So the heat lamp in the overhead fan in one of my bathrooms
burnt out. While waiting for a Barnes & Noble to open, I went into a large
Fred Meyer’s and found one. Then when the bookstore opened, I bought two books:
Too High & Too Steep is the true account of the reshaping
of Seattle’s hills. The hills in Seattle used to be steeper than the hills in
San Francisco. Immense hoses were used to wash the earth from the tops of the
hills into Elliott Bay. More earth was moved in these efforts than in the digging
of the Panama Canal.
Inherit the Stars looked interesting enough to buy in paper
form. The themes sound like fantasy, but it’s science fiction. Obviously, I’ll
have to read it first to tell you what I think.
On my drive home, I could hear this soft, occasional
jingling sound. It was definitely from the right and behind me, and outside the
car. Oh no. It wasn’t constant, nor
did it seem timed to a set revolution of the wheels. I pulled in to a McDonald’s
to investigate.
A short inspection showed nothing unusual on that part of
the car. Nothing was loose in the trunk. Then I had the oddest idea.
I tipped the heat lamp on the seat next to me on its side
and put a plastic bag with something else inside against the top of it. I took
off again.
Sure enough, I could hear the jingling sound again, but now
it was muffled. It was the filament inside the bulb. In a heat lamp, the filament
is so large, I could hear it making that jingling sound from the car’s motion. The sound must have been reflected off one of the car’s windows, so I thought it was coming from outside.
So I stopped at another McDonald’s and had an ice cream cone
to celebrate.
