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March 07, 2005

The meaning of it all

After my car wreck I wondered how an athiest might come to terms with having lived through what I apparently shouldntve.

Since the accident we've been a one-car family, which has meant the consolidation of our car junk.

Recently I've remarked on Luigi's charming propensity for doing her dooty on the Bokharas.

Today I am happy to announce that it's all come together, and finally I can make sense of why I had the accident and why I survived: It was all so that we could keep Luigi from crapping on the Bokharas. One of the things that Tom carried around in his car was a hefty two-volume set of the Condensed OED. (Don't ask why he was riding around with an OED; it's all part of his alluring complexity. His car usually contains cases of shotgun shells and clay pigeons; the OED; the journal of some obscure nineteenth-century U.S. politician; reggae and blues CDs; and other assorted ephemera that are all considered essential traveling companions.) So when we combined car junk, some things had to come back into the house, including the OED.

So when we got up this morning and discovered that Luigi had thwarted our latest blockade efforts and had, during the night, busted into the dining room to crap on her favorite Bokhara, we had to come up with a new blockade. Well, okay, first we had to dispose of the pile and clean up the rug. Then a new blockade: the OED, natch. No cat, not even a 16-pound calico tiger with 24 toes, is a match for all the words in the English language.

And now we know why I had that wreck: so that Tom would have to take the OED out of his car. And now we know why I survived: so I could think of blocking the dining room door with it.

Posted by senioritis at March 7, 2005 08:46 PM

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Comments

tyratae says:

"If I had a car, I'd ride around with the OED. I have a two volume set, too." Unfortunately, our cat is not as discerning as yours "and all we'd accomplish with the OED is keeping ourselves locked out of the bathroom."

(tyratae also asks that you note the quotation marks as I added some of the commentary here).

You might find that magic cats, which is to say all cats, have no use for all the words in the English language as they can't read (at least not books). Good luck though. We are pulling for you and the Bokhara.

Posted by: TR at March 7, 2005 09:26 PM

Keeping yourselves locked out of the bathroom would indeed be a bad thing, and since I'm now firmly convinced of cosmic causality, I'd recommend that you not get a car for TT.

Posted by: senioritis at March 8, 2005 05:40 AM

Have you read Jasper Fforde's books? In the third installment, The Well of Lost Plots, you'll discover the Book World's use of dictionaries, particularly the OED, and may draw some interesting parallels with your own use...

Posted by: susansinclair at March 8, 2005 09:16 AM

I love this logic. Everything's connected; there's a reason things happen, even if we can't see them!

And I love that for this kind of logic, yeah, anything goes.

Posted by: madeline at March 8, 2005 02:41 PM

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