Homo sapiens senilius

I had the unique experience of encountering two very amusing old men yesterday.

The first, on library mall, was wearing black dress shoes, black socks pulled all the way up, khaki shorts, a white polo shirt, and a pith helmet. Yup, an honest to God pith helmet. As if he were preparing to breach the jungles of the subcontinent in search of Dr. Livingston. But he had the dark socks and dress shoes just in case a formal event broke out. Which they tend to do in darkest Africa, or so I'm told. Wasn't that the point of Heart of Darkness?

The second, a seemingly innocuous old timer, was hanging around a gas station I stopped at to get a bottle of water. As I was out for a walk, I had my portable cd player with me. This fine specimen of old timery wisdom noted my equippage, and informed me rather stridently that pieces very similar to my little Sony originally cost $1500. That was the entire bulk of our conversation, and yes, I can call it that, because he emphasized the point several times. You know, so I'd appreciate how valuable my cd player with the crappy radio reception really was. Or I'd just appreciate how old he was, as he can remember back to a time when these things were apparently made out of gold.

Nothing really more to say. I just find the elderly amusing.

Oh, question for my Madison folks. Do any of you know of any competent movers in this town?

Second question for my Madison folks. Do I want SSF as a third reader in my dissertation? TS seems to think this is a good idea, as she can fill in my large gaps in narrative theory. Of course, I could have printed his entire e-mail to me as a blog post in and of itself, as it is quite amusing in its brevity and its powerful use of all capital letters embedded in my own text. But that's another story for another day.