"Do you ever read x?" someone will ask, even though I know the answer before they mention x. No, I don't. I am a snob. Snobs do not read what you read.
"Why not?" said recent houseguest Marie, clutching her New Yorker to her chest.
"You know that scene in the original Airplane! where the camera pans past the magazine rack, and one of the sections is labeled 'Whacking Material?' I think of that gag every time I read the New Yorker. It's left-wing whacking material."
"Well," she scoffed as she went back to her magazine,"I like it because they take shots at Bush."
Touché.
"So do you ever listen to y?" Dirt Glazowski asked just last night. No. I don't listen to right-wing whacking material, either. "He's really good. You should check it out."
"If I ever do, kindly and repeatedly exercise your beloved second amendment rights on my skull."
"Ha, ha. Which amendment is that, again?"
Dirt and I spotted a brown pelican, which are brand new to the Seattle area, having made their way up the west coast from islands off temperate Southern California. "Why are they moving up here?" he asked.
"Oh," I braced, "Because the climate is getting warmer. As the planet warms, some species are fanning out to where it used to be too cold."
"Well." End of conversation. He shut me down. He's doubtless heard of people like me, always wanting to refute dogma with evidence. I was best avoided.
Frustrated, I recounted the conversation later to Katrina. "No, Dirt, one day they just decided they were sick of the California heat and they up and moved someplace colder."
"No, that's no good either," she replied. "That'd be evolution."