Don't Ask Me

Someone writes to Professor Imaginary:

“Dear Professor:  Do you think even a rebel could ‘explain-away’ guilt?”

“Sure,” replies the Professor, he’d probably say something like:  ‘Guilt is the cheap, too-tight cotton undershorts I wear during the week, but replace on the weekends.’”

And the make-believe writer says:  “Wow, thanks Professor.”

And the Professor nods and smiles.

And a reader opines:

“If you ask me – I’m not sure I like those where you apparently let everyday life have the last word.  My wife says that in truth – I don’t like ANY of them…but still…Yours, (as sincerely as I can BE), etc.”

“Hey,” said one messenger to the king, “Don’t blame ME – the truth IS obnoxious.”

One day a “kinda-try-to-be” rebel asked himself: “Has being any smarter made you any happier?” And then told himself:  “Don’t ask me questions like that!”

As the bus whizzed by, the man leaned from a window and yelled to himself, standing on the corner:  “Forgive me – but I must think what the others are thinking.”  And faster than any eye could see, a certain part of his street-standing brain grinned, understood, made an insulting gesture and managed not to hear any of this – all at the same time.

J.