Got a call the other day from a local charity. The woman on the phone, clearly reading from a script, asked in a inflectionless voice if I’d like to donate money to help prevent child abuse. I told her I wasn’t interested as I really considered myself more on the supply-side of child abuse.

I don’t think she had a section in her script for that.

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My 20th high school reunion is coming up shortly and, once again, I have no plans to attend. I never saw a need to get together with people I barely remember to reminisce about times I’d most likely rather forget. Ordinarily, I’d just ignore the invites, but in this new and exciting technological age, I think maybe I can meet them halfway. I plan to send a DVD that they can play on infinite loop on a nearby television. It’ll be a medium shot of me as I walk into frame. I’ll be wearing a tie and have two drink glasses in my hand. I’ll look at the camera and deliver this speech.

“Hey, you! Wow! Look at you! Hardly recognized you. How have you been? What are you doing now? [brief pause] That’s great! Married? Got kids? [brief pause] That’s perfect for you. [The only point this could cause trouble is if the response would be, "Yes, but they all died in a horrible thresher accident."] Me? Oh, you know. This and that. Hey, I’d love to stay and chat but I have to get these drinks back to our table. Great seeing you, though. You take care.” And then I’d leave the screen.

Hey, that’s easily as sincere as most people are at those things.

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If you look up “picture” in the dictionary, there’s no picture. Ditto for “photograph,” “illustration,” “diagram,” “graph,” and “chart.” Seems like of all the words that were tailor-made to have sample images with them…

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