Today, while stopped at a red light on my drive in to work, I noticed a delivery truck from a mexican/carribean food distributor. The name of the company was Ochos Rios. I don’t know why the truck caught my attention but I looked at it the whole time I was waiting for the light to change. Later on I was working the MSN online crossword puzzle while taking a break and came across the following clue for a 4 letter word: “Jamaica’s Ochos ____”.
Cool, I know that one!
We had so much trouble with our cable some time back that I knew the tech by name. We’ll call him Justin here. He came by four times, I believe it was, on follow-up calls. It finally started doing okay, but messed up again a couple months later. I called Time Warner, but misdialed the number. Guess who I got? That’s right — Justin. At home. And no, I didn’t have the number before, and he had never told it to me. Freaky.
Well, the company’s name may well be Ochos Rios, but the Jamaican resort is Ocho Rios. Although the name means “eight rivers” in Spanish, this site says that Ocho Rios may be a corruption of las chorreras (“the spouts”, in reference to the multitude of waterfalls in the area).
Yesterday’s epidode of the Jeopardy! Kids’ Tournament featured a category called “Palindromic Places”. Mentioned in one clue was the English village of Eye. After I finished watching the program, the first SDMB thread I opened contained a reference to that rather obscure community. What are the odds?
I have a teenage son, and (as with many teenagers) he’s sure he knows everything. One day last week we were going to a restaurant, and just to annoy him (I was in a mood to be difficult), I told him that his mother and I were tired, and he had to navigate. He’s not of an age to drive yet, so doesn’t quite have the roads down. Or so I thought.
He does okay at first, so after a few turns, I start to be even more difficult.
“Go straight here, Dad.”
“The road curves left – if I go straight, we’ll crash!”
“‘Straight’ means follow the lane, DUH!”
“I can’t follow it, it’s not going anywhere, it’s just laying on the pavement!”
“DAD! You KNOW what I mean!”
“No, I don’t.”
“Follow the car in front of you!”
“Okay, but I hope they’re eating somewhere good.”
“Fine, forget it, I’m not navigating.”
So I follow the car. We’re in no hurry; I’m trying to decide if I should take one wrong turn (when the car in front of us first diverges from our path) and ask my son for “help”, or if I’m tiring of the joke.
“I’m still following this car.”
“That’s fine, he’s taking the right exit, Dad.”
“Hmmm. Okay, I’m still following him.”
“Good, he’s turning the right way.”
Yes, it turns out that the car in front of us drove all the way to the same restaurant we were going to. Several miles from where we first saw the car, and not in a straight line, either, nor to the only or closest restaurant.
My son was incredibly smug.
“See, Dad? I told you to follow that car.”
That was his mundane serendipity.
I knew that. I’m trying to decide between “typo” and “stupidity” as a defense. I’ll go with “stupidity”, since I made the same mistake twice.
I remember telling my Dad things that he wouldn’t believe because I was a Teenager. 'Bout half the time I was corrrect but He wouldn’t listen. To bad he kicked the bucket before we could really listen to each other and understand.
Oh well…