20th August 1975
They'd been sitting outside the bar for over four hours, waiting for Denny to show but so far had no luck. Starsky had been sharing fun facts from 'The Huge Book of Weird and Wonderful Facts' that he had purchased earlier in the week. As the hours had passed, the facts had become more and more random. For example, Hutch now knew that apple pips contained cyanide. Admittedly, you'd have to eat about 200 to be poisoned but Hutch had decided he was never going to eat an apple core again!
"Hutch, listen to this."
"Oh, what now?"
"Chimpanzees and other primates suck their thumbs like humans. Even some ring-tailed lemurs held in captivity have been seen sucking their thumbs."
"Well, if I were a captive ring-tail lemur, I think I'd suck my thumb too!"
Starsky shook his head then he fixed Hutch with an enquiring look. "Did you suck your thumb when you were a kid?"
"I have no idea. I don't remember."
"If you don't remember, you probably didn't," Starsky observed.
Hutch shrugged. "Did you?"
Starsky frowned. "I remember Nicky sucking his thumb…I don't think I did."
Starsky closed the book and reached for his newspaper. "What about that then?" he asked, waving the paper in front of Hutch's nose.
"What am I looking at?"
"This. The launch of Viking 1 to Mars. It's going to take 335 days to get there. Don't think I could spend that time travelling to another planet. I'd go nuts."
Hutch looked at his watch. "We've been in this car for four hours, ten minutes and you're definitely nuts already. You certainly wouldn't make it to Mars!"
"Ha ha!" Starsky stuck his tongue out at Hutch.
They settled into companionable silence; Starsky reading the paper; Hutch looking out at the people passing by.
"What about elephants?" Starsky suddenly asked.
"Huh?" Hutch quite often had trouble following Starsky's train of thought. "Why would you want to send an elephant to Mars?"
"What?"
"We were just talking about Mars and then you said, 'What about elephants?'"
"Oh. No, I meant do they count as animals that suck their thumbs?"
"They don't have thumbs, Starsky."
"Yeah but they have trunks and baby elephants suck those when they need comforting. That's like sucking your thumb, isn't it?"
"I'll take your word for it," Hutch said.
"Can't you picture a baby elephant sucking its trunk?"
"The only image I can picture at the moment is a rocket filled with four astronauts and an elephant…Where would you put the dung?"
They looked at each other and then started laughing. They were still chuckling when Denny finally turned up.
