The Universe is Snickering

14:36

Okay, I just saw something that could start a story.

First I saw a motorcycle parked on the shoulder. Then I noticed what I at first thought was old wreckage. When I got closer I realized that there was this huge pile of carefully stacked boxes. Like someone had been moving, decided that was far enough, and unloaded the contents of their U-Haul rental truck onto the grass beside the highway. Sitting on this pile of boxes was a young man who was staring down intently at what I think was a cellphone. There was no rental truck.

You can't make this stuff up.

I wish I had stopped. I couldn't have helped this young man. But I would have loved to have heard the story.

---

14:52

Okay. The Universe is fucking with me.

Two things happened after seeing the guy with the boxes.

First, I passed an SUV parked along the median of the highway. A handful of people were unloading boxes from the SUV and putting them into the back of a phone company work van. I believe the word that came out of my mouth was “random”.

After that, I passed a boat on a trailer, sitting by itself on the shoulder of the highway. Sitting behind the wheel of the boat was a gentleman smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper.

If I was anywhere but on a highway in North Carolina, I would swear that I had stumbled upon a series of performance art pieces.