By David Aitken
A normal person — that’s me, by the way — is often flummoxed by the unusual events that occur around him. Travelling in a three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxi in Thailand one evening, I discovered that elephants on the road have to be fitted with tail lights (literally) once it is dark. Probably the only law in Bangkok that is always enforced.
I would have thought most people would have noticed an elephant on the roadway, tail light or not, because isn’t it said you never forget an elephant? But what is an honest chronicler to do? The tuk-tuk swerved around the elephant, narrowly missing every other car on the road as the driver removed his hands from the handlebar control to scream more efficiently at all the other drivers. Nightlife in Bangkok is really exciting, just like it says in the brochure.
On the tenth anniversary of her father’s death, a woman in Transylvania (I know) was waiting in a queue at a red traffic light next to a necropolis (see what I mean?) when she glanced at the car in front of her. Its number plate read LUV DAD. I think the appropriate word here is ‘Spooky’. (He would have made an interesting eighth dwarf.)
Even stranger was the experience of a man taking part in a fencing tournament in Knife Hill, New Mexico — I couldn’t make this up if I tried — where the winner would be first to score five points, or ‘touches’. He won what he believed to be the first touch, but the referee indicated the match was over and he had won. His opponent seemed to agree, offering a handshake (but probably glaring daggers), as did the scoreboard, showing his triumph by 5 points to 1.
Had a mystery spirit guided his swordplay unbeknownst to him? D’Artagnan, perhaps, or Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or Errol Flynn? Answer came there none, but our hero took the $500 prize home anyway, wouldn’t you?
The widespread delusion that there is anything logical about human existence is often challenged in the most absurd of ways. It is simply logic as distraction, with no other meaningful purpose. Why else would office workers calling themselves ‘Secret Santa’ give each other gifts like Astrology Soap, Long Distance Friendship Lamps, and Leon Trotsky Socks? (Red, presumably.)
The oldest known “Beware of the Dog” sign — Cave Canem — was in Pompeii in Italy and was 2000 years old. The inhabitants of Pompeii, it turned out, had a bit more to be worried about than being bitten, with the volcano Vesuvius only 5 miles distant. Pompeii was also 15 miles south of Naples, is that where the saying originated, “See Naples and die”?
Normal things sometimes also happen to strange people. When a cowboy in a saloon heard that Brown Paper Billy had just been hanged, he was informed that Billy always wore a brown paper shirt, brown paper trousers and brown paper shoes. “What did they hang him for?” asked the cowboy.
“Rustling,” said the bartender.
