Dividing by Zero

While taking care of some grocery shopping (the cupboards were getting rather bare), I wandered through the "Seasonal" aisle. This occasionally doubles as the "clearance" aisle and is a great place to find candy marked down the day after Christmas, Easter and (to a lesser degree) Halloween. So, on the off chance that there was a candy holiday I’d overlooked, I wandered through.

There wasn’t any candy, but I did notice a rather strange pairing of products. On one set of shelves there were three kinds of rock salt for folks who might need to de-ice their sidewalks if any happened to form during the 60-degree weather we’ve been having. I briefly considered buying a bag for use with the ice cream maker I got for Christmas, but decided I might already have some. On the shelves to the immediate right of the salt, there was a display with three brands of charcoal and two brands of charcoal lighter fluid.

My first thought was "Who the heck is going to have a cook-out in January?" (True, I once went on a picnic in March with eight inches of snow on the ground, but I suspect I’m unique in that regard.) After thinking about it for a moment, I realized that, when applied correctly, either rock salt or charcoal (particularly with lighter fluid) could be used to melt ice.

So perhaps it makes sense after all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Assorted Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.