I wrote this last September:

A few years ago, when I had this night job at UPS, I worked with a cool African guy named Cosmos. One day I remarked that he had an unusual name, and he replied, "Yes. Many people tell me this. Did you know the name Cosmos is also the name of a flower?"

"Really?" I said. "I didn't know that." And I didn't. I had never, not in my entire life, heard of the cosmos flower.

The very next day, when I went to my day job, one of the old ladies who worked in the office was wearing a sweatshirt screen-printed with various flowers: the rose, the sunflower, the columbine... and the cosmos. I soon ran across more references to the cosmos flower -- in a magazine, overheard conversation in a coffee shop, on some nature program while flipping channels. It took me twenty-six years to learn of the cosmos flower's existence, and two weeks later I was ready to give university lectures on the thing.

I've always found this sort of thing fascinating, so a few months ago I started keeping track every time it happened:

• On May 24, I read an article on Slate by George Saunders called "Exit Strategy: How To Leave Iraq In Three Simple Steps." Appended to the article was a note that George Saunders had written a collection of short stories called Pastoralia.
  
  I had never before heard of George Saunders or Pastoralia.
  
  Later that day, I was reading a post by Mac at Pesky Apostrophe about her summer reading list. Do you think George Saunders' Pastoralia was on there?
  
  Discussion Question: Why do adults make summer reading lists? Every day is pretty much the same when you're a working adult, whether it's July or January: Wake up, down a shot of whiskey to get rid of the shakes, feign productive work, get home, read for a while, sob uncontrollably in the corner till bedtime. It's not like we're schoolkids who need something to do from June through August besides watching Nickelodeon and getting each other pregnant.
  
  
• I visited a friend recently at his new house. When he gave me the grand tour, he pointed out the flooring, which would have looked remarkably like hardwood flooring to a person with thumbtacks stuck in his eyes. "It's that Pergo fake wood flooring," my friend explained.
  
  I had never before heard of Pergo fake wood flooring.
  
  The next day, I was talking to my boss about some improvements she was making in her townhouse. "I'm putting in that Pergo stuff," she said.
  
  Discussion Question: Why is it that when people show off their new house/condo/apartment/trailer, they always say, "Let me give you the grand tour"? When did we all agree to call it "the grand tour"? And the tours are never that "grand" anyway -- mostly you just take a regular tour of the bathrooms and the basement and stuff. If you're going to give me a "grand tour," I want to see the bathrooms and the basement plus all-I-can-eat chicken wings or fellatio from your barely legal daughter.
  
  
• On July 26, I read an article on Slate about the Man vs. Horse Marathon, a man-against-beast race held in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells.
  
  I had never heard of the Man vs. Horse Marathon.
  
  Two days later, while idly reading the "marathon" entry at Wikipedia, I noticed at the very bottom of the page a link to Wikipedia's Man vs. Horse Marathon article.
  
  Discussion Question: Does anybody want this IndyCar racing PC game I found in the Cheerios box? I'm serious -- the first person to email me an address gets the game, no charge for postage.
  
  
• On July 28, an "editorial" at The Onion titled "Where The Fuck Is Diane With My Fair Trade Coffee?" included a reference to Working Assets Long Distance.
  
  I had never before heard of Working Assets Long Distance.
  
  Ten minutes later, I clicked on a blog link to a website called WorkingForChange.com that featured a banner ad for Working Assets Long Distance.
  
  Discussion Question: Working Assets offers a competitive long-distance plan, charging $5.95 per month and 5¢ per minute for interstate calls. Working Assets donates 1% of phone charges to progressive organizations such as the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood. They reimburse your switch fees, print their bills on 100% recycled paper, and give you 12 free pints of delicious Ben & Jerry's ice cream for signing up! Yet I haven't signed up, and probably won't. Could I be any more of a lazy bitch?
  
  
• A few weeks ago, my company received a check from a company called Hilti.
  
  I had never before heard of Hilti.
  
  That evening, while driving west on I-70 to get home, I noticed a building along the side of the highway with a large sign reading HILTI.
  
  Discussion Question: When New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey said, "I am a gay American," why did he put it that way? Why didn't he just say, "I'm gay"? If I were gay, I wouldn't go around saying, "I'm a gay accounts receivable clerk" or "I'm a gay baseball fan." And why did he bother putting on a suit and tie for his resignation speech? He was resigning, for chrissake. Why not show up 20 minutes late, wearing faded blue jeans with a stained UCLA sweatshirt, and swilling from a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam?

That last example is particularly strange. I drive both ways on I-70 to get to and from a job I've held for two years, so I've passed that HILTI sign roughly a thousand times. I had to have seen that sign -- I just never noticed it.

I wonder: what else am I not noticing?

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/12/2004 11:40:00 PM