email for pics

All weekend I held in my mind an idea for an emailforpics post. It was a small idea, a grain if you will, of something that might inspire me to write a few paragraphs and (hopefully) y’all to read them. Something happened this morning to change my mind, and although this means y’all will not hear about the young couple who purchased two 50-lb bags of salt at Costco this weekend, the commentary is strikingly similar. “What in the world were they thinking?”

I stood on a street corner clutching my coffee, waiting to cross Colorado (the “main drag” in Pasadena, if there are any non-locals kicking around). There was a queue of cars facing me on the other side of the street. The first one in the queue, a red SUV, had its left indicator on. I smiled and thought Perhaps not everyone in LA is a bad driver and waited for the light to change.

Suddenly, a car horn blared. It was coming from the Civic behind the SUV. I usually try to determine the source of such outrages (in case it might be me), and could find none. No one in the queue was moving. No one was blocking anyone else. The light was still red. I wondered if perhaps I had misplaced the horn, but a few moments later I got a rare opportunity to verify, since the Civic honked again. Beep beep. In that way that suggest the honker is trying to wake up someone in front of them.

I checked the light. It was still red. I noted there was no cross traffic on Colorado, and after once more analyzing the situation in the queue across from me I could only come to one conclusion. The honker wanted the honkee (the red SUV I believe) to go ahead and make the left turn against the red light.

Baffling.

It has been noted here that people will convince themselves that the rules do not apply to them for some reason, and I will admit that I am sometimes one of those people. Especially when driving. I routinely drive above the speed limit (though these days usually not more than 5-10 mph over), and if confronted with a red light at 03:00 at a deserted intersection I will usually stop, look, and drive through. Such a thing has never crossed my mind in broad daylight during the morning rush hour, and I have never considered encouraging anyone else to engage in my illegal activities. The only other explanation I can think of is that the Civic believed (for whatever reason; perhaps the driver was on the phone at the time) the SUV meant to turn right. I’m not sure how the driver could have come to this conclusion, since the SUV was clearly indicating left (and indeed turned left once the light turned green), but I do try to begin with the assumption that all people posess the standard suite of reasoning capabilities and that encouraging someone to pull into an intersection against a red light would be considered an unwise act.

I really have no idea. I will never know. Just as I will never know why the young couple in the queue in front of us at Costco felt they needed two 50-lb bags of salt. Nothing else in their cart gave clues; they did not appear to be purchasing for a business. Do they have a severe slug problem? Have they just slain a vampire and now must salt the earth over its final resting place?

I think I wonder because I know there is a reason…and it’s usually more interesting than anything I can come up with.

One of the slight drawbacks to an otherwise plum pick for an office in the WAG empire is its close proximity to a small experimentalist lab. The lab contains a sonicator, which inspired me to purchase headphones (on the group account) in order to block out the new and interesting form of aural Chinese Water Torture. It also now contains a student who sings.

I’m fairly sure it’s the student singing and not a recording, as the moo-sounding pitch fluctuation is not constant. It starts rather softly, then gets louder as the singer becomes more confident, no doubt related to the fact that no one has walked in and demanded an explanation for the humpback whale sound. It doesn’t last more than a few minutes at a time. Although I would love to meet the source of this sound, I know it can never be. For as anyone who’s been caught singing in the shower knows, once a private singer finds out there’s someone listening it’s impossible to go on singing. Such personal expression must be done alone. I must imagine who this person is.

I know which research group the person is in, and I can guess what subgroup. I can determine what kind of work the person does. More importantly, however, this person is probably reasonably happy. This person does not know the realities of the wall thickness in the sub basement of the BI, and likely is similarly ignorant to the soul-crushing facts of life as a graduate student. This person inspires me by reminding me of an earlier, more optimistic time. Perhaps I will sing in my office when I think no one is around.