I had an interesting experience yesterday. I flew back from Houston and found myself next to two gentlemen who were obviously colleagues. They were clearly software professionals (unless you know people who read textbooks on Java Servlets for fun. You do? Then you're moving in the wrong circles.) However, they broke up the monotony of their study with an exciting and challenging tournament of naughts and crosses. That's right, the game with little crosses and circles played on a three by three grid. Now for myself, I learned at a young age (probably single digits) that naughts and crosses was ultimately an exercise in futility. Frankly, unless you're so drunk that you have lost all touch with reality (and probably bladder control,) you can guarantee a draw every single game. I suspect that it's possible to teach a wide variety of rodents to play naughts and crosses competently. However, for these two obviously intelligent gentlemen, naughts and crosses had an almost mystic appeal. I was intrigued, to say the least.
I mean, they were playing a *tournament.* This wasn't a one-off game. They *debated* the merits of various moves, with some passion. Perhaps, I thought, they had stumbled upon a method of playing so obtuse, so cunning, that mere children such as myself would be unable to grasp its elegant genius. Perhaps, I thought, there is some other set of rules that elevate the possibilities of play to a level where every move is a razor edged balancing act of myriad alternatives weighed in the face of the remorseless assault of an implacable foe. And then they got bored of their tournament and starting jabbing each other with pens. Ah.
The pen jabbing went on for quite a while until they got bored of that and went back to their reading.
Apparently, it seems, they possessed that greatest gift of all, a very high boredom threshold. I envied them. Being able to take simple pleasure for hours on end in a game that frankly would bore a three-toed sloth is a blessing not to be underestimated. Especially if you travel on aircraft much. resorted to just reading to while away the hours spent at thirty thousand feet over the South West. Which would have been fine if it wasn't for the distracting pen prodding antics of my co-travelers. So I'll take a high boredom threshold or a row of empty seats. Either would be fine.