That story was current on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, supposedly of a flasher emerging from the stacks at Moe's Books, circa 1972.

No objection to carrying a fine old tradition, however. It's the exact response called for under the circumstances, if one hasn't got a scimitar handy.

While I appreciate your efforts in the war against apparent phrase theft, I've never been to Berkeley, and I was barely alive in the sixties. You'll notice that there's a great deal of original wordsmithery on this site -- which, perhaps bolsters my argument that I managed to come up with that phrase all by myself, and right in the moment -- an apparent coincidence that some hippie did way back when, as well.

Another typical in-the moment phrase of mine (while very late for a plane and stuck on an escalator at Heathrow behind a herd of big-butted Brits who weren't moving a micrometer, nor giving me any room to pass): Excuse me, I know you haven't seen a great vegetable in 20 years, but I've got a plane to catch. They all laughed then caught themselves and muttered "rude American." That one's clearly not a Berkeleyism, I might add, since it's utterly unPC to criticize lard-asses, here or abroad.

Hippie? HIPPIE? She was a pedigreed, right-thinking Intellectual! Oh the injustice....

It is never a mistake to say good-bye.