Friday, June 27, 2008

Second Law of Thermodynamics

Our new car seems to have a target on it. It's been hit twice (while parked) since we bought it a year ago. My dad summed up the situation thusly:

"Yup. You just can't keep anything nice."

I was discussing this with my boss, who was a physicist in a former life, and he informed me that my dad's pithy statement was actually a simplification of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. "The universe, as a whole, tends toward disorder," he told me, with the glee of a professor expounding the laws of the physics to a dewy-eyed freshman. "You're always going to have to expend energy to keep that particular structure of molecules perfectly ordered."

Apparently, my shiny new car is offending the universe by being so pristine. Bummer.

Then I got to thinking. Maybe the disorder that's being inflicted on my vehicle is due to too much organization elsewhere in the universe. Maybe there are places and things in the universe that are organized so rigidly and precisely that the universe has no choice but to continually put dents in my car, just to compensate.

So, please... join the fight to keep my car in one piece. Stop cleaning your houses. Leave your dirty dishes in the sink. Let your kids scatter their toys about. Forget about vacuuming. Accumulate piles of bills on your desk. Stop doing so much dang laundry.

Many of you have already donated nobly and generously to this worthy cause, but there is still more to be done! I hereby pledge to not make my bed for a least a week and leave my clothes in a crumpled heap on the floor at night in order to spare my car another humiliating trip to the body shop!

Who is with me?!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I have been doing my part. Especially this summer.

Shauna said...

I am so already there. Although now I'm really grateful to you for giving me an excuse.

You actually make your bed?

momof5foxes said...

I'm with the other two here! My sink is currently overflowing with dirty dishes, I need to apply for a mountain name on Utah's topographical map for my laundry, and toys...weeeeeeeeeeeeelll, let's just say they are more than liberally 'sprinkled' around...oh, and the bills and junk mail? I haven't seen my countertop in weeks!