The other day, I was in Safeway—buying Diet Dr Pepper, naturally—when I heard the guy up ahead of me say something to his friends that I was positive I must have misheard. Specifically, what I heard him say was "and there's this really awesome parasitic wasp that drives its victims like cars." Now, I like parasitic wasps. I am, one might say, unduly fascinated by parasitic wasps. So I tend to assume that when I hear other people bring them up in conversation, I'm hearing them wrong.
I began shamelessly eavesdropping...and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, he was talking about insect parasitism! Yay! As the conversation swung toward blood flukes, I interjected to note that blood flukes were probably largely responsible for the evolution of gendered reproduction. He looked, in a word, delighted.
What followed was the largest, rowdiest, happiest discussion of parasite behavior I have ever been involved with outside of a group of my friends. All five of the people involved had read Parasite Rex, and parthenogentic reproduction came up, gleefully.
I think I may have met my male equivalent from a nearby parallel dimension.
"As the conversation swung toward blood flukes, I interjected to note that blood flukes were probably largely responsible for the evolution of gendered reproduction."
Whether intended as such or not, this statement represents the highest possible value of the population of conversational pickup attempts Y, where Y = Effective * Bizarre.
There should be an "I drive my victims like cars" T-shirt.
geeky
June 30 2010, 19:15:30 UTC 7 years ago
Whether intended as such or not, this statement represents the highest possible value of the population of conversational pickup attempts Y, where Y = Effective * Bizarre.
There should be an "I drive my victims like cars" T-shirt.
July 1 2010, 03:38:39 UTC 7 years ago