On Wednesday, as Rachelle and I were waiting to pass through customs into Barbados, we saw a man who looked exactly like famous intellectual and dissident Noam Chomsky. We were in one of those serpentine lines and he was only a few feet away from me, so I decided to start a conversation and see if it was him.<\/p>\n

Me: You coming to Barbados for the big surf competition, Soup Bowl?<\/p>\n

Man who looked like Chomsky: What?<\/p>\n

Me: Barbados. The surf competition. It\u2019s like their version of the Super Bowl, only in water.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Man who looked like Chomsky: No, I have other business, although I do like the beach.<\/p>\n

Me: I\u2019d like to surf but I\u2019m scared. I used to be scared of sharks when I was a boy but now I\u2019m scared of jellyfish. They\u2019re taking over the oceans.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Man who looked like Chomsky: (Said nothing)<\/p>\n

Me: Are you Noam Chomsky?<\/p>\n

Man who looked like Chomsky: Yes.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Me: WOW!! I thought so!<\/p>\n

Chomsky: (Nods)<\/p>\n

Me: So, what\u2019s up with Occupy Wall Street?<\/p>\n

Rachelle: (In a whisper-hiss) Pickle, be quiet, for the love of God!<\/p>\n

Chomsky: I don\u2019t know what you mean.<\/p>\n

Me: I hear they\u2019re buying up debt from collection agencies and then forgiving it. I would LOVE it if they bought some of my debt. Do you have any sway in that?<\/p>\n

Chomsky: No, I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Me: You know, you\u2019ve really shaped a lot of minds over the decades. I bet a lot of college kids name their pets after you. Thousands of dogs and cats named Chomsky.<\/p>\n

Rachelle: I\u2019m sorry, my husband is dehydrated and only slept for an hour last night. Please forgive us.<\/p>\n

Chomsky: I see.<\/p>\n

Me: If I was an anarchist like you I wouldn\u2019t wait in line. I\u2019d just charge right through, upset the system and start a revolution by hitting the beach!<\/p>\n

Chomsky: You do like the sound of your own voice, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

Me: I\u2019m just social and maybe a little nervous meeting you, I guess.<\/p>\n

Chomsky: I\u2019m sorry, I just need to be alone with my thoughts, okay?<\/p>\n

(Several minutes pass)<\/p>\n

Me: You\u2019re going to be really hot wearing that corduroy jacket on the island, you know.<\/p>\n

Chomksy: (Ignores me)<\/p>\n

Me: (Whispering to Rachelle) I can\u2019t believe he has a corporate logo on his laptop bag. Adidas? Really? They must have paid for his trip.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Rachelle: (Whisper-hiss) Just find your passport and shut-up, okay?<\/p>\n

(Awkward silence for the rest of our wait to customs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, as Rachelle and I were waiting to pass through customs into Barbados, we saw a man who looked exactly like famous intellectual and dissident Noam Chomsky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1987,1989,1986,1111,824,1752,102,399,819,1985,1303,1988,1982,127,96,645,333,1983,1984,1981,561,1980],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3923,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/3923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}