This story is for fun. It really doesn’t fit into this Substack as a specific linguistic concern; however, it might show how our minds work against us to draw faulty conclusions.
In December 2022, I lost two T-shirts that I wore daily. They are as follows:
When not wearing them out to lunch, I kept these two shirts on a chair for over a year. They have mysteriously disappeared.
Brenda and I cannot imagine the destiny of the shirts. We are the only people who have entered our house unaccompanied for years. We considered every possibility, including one of break-in and theft, but we cannot conceive of such. And why would anyone steal my shirts and not molest other valuables?
This brought back memories of our horrible nightmare from decades before.
In 1980, I was working at Nautilus for Arthur Jones and Brenda was working for Stetson University. We owned only one car, a 1964 Chevy II Nova.
My supervisor, Jim Flanagan had been fiercely negotiating with the organizer of a sportsmedicine conference to be held in Spokane, Washington. Jim was reluctant to send me as the trip from Florida was long and expensive and the organizer was permitting only 15 minutes for me to speak to the attendees in session. After a protracted debate, the organizer acquiesced to Jim’s demand that I was to speak for 30 minutes.
Brenda had scheduled a trip to visit her parents in North Carolina, leaving on the Thursday of the same week that I was to leave the next day (Friday). She and I worked out a perfect plan for us both to have the car.
In the Nova, Brenda drove to the old Orlando airport (McCoy) (about 40 miles from where we lived in Lake Helen, Florida) and parked in short-term parking. As Jim was to leave the following morning (Friday) from the same airport, he drove me in his car to the airport to fetch the Nova on that evening of the day (Thursday) when Brenda left. According to the plan, I would drive the Nova back to our home, then see clients at Nautilus (in Lake Helen) the next morning (Friday), then leave for the airport (again) to catch my flight out to Spokane Friday afternoon.
After Jim left me at the airport, I discovered that I did not have the ignition key to the Nova. Fortunately, one of the doors was not locked, thus affording me the option to hot-wire the starter. Not able to see in the dark, I burned my hand and abandoned the hot-wire idea.
I phoned Jim at his house—ten miles away—and he fetched me to sleep overnight at his house and arranged for his wife to drive me back to Lake Helen the next morning (Friday).
Meanwhile as I was waiting for Jim at the airport, I had to get the Nova from short-term parking over to long-term parking or sustain a very high parking charge. As I held the driver’s door open so that I could push the car AND control the steering wheel, I began to push the car out of its space. As I did, the edge of the open car door caught the fender of the car next to mine and slightly caved in its fender.
After getting the Nova into long-term, I returned to the damaged car and began to write a note on my business card to leave for the owner to phone me about the damage. As I was placing the card under a wiper blade, the owner appeared and was very forgiving of the damage.
Then Jim arrived, drove me to his house, and laid out the plan to get me back to Lake Helen the next morning.
I had foiled our great plan for us all to get out of town, but Jim had solved it. I would still have no car as it was parked at the Orlando airport awaiting Brenda’s return home (before I returned from Spokane), but a Nautilus courier would take me to catch my plane.
Upon arrival at our house on Monday morning, I was tight on time to get packed for the Spokane trip as I had originally planned on packing the night before.
Before leaving, Brenda mentioned that she had laundered all of my dress shirts so that I would have a good selection to choose from for my trip. At first, I noticed that the shirts (11) were not in our closet. I continued to pack while assuming that they were still in the laundry room. Once I had only the shirts remaining to be packed, I failed to find them in the laundry room. I then began to doubt my mental state.
I checked back and forth between the closet, laundry room, and all other areas of the house. Then I phoned Brenda. She assured me that all the shirts had been laundered and that they were hanging in the closet. After repeatedly insisting that they were where she said and hearing me deny her facts, she began to doubt her sanity.
I had no clean dress shirts!
Meanwhile, my secretary at Nautilus phoned me to report that my late-morning appointment had cancelled and that another Nautilus rep had stepped up to take my afternoon appointment. This greatly relieved my time crunch to allow me and Brenda to formulate another plan. She would shop the clothes outlets around Asheville to buy me a new shirt collection, while I planned to wear my shirt from the day before to Spokane and buy a couple of new shirts as soon as the stores in downtown Spokane opened on Saturday morning.
I completed my trip and speaking engagement, although the event organizer reneged on his agreement with Jim and allowed me only the original 15 minutes to speak. And Brenda and I were back home in Lake Helen the following Monday. But Brenda and I were extremely disoriented regarding the lost shirts. I easily proved to Brenda that they were missing, but neither of us could imagine their destiny. Could it be that one of us was lying, that one of us was playing a nasty trick on the other?
The mind races. The mind jumps to all kinds of irrationalities to explain the non-manipulative. Was this an act of God or the Devil? Was our Darwinianism being challenged?
I walked around our house and discovered that a makeshift platform had been placed just below a bathroom window. Was it possible that someone had broken into our house? I initially dismissed this as I remembered having multiple pistols laying around inside the house in open view. I then went back inside to find that all the guns were present and unmolested.
Then I saw that the paint on the window sill had been scuffed. I reported this to the local police who unsuccessfully tried to obtain fingerprints. A few weeks later they reported back that a gang of local kids had been caught breaking into houses as a lark. They were not stealing.
And there was the gnawing feeling of being violated as anyone who has been robbed can attest. We were confused and insecure… not a pleasant way to be.
But what about the shirts? Did they not take the shirts? And why fool with the shirts and not mess with the many firearms and other valuables laying around?
And will they return to try this again, and this time get the guns and cause some real harm?
Then, after a few more days, we found the shirts!
We found the shirts in the vestigial exhaust pipe of a defunct gas water heater. Some of the shirts were damaged with the soot from the exhaust pipe, but most were fine.
But why do this? Why hide the shirts? Was it merely the prank of the kids? We were spooked…
In my mind, I began to merge my experiences at Nautilus. The place was a hotbed of wild tales, intrigues, the cloak and dagger mystique of Arthur Jones. And visiting and working there occasionally was none other than G Gordan Liddy, the supposed mastermind of the infamous Watergate scandal.
I had recently read Liddy’s book, Will, and was then aware of his ruse to breach the office of psychiatrist, Lewis Fielding, as a cover to obtain information on Daniel Ellsberg (I believe, or was it to bug the place?). Was it possible that Arthur was bugging my house?
Then about a week later, I arrived at work to find the front counter in the Nautilus reception office covered with surveillance paraphernalia. Was this merely coincidental with the break-in at my house or part of sinister forces? I could not share my thoughts about this for many years.
Years later, at a dinner with Ed Farnham (long-time general manager of Nautilus, retired), I did share my story of steeped paranoia. He chuckled and remarked that he completely understood how my mind could have gone so dark.
[My father had a brief episode during medical school whereby he, too, had no clothes to wear (for class).
It was Melvin’s habit to study at night with a large raccoon on his shoulder that compassionately preened Melvin’s scalp as he studied.
When Melvin was deeply immersed in thought, the raccoon inadvertently nipped his scalp and Melvin started by raising his hand and accidentally striking the raccoon’s nose.
As raccoons—even pets—never forgive, a battle royale ensued between the raccoon and Melvin. Melvin grabbed a mop and used it to push the raccoon into a closet and into an old footlocker and shut its lid. Not remembering that the footlocker had a hole in the back of it, Melvin returned to studying for rest of the night.
During the night, the angry raccoon reached through the hole and pulled all of Melvin’s clothes that hung in the closet into the footlocker and shredded them.]