Tramps Know
Posted by admin in 1
How do we know when fact is fact and fiction is fiction? We don’t. A tramp recently pointed this out to me. Our discourse (after he’d stopped muttering about trailer insurance ) went like this:
Me: “Excuse me, but would you please put that away? This is a public place.”
Tramp pauses: “Sorry. That was indeed disgraceful behaviour, I do apologize.”
Me, shrugging: “Ok, well, have a good one.”
Tramp calls back: “Wait, how do you know you just saw what you just saw?”
Me, bewildered: “Um–because I did?”
Tramp, putting one hand up: “Aha! But how do you?”
Me, more frightened than bewildered: “Um–just because?”
Tramp, thrilled with himself: “Exactly! Just because! Quite brilliant an answer!”
Me, leaving.
Tramp catches my arm: “Wait, allow me to elaborate.”
Me, looking down with disgust. My arm is wet: “Hand off first, ugh.”
Tramp removes hand: “Ok, so here it is: when they said the world was round, who really knew it? I mean nobody knew for sure did they? And you can’t say it doesn’t sound suspicious. You can’t run around the world fast enough to see if it is actually round, so people just took the so called experts’ word for it. Right? So what you’re seeing and thinking and hearing–who knows if it’s really real or not?”
Me, deep in thought: “I suppose so. Never really given it much thought. But thanks.”
Tramp: “Don’t mention it. Ok, I have to leave now, got somewhere to be.”
With that the tramp left.