How Ann Althouse Picks Her Pastries

I love to see great minds at work. I could spend hours listening to Michele Bachmann link ACORN to alien abductions or watching Joe the Plumber work out the most opportune time to sneak a fart into a conversation. These kinds of exercises in deep thinking fascinate me. I spend day happily deconstructing them.

I witnessed a great mind at work yesterday when Ann Althouse wrote about Bill Ayers jokingly confessing to being Barack Obama's ghostwriter. Here's a snippet of that piece:

Get it? Let's say he did write it. Well, he's not really admitting that. He's making fun of the way some conservative bloggers think they've found evidence that he wrote it. He knows most sensible people believe their evidence is bullshit, and this has been amusing to him because he — in this scenario of mine — knows that, actually, they are right.

Reading that made me wonder how she uses these incredible deductive skills in everyday life. Wouldn't it be great to see how her mind works when she's doing something as simple as buying a pastry? I imagine her internal conversation would go something like this:

Did the baker's nose wrinkle when he pointed to the cream cheese danish? What does that mean? Is he silently warning me that the cream cheese is a bit off today? Or does he just want me to think that, so he can sell it to a more valued customer.

I come in here everyday. He knows me. He knows how I think. Perhaps the cheese danish is tainted and he knows that if he hints that it is bad, I'll think he's saving it for a more valued customer and snatch the rotten pastry up for myself.

Or maybe he wants me to buy the bearclaw next to it. Could it be that he is pretending that the danish is off so I'll buy a day-old bearclaw? Or maybe he wants me to think that's his intention so I don't buy the bearclaw. Does he get a higher return from bearclaws than danishes? Is he trying to make me think he wants me to buy the bearclaw so I don't buy it?

Wait, there's a creampuff on the other side of the danish. Look at that. Look at the creampuff and bearclaw in profile. Breasts! The baker must be trying to unnerve me by making a subtle reference to the Valenti breast controversy. He's trying to recreate the embarrassment I felt then, hoping that it'll overwhelm my thought processes and cause me to buy the bad danish.

Or maybe he just wants me to think that, so I don't buy it, and he can sell it to a more valued customer.

Damn it. I'm going to buy the danish, anyway.

No, no, no, no, I can beat him at this game. I'll get some imported biscotti.

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