What were you saying? No wait, what was I saying.*

I went to the park during the last serious sun break a few days ago to take in some quiet and some light. Armed with a journal and a book, I bought coffee and found a spot at a wooden table amid bark dust and grass.

Within 5 minutes of my being there I could sense out of the corner of my eye an old man approach. I did not look up or make eye contact. His opening line, "I'm the park pervert." It was suppose to be a joke. And I said, not laughing and not looking up from my task, "Grrrreat." I was not hiding my disdain. "I try to be funny," he said. I did not answer.

But my rudeness didn't matter, and he asked me if I was in school or if I had gone to college. He didn't really care what my answer was. It was a set up so that he could tell this joke about being just a few credits away from a math degree. He asked me what I studied, and again, it didn't matter, it was just a segue so that he could sing a fight song he'd made up with clever lyrics. He asked me a few more questions and again, none of them really mattered, they were all just vehicles for him to say the next thing in his stand up routine.