You & Me Read Online Free Page B

house is destroyed and I am therefore in shock.
    Well, you know, let’s say she was in shock, and the evidence of that fact might be, to her, obscure. Say she has heard about shock, and is feeling strange, with her house gone, but she is not wailing or gnashing, she’s numb, and she gets the idea that she would be wailing and should be wailing and if she’s not then maybe she’s in shock. There’s some evidence that she’s in shock, evidently.
    So the old bird is actually pretty smart, not inane?
    It is not for me to say.

&
    Are we perfect?
    No.
    You have such a poor attitude.
    I confess it.
    You would.
    Should I deny that I have a poor attitude?
    Anyone with a proper attitude would deny that he has a poor attitude.
    But I have a poor attitude because I confess that we are not perfect. I should claim that we are perfect, indicating that I am a lunatic.
    No, indicating that you are a positive thinker.
    You would like me to be more positive?
    Yes.
    That will make it all better?
    Yes.
    All right. We are perfect. Tomorrow we will make a million dollars. My dog will never die. The dead one did not die. No more deer will be struck by cars. My intellectual fundament is not subject to measurement or decline. My soul is eternal. The hungry children of the world tomorrow will find bacon and eggs in their stockings. Rosy human potential is limitless.
    See? Is that so hard?
    No. It is not hard at all. Imbecility is the greatest feel-good power on earth. It’s why so many are drawn to it, like religion. It is a religion.
    There you go again, taking a turn for the worse.
    I must pull up out of the trees. I recant. Imbecility is a rare affliction that we are rapidly eliminating as we evolve into the perfect species on the happy planet. Any more talk out of me of the other sort and I’ll just wear the dunce cap for a bit.

&
    I’m bopping in my head to something something the Midnight Rider .
    What?
    It’s a song. I never listen so I only know the last words in a line, if that. Something, something, the Midnight Riiiider . . .
    Why don’t they saponify hemp oil itself?
    Who?
    Well, they, They, anybody, but this Dr. Bronner outfit would be a more logical party than say Colgate-Palmolive. They recently made a big deal of putting hemp oil in place of jojoba oil in their soaps.
    The famous hippie soaps.
    Yes. Hemp for the hippie, you see.
    Does the hippie want hemp in everything he uses?
    That would seem to be the premise. So what I am saying is why not just take straight hemp oil and saponify it?
    Maybe it would be lousy soap.
    It probably would be lousy soap, but what’s that got to do with anything? Hemp oil is probably a lousy additive compared to jojoba oil, which itself was regarded as a magical elixir and selling aid for years. Now it’s out. Hemp is in. I’m seeing this. When the hemp soap is worn down to suppository size, you slip it up the bombay winking portal like a suppository and get high.
    Or you cut it down, like a plug of chew—
    Or they just make it in suppository form, like these little parlor soaps in baskets in B&Bs—
    Those are called parlor soaps?
    I don’t know. Novelty soaps? Demitasse?
    They have wrappers on them, pleated wrappers—
    Like candy, sort of. Anyway, the hippies just pop these hemp-soap suppositories in and go about their buzzy days.
    The oil surely won’t deliver a buzz.
    I’m thinking it won’t, but that won’t be a total dissuasion. A man can have an assful of gushy hemp oil on hand anytime a narc elects to conduct a body search. It will be a kind of countercultural chaw. The laxative value is probably high.
    They can sell it as Soap Not On A Rope.
    This is my million-dollar idea for today.

&
    These bullet things—
    You mean our heads?
    Yes, we have to do something about these bullet things, our heads if you insist—
    What can we do about our own heads?
    I don’t know but we cannot very well sit