William A. Wisdom

I was spending an evening of conversation and drinking at the home of another member of the Philosophy Department. He lived out in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, in an area that I didn't know very well. When I got up to leave, I realized that I had had a good bit too much to drink. But it was late on a clear winter's night with little traffic, and I figured that I could make it home if I drove with care.

Driving my way along carefully, I suddenly realized that I'd missed a left turn, so I stopped. Looking to my left, I noticed that there was just a grassy plot between the street I was on and the street I wanted to be on. So I figured that I'd take the short-cut across that plot. It would have been a good idea, were it not for the fact that there was a four foot drop-off from the grassy plot to the road I was headed for. How was I to know?! My car got half-way over the "cliff" and stopped there, each end suspended in the air.

Normally this would have discouraged me. But in my state of mind that night I quickly framed a solution to the problem. I would lift the rear end of the car, so that the car would slip on over to the road I wanted, and start rolling down the hill. Then I would race after it, pull open the driver's door, jump in, and be on my way. What could be simpler? The plan didn't work, because I (fortunately) couldn't raise the rear end of the car more than about a half inch. So I needed to go to Plan B, which had not yet been formulated.

It was about 1 a.m., but there were lights on in a house down the road. Maybe I could get help there. When I knocked, the person inside made it clear that she wouldn't open the door to let me make a phone call. But she said that she'd call the police to report that there was a problem at the intersection. (I don't think that I made it clear just exactly what the problem was.) So I waited by my car in the sub-freezing weather.

Finally a policeman arrived, and walked around and around, sizing up the situation. "Do you want to tell me what happened here?" Of course I wanted to say, "No". But I dimly realized that that wouldn't improve things. So I told him a version that was truthful as far as it went, but left out enough details that I figured I couldn't be incriminated.

He said he'd call an all-night service station with a tow truck, and perhaps they could pull me back to solid ground without serious damage underneath my car. "Why don't you sit in the cruiser with me, where it's warm, and wait for the tow truck." I appreciated the chance to sit down and warm up.

I figured that I should try to make small talk, and soon found myself babbling about this and that: what I did for a living, where I lived, how many children I had, and so on. Then I muttered: "I guess this sort of accident happens all the time at this intersection." "Well, no. I don't think that it's ever happened here before. Not since I've been on the force anyway, and that's over 25 years." "Hmmmm. Curious," I said. "I wonder why that is." "Well, it's probably because we don't get many philosophers coming by this way."

Copyright © 2002, William A. Wisdom