Last night my brother introduced my mom to text messaging. I introduced her to smilies. She thought they were really neat, but was distressed that they didn't show up as little yellow faces for my brother.

He said "I have emoticons turned off."

She said "i don't think you should turn off your emotions"

And then "not healthy"

He said "emotions and emoticons are not the same thing."

And she said "oh"

And he said "hah"

And she said "are you saying that we don't live in a mechanistic universe"




And I said "..."




And he said "damn right."

And she said "i beg to differ"

And he said "emoticons are a mechanistic manifestations of emotions"

And she said "don't turn them offfffffff"

And "think what might happen"

And he sent her a cool smilie with sunglasses.

Bread

I was at a Greek bakery north of Pape and Danforth trying to buy white bread.

So I asked the girl at the counter, "May I have some white bread, please?"

She said, "We are all out."

But I saw some behind the counter. They were poofy, round loaves with a star of flour on the top.

So I said, "Can I have one of those poofy ones?" She looked at me strangely.

So I pointed.

And she said, "Those are for the church."

So I bought sesame seed bagels instead.

But I still wonder what she meant.