Fictionlet

[the_gneech]

Greg stared hard at his cheese-on-a-cracker, wishing that Brigid had come to the party this time. Treville, undeterred, said, “Okay, Mister Intellectual, I’ve got one that even you will like.”

“Oh yes?” said Greg.

“What did Diogenes do when he met a man who admitted to having a three-inch wiener?”

Greg rolled his eyes. “He put out his lamp and went home.”

Treville looked disappointed. “Already heard that one, huh?”

“No,” said Greg. “It was just painfully obvious. It takes more than an obscure reference to make a joke intellectual, you know.”

“Feh,” said Treville. “You’re just an elitist.”

“Not at all!” said Greg. “I’m an anti-vulgarist. It’s an important distinction.”

-The Gneech

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Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[kylet.livejournal.com]

All of it. I have no idea what the reference is.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Diogenes was a Greek philosopher of a particularly eccentric bent; one of the stories about him was that he would carry a lamp around during the daytime and shine it on everybody he met, trying to find an honest man.

Thus, a perennial joke among philosophy students is some variation on "Q: What did Diogenes do when [somebody admits to some embarrassing thing]? A: He put out his lamp and went home."

As for the elitist vs. anti-vulgarist bit, that's just Greg and Treville doing their thing. :)

-TG