I usually get a lift to and from work with my supervisor, seeing as we live in the same area. One of his more unusual traits is his tendency to become obsessed with ideas, and be able to talk about the one idea for most of a car ride, and then return to that idea time and time again (for example, the ‘inside lane theory’).
One of his more endearing obsessions is his desire to buy a horse, and ride it to work. Despite the fact that most of our drive to work is along a major freeway, he’s quite convinced that if only he can find a way to get the horse over the bridge, it would be a fantastic idea to ride the horse along the grassy verge that’s sometimes at the edge of the road. His plan is to hobble the horse while it’s at work, leaving it to wander around eating in the patch of wilderness across the road from work (hence he shouldn’t need to buy much extra feed for it). And it will live in the 6 by 6 foot backyard of his townhouse – which, being built in the 1800s, has a ponywalk, which is what inspired the whole idea. Which is why scientists should be safely locked up in their workplaces and not allowed to interact with the rest of the world.
