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Tim Carvell and David Shayne

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A Preemptive Strike

By Tim Carvell
Posted Monday, Jan. 17, 2000, at 10:43 AM ET

Mornin', Dave,

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I suppose I should begin this with a word to our readers, noting that you and I are friends, have known each other for nearly a decade, and don't usually talk to each other this way. For the purposes of this "Breakfast Table," we've agreed to write to each other in "Breakfast Table"-ese, a particular idiom in which participants are cleverer and breezier and far more avid news junkies than they usually would be in real life. (At least, I'm assuming. Who knows? Maybe Nora Ephron and Kurt Andersen write e-mails that sound "Breakfast Table"-y all the time. They probably do.) It may be a tad artificial, but it's better than the alternative, which would be our writing to one another the same way we talk to each other.

DAVE: Hey, how's it going?
ME: Fine. You?
DAVE: Fine.
ME: How's Abby?
DAVE: She's good. Thanks for asking.
etc.

So. Where were we? SUVs. I drive a Honda Civic, and am therefore terrified of SUVs. Also, a small thing I've noticed: Many street signs seem to have been designed before the advent of SUVs, which means that they're too low to see if you're in, say, a Honda Civic, surrounded by SUVs. This is not, admittedly, a very trenchant or interesting observation. But if there are any traffic engineers out there listening, well, you now have a problem to solve.

I imagine that the preceding comment will be picked over in the "Fray." A traffic engineer will write in, noting that the signs cannot, in fact, be placed any higher due to some ordinance, which any moron would know about. Then another engineer will write in, correcting that first engineer. Then others will pile on. Then the topic will turn to funding for NASA, or libertarianism, and things will get ugly. I am, in case you can't tell, deeply afraid of the Fray. I've had nightmares of our Fray reviews--"worst Breakfast Table ever," "a disgrace," "is this for real? this is a joke, right?"--and have come to the conclusion that, instead of running scared, we should try to generate the most negative Fray threads ever. I'll begin: I don't know why there isn't more animal testing these days. Especially on puppies.

Your turn.
Tim

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