Last autumn, there occurred one of those random by-chance things—something that happens only very rarely, but often enough to make one aware there is in fact a God—when a member of conservativecave happened to be in Omaha. He doesn’t live in Omaha, but he did for a few years in the late 1990s.
He was with a friend who was going to attend some sort of function at the world-famous Joslyn Art Museum there. Kidneys aren’t his thing, but as he was doing nothing else in particular, he dressed up and accompanied this friend to that fund-raiser for the Kidney Foundation.
Sometime while inside the building, he spotted a phenomenon, and stopped in his tracks.
“Whoa—who’s that guy, the Incredible Bulk?†he asked someone associated with the affair.
It needs explained that this person has a phobia about certain surfaces, generally ice, marble floors, polished parquet, and shiny tiles. Born with a certain, uh, anatomical deficiency, he has no instinctive sense of balance and equilibrium, and going down on slippery surfaces has been a problem for him; he’s had considerable damage throughout his life because of it.
Some of those times, he’s been knocked down by someone else slipping and sliding, usually large people, and he’s not as durable as he looks; thus far he’s suffered one dislocated shoulder, three cracked ribs, and a sprained ankle being crushed by behemoths.
And so when on treacherous surfaces, he steers clear of anyone who looks as if they’re capable of smashing him flat as a pancake. He’s a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet, and has no aversion to big people, but if it looks like there’s a chance that big person might slip and fall on him, he tries to stay at least circa eight feet away.
The person associated with the event identified the big guy by name, adding that he was “security,†but dressed fancy so as to “blend in†with the crowd.
Oh, okay, and so this person and his friend walked on.
Halfway across the room, he stopped in his tracks again, remembering something.
Now, this person is notorious for his loathing of photographs, and wishes the camera had never been invented. When he’s been compelled to use one, he’s never gotten anything but lousy pictures; not that he’s inept, but that he just doesn’t care.
But this occasion called for a photograph, albeit a clandestine one.
His friend offered him a cellular telephone—the Devil’s own invention, this person thinks of them—with the following result:
It was nice seeing you, Omaha Steve, but too bad you were working, as otherwise maybe we could’ve had a nice friendly little sit-down
tete-a-tete about your upcoming campaign.
