Chaos Theory Offers Reassurance

I'm reading an excellent book that is changing the way I look at things: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier. On Friday, for example, I was getting bent out of shape because of a stupid mistake I had made on a project I was working on. It was a quick fix, but I felt like a moron (even more so than I feel on most days). As I gazed out my window, brooding and chewing on my favorite red pen, I recalled Angier's chapter on Chemistry and the discussion of the laws of thermodynamics. I sought comfort specifically in the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time. I am not a scientist, obviously, but I understand this to mean that there is an energy actively working toward chaos. And while there is one right way to do things, there are infinite ways for that same thing to go wrong. Infinite ways. In other words, there are more than a billion billion ways that I could have screwed up that particular project and only one way that I could have done it perfectly. With such tremendous odds stacked against me, and an active energy in our universe working towards increasing those odds, it seems a damn miracle that I--that anybody--ever manages to do anything right. While overall this concept makes me feel hopeless and miserable, I admit to taking great solace in it on that particular morning.

Crisis Averted By Warm Soapy Water

A few years ago (4? 5?) I threw a dinosaur-themed birthday party for Shad and I found these super cheesy dinosaur napkins--crazy bright colors, with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" emblazoned across the top in screaming hues of orange and red. I must have gotten a killer deal because for some reason I bagged tons and tons of them. For the next year or so, every time we hosted dinner or a party, we used these horrible napkins. It became something of a joke. But, alas, eventually the supply ran low until finally, there was only one napkin left. JoLynn had mourned the depletion of the napkins and so I was careful to reserve this last one for her. For the past three years or so, this has been joLynn's special napkin. Whether she is over for dinner, coffee, conspiratorial activities, a party, whatever, I reach up to the second shelf, grab the napkin, and give it to her. She takes nice care of it, and at the end of the evening, we put it back. The napkin has probably been used 40 or 50 times in this way; it has remained in perfect condition and no one else is allowed to use it. EVER.

It is a very special napkin.

A few days ago I walked into the kitchen and glanced into the sink, where a pan was soaking. To my absolute horror, I noticed that joLynn's special napkin had fallen into the sink and was floating on top of the dirty water. I gasped so loudly that Shad rushed into the kitchen to see what was the matter. We stared down at the situation in dismay, as though we had just run over someone's kitty. Finally, on Shad's gentle suggestion, I gingerly plucked it out of the water and hand-washed it in a warm soapy solution, then left it on the drying rack overnight.

Voila! It's a bit crisp, but otherwise as good as new. Phwew.

Hopeless Young Attorney Inadvertently Plays Trick on Self

When I arrived in my new office, my phone cord was in a desperate state, stubbornly coiled into a messy and ridiculous knot so that when I was on a call, my chin would end up being about three inches from the phone, my body bent at a 30-degree angle from my desk chair. Being a basically nonobservant person, I had failed to notice this until a colleague stopped by one day and kindly--while taking note, perhaps, of the kink in my neck--gave me the name of a woman who could fix the situation. I called her and a few days later arrived in my office to find a brand new phone cord with nice wide unspoiled coils.

My virginal phone cord and I got on quite well. But then I must have started to take her for granted. One day last week I was on the phone and I realized that I was in that chin-is-three-inches-from-the-phone state again.

I began to investigate the matter. This was clearly not my cord. My cord had nice wide coils and was not all tangled like this. Someone must have switched out my cord and replaced it with this crappy knotted-up thing. But who would do that? Maybe someone who had a piece-of-shit twisted-up phone cord and noticed that my new cord was super nice so they got jealous and stole it right out of my office when I wasn't looking? Who would do that to me? What did I ever do to anyone? Why are attorneys so damn competitive?!? WHY AM I IN THIS CAREER? WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME I NEEDED TO SUPER-GLUE MY PHONE CORD INTO MY PHONE? WHY DO I HAVE TO FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT ON MY OWN??? WHY DON'T I KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING????

And then, just when my blood pressure was reaching its highest point since the No Special Message On My Birthday Situation, it came to me: This is a prank! Kind of random. And stupid. But okay, pretty funny and silly, actually. But who possibly would have done it? As I sift through a short-list of suspects, I suddenly realize how glaringly obvious the culprit is: the guy who pointed out the knotted-up cord in the first place.

Oh, He. Will. Get. His. Retribution will be swift and sure.

I jerk the twisty-cord-blob out of my phone and, after-hours, I head down to his office all sneaky-like, the clumped mass of cord concealed in the depths of a redrope folder. I slip into his office, and see--laaaaaa!!!!--the most beautiful phone cord ever! Not a single kink in it! The Madonna of Phone Cords! Unparalleled in its luxurious untangledness! I gleefully wrench it out of his phone and replace it with the tangled knot. It takes about 15 seconds to complete the crime. I scurry out of the office, utterly pleased with myself, fighting a giggle-fit, visions dancing through my head of him answering his first call of the day and having to wrench his whole body sideways to keep the receiver from springing into the phone, talking with his face two inches away from the desk.

Time passes. I don't hear from him. And when I do, he mentions nothing (NOTHING!) about the cord. In fact, he is acting like nothing is going on at all! Oh, he is good. Very good. I begin to brace myself for Round Two. But he will not get away with it this time, oh no, for I have cleverly placed a little red mark inside one of the coils to identify this cord as mine. When he steals it again and when he tries to deny it I will catch him in his lie, bwaaahhaaaaaahaaaaahaaaaaa!

Sure enough, just when I let my guard down, he strikes again! While on the phone today I suddenly realized that my face was three inches from my desk. My eyes travel the few inches from the receiver to the phone, and there, in the middle--AHA!--I have seen this tangled knot before! He will not get away with it this time! I reach down to jerk the cord out, intending to march straight down to his office when I notice--huh?--a conspicious little red dot in one of the coils. Is it possible...? That...I...?

Discussion questions:

1) Is phone cord envy on the rise among urban professionals?
2) Why the eff can't I use the phone without knotting the cord up into a tangled mess? I don't even talk on the phone that much. Seriously. Is this a learned skill?
3) Should I even bother to try to keep my phone cord untangled, or should I just exchange it with my poor oblivious colleague whenever it reaches the critical point and see how long it takes him to figure out that he is being pranked? Or, should I secretly exchange the twisted cords with random people throughout the office whenever necessary? Or should I harvest phone cords from empty offices and keep a pristine supply of unkinky ones in my desk drawer?
4) Do I apologize to my hapless colleague for imputing rascally motives on him, or do I take credit for perpetrating a hilarious joke on him?

Mere Hours After Solving Caribou Coffee Mystery, Juice Encounters a New Puzzle

We have a new mystery on our hands, my friends!

First thing on my to-do list for tomorrow: Get rid of the Kia. Finally! [STRONG ORCHESTRAL CHORD; FADE OUT] But, when I returned from work this evening, the Kia, which had been parked across the street, was no longer there. [FADE IN SPOOKY BACKGROUND MUSIC]

Interlude--(E-mail exchange with Geoff yesterday):

G: (Saying vaguely that he is considering buying a car)

UJ: I know where you can get a great little car for free.

G: Free? No, my friend, with all the work that car needs, I’m sure I would find it quite dear.

UJ: I am giving it to Arc's Value Village. They take cars in any condition and will even tow for free. But first I have to find the damn license tabs that I bought and then misplaced and now am probably going to get a ticket for because my car is just sitting on the side of the street, covered in snow, without tabs, looking completely abandoned and demanding to be ticketed. Grumble.

G: Well, what’s Arc Value Village’s policy with regards to the two vagrants who are probably living in your abandoned Kia at this point?

UJ: I think I can just place a dollar value on them to add to my charitable giving receipt.

G: Ahh, yes, as provided for in the subsection of the Internal Revenue Code dealing with the donation of vagrants to non-profit organizations.

UJ: I'm so glad I didn't play Weboggle in Tax!

(By way of background: One of the things that happened during my no-blogging phase is that I bought a cute little new car. It's a limited edition Volkswagen Triple White Beetle Convertible. I love it! And hence, the Kia purge.)

I called Shad to ask if he knows where the Kia is. He has no idea. I call Matt, who, as a former police officer, informs me that it could have been towed due to the outdated tabs situation, but probably not, since the tabs are barely expired (November 30), and because a search of the plates would show that I had purchased the tabs (which are lost somewhere in the bowels of my home).

I call the impound lot. They do not have the car.

I go out to investigate. As discussed above, the car looked abandoned. We had moved it across the street during the last snow emergency, but it had since been plowed in during a non-snow-emergency plowing run and was covered in about six inches of snow. At the crime scene, I note that (1) there is no broken glass (not surprising, actually, since we don't lock the doors); (2) there is a large footprint in the snow right about where the door is; (3) there are no piles of snow around the vehicle, which would indicate that someone had brushed the car off to drive it away. There are not really any footprints around it, in fact. It seems like there would be footprints if someone had gotten under the hood or whatever you do when you hot-wire a car. Is that what the thieves do these days when they don't have a key? Hot-wire? I don't know. Anyway, I'm guessing it was towed. There's no key, as I mentioned. Shad and I have the keys. Plus there is probably a smattering of keys around the city, in the hands of my good friends who have had to deal with my various locking-the-keys-in-the-car phases over the years. But I can assure you none of these folks stole the Kia. No one seems to be particularly fond of that poor car.

I call the police. They refer me back to the impound lot. The impound lot folks look up the vehicle again. They still do not have it. They ask what time I arrived home--5:30. They tell me to wait and call them back at 7:00, because the towing company has 90 minutes to deliver a vehicle once the order-to-tow comes in. So, you know, just in case it was towed in the one minute before I arrived home.

I call them back at 7:30 and talk to a guy named Brian. Brian looks up the car and tells me it is not in the lot. I tell him I think it's stolen. I don't have any other explanation. He doesn't buy it. Give me the full VIN number, he says. I give it. He looks it up. Nope, it's not in there. Finally, he says, sighing, "Look, these cars just don't get stolen." Me: "I know! It's a piece of crap!" Him: "No, that's not what I meant. They have their own anti-theft devices." "Like being so shitty that no one would ever take them?" "No." "Oh." "Well, hold on a minute."

He calls the towing company they use. He calls some other folks. He's gone for a while. He discovers that it isn't on a list anywhere (i.e. there is no outstanding order for it to be towed or anything like that). Finally he comes back. "You don't have a kid or a relative that might have driven it around or something?" "Nope." "Well, I just can't believe that someone would have stolen this car." "I know! I can't believe it either! I thought I was going to have to put some fresh-baked cookies and the title in the front seat before someone would take it!" Silence. Finally, he says, "Well, crazier things have happened." He doesn't quite know how to take me. I am a bit giddy for someone who has just had her car stolen. He is wary and doesn't really want to file a police report. He thinks it is impossible that it was stolen. I don't know what else to do, either. So he suggests we get the stolen card started, wait out the night, and check the impound lot again in the morning. If it's still not there, they'll send the cops out to file a report.

The situation speaks for itself, right? Do I need to make the obvious point that it is hysterically funny that my car was possibly stolen on the day before I planned to give it away? No, gentle readers. I trust you. I am going keep any energy I would have expended on that particular bit of commentary and put it towards enjoying a delicious meal at Cafe Maude with my husband tonight.

Juice Falls Prey to Shenanigans!

Imagine my surprise when I received a little postcard from my mail carrier alerting me to a package that was waiting for me at the station. What could it be? I head on down there, and Jim hands me a box that, from the looks of it, has just been sent from the Caribou Coffee headquarters (to wit: the Caribou logo is stamped on each side of the box). I am, obviously, confounded.*

I open the box and find the following:

(1) Caribou coffee mug;
(1) Package of "Reindeer Blend" coffee;
(1) Caribou-brand granola bar; and
(1) Hand-written note, on Caribou Coffee stationery, that says:

Dear Anna,

Happy birthday!

(Sorry it's a little bit late.)

Sincerely,

Caribou Coffee

Huh? I'm flummoxed. And tickled.

I arrived at the office, rinsed the mug out, and filled it with coffee (Starbucks, actually, which is what they brew at the office). But as I stare out my office window, sipping this sugar-laden beverage, I feel more and more befuddled: Why was it ten days late? Do they actually send this whole gift to everyone on the mailing list? Did they sense a disturbance in the force? And, hey, I don't remember giving them my home address when I signed up.

I had complained about the No Special Message On My Birthday Situation to a few of my co-workers and when I told them about the package, they were equally befuddled. Half (2) suspected shenanigans. Half (2) told me I needed to stop complaining about the No Special Message On My Birthday Situation (a gripe that, apparently, had grown old after the first day).

That night, still puzzled, I relay the story to Shad: "The strangest thing..." His joker grin gets bigger and bigger. Finally he cracks up and confesses that he has some information about the whole thing.

It was shenanigans, of course. Gene Ha, the prankster, was behind it. (Bravo, my friend, bravo!)

*I'm sorry to interrupt the story but for the sake of keeping things chronological, I must add this piece: Before I left the counter (with my brows furrowed in puzzlement), I have to ask Jim about the crazy lady I saw him talking to when I was at the post office two days earlier. She demanded a new roll of stamps because the roll she had recently purchased was defective. I saw her force him to try to remove a stamp which was clearly unremovable because she had torn it to shreds in the process of her failed attempts to unpeel it. He patiently attempted to show her the proper way to remove the stamp, but she would have none of it. He gave her a new roll of stamps and sent her on her way. When I asked him about the incident, he laughed and handed me the "defective" roll, which he still had in his drawer. I pulled a stamp off. He shrugged and winked; I giggled and hustled out the door with the Caribou Coffee box tucked under my arm.