My Breakfast with a Black Vulture

ME: Good morning.

BLACK VULTURE: You say.

ME: How's it going in this recession?

BLACK VULTURE: Same old. Same old.

ME: Business not what it used to be?

BLACK VULTURE: It would pick up if you would drop dead.

ME: Oh my.

BLACK VULTURE: Yeah, I know. You can sentimentalize or intellectualize the whole thing. But eventually what it comes down to is you're going to drop dead one these days on one of your desert morning hikes. Then I will pick your bones clean before the park rangers get here.

ME: I think you are the pure Buddha understanding the impermenenace of all things including human life. You represent the reality that we are all only passing incarnations living in the illusion of this dream world we call reality.

BLACK VULTURE: Whatever. You don't happen to have a cigarette and one of those Bic lighters on you, do you?

ME: For you?

BLACK VULTURE: No dummy, for you. I haven't got all day here.