Thu 27 Apr 2006
My wife is really smart. I mean really, really smart.
The other day I was quietly reading a book that we recently picked up at a used bookstore and read a particularily alarming passage. It was an account of the death of astronomer Tycho, who passed away when drank a bunch of wine at a party but he declined going to the restroom because he figured it would be rude to his hosts, and eventually his bladder exploded. Ouch, I mean, ouch. I remarked to my wife who was passing by, “Wow, that’s a really amazingly horrible way to die.” Her response, “what, bladder explosion?”
I was flabbergasted.
Just from my relatively innocuous comment she deduced exactly what I was talking about. She knew I was reading “Coming of Age in the Milky Way“, a nonfiction book about the history of astronomy, and I guess just assumed that there wouldn’t be many terrible deaths worth mentioning. But still, leaping to the (correct) conclusion that I was referring to what I sure hope is an extremely rare condition like that? Frigging amazing.

