“I’ve discovered something about your species,” he said, “that
is quite unique in the galaxy.”
“Somehow, “I said, as a bicyclist sped by at a blinding speed,
brushing my elbow and shouting an expletive. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“I have learned,” he said, “that among the elderly, the
greeting ‘How are you doing today?’ is not a question asked merely for effect
with no answer expected.”
“A rhetorical question, in other words.”
“Why are you repeating me again?”
I said, “Never mind. Continue.”
“Gladly,’ he said, puffing his pipe. A woman pushing a baby
stroller met us going the opposite direction and made exaggerated hand motions to
wave away the smoke. He tipped his hat to her. She huffed along. “What I have
learned,” he said, “is that when asked that question, old folks will begin to
describe their physical conditions in great, and unwanted detail, and why they
do that I don’t know, unless they think the whole thing is important and it
would never be that at all unless you were close to them in some way and not a
complete stranger.”
“You might want to work on your sentence structure,” I said.
“I have been,” he said. “Can’t you tell?”
“Go on.”
“So,” he said, “is there no physical condition that is so
intimate, so personal and evolutionarily basic, that some of you will forbear
sharing the details with a stranger?”
“What kind of details?”
“Well,” he said, as we stopped to admire a particularly
beautiful view of the Little Rock skyline and a teenager walked past us
punching a message into her phone, “the question I mentioned can certainly
elicit a detailed description of some current ailment or a recent visit to a
person’s physician.” He puffed. “They certainly like to share that one with you—the
visit to their doctor.”
I nodded and we continued to walk.
He said, “Bowel movements. That’s another.”
"Bowel movements?”
“Bowl movements. Popular topic. I’ve had more than one old
soul begin telling me about her digestive ailments, simply because I asked how
she was doing.”
I couldn’t disagree with him.
He continued, “Not only frequencies, but personal characteristics,
if you know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I do,” I said.
One of the interesting things about you is your ability to talk to strangers. - C.W. |
“Then I had one,” he said, “attempt to tell me about her
aged husband’s attempts to perform actions she hadn’t been interested in since
the Reagan Administration.”
“Oh dear,” I said.
“You may not think it odd,” he said. “But on Falloonia, we
keep such information to ourselves.”
At this point, we were interrupted by the reappearance of
the woman in the baby stroller, this time with a police officer in tow. He
suggested C.W. might want to extinguish his pipe. He did, and after some heated
discussions, we continued our walk.
“Well,” he said, “enough about me. How have you been?”
See also www.wattensawpress.com
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