An Evening At The Why

By Steve Bussiere

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An Evening At The Why If I weren't already there, Publisher Bob would probably drive me crazy.

He's been well taught. I know, because apparently I taught him.

I recently, made a poor decision and entered the dreaded, and recently hotter than hell, "Pruitt Triangle".

"Why do you call it The Pruitt Triangle?" he wanted to know.

Bob wants to know a lot more than he needs to, … or should.

"I didn't name it that." I replied.

"Well then who did?" he continued.

"Just a friend of mine. I kind of liked it, so I adopted it for myself."

"Why?"

"Because I liked it. I just told you that, but you don't listen to me. You're just like my kids."

"You haven't given me a column in a long time Steve. What's that all about?"

"You ask too many questions Bob. Unimportant questions… I've got nothing to say, so I'm not saying anything. I'm lying fallow for the moment. I believe that there are times when that's just the right thing to do."

"Really!" he replied. "So what else do you believe Steve?" he asked.

"I believe you ask too many questions Bob. Don't mess with me. My friend thinks I live in the Twilight Zone. And for the most part she's a very intelligent lady, other than the fact that she likes me as a person."

"You're avoiding the question Steve. What else do you believe?"

I took a deep breath and counted to ten, because someone told me you should do that when you're frustrated with a situation. Well, that as well as the fact I wanted to prove to myself that I was still capable of doing that.

"You really want to know?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm curious. You've been lying fallow for seven weeks now and I just want to see what's growing." And then he smiled, the sadistic bugger that he is.

"Well since you're apparently too dumb to know this all on your own, I'll share the wisdom with you." I told him. I was having a bad karma day.

"I believe that if anyone ever tells you that you're wise, you ought to ignore it."

"Why?"

"Stop the danged questions Bob. It gets really old really quickly, because you always should consider the source. I mean if they think you're wise, then that means they think you're wiser than they are, which shouldn't mean anything to you because you're the danged wise one in the first place and they ought to know that you're the one who should have explained it to them to begin with."

Bob looked scared for the first time since I met him.

"I also believe that love is stupid, since you asked."

"Why?"

There was that question again!

"Because when two people fall in love, it's inevitable that someone is going to end up getting hurt really badly."

"Why is that Steve?"

"Because it's the law of nature, and you can't mess with it."

Why? You mean you don't believe in true love?"

"I never said I didn't, but if two people fall in love, which is a ridiculous thing to do in the first place, somebody is gonna get hurt, sooner or later."

"Why? What if they meet, fall in love get married and live happily ever after?"

"It'll never happen Bob. Because even if it did and lasted for a hundred years, sooner or later one of them is going to die and the other one is going to hurt really badly when it happens."

"Well what if they die together Steve. You know, at the exact same time."

"That's not happily ever after Bob. Happily ever after only happens in Fairy Tales, and Fairy Tales are for kids, and when the parents do die, the kids end up getting hurt. It's just the nature of the world."

"Why would you say that? What if they didn't have kids? Then no one could end up getting hurt."

"Yes but two people who are dumb enough to fall in love in the first place, would want to have kids and if they didn't, that would hurt them. And if they didn't want to have kids, and then didn't have kids, they wouldn't know how happy they were before they had kids. Everybody always wants what they don't have and if you can't have what you don't have it hurts. So I'll stick with my last statement."

"Why?"

"Because I'm right, that's why. And while I'm on a tear, I also believe that Murphy was an optimist."

"Why is that Steve?"

"Because he was an Irishman and they all are optimistic because they drink too much, and they just don't know any better."

"I also believe that life may be short, but I'm shorter. And that's pretty much the long and the short of it, right there."

"Is that about it Steve?"

"I guess so. I mean the good Lord gave us two ears and one mouth and maybe half of a brain, with a tailwind. So I'm just going to shut up and listen now and try to hang on through the wind tunnel."

"You sound a touch jaded Steve." Bob answered. "You need to lighten up a bit and think about changing your perspective, don't you think?"

"Why??????????????"

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