My friend Dave called me to do some work on the cabinets in his kitchen. He had some new doors that needed mounting, and so I put some tools in a box and headed over.
After showing me everything, Dave started right in with the kibitzing; he was worried that the wood was hard, and he thought my screws might crack it if I didn't drill the right size pilot holes. "These are new doors." he reminded me.
I told him, "Dave, I have every size drill from a human hair, up to an inch and a half, and that's not counting the hole saws. I think I'll find something that will work for the pilot holes."
"But how will you line the holes up, to get the doors on straight?" he wanted to know. "They have to look good."
"Oh! You're right; that is a good point," I agreed. "I guess I'll have to measure stuff."
"No, I'm serious; I mean, how will you do it?"
"I'll clamp the doors to the brackets, and mark the locations of the holes very carefully,"
I reassured him. "You don't have to worry about it."
"I don't know about using clamps," he told me doubtfully. "Do you have a type of clamp that won't damage the doors?" This was starting to get on my nerves.
"I'll pad the clamps, of course. And I'm not going to do this job unless you go into a different room while I'm working."
So Dave went into the other room with his laptop, to watch ebay and see how his paintings were selling. Back in the kitchen, I fumbled a clamp, and it made a noise. "Are you OK?" shouted Dave from the living room. "How's it going?"
"Don't talk to me, or I'm leaving," I shouted back.
"OK. I'm just checking." Dave subsided back to swearing at the computer, where the ebay people were certainly underbidding his goods, the morons. "Those bastards," I heard him muttering angrily.
I kept working as silently as I could, although the pivoting arms of the corner cabinet were puzzling me. They had a motion that I wasn't familiar with; I couldn't get the clamps to fit, and I wasn't sure how I was going to locate the screw holes. Dave's radar picked up on the silence. "Can I do anything to help?" he called a few moments later.
Now he's finally got me rattled; I can't figure this out. "I can't do it!" I admitted. "I'm going home; you'll have to get someone else; there must be a template or something that they use."
Dave instantly came pattering into the room, full of concern. "You can't figure it out?" he asked. Yes, he had known all along, it would be too tough. "It's OK," he told me. "We tried." Nothing ever works right; Dave knew that much. "I'll have to hire a cabinetmaker," he concluded, with a deep sigh. "It'll be expensive. I'll call Ted."
Ted! I worked for Ted sometimes, too. He's a brilliant cabinetmaker, a mentor to me in that line. I could picture Ted coming into Dave's kitchen, and looking at my unfinished job. Ted would be shaking his head sadly, and he would be thinking, "Leonard, Leonard… " That image was too much for me. I suddenly decided: By gum, Ted's right! I can do this!
I picked up my measuring tape and my square, and I went back to the problem, this time with determination. But now Dave was not so easy to convince. Disaster is always right around the corner in Dave's world. "No, Len. We tried, OK? I don't want you to screw it up. You don't have to do it."
"I'm fine. I'm OK now. Go back in the other room and check your computer. I think they're really screwing you on ebay."
"No, Len. You'll mess it up. These are new doors. You know how expensive these cabinets were?"
I finally persuaded Dave to go away, though he was now extremely uneasy. "What could go wrong?" I shouted cheerfully. That didn't help. I went ahead with my measuring and marked the holes, confident at this point that I had them correct. From the other room, I heard Dave explode with a string of expletives in his Brooklyn accent; apparently, things on ebay had just taken an ugly turn. I began drilling the holes. I knew Dave could hear the sound of my drill, and I could feel him wincing.
"What if you put the holes in the wrong place?" his voice wailed.
"I'll patch it up, don't worry!" I kept drilling.
"No! Those are expensive doors!"
"What do they say again?" I called with demonic glee, "Measure once and cut twice? Oh, damn!"
I went on, "I cut this same board three times, and it's still too short!"
Dave came running into the room. "What board? What are you talking about?" Dave is rarely in the mood to laugh, and this certainly wasn't one of those times. "What do you mean, 'cut the board'?"
"Never mind." I had screwed the mounting brackets onto the doors, nice and snug, and now I wrangled the doors into position in the corner cabinet, then I screwed the pivoting arms onto the brackets. Now came the moment of truth! I swung the doors closed, and they lined up perfectly.
"Cut the board three times and it's still too short!" I cackled, way more relieved than I cared to admit to Dave. "Still too short; get it?" No he didn't get it, but it didn't matter.
"You did it!" he said. "They're perfect! How did you figure it out?" For one moment in Dave's life, all the stress was forgotten. "How did you do it?"
"I have no idea," I told him.
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Current Optical Theory
It is well known that one cannot see as well at night, as one can during the day. What follows is a theory which may help to understand this phenomenon.
During the day, the optical beams emitted from the eye pass easily through the rarified aether, and upon reverberation back into the eye, an image is formed. However, as nightfall begins, there is a cascading descent of myriads of darktons (this is, literally, the fall of night). These descending particles being dense, they render the aether into a viscous medium which inhibits the passage of eye-beams. Ergo, one's vision becomes less keen at night.
The fall of darktons slows and stops by midnight, and the particles are gradually absorbed by the ground and and other objects (this accounts for why it is impossible to see through a rock). The rising of the sun, with its powerful rays, completes the dissolving and absorption of the remaining darktons, and one's eye-beams can once more penetrate through the aether without impediment.
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During the day, the optical beams emitted from the eye pass easily through the rarified aether, and upon reverberation back into the eye, an image is formed. However, as nightfall begins, there is a cascading descent of myriads of darktons (this is, literally, the fall of night). These descending particles being dense, they render the aether into a viscous medium which inhibits the passage of eye-beams. Ergo, one's vision becomes less keen at night.
The fall of darktons slows and stops by midnight, and the particles are gradually absorbed by the ground and and other objects (this accounts for why it is impossible to see through a rock). The rising of the sun, with its powerful rays, completes the dissolving and absorption of the remaining darktons, and one's eye-beams can once more penetrate through the aether without impediment.
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Jan's Psychotic Plants
I lived for a few years in a large group house with seven other people. On one occasion, I was having some friends visiting overnight, and my housemate Jan was going to be away, so she offered us the use of her room.
Jan's room was next to mine on the third floor of the old Victorian. Her place was filled with life; birds, a dog, and a luxurious profusion of potted tropical plants. I often watered Jan's plants for her when she was away, and took care of the birds. So this was the room where I was going to sleep for the night, while my friends would be using my room. Jan had offered this arrangement, and I felt that it was going to be interesting, to sleep in the jungle among all those plants. At first I had a slight uneasiness about the idea, but I dismissed the feeling.
As it turns out, my night in Jan's place was filled with hellish nightmares: in my tortured dreams all night, the plants were gruesome and hostile; they bent over the bed, writhing and emanating a demonic energy; they were jealous of my intrusion, commanding me get out of that place, or die.
As soon as it was first light, I shook myself awake and got out of that room. I spent a groggy morning in the kitchen before anybody else got up, drinking coffee, calming myself down and letting the unpleasant reverberations slowly dissipate.
I never told Jan that I had had such a dreadful night in her bed. She was a very sweet person, we got along well, and I never perceived any sort of negative energy from her. The whole episode was strange and a bit embarrassing; and that's why I never mentioned it to her.
Some time after that episode, I had another friend visiting. Again Jan was going to be away, and again she offered the use of her room for the night. I had no wish to repeat the experiment myself, but I thought there was no reason not to let my friend Allen use the room. Allen is a plant person; his avocation is cultivating rare plants, and I felt that he would be delighted in the variety and profusion of plants to be found in Jan's "jungle". Jan's room was also the nicest one in the house; a very elegant room filled with arched windows, air and light. I decided I didn't need to mention to Allen about the peculiar reaction I'd had when I slept there, but I'll have to admit, I was curious to see how he would like the room.
As it turns out, Allen was not amused. Amazingly enough, when I met him in the hall the next morning, he looked shattered and wild-eyed. "That was the worst night I've ever spent; I hardly slept at all!" he exclaimed accusingly, as if somehow it was my fault. "I was having horrible nightmares all night!"
Even now I cannot account for it; was it just a coincidence that the same thing happened to us both? Maybe it was my fault that I let him sleep there without warning him, although truthfully, I had no reason to believe that the same thing would happen to him.
After that, I became really curious to know what Jan would make of all this, but I still thought best not to mention it to her. And I never did.
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Jan's room was next to mine on the third floor of the old Victorian. Her place was filled with life; birds, a dog, and a luxurious profusion of potted tropical plants. I often watered Jan's plants for her when she was away, and took care of the birds. So this was the room where I was going to sleep for the night, while my friends would be using my room. Jan had offered this arrangement, and I felt that it was going to be interesting, to sleep in the jungle among all those plants. At first I had a slight uneasiness about the idea, but I dismissed the feeling.
As it turns out, my night in Jan's place was filled with hellish nightmares: in my tortured dreams all night, the plants were gruesome and hostile; they bent over the bed, writhing and emanating a demonic energy; they were jealous of my intrusion, commanding me get out of that place, or die.
As soon as it was first light, I shook myself awake and got out of that room. I spent a groggy morning in the kitchen before anybody else got up, drinking coffee, calming myself down and letting the unpleasant reverberations slowly dissipate.
I never told Jan that I had had such a dreadful night in her bed. She was a very sweet person, we got along well, and I never perceived any sort of negative energy from her. The whole episode was strange and a bit embarrassing; and that's why I never mentioned it to her.
Some time after that episode, I had another friend visiting. Again Jan was going to be away, and again she offered the use of her room for the night. I had no wish to repeat the experiment myself, but I thought there was no reason not to let my friend Allen use the room. Allen is a plant person; his avocation is cultivating rare plants, and I felt that he would be delighted in the variety and profusion of plants to be found in Jan's "jungle". Jan's room was also the nicest one in the house; a very elegant room filled with arched windows, air and light. I decided I didn't need to mention to Allen about the peculiar reaction I'd had when I slept there, but I'll have to admit, I was curious to see how he would like the room.
As it turns out, Allen was not amused. Amazingly enough, when I met him in the hall the next morning, he looked shattered and wild-eyed. "That was the worst night I've ever spent; I hardly slept at all!" he exclaimed accusingly, as if somehow it was my fault. "I was having horrible nightmares all night!"
Even now I cannot account for it; was it just a coincidence that the same thing happened to us both? Maybe it was my fault that I let him sleep there without warning him, although truthfully, I had no reason to believe that the same thing would happen to him.
After that, I became really curious to know what Jan would make of all this, but I still thought best not to mention it to her. And I never did.
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