Complex Simplicity

Lifelong friends Bill and Harvard are pulled up beside each other in their pickup trucks, looking at the field of cotton that Bill owns. The two are about fifty and their simplicity is almost complex.

Harvard: Good lookin’ crop this year.

Bill: Yep, I figure it’s the best I’ve made in five years.

Harvard: When are you going to harvest?

Bill: Maybe next week, hopefully no later than next Thursday.

Harvard: So if we were so inclined as to go fishin’ Saturday morning, you think we could go?

Bill: I imagine so.

Harvard: Good, a mess of catfish would sure taste mighty fine.

Bill: We can take my boat.

Harvard: We always take your boat.

Bill: You should thank me for not making you go through all the trouble of getting the boat ready.

Harvard: You know danged well I’ve offered time and time again to take my boat! The truth is you’re so set in your ways that you don’t want to do anything you ain’t accustomed to, and you ain’t accustomed to taking my boat.

Bill: Maybe if you cleaned it out every once in a while I would go in it.

Harvard: Why keep it clean? We put dead fish in it! If we ever decide to have a picnic in my boat then I may clean it out.

Bill: We’ll just take my boat.

Harvard: Where do you want to fish?

Bill: Honey Lake.

Harvard: I don’t know why I asked, I knew you would say Honey Lake before I asked.

Bill: Don’t we always catch fish there?

Harvard: That ain’t the point Bill!

Bill: I don’t see how it ain’t the point!

Harvard: That’s my point. You only see things in your set way! Why don’t we go fishin’ somewhere else? Why don’t we try something new?

Bill: I’m the captain of my boat so I expect we will go to where I want to go.

Harvard: And I expect that’s Honey Lake?

Bill: You expect right.

Harvard: (laughing) He He He! I don’t know why I try. I would have better luck trying to convince a brick wall to be a butterfly!

Bill: Well, I've got to go; I’ll see you Saturday morning.

Harvard: See you Saturday.