THINGS I THINK I THINK - PART VIII

-I think that Mr. Underhill is f-ing hilarious.

-I think the TALE OF THE SEEING EYE DOG needs to be told. Because I am always amazed at what can come out of people's mouths (mine included) in a momentary lapse of reason.

On a recent afternoon I was on a crosstown bus, 42nd Street to be exact. As we pulled into Times Square, a blind man with a German Shepard seeing eye dog boarded. He made his way to the back of the bus, sitting about three rows behind me.

A few moments later, above the rumbling growl of the bus engine, the laughing of teenagers and the overly loud cell phone conversation of a fashionista, I head the blind man and a woman talking. "He only wears the harness when we are out. When we go home I take the harness off. When he is wearing it he knows he is working" said the blind man. "That's really amazing" said the young lady across from him. "And I have to tell you, he is a beautiful looking dog."

My eyes widened, my eyebrows raised, and I cringed. The next thing I heard was "So yeah, at home without the harness he knows he can rest."

I admired his tact but couldn't help imagining what he was really thinking. "REALLY BEAUTIFUL? I WOULDN'T KNOW, I'M BLIND YOU IDIOT. Want to tell me how amazing the city looks today too?

-I think that everything you ever need to know about human nature, the secular and spiritual worlds and man's desires, caprices and foibles can be learned by reading the complete world of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Pushkin and Gogol. I think that the absolute accuracy of the future of Russia foretold in Dostoevsky's "DEMONS" is eerie beyond description.