Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Allan Pinkerton


My tongue still hurts from when I bit it this morning. Is that weird? I have navigated every hurdle of "Blogspot" security to let you know. Is THAT weird? Well, listen to this. When I noticed that my tongue was still hurting, I remembered - just like Marcel Proust - something from childhood. I remember being told that Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, bit his tongue and developed gangrene and that's how he died. "Huh," I thought (just now). "I can't be remembering that correctly. Let me look it up on Wikipedia. If Wikipedia says it, I will consider it true, using my memory from childhood as a secondary source. If Wikipedia mentions no such thing, I will stop thinking about this because I am too lazy to look it up properly." So I looked at what Wikipedia had to say on the subject, and although it does not jibe entirely with my childhood memory of the manner of Allan Pinkerton's death, it's pretty close. If anything, their version is even scarier in the "death can strike at any time" sense! So, anyway, that's a weird thing to remember from childhood, I guess. Don't think I'm weird!