Randy Cassingham's Blog

I'm in Southern California, where I'll again be giving the after-dinner wake-up speech at the Skeptics Society's annual conference in Pasadena, Calif. I have the delightful job of presenting an "award" for the dumbest thing of 1998 (culled, of course, from True!) to warm up the crowd for the Keynote speaker. The theme this year: "Reinventing Evolution: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory.

Each year I see more and more readers there, and it's a delight to press the flesh. Which is an interesting turn of phrase, considering what happened when a reader greeted me this year.

So there I was, standing chatting with someone, with my wife by my side, when this tall blonde lady came bounding up to me and jumped into the middle of the conversation to announce loudly, "I'm your shower buddy!"

Er, um, honey: meet one of my loyal readers?

I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to such an earnest pronouncement, but the blonde pressed on. She explained that each week she prints True out and takes it into the shower with her. The trick, she says, is to get the paper wet enough that it sticks to the tile so she can read it, but not so wet that the ink runs. And then she reads the issue while taking her shower. Good clean fun indeed -- and here I thought True was the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

And here I was, trying to decide if I was supposed to picture this scene in my mind or not!

The best part? My wife enjoys telling this story even more than I do.