THE QUIZ OF THE DAY

08.09.04


I would like to describe you an event and I expect your comment afterwards. Last week, when I went to sit the test for the driver’s licence, my colleague Angeliki told me: ‘Drive carefully. Look at your mirror and don’t pull the handbrakes all the time.’. I replied: ‘I’ll drive carefully and I won’t be pulling the handbrakes all the time, since I can’t leave my hands anyway, neither from the accelerator nor from the wheel.’. This answer took Angeliki by surprise, who then said: ‘You are so dull. Normally, you should have laughed, because nobody pulls the handbrakes at the time of the test but you are probably stuck on the problem.’.

Regardless of the truth of that idea, I think it’s absolutely natural to think directly of the practical problems of a procedure, even if the possibility of exceeding the limits is referred to as a joke. It’s like saying to a fat woman: ‘Take care not to pass through the bars, because you’ll fall from the balcony.’. What will she reply? ‘Are you kidding me? I can’t even pass from the door.’. That’s what she’ll say and she won’t be dull. Anyway, I passed the test without pulling the handbrakes all the time.