The flight crew were unenthused at the prospect of returning to Mauritius. There was a three hour delay while they replaced bits and pieces of the engine, stealing parts from another Mauritius Air airplane — the other Mauritius Air airplane — and then a hasty getaway before the flight crew of the other plane found out that their plane couldn’t fly anymore.

Now that I’m older, I know for a fact that my friends never really understood Monty Python either, and that they were laughing just as guiltily as I was, thinking that they were the odd people out who just didn’t Get It. It turns out that the true brilliance of Monty Python was that it was an entire cultural revolution brought about by the British exploitation of two simple American weaknesses: the guilty conviction that the British are superior to Americans; and a mortal terror of being thought stupid.

I have this personal conviction that companies conspire with each other behind our backs, creating databases of names and addresses of laid-off employees that they then sell to telemarketers, solicitors, and religious evangelical groups like the Church of Latter Day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Back in 1977 — the year that my sister was born, year of the Snake for all those who care — I suffered an epiphany of life-changing proportions.

That was the year that my father took me to see Star Wars.

A little while later, I went back to the restaurant and once more came back to work to talk about how good the place was. Once more that odd expression crossed her face. I paused.

I got on the phone this morning after discovering that one of my vendors — you know, the people who bill me for services rendered — has some sort of delusion involving my gender. This happens fairly frequently, about once every two months or so; my first name looks like a misspelling of a male russian name, and there are some people who simply take it on faith that if it sounds like a guy and looks like a guy, it must be a guy.

“It just bothers me,” he said. “There are so many divorces taking place. People are getting married for the wrong reasons.”