A hard-hitting interview with someone who really matters

I’ve always wanted to do an interview, but I’ve never had the chance; I’m a columnist, not a… I’ve always wanted to do an interview, but I’ve never had the chance; I’m a columnist, not a reporter, you know. But this week, I decided, “To heck with it; I want to do an interview, and by golly, I’m going to!”

There was just one problem: I had no one to interview.

“Alas,” I cried, “now I’ll never get the chance to ask an important person hard-hitting questions with occasional witty asides,” and went away to mope.

But then another repressed desire rose to the surface: In addition to always wanting to conduct an interview, I’ve always wanted to be interviewed. “Eureka!” I cried, having found my solution. So I immediately set about to interview myself.

I caught up with myself one sunny afternoon at my Centre Avenue apartment. After exchanging a few pleasantries, we got down to business:

Steve Thomas: Mr. Thomas, let me say that it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.

Steve Thomas: That’s odd, I find you both simple-minded and boorish.

This was a bit disconcerting, but I pressed on.

ST: Your hard-hitting weekly Pitt News column, “The Squamous Reaches,” has recently blown the lid off the “George Lucas is a hack” and “Humanity is turning into a race of mad techno-gods” scandals. What else do you have in store for us?

ST: In the next couple of weeks, I plan on a hard-hitting expose on why Pitt students are so stupid, and after that, I will expose my cat as a necromancer.

ST: And do you suppose you’ve accomplished these things?

ST: What do I look like, the ayatollah?

ST: Sistani or Khomeini?

ST: Hmm, that’s a tough one. Sistani.

ST: In that case, no. In fact, now that it comes to it, you don’t look much like any powerful religious leader at all.

ST: You don’t mean that.

ST: I do.

ST: Let’s not say things we know we’ll regret.

At this point, Mr. Thomas left and returned wearing nothing but a large green bathrobe.

ST: You’re right. It does make you look like a Jedi. I take it back.

ST: Just any old Jedi? (He uncrossed his legs.)

ST: Obi-Wan Kenobi! Obi-Wan Kenobi!

ST: Well, let’s get this interview back on track.

ST: Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be the interviewer?

ST: Ah, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?

ST: I can take it.

ST: Good then. Next question: What would you describe as your happiest memory?

ST: That’s a boring question. And besides, you know the answer.

ST: But they don’t know the answer.

ST: We mustn’t let them know.

Mr. Thomas hummed merrily.

ST: In the brine and the murkiness under the sea, a wicked old jellyfish grinned fiendishly while the sea-worms got drunk at the jellyfish bar — that wicked old jellyfish hotwir’d my car!

ST: Well, we’re about out of time. Is there any thought you would like to leave our readers with?

ST: The rapid industrialization of China and India is a thing to be feared, not celebrated, as the amount of resources their enormous populations are going to consume will make current American consumerism look like a period of far-seeing environmental sainthood.

ST: Well, I think that about wraps things up. Mr. Thomas, I want to thank you for this interview and for the bowl of soup.

ST: I didn’t give you any soup.

The interview concluded, and I began the long walk home. We had been together for only a few minutes, but I knew that he had changed my life forever. What could I do? I wasn’t sure I could answer that. All I knew was that Steve Thomas, shadow of mystery, rider on the wind, had become a little more real to me that day. And that was all I could have hoped for.

Interview Steve Thomas at tokath55@yahoo.com. Interview Steve Thomas at tokath55@yahoo.com.