Rest
Topic: Human Behaviour

I heard something... odd today. I was in line at the grocery store commenting that JonBenet Ramsey was still making the covers of tabloids. The woman at the register said "Yeah... nobody ever really rests in peace these days."

 Wow.

Think about that... Your future is that you'll always be discussed.

 I used to think that you'd be lucky to be remembered. The things we do in life will affect generations to come, but will anyone remember? Authors are remembered, in some small way, and so are artists of various types. But I never thought of that as a negative thing.

 Granted, Hitler is remembered in infamy. But I mean a negative thing as in "victim." JonBenet will always be remembered, when she is remembered, as a victim. So will the people that were in the towers on 9/11. So will the people of Jonestown. Not martyrs, not heroes, but victims. And here I am, talking about it, and they're still not resting in peace, and I'm perpetuating the same thing.

 I like walking through cemeteries. But all I see is markers. I don't see the person, and I only know the person's name. Sometimes I don't know that, if the marker's text is worn to the point it's illegible. I don't know if they're victims or not. They're anonymous. Remembered, but anonymous.

 Which is worse? Remembered as a victim, or just as a name? I really don't know.

 That's kind of sad, so let's brighten things up a bit with a picture of a bunny with pancakes on its head.

 

 

Sign
Topic: Human Behaviour
Okay. It's out of control. The pointless sign and making things "easier" for special interest groups is out of control.

Let me start by saying I have great sympathy for those who have lost one or more of their senses. Were I to lose my ability to see or hear, I would be devastated. And if I had lost the ability to see, I'd appreciate any assistance I could get. But I'd also like that assistance to be meaningful. I'd like for it to be something that was actually helpful, in a location that I'd be likely to have available to me. I'd also like it to not rob me of my dignity, or patronize me.

Which brings me to a sign I saw yesterday. It said, in white letters on a blue background, "No smoking." It was located about 5 feet off the ground in the middle of a wall about 6 feet wide. This sign was at a men's room, intended to tell people that they shouldn't smoke in the men's room. A duplicate was positioned by the entrance to the women's room.*

The placard also had printed on it, underneath the words "no smoking," what I presume to have been the same words, but in Braille.

My problems with this are manifold.

Firstly, it's in a location that a blind** person would have to know it was there in order to read it. If they simply have vision so bad that they can see vague blurs of color, but are considered legally blind, they might put their hand on it, just in case it was a sign. I think I'd have utterly ignored it if my vision were that poor. It would have been a blue blur with a thick white blur and a skinny white blur underneath it. Not a lot to go on. And if a person were utterly blind, they wouldn't know it was there. If they did know it was there, they wouldn't know that the skinny blur at the bottom was Braille. If someone told them the Braille was there, then that person could equally as easily tell them "...and it says 'No smoking.'"

Secondly, it was in a movie theater. A blind person might like the dialogue and the songs, I'll grant that. Again, if I were blind, I'd like the opportunity to get out and hear a good film. Not everything has to be visual. But so much about the cinema is visually oriented, that placing a Braille sign seems amazingly out of place. I accept that a blind person will go to the theater, and that's not my problem. But that sign was the only Braille sign in the entire place. There were signs for movie times, movie posters for soon to be released films, prices for popcorn and soda, video games (the very name implying you have to see it), signs telling you which theater to go into to see the movie you want to see... none of that was in Braille. But the "No smoking" sign had Braille. And that seemed rather counterintuitive, to say the least. I guess they figure blind people haven't got anything better to do but smoke in the bathrooms.

Thirdly, it's there for the wrong people. It's been placed in a location that makes it impossible to use unless you know it's there, but people with sight can't help but see it. So it's primarily for sighted people. That's fine. The Braille part is the part I'm talking about, though. That's not there for blind people. It's there so that sighted people will see it and think "This theater is so considerate!" Special interest group watchdog types that need to champion a cause will see it and decide the theater is looking out for their cause, and stay off of the theater's back. The Braille is there for the theater itself, so that they will look caring and considerate, and if my opinion of that seems cynical to you, thank you.

So. I repeat. I'm all for helping those that need a little assistance here and there, when they need it. But I also think they'll let me know when they want help, and what kind of help they want. And it's probably not a Braille sign telling them that they shouldn't smoke in a bathroom, since smoking isn't allowed in the entire theater anyway.

Sadly, though, based on this trend, I predict that, one day, we'll have roadside bill boards in Braille. I would like to apologize in advance, on behalf of our society, to all persons that will be offended by that, myself included.

I mean I'll be offended too; I won't apologize for a bill board that I won't have put up.

---

*I won't call it the "Ladies' Room," because women of all types, not just ladies, have to go in there now and then. Having been granted access to that room does not make you a lady. It only makes you a woman, or a janitor, or both.
**Likewise, I won't call blind people "visually impaired." They're blind. Call a spade a spade, not an "entrenching tool."

---

Demonstrate
Topic: Human Behaviour
Ah... the old days of my role-playing youth... when rules lawyering was the status quo, brilliant ideas were squashed by a homicidal, unimaginative GM, and you could never have too many dice.

Occasionally, someone would mention some twisted concept, such as "you can fight better without armor than with armor, and they won't hit you because you're too nimble and they're in armor, so they're slow." This doesn't work, because you're not trying to run away and avoid being hit. You're trying to stand right in front of them and hit them and avoid being hit. But people would insist on this, because they somehow, in their 16 years of being alive, knew more than what 10,000 years of Humankind fighting each other has taught us. Biggest stick wins, 9 times out of 10. What you define as a stick could be martial arts, cannons, or whatever. But the bigger stick wins.

To prove the point, my favorite response was "Try it." In the above argument, they'd say "I can't prove that point, because I'm not a skilled martial artist." I'd reply "Neither is your character. He's a guy with a stick. Pick up a stick and you'll be a remarkable simulation of your simulation of a real person that doesn't exist. Try it." And that's pretty much where the arguments "end..." with him sure that he's still right and grumbling how the world is full of morons, and the rest of us following the game rules.

I still use this concept today, but in a different way and different environment. Sometimes, when people tell me something ludicrous that you can do with a micro-wave oven, six yards of cheese-cloth, and a burrito, and in return get limitless power for running your computer, I'll tell them "Try it." It ends up not working (or something even more spectacular, but extremely dangerous, happens). They swear their very reliable source's brother's cousin's third-grade-teacher read something about it in a science fiction magazine from the 1920's he'd found in his attic only partially obscured by water damage and printed in Swahili had a footnote that swore it was absolutely true, and people could have all the free energy they wanted, just as soon as the microwave oven was invented.*

The great thing is, there's no end of people that are willing to put their ass on the line to "prove" that their wild story is absolutely true. Very often, you can tell someone that has just stated you can jump-start a car with the static electricity from fourty rabid badgers and a pair of jumper cables to try it. They'll happily endure scratches, bites, injections into their stomachs, and so forth as they vigorously rub fourty badgers with a balloon and shout to their partner in the car to "try again, you almost had it last time." "The trick," they'll say, "is keeping the badgers all together and touching at least one other badger." Which raises the question: do you wire badgers in series, or in parallel?

'Round here, we just use another car battery with a good charge.**

Usually, though, you can help a person realize they're insane before they actually prove it, when they start putting their little experiment together and they realize that there is no way it will work the way the "instructions" claim it will. And who knows? Maybe they're really on to something. But the point is that they'll never know unless they give it a shot and see what happens. They may prove an old wives' tale is actually effective. They may find something that helps you in some way.

Or, at the worst, you can provide yourself with entertainment and an effective way of testing the 911 system in a practical application, just by telling the person with the wild idea to put up or shut up. It's way more fun than just arguing about it and telling them they're idiots.

But don't take my word for it. Try it.

---

*That, or it was a recipe for cheese-cloth wrapped burritos. His source's brother's cousin's third-grade-teacher never had much ability to read Swahili.
**We don't need no stinking badgers.

---

When
Topic: Human Behaviour
When is when?

Consider: a person offers to fill your glass for you. They smile and sing "Say when!" And you make a little joke,* or just say "when," but you indicate when you've had enough. But at what point is enough enough? Half? Full? "Fill my cup 'til it runneth over?"

This is not a question about greed. Or maybe it is. Because I'm not just talking about a glass of soda or wine. I'm talking about every situation in which a person is giving you something for free. How much do you take? What do you take? Is there anything you won't take for free?

Obviously, the answer to that last question is "yes." A slab of raw liver to the face thrown from a speeding train is something nearly** nobody will want, even for free. Likewise, a thousand dollars is something nearly*** everyone will want. But there's a grey area in there.

Say you're at your local grocery store or warehouse club. Dollars to donuts there'll be someone there handing out free samples of food that they want you to love enough to buy way too much of it. So they give you a taste on a toothpick, and hope like Hells it works. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. But the first one's free... is it worth trying for free? What do you pass up?

Pigs in a blanket made from Vienna sausages? With or without mustard? Or how about a piece of a soft pretzel? Pot-stickers? Pot-pie? Pot roast? Potato chips?**** Those are pretty tame, and pretty common.

And there's people that would never try Rat-on-a-Stick, or Chocolate-Covered Pickled Ginger. Most would pass on the offer of Toad Pate'... or toad anything, really. But what about the area in between?

Would you try escargot? Calamari? What if they were raw?

What if someone offered you a buffalo flavored popsicle? How would you know it was really buffalo flavored? Would it be naturally or artificially flavored? Energy drinks are big... what if you were offered an energy drink-sicle?

Tuna flavored pudding? A glass of onion juice? Roast beef flavored gelatin? Remember; it's free.

What if someone offered you a car for free? Now what if that person is someone you don't trust very much, and you know has had brushes with Les Gendarmes on an infrequent, but obvious, basis? What if all that is true, and it's your cousin? Your sister? What if you know they're a drug dealer? It's a really, really nice luxury car... and it's free...

Someone wants to give you an emerald ring. It looks pretty valuable, and you like the cut. You trust the person. When you ask where they got it, they tell you it was part of a deceased person's estate, and the owners wanted rid of it because they think every item in the estate is haunted. Your benefactor agrees with those people, because they've seen some odd things happen when the ring's around. Maybe it's just cursed. Do you accept it, eschewing any thought of supernatural influence? Or do you have it exorcised, or sell it to a pawn shop or maybe a collector?

Someone wants to give you a genuine Rolex that, for some odd reason, runs backward. It's authentic; it's serialized, jeweled, and gorgeous. But, for some reason nobody can figure out, the hands spin anti-clockwise. Do you get used to the fact, or do you just never look at it, and enjoy the fact it's a Rolex on your wrist? Or do you laugh and politely decline? It's beautiful. It's broken. It's free...

How bad does the service have to be before you'll tell them to take their free DSL and bury it in a LAN-fill? What processor speed would cause you to decline the computer it's in, if offered to you for nothing? Power-Mac? 1Ghz? 500Mhz? 100Mhz? 386? 286? Vic-20?

At what point does free become not worth it? It's probably different for everyone, but where is your own personal line drawn? And if offered something right on the line, how long would you think about it? How severely compromised must an item be before you will no longer accept it as a free, no strings attached gift?

When is when?

---

*"Eight-thirty." -Madeleine Kahn, "History of the World, Pt. I"
**I can imagine a situation or two where there would be an exception.
***Likewise.
****I know I'm reaching here. You'll probably survive.

---

Acting!
Topic: Human Behaviour
Who needs to be Shakespeareian trained? Whay does anyone have to have acting classes? Screw Julliard! You can break into theater just by playing a corpse!

Don't believe me? Then consider the case of Ohio computer nerd Chuck Lamb. He's been playing dead for a long time. It's been his goal and dream to land a role in a movie playing a corpse. Why? Because he realized it's the only way he'll ever get in.

Overweight, balding, and as charismatic as an oyster, Chuck decided that the only way he'd be able to play a convincing role in film was if he could convince people that he was dead. So he went with that. And it's not a difficult role. Most peoples' dogs can play dead. But this guy can actually get people to call 911.

He has a web site too... http://www.deadbodyguy.com. Appropriately, it's got a lot of dead links.

Well, they look dead, anyway. They may just be pretending.

Amazing
Topic: Human Behaviour
A while back, I read a story in the news about a man that was diagnosed as HIV positive, walking down the street in New York, trying to spit on people in order to infect them. You can't pass AIDS on to someone in this manner, but he thought you could, and because he did think you could and because he tried to do it, he was charged with attempted manslaughter.

Recently, a man robbed a woman, threatening her with a hypodermic needle he claimed was tainted with HIV.

And a ruling has been delayed. The ruling concerns a group of Bulgarian medical professionals that infected 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus (allegedly).

Remember when AIDS first began affecting us, and all the conspiracy theorists* began spouting about how it was developed by The Government (although they never stated which one) as a germ warfare weapon, and they lost control of it? Did you ever start thinking that, whether or not any government had intended to use it as a weapon, that people outside the government, from kids robbing women to doctors supposedly looking for a cure, would misuse the disease? Is this irony? It's hard to tell. The thought's too disgusting to hold for long enough to develop an opinion.

It seems, then, that it's not the government we have to look out for. At least, if they are using it as a weapon, it's under a Hell of a lot more controlled circumstances than a kid with a hypo in a parking lot.** It would be a horrible crime for anyone to use this illness as a weapon. It doesn't matter if it's a government or a guy on the street.

The kid had a Gods-damned hypo that he claimed was filled with HIV. If it really was, what the Hells was he thinking? At least, if he shot himself with a gun, he can get it treated as an out-patient, if he just nicks himself! Even if he shoots himself in the gut, he's got a chance! But if he shoots himself with HIV, then yes, sure, he can go to the hospital; and get tested regularly for 7 years, and then maybe he can think he won't get AIDS, and he won't be able to donate blood, has to warn everyone around him if he gets so much as a bloody nose, and forget about a normal sex life! Even if he never contracts AIDS from shooting himself with the needle, he'd still be better off shooting himself with a handgun, in nearly any non-fatal location.

Unbelievable. Un-freakin'-believable. Even if it was not created as a biological weapon, it's being used as one now. And not necessarily by "the government," but by "the people."

I'm appalled.

---

*Pronounced "crack-pots."
**There'd at least be some kind of high-tech aluminum cylinder. A briefcase may also be involved. Would Hollywood lie?

---

Extremes
Topic: Human Behaviour
Recently, while playing City of Villains, I got into a nice little team. Good distribution of powers, we did pretty well, we could have done great.

There were two people in that team that highlighted the fact that you'll have, in any given online game, people that are very cool, and people that are very obnoxious. One of them was Pandora Bliss. The other was Stingger.

Stingger* made an effort to get separated from the group, get caught in a bad situation in which he was surrounded roughly 12 to 1, and then say "Little help here, guys?" while we're fighting our own collection of baddies. He did this because he was a stalker.
Stalkers have the common ability to sneak undetected behind an enemy and surprise attack them. This means that if you have a mission goal of beating up one bad guy and his entourage, you can sneak past all the intervening bad guys and go straight for him. Then you can mop up on the way back out and get the experience, or just leave right away (but what's the fun in that?) and get another mission.
This guy took it as a way of getting in deep and then wondering why nobody else was keeping up with him. The answer to that is: "We don't have stealth abilities, jackhole."
He cheesed me off right away by calling my character a Ghost Rider clone. Now, granted, he's dressed as a biker with a skull head and flames. But there's subtle differences: for one thing, concept. Ghost Rider is a demon that trades places with a human now and then. My character, Harley's Ghost, is an actual ghost, not a demon. He got killed by the people that chopped his bike. Now he roams the world, looking for the pieces of his bike, and absorbing them into himself. He gets more solid and more powerful with each piece he absorbs (explaining how he gets more powerful with time). Also, the flames completely cover his entire body, not just his head. He wears a leather jacket and pants, whereas the Ghost Rider wears a full body suit that may or may not be leather. Both have chains, but what punk biker doesn't? Seriously. How many different ways are there to portray the classic image of biker dress with a skull for a head? It's like saying your giant lizard wrecking the city is too much like Godzilla.
I briefly explained these differences and asked him if he had a problem. He didn't answer, so I said "Didn't think so. Next mission."
After that he called me some variety of homosexual no less than three times. After the third time, I mentioned that he'd done so, and asked if he had some serious suppressed homosexuality himself. "You brought it up!" he claimed. The rest of the team said that he apparently didn't realize what he was typing, because he himself brought it up.
I ran into him again the next day. The first thing he said was "Hey! It's Harley the Gay!" I replied that he needed to grow up, because he obviously was a twelve year old that still needed mommy to wipe him. And that's how he made my ignore list.

Pandora Bliss was in the same group. She was playing a Dominator. Dominators are crowd-control characters, which use mesmerizing and/or immobilizing powers to keep a large group of enemies from swarming the team. They're critical in a large team, since the more people in your team, the more bad guys you'll run into. They're one of the most neglected and one of the most maligned classes in any game, despite their usefulness. They get a particularly bad time in City of Villains and City of Heroes, where they cannot solo out in the open without someone taking advantage of it and stealing their kill. They see someone has immobilized a bad guy, and is using their limited offensive arsenal to slowly beat it down. Rather than moving on, or asking if assistance is needed, they pulverize the trapped baddie, take the experience and glory, and move gleefully on.
Besides that, Dominators/Controllers are usually the last one picked in the team build... people usually think of tanks, healers, and damage output first, leaving crowd-control as an afterthought. They're like the nerds of the super set. It's hard to level a Dominator/Controller class in CoV/CoH.
Pandora Bliss had it cold. She** controlled well, kept things from getting too hairy, and was fun. She role played just enough to keep from harming her character concept. I added her to my friends list. About the same time I ran into Stingger again, I noticed she was logged on. I shot her a quick hello, and she informed me her team was full. I told her I was just saying hello and good hunting.

There's a lot of people in the online gaming community. They can't all be jackholes. They can't all be model citizens and fun people. Usually, they're somewhere in-between. I admit that, at times, I'm not easy to tolerate, too (usually when I'm sick of dealing with the jackholes). And there's people that consider me, and whom I consider, to be great friends that we'll drop whatever we're doing to go help each other. There's a lot of people in these games, just like in the real world.

And, like in the real world, you can't always pick the people with whom you're working or playing. Sometimes you'll get matched up with a great guy. Sometimes you'll just want to tear someone's head off, based on the premise that they weren't using it for anything more practical than a hat-rack anyway. But you have something in the game you don't have in the real world. While you do have the equivalent of a "friends list" in the real world (an address book), you do not have an "ignore list." All you can do is try not to associate with them and hope for the best. At least, in a game, you can just plain shut them off.

The guy that invents a real-life "ignore list" is going to be a godzillionaire.

---

*I'm still unsure if his name's misspelling was due to the fact that he chose a name that had already been taken, and so rather than exercise imagination he simply misspelled the one he chose, or if he was simply so stupid he didn't spell it correctly in the first place.
**Keeping in mind that the gender of the toon doesn't necessarily mean the player is also that gender. Many women have male toons, and many guys have female toons, for the simple reason that, if you have to look at a butt the whole time you're playing, it may as well be one that you don't mind seeing.

---

Social
Topic: Human Behaviour
Occasionally, I like to make time for the people that I meet now and then, and have a conversation. Especially if it seems like they want to talk.

Like yesterday. Yesterday, I met a person wearing a New York Yankees ball cap, and a New York Yankees jersey, and a Yankees wrist watch. He was drinking coffee from a New York Yankees coffee mug. He was in a city near Boston, so obviously something was on his mind.

Wondering how to approach him, he took care of that problem for me. He looked up from his newspaper (The Boston Herald) and commented on the 192 million dollar jackpot in the current lottery. "Some lucky bastard's gonna be happy when they win that" he said.

"I'm pretty lucky." I said. "Maybe not that lucky, but I'm pretty lucky."

"Yeah? How lucky?"

"Well," I replied, "about a year ago, I was walking along and found a four leaf clover. Two minutes later, I found a twenty dollar bill."

"That's pretty lucky, okay." he said.

"Oh, it gets better." I told him. "I used part of the money to buy lunch at a Chinese restaurant, and got a fortune cookie that said 'Good Fortune will shine on you.' So I used the rest of the money on a scratch ticket, and won fourty dollars."

"Not bad!" He was beginning to get impressed.

"There's more. I went into an antique shop, and bought an old lamp, and when I cleaned it off, a genie came out, and told me he'd grant me one wish."

"You can't expect me to believe that!" he snapped.

"I can prove it."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"Simple" I said, looking at all his Yanker paraphernalia. "I wished that the Yankees would choke like Cass Elliot on a ham sandwich."

He glared at me. It lasted a long while. It was quite an impressive glare, as far as glares go. I just smiled a little, and let him glare.

Finally, he said what I'd hoped he'd say. "Mama Cass didn't choke to death! It was a heart attack!"

"Really?" I said. "Wow... then that means The Yankees didn't choke either." I grinned at him. "That means that they just really, really suck. I wonder if I still have a wish, then."

The person wearing all the Yankees merchandise glared again. But he then did something completely out of character, and showed the good judgement of shutting the Hells up.

Which means I got my wish after all.

Trance
Topic: Human Behaviour
My son-in-law Chris (not the Chris from last week's entry) works at Best Buy on The Geek Squad. He's a "Double Agent." What that means is he drives around in a 2-tone Volkswagen beetle with the Geek Squad logo on the side. When your computer needs help, he (or someone very much like him) drives to your house in that beetle, and fixes it for a lot more than it would cost you to have your nephew Bernie* do it, but with more reliable results. Necessity breeds invention, so stop laughing.

Last weekend, we went to Six Flags New England, where it rained a lot. Not hard, just a lot. All day. It was very damp. So we spent time indoors when we could, where it was dry. One of the indoor events was an illusionist's show, which was good, but after that was a show by hypnotist Michael Blaine**, which was outstanding, and not least because Chris (still the Geek Squad Chris) was one of the subjects on the stage.

Do not get ahead of me.

At first, I thought Chris would be a poor subject, because when he was on stage, supposed to be focusing on the voice of the hypnotist, he rubbed his nose a couple of times. See, reality's like that. On TV, they're always great subjects with no itches or twitches or congestion to mess with the experience. In real life, there's a booger. It distracts.

But it didn't distract Chris... in fact, after he'd made sure he had them all under his power... er... under a trance, the hypnotist took hold of Chris' nose and walked about ten feet away with it, suggesting to Chris that he was pulling the nose like taffy. The expression on Chris' face could not have been more shocked if it had been directly connected to a car battery via jumper cables. Truth be told, the hypnotist had extra-special fun with Chris, because he wore his Geek Squad t-shirt to the event, ensuring he'd be noticed. After the show, people were walking up to him in the park and telling him how funny he'd been. Chris didn't remember a thing about it until this morning, at which point he felt pretty odd.

The hypnotist had a lot of fun with all of his subjects, though. He suggested that they'd suddenly found themselves in the middle of the North Pole, and were freezing. Watching them huddle together for warmth was amusing, but not hilarious. Watching them fan themselves when they thought they were in the desert was equally amusing, even when he told them they smelled horribly of B.O. But it wasn't hilarious. Watching them try to clean themselves off by using the person on the chair next to theirs when the hypnotist suggested they had just had a very large amount of bird droppings on them was very, very funny as well, but still not hilarious. Even the roller-coaster ride he told them they were on, where they fought their neighbor for the ride seat-belt, was not hilarious. Chris had put his hands out in front of him, grasping an imaginary bar, waiting for the ride to begin. But it wasn't hilarious, although it was amazingly funny.

The post-hypnotic suggestions. Those were hilarious.

Upon hearing trigger-phrases from the hypnotist, the subjects, having returned to the audience, would stand up at their seat and announce something. One person quacked and waddled a bit, and said "Aflac!" Another person stood up and began barking, then got a very blank expression, and sat back down. A fellow announced that he owned the park, and food and drink were on him.***

Chris, too, had a post-hypnotic announcement he made. The hypnotist's suggestion held quite firm in Chris' subconscious, and when the word was said, he stood up and made his announcement. But it was only short-term, and he's fine now. I've tried a couple of times, and used the hypnotist's key word ("trance") to get Chris to make the announcement again, but it didn't work, so he's okay. No worries, if he comes to fix your computer, you can be confident that he's got his mind completely on the job, and will provide quality service.

He has to. As he announced, he's with The Geek Squad, and he's wearing women's underwear.

---

*You probably don't have a nephew Bernie that is really good with computers. Don't sweat it. It's a literary device used to convey the concept of having someone close or related to you do your techie work for nothing. Get it? Good.
If you do have a nephew Bernie that is good with computers, have him join The Geek Squad and quit taking advantage of him.
**Pronounced "Mesmerist."
***He utterly failed to pony up, the welcher.

---

Overheard
Topic: Human Behaviour
A couple well into their advanced years was waiting for their turn in the same office as I was today. A portion of their conversation follows.

"What's that?" (referring to a picture in a magazine in the waiting room of the doctor's office)

"It's a haggis."

"A what?"

"Haggis."

"What the hell's a 'haggis?'"

"It's Scottish."

"That means crap to me. What is it?"

"Well, they take a sheep's stomach, and fill it with oats and suet and liver and some other stuff. Then they boil it."

"Why?!"

"They eat it."

(stunned silence, finally) "You're shittin' me."

"I am not. It's Scottish."

"Scottish people eat that?"

"That's what this says."

"Why?!"

"Now, how the heck should I know? I'm not Scottish!"

"Well, you've got the magazine! What's it say? Does it say why they eat it?"

"No, it just says how they make it, and this recipe serves twelve."

"They can find twelve people that would eat that?"

"I guess there's got to be at least twelve Scottish people that would eat it, because it's in a magazine about food!"

"Bullshit. You're gullible. Don't believe everything you read."

"Don't you eat pigs' feet?"

"That's different!"

"How?"

"Well, obviously, it's a foot!" It's not a stomach! That's disgusting! Then it's filled with liver and oats and all that and boiled?"

"For four hours, it says. Longer for a big stomach."

"Bullshit!"

"Well."

"Hmph."

(silence for a while, and person with haggis magazine asks) "What's that you're reading?"

"Nothin' with Scottish food in it!"

At this point, I was called in to see the health care professional (pronounced "doctor"), but I heard as I walked away...

"Well, you want menudo for dinner tonight?"

"Sure."

---

This conversation did not actually take place.
But it should have.

---