do you believe...

The gray-haired hippie waylaid me just ten feet from the vending machine. After quaffing that too-sweet Dublin Dr Pepper the other day I was craving the bite I knew I could only get from a Diet Dr Pepper. “Do you have just two minutes? I want to ask your opinion about my new bio.”

I looked at the change in my hand and jingled it a few times. This “asking my opinion” was a ploy, I knew, to cut me away from the herd, and it was sure to take more than two minutes, but I could spare five minutes, and the Dr Pepper would be my reward for the politeness.

Alas, it would not be so brief.

“Did you know there’s only one soul?” Oh, no, here we go again with the never-ending proselytizing for some all-time religion culled from endless reading of every bestseller from the last forty years. How can I distract him?

“One sole? Is that why I’m so low, cuz it’s been stomping on me?”
“There’s just one sole”
“I don’t want to talk philosophy.”
“This is not philosophy.”
“I don’t believe in that stuff”
“You don’t believe in philosophy?”
“I don’t believe in soles.”

Unfortunately, I do believe in music, and am now privy to the announcement that his new cd is Now Available at CDBaby.

Twenty minutes later I break away. I now MUST get back to my workstation. I am so distracted, I punch the button for Regular Dr Pepper instead of Diet.

“Where were you?” asks my boss.