Suspicious Suspicions

Since coming home last Sunday after my brief encounter with Mr. Pant at W-M and telling the Missus I had a headache, she has continued to be solicitous about my health and has made it clear that if I'm to have heart failure, I should schedule it after she's checked out. I ought to point out that she doesn't talk so cavalier about her own demise, for, truth be known, "death" is not in her working vocabulary (I'm to live forever and she's never going to die).

I realize now that claiming I had a headache was not a good ploy to avoid conversation in order to "sort things out". Of course, you're probably sitting there with your altogether rational mate and muttering about how I should have leveled with the lady and told her exactly what happened. And, to your muttering, I say, you're living inside the "American Dream", and I'm not going to explain. (He who explains complains.)

But I am giving some thought about telling my daughter, Laura, about Mr. Pant. It isn't that she's so terribly rational; it's that she's patient and allows me to explain (i.e., complain) at length, and in a few minutes I have talked long enough to realize how stupid are my suspicions. When I explain to Laura suspicious matters, she's like Alice and I'm like the Mad Hatter. You just can't tilt at down-to-earth centered practicality.

So, I must turn to you, for you have no vested interest in my mishaps or madcaps and we're not engaged in self justification or have in-house reputations to uphold. Do we? Right? Right.

I've had enough time and space over the last week to run through quite a few virtual meetings with the local police department detectives, a regional FBI agent, and a CIA bureaucrat. They all asked the same initial question: has Mr. Pant asked for money? Each time I was asked that virtual question, I said, "no, not yet". It seems to me a more proper question would be, "has he offered to pay you for doing the report? "Not yet", I'd have to say.

Naturally, at the top of my virtual investigators' list is the question: what crime do you think, suspect, or otherwise believe your designated suspectee (I'm the suspector) has committed? As you will surely sympathize, I've got a lot of gut evidence that Mr. Pant IS UP TO NO GOOD. Of course, I'm not a total idiot, I know I have to come up with conventional stuff called evidence, the most prized of which is a "smoking gun".

Each of these potential investigators asked what name the chap went by and what is his physical description. Each time I was asked the question, I had to glance carefully at my saved real-time image and then grasp for words that would match the stored image. Where to start? After telling what the suspect was wearing, I figured the first place to start would be the nose, which is more prominent than, for example, the ears, which in this instance, Mr. Pant concealed under the large fluffy raccoon coat collar.

Noses, how do you describe a nose without waxing poetic? If asked, I would say, "his nose is hardly noticeable -- it appeared to me to be a regular medium size and shape, and it was placed about where you would expect a nose to be." "Not good enough", they all said at once.

I could have expanded on my description by telling my virtual detectives that Mr. Pant's nose was not crooked, nor hooked, nor broken, nor overly big or noticeably small; it was, as far as I could tell, a dual-nostril design. There were no long hairs sticking out, nor warts adorning, or jewels affixed, or painted. It did not exude sweat (for he does not sweat) or natural oils, or is one able to ski off of it, or make a fortune from as in the case of Jimmy Durante or use to woo the ladies as did Cyrano de Bergerac. Nor does the nose of Mr. Pant grow longer as did Pinocchio's as he invents the truth. I would end up telling the detectives that, as far as I could determine, the nose he proffered, so to speak, belonged to his own face, i.e., not plastic, as far as I could discern.

I hoped our inquiry into Mr. Pant's nose was finished. While being questioned, I didn't have the presence of mind to explain why the nose is an important place to begin to form a mental image of a person or one who, by all appearances, seemed to be a person. I don't know, but it does occur to me now that there might be some national register of noses, with photos of major designs and styles; there might be an enormous data base that can match noses to faces, and vice versa. Or, maybe there's a new medical speciality that deals only with nose problems, perhaps called nasusology (fr. L. nasus, nose) -- not to be confused with nosology, the classification of diseases.

When we got around to my descriptions of the four encounters I've had with Mr. Pant, I was left with such bare dialogue that I began, ever so subtlety, to embellish just a bit, you see. I added to my part of the dialogue, in particular, some sharp remarks which I thought of only later but not actually expressed at the time. I wasn't exactly fibbing, you see, because the embellishments did actually occur. I added some lines for myself because, frankly, I know I appeared to the detectives to be a simple boob.

One of my virtual detectives did note (the one who looked like Humphrey Bogart) , after listening patiently to my story for some time, that I had committed a typical mistake of confusing eccentricity with conspiracy. Because a person is different does not make him a suspect. And what is it you suspect? That he's preying on boobs like you (italics added)? [LAUGHTER]

That's when I just blurted out and told them about the weird things Mr. Pant had purchased at the supermarket. "Maybe," the tough virtual detective said, "he runs a summer camp for snotty-nosed kids, learning how to sweep, or cook, or weave baskets -- you never know."

I know you're going to say exactly what Laura would say -- that I was premature in running to tell the police or FBI. But I didn't waste anybody's time. That's the value of virtual interrogation -- nobody wastes time, except possibly myself.

So, I'm going to go back to Plan B -- I'm going to get some sun and relax before Labor Day. And, if I can manage, I'm not going to worry about what Mr. Pant is up to and what kind of terrible things he's planning to do, or is doing. But, it does occur to me now that in the event Mr. Pant is planning to do something terrible by combining vinegar with marshmallow creme, blame those virtual investigators who didn't take Mr. Pant seriously.

I hope you will agree with me.