When The Laws Of Physics Spontaneously Change
Cattle Drives • Living The Dream? • The Tower That Eiffel Built
One Minute Wit
Cattle Drives
I took a vacation out west and saw a brochure offering the chance to experience a real cattle drive. It sounded exciting.
What a waste of money. Cattle are terrible drivers.
My cow didn’t make it 100 yards before our car ended up in a ditch.
I know.
50-Word Story
Living The Dream?
Jimmy dreamed of owning a boat. He worked two jobs, saved his money, and finally bought his dream boat.
Soon he discovered he had to pay for a marina slip.
And winter storage.
And gas.
Friends bugged him for rides.
He knew the perfect name for his boat: Fool’s Gold.
I firmly believe it is better to have a friend with a boat than to own a boat.
Photo Poetry?
The Tower That Eiffel Built
A mighty tower climbing to impossible heights in the late 1880s.
Built of wrought iron by men with nerves of steel.
Its scale cannot be captured by photography.
Full-height photographs appear toy-like.
It must be experienced in person to appreciate its magnitude.
Best done after enjoying a fresh ham and cheese baguette “with salad” (lettuce and tomato) in the accompanying park with a beautiful woman you have loved for thirty-eight years.
It overwhelms the senses and boggles the mind.
And takes one to another era.
In a city of astounding beauty, it stands alone.
Not for its beauty.
But for its sheer existence.
I was caught completely off-guard by the Eiffel Tower. I usually don’t enjoy tourist destinations. Especially the crowds. But the tower made a strong impression on me. I took many photographs of it, but it is almost impossible to capture its impressiveness.
As we were leaving, we walked through the park alongside it, and I looked up for another glance through the trees. I knew I had found a view worthy of a photograph. The photograph above is the result.
The power of man’s will and determination framed by the effortless beauty of nature. That seems to capture it for me.
Humor
When The Laws Of Physics Spontaneously Change
Once I fell down. But at that exact moment, the laws of physics spontaneously changed, and the Earth’s mass started repelling objects of smaller mass instead of attracting them. So I was shot into space at a rapid pace. Not having a pressure suit or oxygen supply, I grew concerned.
But then I noticed that the Earth’s atmosphere was also being hurled into space, which meant that space was no longer a vacuum. So I grabbed a lawn chair that was flying nearby and decided to enjoy the ride.
Until I notice that I was on a trajectory headed directly for the Sun, which was now shooting superheated hydrogen my way. Figuring that 5778-degree heat would be a bit too toasty, I looked for a way to change course.
Suddenly I saw an iPhone drift by, and sure enough, there was an app for that. So I plotted a course that would use the new anti-gravity of the Moon to push my lawn chair out of the way of imminent destruction. Unfortunately, it also pushed me out of range faster than the speed of the oxygen I needed to survive. I began to get light-headed, and everything faded to black.
What happened next, I can only guess, as I have no recollection. But my hypothesis is the laws of physics spontaneously changed again, causing everything to reverse at a constant rate. I theorize this because, amazingly, I woke up on the ground at the same exact spot I began my fall.
I am pretty sure the rapid reversal in physics also erased memories of the event in mass because no one else seems to remember it except me. This was probably due to my oxygen-deprived brain being in stasis, rendering it immune to the erasure of memory.
Imagine having to live with the knowledge of being the only human witness to a universal change in matter, time, and space, knowing full well no one will believe you.
Which is why I have not come forward with my story before now. And wouldn’t have at all except, on a whim, I shared it with the dude taking my order at the Taco Bell drive-thru, and he totally believed me.
Happy Monday.
Mark
>> I firmly believe it is better to have a friend with a boat than to own a boat.
And worst, be a kid in a family who owns a boat. Wooden boat. Many “happy” winter weekends spent working on it. “Some day you’ll look back and realize what a great time this was,” my father told me. Still waiting for some day!