talking about the weather

I wonder if Beagles ever did get a credit card.  I had the same problem.  As a good Bohemian of course I found them appalling.  A card that aided you in accumulating debt?  And not only that, once you got the debt you were encouraged to only pay part of it and leave the rest to accumulate interest.  All my friends seemed to love them, but I would not sully my pockets.

But when I came back to Chicago from,Texas the movie houses were way expensive, so I decided to rent videos, but when I went into the store they wanted my credit card.  Well shit, I guessed I would get one then, but then I ran into the same situation as Beagles.  As a good Bohemian I had never borrowed one red cent, and hence I had no credit history, which of course is worse than poor credit history.  I think I got a department store credit card, and then maybe I even borrowed money just to pay it back, and finally I got my card and I was able to rent movies,

It's not quite a credit card because the money comes straight out of my checking account which is fine with me because then I don't risk missing a payment and having to pay interest.  But how about those clowns who buy a can of pop at the grocery store and pay for it with their credit cards which means I have to stand behind them tapping my foot and scowling waiting for it to clear, and worse, then they do their banking there?  And how about express lines, whatever happened to them?

I saw on tv that this Afghani bomber's dad had a chicken restaurant that stayed open all night and attracted a raucous crowd and the city had tried to make them shut down at ten and then they claimed discrimination and hired a lawyer, and maybe that pissed off the kid.  Nobody got killed, what is the big deal?


I like those stranger conversations.  You're just standing around, waiting for a bus or for some damn fool who is buying his can of pop with his credit card and, oh, he wants to take two hundred bucks out of the bank, and one of you pops up with something.  It has to be done right away because after fifteen seconds the code of silence kicks in.  But once started, neither of you knows each other, nor any of us each others' friends, and you will never see each other again, so you can talk about anything you want.

A variation on this is the elevator conversation.  I have lived in this building twenty-four years and ninety nine percent of the time when I share an elevator it is with a stranger.  Did I say fifteen seconds?  It seems like in the elevator the code of silence, probably because of the close confines is more like five seconds.  You're not quite as free because you both know each other lives in the building. or maybe knows somebody who does, but on the other hand the trip is not going to last very long so you don't have to worry about those awkward silences.  Usually, of course the topic is the weather, now there is a challenge, try to think of something new to say about the weather for the thousandth time.