Fathom is a good word. For example: I cannot fathom why the people who park at the Broadview branch of the Seattle Public Library have such a difficult time sticking it between the lines. I wonder if people who drive like that, who care so little for other people, who think only, obviously, of themselves, would ever use the word Fathom. Is it too intellectual for them. Ostensibly they possess a modicum of intelligence: they’re at the library, after all.
But have you seen some of the vehicles. There’s an inexorable association between IQ and income, isn’t there. Not that your average BMW driver is a genius. Indeed, most them are assholes too. Maybe’s it’s an extreme thing: expensive car, park like a jerk so no one dings your doors. Old jalopy: swerve into the space without paying attention to where your tires land.
Come to think of it, perhaps I should eschew the notion that there’s any chance these idiots are smart just because they’d rather get the latest David Baldacci for free than pay for the e-reader edition on their Kindle Fires.
I’ll be honest: I’m not sure, myself, why fathom, a unit of nautical measurement, can be used as a synonym for a thought process. It’s a metaphor, I suppose; one attempts to “plumb the depths of thought.” Or something. But what about that word, “plumb?” And just why are thoughts said to be “deep,” in the first place? As far as I know, if water is deep, light ceases top penetrate it. The deeper the thought, the darker, the murkier.
Forces of nature, is how I reconcile my angst when I see these terrible drives. That’s a bit of synecdoche there (or metonymy; I always get the two confused). I don’t actually see the actual drivers, I just see their terrible cars and their terrible parking jobs. I don’t ever see the wind that blows down the trees, either, just the crushed houses. But I can’t take the wind personally, and certain those awful people in their awful beaters didn’t park like that for my sake.
Maybe I should thank them, though, the way one thanks God. One claims that The Lord works in mysterious ways, and that can be a meditation on finding the Good in tragedy. Look, I know someone’s parking like a total fuckwit is not much a tragedy, but if I can something out it, like, a little self-examination and some pleasure around thinking of a nice word like “fathom,” well, that’s better than the alternative.
Besides, I don’t carry a knife with me, as the alternative, slashing tires, is rather illegal, I’m told.
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