, we have developed a collection of dishonest expressions. “Well, I ought to let you go” implies the other person has somewhere important to be. “It’s been wonderful catching up” suggests you have suffered a temporary loss of judgment. And “We’ll have to do this again sometime” is generally understood to mean, “I hope neither of us remembers this encounter.”

I propose we establish a national standard for conversational termination. It must be an easy phrase, universally understood, requiring no explanation, apology, or elaborate escape maneuver.

Something like, “This has been a stupid waste of time and I have laundry to do.”

Naturally, there will be objections. People who talk too much will claim it is insensitive, and they will want to discuss it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely when we need the phrase most. Anyway, I have laundry to do.