As a PR practitioner of moderate renown, some might contest my qualifications to hypothesize about global tidal patterns but this week I became convinced of a connection between the tragic tsunami in the Indian Ocean last month and the record high tides in the San Francisco Bay, the mudslides in Southern California and the complete flooding of Carlisle in England.
I may not have been riveted by Dr French’s geography lessons all those years ago, but I definitely recall a cyclical connection between clouds, rain and earthly water. Am I a conspiracy theorist, or is the Weather Channel missing something?
Anyway, while the scientists figure out how to connect a wire or two between their brilliant earthquake recognition systems and one or two life-saving alarm systems, I’ll share with you another story of a hypothetical connection which I contest is entirely feasible and Emma claims is a chance-in-a-million coincidence.
I felt Emma and I getting intercepted by a California Highway Patrol vehicle while driving home from Tahoe at 80 miles per hour was connected somehow with Emma’s long-term habitual speeding and aggressive driving. Emma on the other hand views the speeding citation as a lesson in luck rather than fate. “I was unlucky to get caught”, she said.
It would have been difficult to argue with her logic had it not been for the fact that the ‘flashing blues’ appeared about 5 seconds after Emma had said “Why can this arsehole get away with driving 60 in the outside lane?” and I’d responded: “Because there’s no law against that here – by the way, you’re doing 80 and there is a law against that.”
Surely, any deity with a sense of humor would have noted the quality of that potential comedy moment and immediately dispatched an angel disguised as the CHP?
Anyway, we could take the whole thing a step further and contest that our ‘bad luck’ at getting caught speeding was a consequence of Emma and I bunking off work today to go snowboarding…but no, surely the Gods would have allowed us that indulgence?
I mean we weren’t eating ice cream for breakfast or opening birthday presents a day early, we were just making use of all that lovely snow that God had obviously intended to be boarded on…
Ah, who knows the mysterious ways of the world?! Conspiracy theories on a postcard please to http://mcculloch.typepad.com
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