Buddinski
Him: In primary school whenever we answered a question, the teacher made us repeat the question with our answer or we’d be in trouble. Like, the teacher would ask “Why is the sky blue?,” and if you started with “Because…” she’d stop you and make you say the whole thing: “The. Sky. Is. Blue. Because…”
Her: Why’d you have to do that?
Him: Because you’re not supposed to start a sentence with the word ‘because,’ or something.
Her: Oh. So why is the sky blue?
Him: It reflects the colour of the oceans, and water is blue. I guess they asked us pretty tough questions back them. I should have hung onto my grade six notes.
Her: In math class we had to always show every little step, like if you were doing addition you had to write all the little ones in on the top, or it would be marked wrong.
Buddinski: Excuse me, sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and actually, the reason the sky is blue is because of something called Rayleigh scattering. There are particles in the air that diffracts the blue wavelength of light but let all the other wavelengths pass through, so we see the sky as blue. Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude….
Her: No, hey, don’t worry about it. Are you a scientist or something?
Buddinski: Me, no, I just when I heard you talking I remembered that. And actually, the reason that the oceans are blue is because they reflect the colour of the sky, not the other way around.
Her: I guess you learn something new every day!
Him: Where did you hear that about the oceans? Because that doesn’t sound right to me.
Buddinski: It’s something most people don’t know. Well, sorry for interrupting, have a nice afternoon.
Her: Sure, you too!
Him: Who the hell does that guy think he is? Why doesn’t he mind his own goddamn business?
Her: Oh, honey!