One of my favorite things is those surreal conversations one has from time to time. The quintessential example is from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," in the scene where the king wants his son, who wishes to escape marriage, guarded in his room by two guards. The king wants the guards to stay in the room and guard the son to prevent his escape. He says this in as many clear ways as he can, to no avail. The guards continually misunderstand him, and when the king ultimately turns to leave, they attempt to follow him out. If you have never watched this scene, you really should, because once you've seen it, life will remind you of it repeatedly.
I bring this up because I had a mildly surreal encounter at the vegetable stand on Sunday, and I thought I'd try to transcribe it here, as best I can remember it. This stand is between my house and the woods where I hike with the dogs on Sunday mornings, and sometimes on my way back after the hike, I like to stop there and get some decent tomatoes. I can't grow tomatoes myself (that's a whole different story), and I don't think grocery store tomatoes are worth the space they take up, but this stand manages to sell me some tasty ones from time to time.
So last Sunday I stopped. I picked up eight tomatoes, four ears of white corn, and two apples. I put each set in their own white plastic bag and brought them to the register, which is propped on a wooden counter under a roof. A roof, I might mention, that I crack my head on every single bleedin' time I visit this vegetable stand. The man tending the stand rose and said a friendly hullo, and then the conversation went something like this:
"Hullo."
"Hi, how are you today?"
"Fine, just fine. Lovely day. Will this be all?"
"Oh, yes, thank you. I've got four ears of corn, I think eight tomatoes, and a couple apples. I don't know which stuff you do by weight and which you count, but I think it's probably eight tomatoes."
As I said this, he took the tomatoes and the apples and put them on a scale, thus wordlessly letting me know he weighs tomatoes and apples rather than counting them. Then he looked over at my bag of corn and scowled.
"You sure that's eight?"
"Yes, eight tomat... oh, the corn? Four corn. I have four ears of corn."
Then him, chuckling, "I didn't think that was eight corn. You said eight, I thought you were crazy."
"Oh, no, I said four corn, eight tomat..."
"Cause you said eight corn and I can tell that ain't eight."
"Well, yes... that's four."
"Cause you said eight."
"Well, yeah, that was a mistake. I meant four."
"Uh-huh."
At which point he was satisfied, and we concluded our sale.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Citizens' Antiterrorist Brigade
My friends tell me I'm funny. Mind you, they don't tell me this all the time, or even particularly often. But they tell me often enough that, when I sit here and stare at this empty blog, I think that there really must be something terribly funny to say. But of course nothing comes to mind.
Instead, I'll relate an odd little experience I had on the D.C. Metro recently.
I got on the red line and was riding it to Gallery Place, and suddenly a man farther up the car stood and shouted to another man walking away, "Sir! Is this your bag??" The other fellow shook his head no and walked off, leaving the man staring at an unoccupied seat. Our whole car full of people just kind of froze... what the hell to do now? We couldn't see the bag he was referring to, so we weren't sure how serious this was, and then he picked up an Eddie Bauer fabric lunch tote. We all just stared at it for a few seconds, like meerkats on the Serengeti. Finally his wife asked, of the entire car, "What should be do? Should we open it?" We all muttered indistinctly, and meanwhile the husband lost his patience and started squeezing the bag to feel if there was anything in it. It appeared to be empty. So he finally just shrugged and put it back down on the seat and sat in his seat. We all sort of chuckled and looked at each other and said, "wow, that was really a bit freaky!" and then rode on. The guy and his wife got off at the next stop, and after that I saw a succession of people get on the train, eyeball the bag like nervous horses, and then sit without comment. One woman even got on and sat next to the bag, giving it a leery look before sitting turned away from it as if it was an unhygienic passenger. Finally my stop came, and at that time the seat with the bag was empty, so I went over there and took the bag and an umbrella that had also been left behind. My reasoning was that it was stupid to leave the bag at this point, where it might cause a whole new stir a few stops farther on, possibly something much more outsized and costly and inconvenient for all involved, when we had already determined the bag was not a danger. Then I had to decide what to do with it. I was still carrying the whole thing as if it could still be a bomb, but finally I had to kind of admit I couldn't possibly believe it was a bomb or there'd be no way in hell I'd be carrying it. Therefore, the fact it was in my hand proved it was safe... in a circular-logic kind of way. Then I thought I'd turn it in, but I realized that would be pretty stupid... the staff would just throw it out or put it in some bottomless lost and found box. Or maybe it would go to a new good home, but I really wasn't sure it would. I finally stopped long enough to poke through it and realize it had a few names and a phone number (not of the owner, but of someone who once offered the owner or the owner's kids a babysitting job) on a slip of paper, and a name written on the bag itself, so I decided to take it home with me to try to locate the owner to find out if they wanted the bag back (it's a very nice bag, really). If nothing else I wanted to tell them about the stir their bag caused on the train.
So anyway, then I got on the green line to come to Greenbelt station. The whole time I'm riding, I'm sitting across the doorway area from a big tub of some kind of sealant, or, at least, that's what it says on the label. It's really a very large white tub, with a white plastic bag on top that says "THANK YOU!" in red, with no owner sitting next to it. I hypothesized that the man sitting the next row back, talking to the guy across the aisle from him, was in fact the owner of the tub, but there wasn't any strong reason to believe that. I thought of asking him and putting my mind at rest, but somehow it seemed faintly ridiculous to go through the same process twice in one Metro trip, so I didn't. I just stared at the tub, wondering why one can't count on nice exposed wires or maybe a clock ticking down when one is being an Observant Citizen Helping To Keep Our Country Safe From Terrorists. I tried to picture a bomb inside the tub, and I wondered if it would be filling up most of the space inside or would it be just hunkered down like so much scrap in the middle of the bottom. And who would think to use a tub of sealant as a bomb disguise anyhow? Wouldn't you pick something that wouldn't stand out so much? Or would it be extra clever to pick something like a tub of sealant? And how stupid would I feel if that thing blew up while I was thinking all this? I pondered how little effort it would be to (a) ask the man about the tub or (b) switch cars or (c) get off the train and wait for the next one, and marveled at how I absolutely knew there was no chance I would do any of those things even though they were almost effortless and I was supposedly potentially risking my life.
Two stops before my own, the man in the second row concluded his conversation, got up with his friend, grabbed the handle of the tub, and took it with him off the train. I knew it all along, of course.
Instead, I'll relate an odd little experience I had on the D.C. Metro recently.
I got on the red line and was riding it to Gallery Place, and suddenly a man farther up the car stood and shouted to another man walking away, "Sir! Is this your bag??" The other fellow shook his head no and walked off, leaving the man staring at an unoccupied seat. Our whole car full of people just kind of froze... what the hell to do now? We couldn't see the bag he was referring to, so we weren't sure how serious this was, and then he picked up an Eddie Bauer fabric lunch tote. We all just stared at it for a few seconds, like meerkats on the Serengeti. Finally his wife asked, of the entire car, "What should be do? Should we open it?" We all muttered indistinctly, and meanwhile the husband lost his patience and started squeezing the bag to feel if there was anything in it. It appeared to be empty. So he finally just shrugged and put it back down on the seat and sat in his seat. We all sort of chuckled and looked at each other and said, "wow, that was really a bit freaky!" and then rode on. The guy and his wife got off at the next stop, and after that I saw a succession of people get on the train, eyeball the bag like nervous horses, and then sit without comment. One woman even got on and sat next to the bag, giving it a leery look before sitting turned away from it as if it was an unhygienic passenger. Finally my stop came, and at that time the seat with the bag was empty, so I went over there and took the bag and an umbrella that had also been left behind. My reasoning was that it was stupid to leave the bag at this point, where it might cause a whole new stir a few stops farther on, possibly something much more outsized and costly and inconvenient for all involved, when we had already determined the bag was not a danger. Then I had to decide what to do with it. I was still carrying the whole thing as if it could still be a bomb, but finally I had to kind of admit I couldn't possibly believe it was a bomb or there'd be no way in hell I'd be carrying it. Therefore, the fact it was in my hand proved it was safe... in a circular-logic kind of way. Then I thought I'd turn it in, but I realized that would be pretty stupid... the staff would just throw it out or put it in some bottomless lost and found box. Or maybe it would go to a new good home, but I really wasn't sure it would. I finally stopped long enough to poke through it and realize it had a few names and a phone number (not of the owner, but of someone who once offered the owner or the owner's kids a babysitting job) on a slip of paper, and a name written on the bag itself, so I decided to take it home with me to try to locate the owner to find out if they wanted the bag back (it's a very nice bag, really). If nothing else I wanted to tell them about the stir their bag caused on the train.
So anyway, then I got on the green line to come to Greenbelt station. The whole time I'm riding, I'm sitting across the doorway area from a big tub of some kind of sealant, or, at least, that's what it says on the label. It's really a very large white tub, with a white plastic bag on top that says "THANK YOU!" in red, with no owner sitting next to it. I hypothesized that the man sitting the next row back, talking to the guy across the aisle from him, was in fact the owner of the tub, but there wasn't any strong reason to believe that. I thought of asking him and putting my mind at rest, but somehow it seemed faintly ridiculous to go through the same process twice in one Metro trip, so I didn't. I just stared at the tub, wondering why one can't count on nice exposed wires or maybe a clock ticking down when one is being an Observant Citizen Helping To Keep Our Country Safe From Terrorists. I tried to picture a bomb inside the tub, and I wondered if it would be filling up most of the space inside or would it be just hunkered down like so much scrap in the middle of the bottom. And who would think to use a tub of sealant as a bomb disguise anyhow? Wouldn't you pick something that wouldn't stand out so much? Or would it be extra clever to pick something like a tub of sealant? And how stupid would I feel if that thing blew up while I was thinking all this? I pondered how little effort it would be to (a) ask the man about the tub or (b) switch cars or (c) get off the train and wait for the next one, and marveled at how I absolutely knew there was no chance I would do any of those things even though they were almost effortless and I was supposedly potentially risking my life.
Two stops before my own, the man in the second row concluded his conversation, got up with his friend, grabbed the handle of the tub, and took it with him off the train. I knew it all along, of course.
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