April had been kind enough to acquiesce some of her evening time to sojourn out with me downtown. Mission: a lecture. Exploring the sphere of higher learning. The room filled with expectant faces of a broad array – age, gender, and ethnicity. Papers rustled, chairs groaned under collective capacity, voices droned in an uneven hum, purses, pouches, bags, briefcases and satchels settled over, under and next to chairs. Alternative music bumped out of ceiling speakers and a PowerPoint information blitz displayed just a little fast on two big screens on the walls.
“So, what d’ya think?” April asked when it ended.
“In a word,” I replied, hesitating momemtarily. “Hems. I followed the basic gist of the presentation, but I pretty much focused on the variance of hems in the room.”
“Did you say ‘hems’?” blinked April with a birdlike cock of her head.
“Yes, well, did you notice the speaker’s? Three extra inches of pant leg and a veritable chunk out of the back of both pant leg hems. And then there were the too short pant legs on the moderator, torn out hems on the girl in the front row, strings still dangling from the raw edges where she’d dropped the hems of her pant legs in a hopeless effort to make them longer.”
“Well, what did you get out of the lecture?” April asked after a brief silence.
“The need for more kilts in today’s society.”
“So, what d’ya think?” April asked when it ended.
“In a word,” I replied, hesitating momemtarily. “Hems. I followed the basic gist of the presentation, but I pretty much focused on the variance of hems in the room.”
“Did you say ‘hems’?” blinked April with a birdlike cock of her head.
“Yes, well, did you notice the speaker’s? Three extra inches of pant leg and a veritable chunk out of the back of both pant leg hems. And then there were the too short pant legs on the moderator, torn out hems on the girl in the front row, strings still dangling from the raw edges where she’d dropped the hems of her pant legs in a hopeless effort to make them longer.”
“Well, what did you get out of the lecture?” April asked after a brief silence.
“The need for more kilts in today’s society.”
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