Whuh-huh.

I got home from a walk to find a petitioner on our neighbor's porch looking at me with intent.
You're next, buddy.
I swore silently and went inside knowing that I couldn't hide behind the blinds and wait this one out.

So I opened the door, smiled for the kid and let her deliver her schtick--something about cleaning up the Lakes and children dying of mercury poisoning and Governer Pataki being some kind of puppy-eating ogre. And I stood there, giving her my most unsettling look, growing increasingly jealous of her perfect complexion, feeling more and more like a sweating, beasty amazon, all while losing track of what she was saying.
That bee is coming closer. I don't really like her jean skirt. I think I need a jean skirt. I wonder if Banana Republic...Oh, shit. Did she just ask me a question?

At which point I muttered something about working on mercury in a lab a couple years back to test blahblah and that I thought the whole matter was "not that great an issue" (secretly thinking that if the "scientists" these yahoos had hired to run their tests were anything like the dumbass freshman version of myself, they'd better do some serious rechecking).
"But why do you think that?"

Sorry? Did she just ask me why? Didn't I just use the phrase "performed toxicity tests"? Shouldn't that have sent her running?

And here is where I came dangerously close to revealing that I hadn't a clue as to what I was talking about. That I had no real opinions on the matter. Or on much of anything at all outside of summer fashion. So, I mustered all of my archness, tried to avoid using the term "liberal hysteria", repeated myself more slowly, and thanked her before I disintegrated into a stuttering mess.

And returned with real concern to the issue of drawing a bear with pants.