The Art of (Not so) Small-Talk

You are on your way to start your work day, with a million and three things on your mind. Entering the elevator, absently you press the button for your floor and this vaguely familiar dude accosts you with a broad grin:
"Good Morning!"
and you reciprocate the nice gesture:
"Morning!"
alarm bells have only just begun to go off in your head, when he springs the next shot with practiced ease:
"How are you doing?" or "How's it goin'?"

I dont know about you, but this question has stumped me countless times, leaving my tongue twisted around all possible responses. And I end up doing the verbal equivalent of trip and fall flat on the face.

What are you supposed to say?
"I am good" or "I am fine"?
Should you, or shouldn't you follow it up with the same query for his sake or maybe even add a question or comment about something else? What can that something else be?

By now you are wondering whether you have the time to cram it all into a response and do so before one of you exits the elevator. More often than not, by this time your pulse has jumped 20 points and you are a mumbling mess. You can feel your brain churning at the imperceptibly slow pace of solidifying lava. You actually want to believe that it is working.

If however you are a pro of small-talk you respond to that question, ask the same of him and also throw in a comment about the weather or the Football game last night. And you do all that with the glib ease of a snail slithering smoothly over a rough surface, albeit faster.

The rest of us are however cowering before the lurking masters of small-talk. Its like entering the Dojo as a novice and having to fend off the onslaught of a Black-belt on the very first day. But there is no respite. The grand masters of short order verbal wizardry are everywhere. In elevators, water-coolers, hallways, bus-stops, at the bank or waiting in the check-out line - you name it.

I have tried all kinds of behaviors in response. The muttered-under-the breath reply worked for a couple times, before the more energetic small-talkers cued in and turned the knife once more: "What was that?" (with a winning smile).
A practiced "I'm good how are you?" was frequently so long that it was still going on when the other fellow had already disappeared around a corner.
I tried being rude and sought to suppress all banter by giving no replies or only grunted ones, but pro-small-talkers are an irrepressible lot.

Finally I decided to just give in! There would be days when I can come up with a decent reply and then there would be those other days, when my tongue would trip me over every syllable to the amusement of my assailant who just ambushed me. It is easier to trip and fall than to worry about it endlessly :-)