follow up call
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 4:57PM Schmutzie: Hello, [workplace], Schmutzie speaking.
Palinode: Remember a while back when I asked you about a thermos?
Schmutzie: No.
Palinode: We were on the bus, and I accused you of hating a thermos? I'm calling to follow up on my original inquiry.
Schmutzie: I don't remember. And that doesn't work.
Palinode: How's that?
Schmutzie: You don't hate a thermos. It doesn't make sense.
Palinode: Sure it does. You hate a thermos. Or you did last time we talked.
Schmutzie: It's not possible.
Palinode: It's totally possible. When we get home tonight, I'll hate a thermos for you. Even though I'm pretty fond of a thermos.
Schmutzie: Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Palinode: I'll even hate a shoe. How's that sound?
Schmutzie: A shoe.
Palinode: Tell you what. We get home, I'll renounce a shoe.
Schmutzie: [overexcited] No! I mean, no. You can't renounce a shoe.
Palinode: Bring me a shoe and I'll renounce that shit for you.
Schmutzie: I'm in this conversation because why?
Palinode: Make sure the shoe is from a pair you're going to throw out.
Schmutzie: [silent, possibly away from phone]
Palinode: Because when I renounce a shoe, that thing's done. Unnnwearable.
conversations, shoes, thermoses 
Reader Comments (9)
careful, she might have you committed!
You guys are awfully fortunate to have found each other. You're both a very special flavour of nutty.
This in someway makes me feel less guilty about instant messaging my husband at work to tell him something about the cat.
Maybe if Schmutzie knew how a http://home.howstuffworks.com/thermos1.htm">thermos worked scientifically, she could learn to appreciate the beauty of the thermos.
Dreadmouse: We're that hazelnut chocolate bar flavour of nutty.
Jocelyn: My entire relationship with my wife can be summed up this way -
Palinode: Look at me! It's important!
Schmutzie: What is it?
Palinode: Made you look.
Neil: I fear that even the thermotic sciences would leave Schmutzie indifferent.
I like thermoses, goddammit! This "hating a thermos" business is pure fabrication on the Palinode's part, but he insists on it and has for months.
I know full well that you like thermoses. But I'm not talking about thermoses, I'm talking about a thermos as a general class, as used in such sentences as "I like a thermos of soup of an evening". Your refusal to countenance my question with a straight answer - especially when I pressed you for one - forced me to believe that you were not only indifferent to a thermos, but you possessed an irrational hatred for a thermos. You can see why I reached that conclusion.
The plain truth of the matter is that you hate a thermos. Now me, I love a good thermos now and then.
Oh, man. This conversation made me feel really funky inside. Reading it, I felt like I was eavesdropping.
Ho ho, hee hee. Ha.
That's me giggling.
Awww, yeah!! Tha's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Tha's da sheeeit up in thurr...
Oh, I'm so glad I'm the last one at work tonight. These posts often result in sidelong glances as I laugh out loud. Tonight, all alone in the building, I fairly cackled. Mayhap even guffawed. Sweet Zombie Jesus, I do so love a thermos.