Crazy Henry cracks me up. I was over at his place the other day, helping him hang up a portrait of Herbert Hoover, when he says, out of the blue, "I don't believe in glaciers. It's just a put up job by the establishment to make us think there's something wrong with the planet."
I've been down this road many times before with Crazy Henry, so I just played along.
"no glaciers, you say" I said mildly. "then what is the polar ice cap made of, marzipan?"
"see" he said, "that's where they get you all confused. there are no polar ice caps -- it's all gypsum paste and talcum powder. billions of tons of it."
"no snow up there, or anything?" I asked.
"bupkis" he said. "it's actually a desert so hot that the air turns into helium and floats away. that's why it's uninhabitable."
"where'd you learn all this?" I asked him. "from a comic book?"
"nope" he said. "there's a little blue man in my sock drawer who is a secret agent for the vole people who are about to take over the earth. he likes me because I give him camphor crystals to eat. he told me all this, in strictest confidence."
we finished hanging up the portrait in silence. suddenly I was very tired; crazy people and their dumb ideas make me tired. you can't fight ignorance except with a howitzer. finally I couldn't take it anymore.
"you don't HAVE a sock drawer!" I yelled at him, and then went home.
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