Friday, February 17, 2006

watch for falling coconuts

the other day ben notices that one of the tires on the car is in bad need of repair.. ben has ordered new tires but they will take a couple days to get here.. so ben tells me about this questionable tire... bad move.. all i worry about now is that the tire will explode on me while driving and i will run into something or someone.. so i ask ben 'is it ok to drive' and ben says to me 'yeah.. just be careful'.. ok.. maybe it's just me.. but how do i do that? what excatly does that look like? 'can i drive it on the freeway.. can i go the speed limit' i ask.. ben says 'of course... just be careful' what does that mean? i have no idea.. i think it means nothing.. it's just something ben is saying so that if something did happen he could tell me 'i told you to be careful'
.. this reminded me of something i saw in thailand.. before the tsunami phi phi was a very busy island.. in order to avoid injuries, the hotels on the island would employee locals to climb up all the palm trees and remove the coconuts..after the tsunami the island was very slow and the coconuts where no longer removed from the trees.. instead there were signs every where that said 'beware of falling coconuts'... what does that mean? if a coconut falls from a tree and your underneath it.. there is no way that 'being aware' is going to do you any good.. and it's not like you can avoid walking near palm trees.. they are everywhere.. so i'm thinking the purpose of the sign is so that when you get hit on the head with a coconut the people on phi phi island can shrug their shoulders and say 'we don't know what happened.. we told her to be careful'..

1 comment:

The Shib said...

An excellent point Chara.