A Breakfast Chat

Two dapper gents walk into a cafe. As they find a table, they hear their fellow patrons discussing televised award shows, televised game shows and television in general.

Gent #1: Madness.

Gent #2: And you are referring to what, good sir?

#1: This obsession with perpetual mirth. Whatever happened to thoughtful pensivity? I'll admit to a certain fondness for escapism every now and then, but this idiot frivolity has become an absolute addiction, a cultural ailment.

#2: Well, aren't we in a mood today?

#1: Mood? You call this a mood? I call it an earnest lament.

#2: Enough of this. What will you be having? I'm all for a scone and tea.

#1: Coffee! One cup. And toast.

#2: Buttered?

#1: Dry.

#2: Good heavens. You're taking this ascetic downturn a bit far, wouldn't you say?

#1: Harumph.

#2: On to the real discussion: books.

#1: Books!

#2: Books. What are you currently perusing?

#1: Schopenhauer.

#2: Ah. Naturally.

#1: Your tone, sir, offends.

#2: Oh, I meant nothing by it. Its just that you are so serious today. It makes sense that Schopenhauer would be the culprit.

#1: Is it a crime to be affected by ones readings? Is that not, in fact, the reason for our bookish pursuits? To think? To feel?

#2: Oh no, quite right. You are aware, however, that Schopenhauer played the flute?

#1: Blackguard!

#2: And played it well.

#1: Scoundrel!

#2: You take my point, I see.

#1: I am familiar with Nietzsche's suggestion that his flute-playing somehow diminishes his philosophy. Piffle.

#2: Piffle? Is that a word?

#1: Using words in response to your absurdity would be an insult to language. Therefore I utter. And, in doing so, say "piffle". A fitting response, I think.

#2: Oh, to be sure. And though your pifflery is, no doubt, a Trojan horse simply filled to the brim with ripostes of finality, this nuanced language of utterance seems to elude me.

#1: Damn those public schools.

#2: Yes. You'll have to elaborate.

#1: To suggest that a simple act such as playing the flute could negate ones entire philosophy...it's absurd.

#2: You've, in one sentence, made hypocrisy an impossibility. Humanity thanks you.

#1: Certainly there can be hypocrisy. We can lie to ourselves, to others. But to suggest that one must live their philosophy at all times is too much. Ideas must in themselves have a quantity of meaning, otherwise virtue and truth become an impossibility.

#2: A troubling thought, isn't it? So then...let's look the other way in order to sustain the possibility of truth. Who played the flute? Why, I've no idea.

#1: You are mocking me.

#2: I would swear that my tea has been spiked. I can remember nothing at all except for the eternal glory of words!

#1: How typical of you to retreat behind a barricade of sarcasm.

#2: I must say, I simply adore Heidegger. Good thing he wasn't fond of political movements!

#1: Check please.