Madman With A Box

"To hell with the 'raggedy.' Time to put on a show." -- the Eleventh Doctor

I haven't had to study for anything since I took my last college final two years and twenty days ago. I have a certification exam coming up in a few weeks, though, which means I'm currently calling all of my hard-earned and long-lost study skills into practice. I'm making slow progress on my huge stack of source material, but in the process, I've realized something horrifying: living a couple of blocks away from the Hungarian Pastry Shop and its bottomless coffee mugs during college ruined me for life, since I can no longer concentrate enough to study at home. As a result, in an effort to buckle down and get some work done, I've undertaken an unofficial tour of the coffee shops of New York City. And since the weather has been gorgeous, a lot of walking is involved.

Today, I walked a couple of miles to spend a few hours in my favorite bakery. I was dressed for a lazy Saturday, too -- dark jeans, high-top red Chuck Taylors, and one of my favorite t-shirts:

The graphic is a stylized portrait of David Tennant wearing 3D glasses in the 2006 season finale of Doctor Who. The episode aired way before David Tennant became a household name... not that the man in the image is recognizable as Tennant anyway. It also predates the show's popularity in America (and the Doctor's appearances on the sides of MTA buses) by half a decade. Point is, it's foreign, it's subtle, it's niche, and it's ridiculously obscure. Though I've worn the t-shirt regularly for the past three years, I can count on one hand the number of times someone has been able to positively identify the image's source.

Back to today's story. I studied at the bakery for a few hours, then I began walking to my next destination. Halfway down a residential block, I noticed an Orthodox priest walking towards me. How did I know he was an Orthodox priest? He looked exactly like the image that shows up on Wikipedia when you search for "Orthodox priest," robes, beard and all:

We locked eyes as we approached each other. I smiled and gave a little "good morning" nod. He gasped and pointed at my t-shirt. "That is my FAVORITE television show!" he exclaimed in a deep, heavily accented voice. After I picked up my jaw from the pavement, I told him that it was my favorite show, too. We then wished each other a good day and walked on.

I guess the Doctor transcends more than just time and space.