Anyone who knows what book this excerpt is from gets major kudos from me.
Sophia greeted me at the door the first time I was invited to their geodesic dome home for a dinner party. She wore an oversized t-shirt with the words ARGUE NAKED silkscreened across the front of it. After introducing myself, I found I had nothing to say and nowhere to look for fear that I would make transparent my immediate and inappropriate lust for her by attempting to instigate a disagreement. Blip, meanwhile, was busy crashing around the kitchen like a rhinoceros working on a deadline. Despite all his noise, I could hardly bear the silence and was desperate to break it.
“You have long hair,” I stated the obvious, establishing myself as a creep for certain. But she smiled, her eyes as bright as her hair was long.
“It won't grow any longer,” she stated matter-of-factly, ponderously pluming the hair that fell across her shoulders. “How do you suppose it works? What limits the length of hair?” She began tapping her foot, and Blip became suddenly quiet in the kitchen. “Is it the length or the life of the follicle? Does my hair have a predetermined length, such that when it reaches that point it ceases to grow? Or is it the rate at which you lose your hair that determines its ultimate length? Because we're losing hair all the time, but we're also growing new hair all the time.”
I nodded, then shrugged prosaically, not really sure what sort of a response was expected.
“Homeostasis,” Blip strode into the room, drying his hands on a dishtowel and nodding a greeting in my direction. “It's the average life span of your hair. The maximum length of your hair reflects the perfect balance between life and death. An equinox of locks.”
Sophia nodded taplessly, the point having been made. “Of course.”
* * *
I had arrived before any of the other guests, so I joined Blip and Sophia in the kitchen and watched them dodge and duck around each other as they dashed about preparing the meal. Eventually I could stand it no longer and I asked what “argue naked” was supposed to mean.
“Exactly what it says.” Blip responded. “Argue naked. We've printed up t-shirts and bumper stickers to sell at music festivals next summer.”
“Argue naked?”
“We argue naked,” Sophia explained.
“Oh.”
“It works very well.” Blip elaborated. “It's hard to be naked and take yourself too seriously. Think about Adam and Eve. As the story goes, they were naked in the Garden of Eden. There was no bickering in paradise.”
“You think everyone should argue naked?”
They nodded, grinning like naughty teenagers.
“Even politicians?”
“Especially politicians,” Sophia proclaimed with a slinky lick of her lips. “C-SPAN in the buff. Of course, Congress would never agree to it.”
“They certainly wouldn't.” Blip added. “And besides, the way men are these days, can you imagine how hostile a naked Congress would be? A room full of naked men is only likely to increase insecurity and aggression, like a locker room. We'd have Senators snapping towels at each other, making rude jokes. No, that would never work.”
Sophia nodded. “But only because our leaders are interested in victory and defeat, rather than reconciliation and compromise.” She shrugged. “Arguing naked is only possible among friends and lovers.”