conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Yorker, Public, Radio with the genre: Humor & Entertainment, Humor?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'When You Are Engulfed in Flames'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When You Are Engulfed in Flames
  My other bad experience took place in London, at a community pool I used to go to. It was a Saturday afternoon and very crowded. I'd just reached the end of my lane and was coming up for air when I heard the sound of a whistle and noticed that I was the only one left in the water. "What's the problem?" I asked, and the lifeguard said something I couldn't quite understand.
  As I walked toward the changing room, a second lifeguard fished out the turds. There were four of them, each the size and shape of a cat's hair ball. "Third time today that's happened," the person at the desk told me.
  At the pool I currently go to, one of the regulars is a woman with Down syndrome. She's fairly heavy and wears an old-fashioned swimsuit, the sort with a ruffled skirt. Then there's this bathing cap that straps beneath her chin and is decorated with rubber flowers. Odd is the great satisfaction I take whenever I beat her from one end to the other. "I won three out of four," I told Hugh the first time she and I swam together. "I mean I really creamed her."
  I no longer tell him about the old people I defeat. Older than I am, I mean — women in their late seventies and eighties. Then there are the children. I was in Washington State, at a small-town YMCA, when a boy wandered into the lap lane and popped his head, seal-like, out of the water. I would later learn that he was nine, but at the time he was just this kid, slightly pudgy, with a stern haircut. It's like he went to a barbershop with a picture of Hitler, that's how severe it was. We got to talking, and when I told him I wasn't a very good swimmer, he challenged me to a race. I think he assumed that, like most adults, I'd slow down and intentionally let him win, but he didn't know who he was dealing with. I need all the confidence I can get, and one victory is just as good as any other. Thus I swam for my very life and beat the pants off him. I thought this was it — he'd accept his defeat and move on with his life — but five minutes later he stopped me again and asked if I believed in God.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me another paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Before my run-in with the police, Hugh and I had visited the criminology museum, a sad sort of homemade affair, its highlight being a dead man suspended in a glass box and dripping amber-colored fluid into a shallow enameled pan. The sign, which was written in Thai and translated into English, read, simply, "Rapist and Murderer." It was the way they'd mark a stuffed or pickled cobra at a natural history museum, a way of saying, "This is what this creature looks like. Keep your eyes peeled."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The sign, which was written in Thai and translated into English, read, simply, "Rapist and Murderer." It was the way they'd mark a stuffed or pickled cobra at a natural history museum, a way of saying, "This is what this creature looks like. Keep your eyes peeled."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. End with the sentence '"'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I wanted to ask if, instead of paying the fine, he could maybe cane me, but I think that's done in Singapore, not Thailand, and I didn't want to come off as unsophisticated. In the end I signed my name, handed over the equivalent of thirty dollars, and stepped outside to look for my cigarette butt, which I eventually found lying in the gutter between a severed duck head and a fly-covered plastic bag half full of coconut milk.
  During the period that our grandmother lived with us, litter was very much on our minds, in part the result of TV. The "Keep America Beautiful" commercials featured a crying Indian, his composure shattered by the sight of a trash-strewn creek bed.
  Our father worried that our grandmother was setting a bad example, but, actually, it worked the other way. None of us would ever think of throwing something out a car window, unless, of course, it was a cigarette butt, which is not just trash, but red-tipped, flaming trash. "Shame about that forest fire," we'd say. "You really have to wonder about people who do things like that. It's a sickness of the mind."
  I can't say that after leaving Bangkok I never again crushed a cigarette underfoot. I can say, though, that I never did it comfortably. If a trash can was around, I'd use it, and if not, I'd either tuck the butt into the cuff of my pants or try to hide it under something, a leaf, maybe, or some bit of paper cast down by somebody else, as if the shade would allow it to disintegrate faster.
  Now that I've quit, I've started collecting trash — not tons, but a little bit every day. If, for example, I see a beer bottle left on a park bench I'll pick it up and toss it into the nearest garbage can, which is usually no more than a few feet away. Then I say, "Stupid lazy asshole couldn't be bothered to throw away his own fucking bottle."