Today I went to the dentist and at one point he cheerily said, “Unfortunately, if you’re ever in a situation where someone has to identify you by your dental records, they’ll have a really hard time, because your teeth are perfect!”

Also, tonight I went on a date to watch a documentary on the burning of Izmir. And as soon as the lights went down, the guy I was with started very quietly crinkling some bag of some snack he’d brought. And this very unkempt guy sitting in front of us immediately said, “Can you please stop that crinkling, please!”

But he had sort of an accent and he was facing away from us, and my date didn’t hear him, and he kept very quietly crinkling his bag.

So this was awkward for me. I felt I should probably warn the guy I was with that this possibly unstable person was about to get very angry, but it wasn’t really my problem, and also I kind of wanted to see what happened.

And what happened was, the angry guy screamed “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” and jumped over the back of his seat into our aisle, and then stormed off down the aisle and up to the front of the theater.

And then the Turks torched the city, or the Greeks did, depending on who you ask.