A Plate of Shrimp

/ Jeff Cann

Suppose you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in looking for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

    — From the 1984 cult-classic movie Repo Man.

Today, the cosmic unconsciousness is clicking in uncontrolled coincidence. The primary topics of my last two blog posts came up today in conversation… by people who didn’t read the posts. How many posts have you written? I’ve lost track. Four hundred some on this blog. Maybe another fifty on my previous blog. That’s a lot of topics to explore—although recently, I seem to be cycling through the same two or three topics over and over.

A few years ago, I noticed that pretty much everything anyone mentioned was something I already blogged about. So naturally, I’d say “I’ve blogged about that” thinking the person would say “oh wow, I’d like to read that.” But they never did. For the most part, people in real life don’t really care that I blog. Now, on occasion, I’ll just send someone a link, unsolicited, if a conversation heads in the same direction as a post. “Hey Darla, here’s a review of Cobra Kai that I wrote. I think it backs up the point I was trying to make last Tuesday.” I feel sorry for my IRL friends.

I dragged Susan and Eli out of bed early today. We planned on a longish morning hike, and I had a meeting starting at one o’clock. I was a little stressed about having enough time for lunch before the meeting so I was in a rush to get out of the house. As we drove to the trailhead, sleepy Eli brought up the Tortoise and the Hare. “In the German version it’s a hare and a hedgehog.” Eli is taking German II this semester. His teacher spends a lot of class time talking about the differences in German culture. So not only is Eli learning the language, but he constantly brings home fun facts about Germany.

The Hare and the Hedgehog by the Brothers Grimm: One fine morning, the hare makes fun of the hedgehog’s crooked legs, whereupon the hedgehog challenges him to a race to win a golden “Lujedor” (Louis d’or) and a bottle of brandy. When the race in the field begins, the hedgehog only runs a few steps, but at the end of the furrow he has placed his wife, who looks very much like him. When the hare, certain of victory, storms in, the hedgehog’s wife rises and calls out to him: “Ick bün all hier!” (“I’m already here!”). The hare cannot understand the defeat, he demands revenge and conducts a total of 73 runs with always the same result. In the 74th race he collapses exhausted and dies.*

“I’m sure the Hare and the Hedgehog came first. That Aesop guy must have stolen it.” Eli missed the mark by twelve centuries, but mostly I focused on the Tortoise and the Hare. Why bring that up, why now? Two days ago, I read a poem referencing the Tortoise and the Hare. It moved me so much I wrote my own blog post on the topic. I know Eli doesn’t read my blog. “Too boring.” No one has mentioned the Tortoise and the Hare in my house in a decade. A plate of shrimp.

After the hike and my meeting, Susan wanted to survey our yard. When we moved into our house with Sophie as a toddler and Eli in utrero sixteen years ago, all our neighbors were seniors citizens. The back yards in our neighborhood, except of ours, were deserted. We spent all of our time messing around out back. We did whatever we wanted, no one ever came outside to judge us. We farmed rows of crops. We built large wooden play sets. We shot BB guns. We blew up homemade bombs. We dug holes just to dig holes. We always had some sort of hobby or project going on. And slowly over the years, our back yard began to look like crap. Now we’re the old(er) people and our neighbors have little kids. They’re outside every day. Our yard has become embarrassing.

“Wait,” you say, “didn’t you just write about this last week?” Yes, I did. I said we needed to start paying attention to our yard, or it would affect our house’s sale price when we move in a few years. Today, Susan said the exact same thing. She wants to start scheduling landscaping projects to make our yard appear more conventional. I asked her if she read my blog post. She didn’t. Another plate of shrimp.

The cosmic unconsciousness. Does it exist? In a global sense, I don’t believe in stuff like that. There’s no fate. No guiding force. No master plan! Stuff happens because you make it happen, or it happens randomly. When the same weird coincidence happens twice in one day, it wakes me up and makes me notice. I had a plate of shrimp day today. In fact, I had a plate of shrimp for dinner. No lie.

*From Wikipedia.

Photo by Maria Labanda on Unsplash

23 thoughts on “A Plate of Shrimp”

  1. Ah, the collective consciousness… it both causes me joy and freaked-out-ed-ness rather regularly.
    Ha! “I feel sorry for my IRL friends.” you are hilarious. I love when people blog about IRL and its interface with blogging.

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    • Writing is a tricky art form. So much effort is required on the part of the reader. I have a collogue who photographs. It only takes a couple of seconds to look at a photo and a few seconds more to decide if you like it. Compare that with the 5 – 10 minutes required to quickly read through a CNF piece and another five or more to digest it. Best to leave the IRL people out of our blogging life.

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  2. You don’t have to believe in fate or a higher, guiding force to believe in a collective counciousness. Haven’t you ever read the 100th Monkey Theory?

    I totally believe in not only a counciousness, but a collective UNcounciousness…

    I always get a kick out of “plate of shrimp” events or days💃🏼

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    • It all sounds so Borg. It’s clear that there’s synchronicity in the universe. Does it extend to consciousness? I would think we’d be a far less f–ked up species if there was true interrelation between souls. Again. Look at the Borg.

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      • I don’t see ithe consciousness as something that’s “on” all the time, more like something we can tap into.
        The unconsciousness would be our “higher” selves… soul/spirit whatever, so there wouldn’t be a Borg risk there.

        I wouldn’t want to be part of a Borg type situation either. Maybe bees would be easier to accept😉😂

        Free will… there can’t be light without dark, right?

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    • We almost always pan-fry our shrimp with spices thereby bypassing the need for dipping sauces. Although I do love a good cocktail sauce. Yesterday, we fried them up with lime juice and ate them as part of a Caesar salad served with a tasty store-bought bread.

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    • Yes, the shrimp was extremely good. Calling it a ‘plate’ of shrimp might be an overstatement. It was the ‘meat’ in a Caesar salad. I don’t know if I had already made the plate of shrimp quote connection in my mind when I announced I wanted to get shrimp from the grocery store. It might have been just another coincidence.

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  5. This was a delight. I love how you are compelled to reinforce your points by passing along links to your blogs that address the topic of conversation at hand because what are the chances of that? What are the chances that the very thing you all are conversing about you wrote about in one of those 400 topics? This is such familiar ground. It’s inconceivable that everyone wouldn’t be 1) blown away by this synchronicity, and 2) totally appreciative of the chance to read further what you have to say about it!

    As for the collective unconscious…I jump at the chance to buy into the mystery. But while I dig the idea of the collective unconscious, I notice that I really don’t want to be “at one” with everybody. I like my boundaries. Because, ick.

    I how you plated your shrimp here and I love what you do with your backyard.

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    • I feel like I’ve already blogged on every topic that ever runs through my mind, so if a conversation topic arises that I’m interested in discussing, the chances that I’ve written about it are somewhat high. Also, I’m an awkward conversationalist, so often I don’t make the points I want to make during discourse., Whereas, if I’ve written about it, I’ve given hours of thought to the topic. It’s one of the reasons I’ more comfortable with my virtual friendships to my IRL friendships.

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  8. For the past several days I have been thinking obsessively about how I want a big plate of shrimp for mother’s day this year, but I have not mentioned it yet because it is too early and they will forget by then.

    No lie.

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  9. I always get the squinty eye look and the “that was weird” feeling when things I am thinking about keeping popping up randomly. Those are crazy quinky dinks. I’ve been thinking about enjoying a plate of shrimp a lot lately too. I think I may have to indulge my taste buds today.

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  10. As I read this post, my ADD which has developed since retirement, sent me to the basement to see if I still have the book called “There Are No Accidents: Synchronocity and the Stories of our Lives” by Robert H. Hopke. I found it on the shelf quite close to “Half Empty, Half Full: How to Take Control and Live Life as an Optimist” by Susan C. Vaughan, M.D. I had just finished reading your post about being a half empty sort of guy. So now these books are sitting on the table next to me. Not sure where your plate of shrimp and my ADD took me.

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  11. As a blogger, I HAVE noticed that “plate of shrimp” concept, and I always wanted to do what you do. I want to tell people “Hey, I blogged about that topic last week.” Now, I’m gonna tell them.

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