A study in contrasts

27. February 2009 by Joe Gergen.

I flew back into town last night from Charlotte. It was 63 and sunny when I got to the airport. We were delayed in taking off several times because the airport in Minneapolis was closed to plow the runways. But we eventually did land amid the blowing snow and dropping temperature. So there was about 8 inches of snow and it was 3 degrees on the way to work today. That’s just damn confusing to the brain and the body.

 I did see a good misread on the plane though. there was a guy sitting in front of me across the aisle. I could see the spine of his book. i thought it said “Liberalism is a Mind Disorder” which I thought was pretty funny so I looked at it again to see what it really said and that’s what it really said. Curiosity got to me and I kept looking over at the guy for some reason, maybe hoping to see who would be reading such a book, but I definitely stopped looking over there when I noticed he was paging through a catalog filled with assault rifles. I immediately found something else to focus on.

Other good misreads this week.

When I was in Charlotte, my colleague and I were driving down one the highways between the hotel and the office. I saw this road sign that I thought said “Unusual to Pass.” And I thought I wonder why? The road did not look that odd. I thought maybe it was just trying to confuse people into doing nothing. If they were too busy trying to figure out what the sign meant they may not attempt to pass. Of course the sign said “Unlawful to Pass,” but I thought maybe the misdirection of “Unusual to Pass”  would create some confusion while at the same time not aggravate people who have problems with being told what not to do and would choose to pass just because it told them not to.

 The good one today came from a new cd I bought. The name of the band is Baby Soda. And the title of the cd is actually “Cures Everything but the Blues.” What I thought it said and thought nothing of it until much later was “Curse Everything but the Blues,” which I thought made total sense and didn’t even think I had misread it. It was so bluesy it was perfect.

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