Conversations

     There’s a saying that goes “I wept that I had no shoes...until I met a man who had no feet.” It’s supposed to evoke a sense of proportion, in recognition of the fact that for most of us, there are a lot of people who are worse off. However, one of the “updates” on that old saying runs: “I wept that I had no shoes...until I met a man who had no feet. So I stole his shoes. Hey, he didn’t need them, right?” So there’s “room to differ” with the sentiments in that old maxim, one might say.

     You have to preserve your room to differ. It’s the essence of freedom of expression. All the same, it’s well to remember that there are people much worse off than you...unless you’re Arlo Guthrie’s “last guy,” as he described in this famous song.

     I’m in frequent communication with others of the remaining Blogosphere. Most of them are “getting on in years,” and several of them have sad stories to tell. One of them, who shall go unnamed, has been alone in the world since his wife passed away some twenty years ago. Just today he hit me with a tale of woe I’d never heard before.

Fran: How’s it been going?
Blogging Colleague: Pretty lousy, if I’m going to be honest.

FWP: Why? What’s been happening?
BC: Well, I’ve been pretty lonely these past few years, you know?

FWP: Well, yeah. So...?
BC: So I’ve been hurting for female attention.

FWP: I hadn’t thought that was such a burden, at our age.
BC: Ha! You’ve still got your wife. I’ve been alone for twenty-two years, and as wretched as I am, I couldn’t get a woman to talk to me if I offered to pay her. Forget getting one to have sex with me!

FWP: So...?
BC: So I bit the bullet and ordered one of those ultra-realistic sex dolls. You know, the kind that come with an artificial intelligence module.

FWP: No, really?
BC: Yeah.

FWP: Has it...I mean, she arrived yet?
BC: Yeah, just today.

FWP: And you’ve unpacked her?
BC: Yeah.

FWP: Well...?
BC: She said she just wants to be friends.

     So remember, Gentle Reader: there’s always someone worse off than you.