245 Quiz Answer

"Al"

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "R" is for "rare")

Two chaps are talking about an old friend.  Who’s the friend?

“Al told me to say hello.”

“Great!  Tell him hello back.  I haven’t seen Al in years!  How’s he doing?”

“Oh, okay I guess.  He found a place with a government agency, the patent office.  Crucial work, I suppose, but not much in the way of salary.  And really boring.”

“That’s kinda surprising.  Back in school we all thought Al was the one who was going to go places, right?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit depressing.  I went to visit him at work.  You wouldn’t believe – checking out applications, making copies, answering letters.  Tons of paper.  Looked to me like it was secretarial stuff.”

“And he had the best grades in our class.  Well, at least he’s working.”

“To top it off, he got a malignant note from management that said he had just been passed over for promotion.  They told him he didn’t seem to be capable of understanding modern technology like typewriters.”

“Well. It’s a new century; he’s gotta be able to understand typewriters because they’re soon going to be everywhere.”

“I felt he should quit, but it took him a year or so of yearning just to get this job; he’ll hang on to it.  He has hobbies and other interests in his private life.”

“Hobbies?  Like what?”

“Well, you know Al, he’s different; he’s kind of rare.  He was always secretive, always involved in things that he claimed were important but that none of us could understand.  All part of an act, I guess.”

“I heard he got married.”

“Right.  But if you run into him don’t bring that up; he’d rather not talk about it.  I guess he wasn’t a perfect husband but worse, he was far from a perfect father too.  They had a kid, a little girl, but Al had the baby sent off to be taken care of by someone else; he never even saw her!”

“Unbelievable.”

“I don’t know if I should be saying this, but I’m a bit worried about Al’s – well, his mental stability.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, last time I saw him he told me he spent weeks thinking about the connection between space and time.  Sounded a bit loony to me, but I was too polite to mention it.”

The answer will be posted Saturday.