EVOLUTION

As far back as I can remember, my family has been having random conversations that are typically born from an entirely different context than the orignal topic but that knits itself into a new conversation which just creates this lumpy line of banter that, when looking at it from an outsider's point of view, makes absolutely no sense!

Case in point:

"Have you seen so-and-so recently?"

"Um ... well, not real recently."

"Well, I saw him this summer, and, I gotta tell you, he looks bad."

"Well, he's old, and he's all hunched over."

"Ah yeah! And when I saw him he was trying to get himself up on his riding lawn mower. You know he rides that thing around his yard? Well, anyway, he had a really hard time actually getting on the thing, and I was afraid I was going to have to get out of my truck and give him a boost. He was all gray, too."

"See he had back surgery, and I'm not sure but whether they poohed the scruch with the surgery. He used to be a lot taller than me. Now, he's a lot shorter than me. Well, let's see ... he gotta be about ..."

"Grandpa's age?"

"I don't know if he's dad's age, but maybe late 70's."

"Grandpa's going to be 86."

"He's 86 now."

"Oh that's right! I keep forgetting that we're in the year 2007 now!"

"I'm going to be 64."

"Yep." Then a long pause while the math is being calculated. "Wait! No you aren't! You're going to be 66."

"Nope, I've decided to go back in age."

"Oh really!"

"Yep."

"Does that mean I get to stay in a holding pattern of 34?"

"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm going to be turning 64."

"You're such a dork!"

Ah ... the evolution of relatively useless information ...