None of the Above

You’re free to join a political party, but remember, you’ll always pay for the punch.

We were enjoying a cool, quiet evening, our doors and windows open to a nice southwesterly breeze, when some neighbors upwind of us started smoking their supper in what must be one of those barrel-shaped contraptions that use chips or pellets or some such to “enhance” the flavor of whatever meat they’ve chosen to cook. It was ghastly. In short order, the house was full of smoke which took most of the night to clear and left us with a headache, while they, of course, remained blissfully unaware, and convinced their meal was much tastier than it would have been if cooked in a less-expensive, less-polluting manner.

Thoreau’s journal, entries for February 24 and February 26, 1854: Tracks in the Snow. A Freezing Rain. The sexton tells me that he had to dig the last grave through two feet of frozen ground.

Read the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters of Middlemarch.

First person. “I’ll be late.”

Second. “I’ll be early.”

Third. “What is time, anyway? Does it even exist?”

Fourth. “It does, but it doesn’t really need to.”

First. “Oh, I think it needs to, alright. Otherwise it wouldn’t be time.”

Second. “Very profound.”

First. “Thanks.”

Third. “The truth is, I’m not sure we exist.”

Fourth. “We do, but we don’t really need to.”

First, Second, Third, Fourth. “Ha-ha-ha!”

Fifth, rushing in. “Oh, good, you’re all still here. The meeting’s been cancelled.”