Slightly Introspective

A

When ever I roll up an extension cord, of the fifty or one hundred foot variety, I can hear my father say, “Extension cords have a memory. Roll them back the way they ask and they’ll never argue with you later.”

I took this literally when I was a kid. Maybe because life back then was all about memorizing stuff: words and colors and equations and bible verses. Memory was strictly a human trait.

I’ve learned since then, how the wires inside of an extension cord are twisted—spiraled so that the cord will roll out and lay fairly flat, yet with a little added care in rolling it back, an extension cord will return to its original coil, in much the same way a cowboy’s lariat will. A Cowboy could explain anything in those days.

It struck me though, last night, as I was rolling up yet another cord and listening to the pearls of my father, rattling around in my head - along with a vision of an extension cord, thrown carelessly into the back of Brrrre… well, somebody’s… truck, because it was ‘too late to dick with them’, now in frustrating snarls - how there is something else to be learned here… about memories and treating things the way they ask to be treated… and the rewards therein. A parable of sorts?

I suppose that into every corner is swept some bit of wisdom; another way to elucidate the well-elucidated and what would seem to be fairly obvious. So, I am sorry for the re-hashing. It just struck me, and you know how I get when I am struck.