Head Rattle

I.
Somebody has to say it: Please don't try to engage me in conversation while I'm standing at a urinal. This is a moment when I prefer to be alone with my thoughts, to put it as delicately as I possibly can. It's very difficult to compose small talk at such a time, nor do I wish to discuss "how it's going" -- whatever you mean by that.

II.
Chubby, well-dressed blonde girl sitting on a wall, like Humpty Dumpty, outside the train station: stop asking me for spare change every morning. Jehova's Witnesses: no, church ladies, I do not want your apocalyptic literature about the end of the world. Spammers: spare me your offers of "mortgage savings", "wine caddys", or "gamification" (is that a real word?) as part of my "location-based marketing strategy".

I don't have any spare change in the morning. I believe the world will fade away, not end in some appalling revelation. And I don't have a marketing strategy, location-based or otherwise. If I someday need one, it won't be based on gaming, which I think is what "gamification" refers to... or is it "gams", i.e., female legs? That might work better, actually.

III.
On a more positive note... I just bought myself a miniature spyglass at a museum gift shop. It's about the size of a ballpoint pen (until you telescope it) and also functions as a microscope if you look at something small through the other end. When I saw it, I had an overwhelming feeling that it would come in handy someday. Land ho, and all that.