June Bug People

“Did you hear about the tsunami warning at the beach?”

“People ran towards the water. Actually wanted to get close to the killer waves.”

“That’s like with the fire department. During wrecks, people always wanted to stop. I think they wanted to actually get out of their cars and jump into the flames.”

“Remember in Kansas when we would have those campfires in the back yard, and all those June Bugs kept hurling themselves into the flames?”

“We should let them, you know.”

“What?”

“Run towards the killer waves. It’s a kind of natural selection.”

“That’s awful.”

“Really, what we should do is blare the tsunami warning once a month. The June Bug people would be like, ‘Ooh! Ooh! Tsunami! Let’s go see!’ They’d line up and take self-portraits with the 40 foot wave bearing down on them.”

“That’s pretty funny…”

“But everyone who runs to the beach should be shot by a sniper.”

“Oh, stop, that’s not funny.”

“But you know what would happen when they saw the first guy get shot, right? They’d see the muzzle flash of the rifle, and go, ‘Ooh! Ooh! Sniper! Let’s go see!’ And they’d run towards the shooting. They’d find a PowerShot with a memory card containing a photo of a guy smiling into the camera, holding it out in front of him as far as his little arm would reach, his back to the sniper, a muzzle flash in the upper right corner.”

“That’s kind of funny.”

“Hey, here's a question. When someone calls you and says, 'Oh, I must have the wrong number,' do you find yourself staring at the phone afterwards in fear that it will soon ring again? And when it does ring again, do you hesitate picking it up, like, 'What should I say?' And when you pick it up and say 'Hello' as if you are pretending that you don't know it's the aforementioned wrong number, how often are you greeted with silence on the other end, as the aforementioned wrong number experiences a personal crisis of 'Well, what do I do NOW?'. And how long before you start laughing at the silence?”

“How much of the day do you spend thinking about these things?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I dunno, it’s just that you seem kind of smart…”

“Really? Aww, that’s sweet!”