November 10, 2005
"If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you."
Calvin Coolidge said that. If I had paid attention to that advice this week, I would have saved $67. But how did I know I wasn't dealing with the one-in-ten-thing that needed a remedy?
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17 comments:
What kind of car trouble would cost $67? Actually, I'm not trying to create suspense. The actual nonproblem is sort of too boring to describe.
$10 says it was a visit by a pest-control company to determine whether there are squirrels chez Althouse.
Feh. You shouldn't have bet against Corzine.
It probably has nothing to do with this.
Fanbelt, and you listenend to it thumping for three days before it let go in the middle of an interesction?
Pat: You have it backwards. I spent the money, but if I had waited two days, it wouldn't have had to spend it. That is, by trying to solve a problem early, I spent money on a problem that went away by itself. Coolidge's quote is about not solving problems on the theory that nearly all of them will solve themselves. It's kind of the opposite of "a stitch in time saves nine," which means that solving problems early is cheaper.
Eeew, Ann.. A rash?
Ann:In all honesty I wasn't really describing you, I was describing me. As in the remote possibility that the thunping would go away so I wouldn't have to open the hood.
What am I missing about the $67?
Oh good. I thought I was the only one who wasn't in the know.
My first, and really, only guess was about the pesky Time Select thing.
BTW, great advice from Silent Cal, the man of whom the waspish Alice Roosevelt once said, "he looks like he was weaned on a pickle".
Republican presidents are never appreciated.
Cheers,
Victoria
I'm really not trying to withhold information. I spent $67 having something shipped when an institutional policy was suddenly changed, making a previously unneeded object necessary, but then the policy was changed back making the shipped thing unnecessary again. It called to mind the Coolidge quote. I'd felt good about expeditiously dealing with the problem, but then realized I would have been better off being the sort of person who lets things go and hopes for the best. Which I am too a lot of the time. Like when I kept waiting for a pain in a tooth to go away (and had to have it extracted in the end!).
Professor A,
Look at the upside of these decisions: today's post and the previous novocaine-blogging.
Ann,
I came out on the upside in one of my classes in grad school. This was a new class with a small discussion-group format, and the prof was still figuring out what he wanted the class to do. We were told to write a major paper that would be 80-90% of the grade, but the prof kept hemming and hawing about the nature of the project, etc. A few people wrote the paper while most of us didn't. And I got an A- or B+ for the class without having done the major assignment.
It still irritates my wife to this day because she's the conscientious type who turns in all her assignments on time. So I waited and hoped for the best, and saved my $67.
Ruth Anne: "Look at the upside of these decisions: today's post and the previous novocaine-blogging."
It's very early in the morning, and reading that, I thought you were saying that my other posts of the day were mind-numbing! I was all: why does Ruth Anne hate my blog all of a sudden?
Victoria wrote about Silent Cal: Republican presidents are never appreciated.
Yeah, but Cal got out of office just in time, didn't he? Perhaps he should have paid more attention to some of those other troubles coming down the road!
In January 1929, Cal could have said, "Apres moi, le deluge." But even that might have been too wordy for Cal. Maybe he would have just said, "You're f*cked."
wildaboutharrie: Here's another use for those unused diapers. They're great for making weening ice-packs. Fill them with water [they're quite absorbent] and put them in the freezer in a "cup" shape [not folded flat]. Then, when the nursing mom is needing some relief, they make great breast-shaped ice-packs! I don't know if that'll blow through a case, but it's a shot.
You could also donate them to a crisis pregnancy place like BirthRight, which puts together layettes for new moms.
Personally, I vote for another baby.
Professor A: sorry about the miscommunication. My sentence probably needed numerals for the two up-sides. I tried to find "novocaine blogging" in your archive and was unsuccessful or else I would've included the link.
Maybe he would have just said, "You're f*cked."
That crusty old Yankee would never have used such an earthy Deep South expression, Icepick!
Mind you, there's that other famous anecdote about he, Mrs. Coolidge and rooster's sex lives, isn't there?
That ("Tell Mrs. Coolidge THAT")has to be the best Presidential retort ever.
Cheers,
Victoria
Funny how stating in effect, 'the details aren't important' immediately starts rampant speculation about details.
My theory is that we are all afraid of becoming timeloose like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five.
Demanding the details fends off timeloose-ness by closing the loops and keeps our brains used to cause and effect.
(which we may intuitively suspect as being a purely learned construct and prone to failure if we allow the foundation of narrative to become jumbled in any instance)
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