It all started with my cold feet. Every night when we climb into bed Mark lays cozy and warm, radiating heat on this side of the bed while I freeze on my side, unable to warm my own covers. Usually this is the time when I shove my icicle toes under his legs and he gets the hint so he rolls over to toast my side of the covers before we fall asleep.
Well last night my little toe-toes were particularly chilly. After some 15 to 20 minutes of warming on Mark's legs they were
still quite frosty. Mark, finally feeling quite sleepy, pushed my feet aside with his as an
"it's time for me to sleep" kind of hint. Well I tried to be warm on my own but it just wasn't working! I slowly and sneakily scooted my feet across the bed toward him until my icy little toes made contact. That's when it all happened...
Mark rolls over and exclaims, "You're 30 seconds away from a heat source and you're cold!"
"Huh?"
"What do you mean, 'Huh?'"
"I mean, how can the 12 inches of distance between our feet take 30 seconds for me to cross to get to yours?"
"It's a measure of distance, not time."
"Seconds is a measure of time."
"No, it's not"
"Yes it is! Plus it's not constant. I could move my foot
this fast and touch you in a half a second. But then I could move my foot
thiiiiis fast, and not touch you for like, ten seconds... it's a measure of time and it's not consistent. Or did you mean that I was 30 seconds
off of a heat source? Like I took my feet off of your legs for 30 seconds and I'm cold again...
that makes sense."
"No, I meant away."
"But that
doesn't make sense!"
"Sure it does. You were
on the heat source, now you're
away from it."
"Okay, if I was
on the heat source, then the opposite of that would be
off of the heat source. You know, on and off are opposites?"
"Okay, no. Seconds is a smaller measurement of degrees which is a measure of distance; like from a reference point."
"What??"
"Like, if the center of the earth were the reference point for the angle between your feet and mine. It's a measure of seconds."
This would be the time when I broke into hysterical laughter at my fun-loving nerd of a husband. I managed to communicate through breaks in my squawks...
"Let me get this straight. You just used the
center of the EARTH to measure the angle of space between our feet which are lying a mere
12 inches from each other in this bed?!?!"
I mocked his nerdiness and we laughed for a solid ten minutes straight at which point I told him this story would be my next blog post. He strongly objected.
In the end we decided that the misunderstanding all came down to that fateful grammatical error: "away" as opposed to "off of." If he had only said "off of" I would have assumed he meant it they way I understood and he obviously would have meant it the way he understood... we never would have known there was any misunderstanding. =)
Mark finally conceded to my posting of the story with one condition: The post must be titled "A Grammatical Error in the Space-Time Continuum."
And there you have it, folks.
