Brooks Peterson

Monday, Jan. 25, 1999

Mini-mysteries deserve some attention, too

   Among my other responsibilities here - stringing paper clips together, stoking the coffee maker, conducting the occasional dust-bunny census - I must from time to time do some fairly intense grappling with high-order cosmic issues. Things like:

Is Bill Clinton the AntiChrist, or is he the Second Coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt? (Of course, I realize that for some of our friends toward the starboard end of the spectrum, the two might not be mutually exclusive.)

Is there really something to Chaos Theory? You know - the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can set off a train of events culminating in a hurricane halfway round the world? I am well positioned for this sort of thing inasmuch as I have a teen-aged son. Several archaeological digs in his living quarters have offered me some fresh, if rather scary, insights into the whole Chaos Theory question.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
   However, you can't make a steady diet of this sort of thing. Set out on that course, and one fine day you'll find yourself wandering around the newsroom in an old plaid bathrobe and fuzzy bunny slippers, mumbling to yourself, "The frequency, Kenneth! What is the frequency?"
   Not that I would know anything about that from personal experience, you understand. I've just heard things.
   Happily, there are any number of smaller, more manageable issues around which you can wrap your mind. Some might call them Urban Mysteries. I don't much care for that, though, since it leaves our rural friends out in the cold.
   But you gotta call 'em something, so, provisionally, let's call 'em Low-Intensity Puzzlements - those nagging little perplexities that bore their way into your cranium and churn endlessly around in your consciousness. Such as:

If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we perfect a button that will survive the ministrations of a commercial laundry? Or, conversely, why can't commercial laundries come up with a button-friendly technology? Understand, now, I have the highest respect for these establishments - love their work with starch (thanks for the hangers, too) - but this is still, as it were, a hot-button issue with me.

What are all these dang boxes and their styrofoam packing material doing in our attic? Who's responsible? Uh . . . actually, I am. Over time, we've gone through a few items of stereo equipment, the odd boom box or two and a couple of computer systems. At some point, I read some Information For The New Owner suggesting - powerfully - I should hang onto both the box and the styrofoam in case of relocation. 'Course, we haven't relocated. Still, that tiny, thoroughly unpleasant voice in the back of my consciousness warns that the day I so much as think of ditching those boxes, we'll be transferred to Poughkeepsie. Why is that?

What did I ever do to the people at the Department of Public Safety's Driver License Service? I have been unfailingly civil in my dealings with them - but there seems to be a competition over there as to can take the most monumentally unflattering photo of me. The latest one - from last November - blows the rest right out of the water. The likeness staring back at me from the little rectangle of plastic says one thing only: Do not approach this individual! Contact the authorities immediately! (And it's not as if this happens to everybody. The young Elizabeth Taylor gazes out from my wife's driver's license photo.)

Who puts all that chewing gum on the sidewalk? Understand, now, the mystery is not why people dump their gum on the sidewalk. The answer to that one should be plain to anyone who's given any attention whatever to human nature: We do it because we can. But . . . who does it? Have you ever seen someone actually chucking a (used) piece of gum, sans wrapper, on the sidewalk? I haven't. Are people slipping over from a parallel dimension to gum up our sidewalks? Or is it a cult thing? Chew on that for a while.
   Small beer? Maybe so. But, speaking just for myself, I'd be a lot happier if we didn't have to tote some of this baggage with us into the New Millennium.
   ?
   (Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com.)