Eternal Mystery One: The cord tangle. I have a typical number of things with cords attached to them. Most of these things are devices that I take with me when I travel and I typically carry them in my briefcase. I am careful with my devices and their cords. No matter how careful I am, however, every single time I take one device or the other out of my briefcase its cord is hopelessly tangled into a snarl with any other cord in the case. It never fails. Resulting in a good portion of time wasted untangling them. Can you tell I am not an engineer? It always mystified me that inanimate objects could wrap themselves up in each other with no outside force being applied to them.
Eternal Mystery Two: The cord drawer. A variation of EM1 is the drawer I have at home in the kitchen into which every miscellaneous thing is tossed. Extension cords. Picture hanging wire. Screw drivers. Those slider pad things one is supposed to put under the feet of furniture when it is shoved about the floors. If one ever remembered that one owned the slider things before shoving the furniture around, that is. You know the drawer. Everyone has one. Every time I open that drawer, there are more cords in there and they are also in a total snarl. Another curious example of the tangelocity of inanimate rope-like objects.
I thought about these mysteries at random intervals for most of my adult life. Then, epiphany. I found myself (shockingly) in an airliner, rocketing along at thirty thousand feet. Holding (shockingly) a rocks glass with vodka in it. The proverbial scales fell from my eyes. All became clear. The answer to both EM1 and EM2 struck me like a bolt. The reason that seemingly inanimate cords behave the way they do with no help from me.
They are mating.
When the Nobel committee toddles around asking about the 2011 banquet, send them this way.
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5 comments:
I read a story years ago where a man figured out that the eggs of an alien race were socks and coat hangers were the larva stage, Mainly because they were always disappearing. He discovered that bicycles , because they were always popping up in unexpected places, had to be the adult aliens. Before he could announce his discovery to the world he was found strangled by a coat hanger.So I might not want to call a lot of attention to your mating cord theory Ifinn' I was y'all.
M. Lane,
You're a great writer.
Hurry, notify National Geographic right now. or Popular Mechanics. Here's an organizational idea: separate the affectionate said cords and place each one in a ziploc type bag and label.
Then don't forget where you stored them.
Signed,
BarbaraG
James, thanks for the tip. If I get the NP then I'll take my chances...
Barbara, thank you! And a good travel tip. I would probably forget the bags. Plus who am I to get in the way of romance?
ML
What else would a cord do if left alone in the dark?
as one who travels constantly and has a cord for everything, I have started a policy of evry cord not plugged into something gets tied in a loose granny knot.
Much like teenagers, tying knots keeps them isolated and seperate, and is much easier to detangle.
I'm going to pass that new word of yours "tangelocity" on to my husband WHO is an engineer and WHO never tangles HIS cords! My cords, on the other hand are always mating and procreating! Thanks for the laugh.
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