Thursday, February 27, 2003

I’ve been unable to get

I’ve been unable to get independent confirmation, but if Bob Edwards says it, I believe it.  And what he said this morning had all the makings of a medical blockbuster.  One of the cute little stories they do on the half hour on Morning Edition concerned a woman who actually gave birth in the “Easy Pass” lane of an underground thoroughfare in New York.  Let’s put aside, for the moment, the monsterous Freudian implications of subterrenean birth, or birth in a car, or birth at all… my attention was first drawn to the happy coincidence of “Easy Pass” for the natal process.  Imagine if she’d been in the “breech lane” or the “erythroblastosis fetalis” lane or the “like hell I’m going out there” lane.  “Easy Pass” sounds like a good choice for all expectant mothers.  And what’s more, even though this mom started out driving by herself when she went underground, by the time she got back above ground she had another passenger in the car and could legally drive in the high occupancy lanes.  This is probably the world’s fastest onset of carpool tunnel syndrome.  Thank you very much.