Sometimes the best choice is one that just doesn't make sense. And it can be damned difficult, if not impossible, to get anyone else to see the reason for making that choice. Take my conversation with Ms. Wonder just this morning.
"Poopsie," I said, "I'm going to Lowe's Home Improvement in Shallotte this morning so if there's anything you need in the way of hardware joy, just point to it and it's yours."
"Oh," she said in a dreamy sort of way, "The Lady of Shalott."
"No," I said, perhaps a little too loudly but only because I saw immediately what was about to happen and I was anxious to prevent it. This Wonder, although gifted with the most amazing brain--it must be a size 10 if an inch--can sometimes leave her stable orbit and fly off into deep space like an electron escaping the pull of the proton.
"No, not Shalott," I said, "the word is Shallotte. Listen to the difference: you said, Shalott, but I said Shallotte. I'm going to the Lowe's hardware store, not the Lowe's food store, in Shallotte, the village about 2o miles away. And do you know why I'm going to drive 20 miles when I could drive as little as 10 miles to the Lowe's in Wilmington?"
"No," she said, "but do you know why the lady left the confines of the tower on her island prison? It was because she chose to look at reality rather than the shadowy reflection in her mirror. In other words, she chose to live life as it comes rather than pretend."
"Yes, that's all very well," I said, "and I'm sure it was the best decision for her at the time--proper steps through the proper channels and all that--but it has nothing to do with the subject at hand."
"She saw Lancelot," she said with an even more dreamy voice. "And Tennyson doesn't tell us in the poem but I'm sure she fell in love with Lancelot at first glance and thought she must see him again even if the mysterious curse took her life."
"All in the blue unclouded weather," she recited and continued with some guff about Lancelot's saddle leather and helmet feathers burning like one flame, and whatnot.
"The Lowe's in Wilmington may be half the distance to Shallotte but the drive time is double."
"Out flew the web and floated wide," she continued with a spirited waving of the arms.
"Poopsie," I said in hopes of cutting this diversion short, but it didn't work. Never does. Don't know why I continue to try.
"The mirror crack'd from side to side; The curse is come upon me, cried The Lady of Shalott."
The timbre of her voice and the look in her eyes told me that she was possibly under the influence of the spirit. It's a phenomenon not unlike voodoo practitioners when they are ridden by the loa while in trance.
"Surely the term is not is come upon me," I offered. "Perhaps comes upon me or even has come upon me. Don't you think?"
"She lay in a boat and allowed the stream to carry her to Camelot," she said. "Tennyson says that she wrote her name on the boat. I wonder why she did that."
"Perhaps to make it easier to find among all the other boats when she was ready to leave," I said.
"I think the boat with her name was symbolic of the strict role women were forced to play in the 19th century when Tennyson was writing."
I decided to try once more to get back to the subject. I knew that chances were slim but sometimes you just have to do whatever you can muster.
"She may have arrived during rush hour on the river," I said. "A lot of traffic."
"There was no traffic on the river," she said. "At least Tennyson didn't mention it."
"Probably just an oversight," I said. " Did he mention that the road to Shallotte is a 4-lane highway with no traffic lights?"
"You can't mean Camelot," she said. I'm certain it was a single-track dirt road unless...are you implying that the road may have been one built by the Romans when they occupied Britain?"
"I'm talking about the drive down Ocean Highway to Shallotte, not the road to Camelot."
"When Lancelot saw her, he thought she was very beautiful. He said, She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace...."
"I'm talking about why I'm driving 20 miles to Shallotte when I could drive a mere 10 miles to Wilmington."
"Then you'd better get started," she said, "the Lady of Shalott was dead when she arrived."
"I'm not sure what you mean by that," I said, "but I'm sure I don't like it."
And with that, I wished her a ta-ta and ankled out the door. In mere minutes I was on the Ocean Highway, windows down, 38-Special singing Caught Up In You, and the volume turned up to 11. Halfway through the song, I felt the way I'm sure Donnie Van Zant must have felt during the recording sessions for the Special Forces album.
And now I'm sure you see why I began this post by saying that sometimes the best path is to forget common sense and rely instead on the uncommon variety.