C.: d.c., Tucker sent me an email. The I.P. address is encrypted, so I still don’t know where he is. I can hack some emails and learn locations of the sender by the I.P address,, but not this one.
I also don’t really know what he’s saying. It seems to be in some type of code. If I let you read it, maybe you can explain what he’s trying to say. Maybe he’s trying to give me some clues as to his whereabouts, but I can’t decode the email.
d.: I’ll take a look, Cal.E., if you don’t mind me reading your personal email.
C.: I don’t. Here’s the email.
My dearest Cal.E.,
While I cannot disclose my location, I can tell you that you’re constantly on my mind. The image of your beautiful coat and striking face are the motivation for me to continue my training. The faster I can secure my fourth belt for catfighting and defend the three I already hold, the more quickly I can be blessed to be in your presence. That thought produces the urgency I feel to get into the best condition possible, so I can fight with the strength that the thought of sharing my life with you in the near future gives me.
Since I can’t disclose my location or condition, you may, in the meantime, think of me as the mythical Schrödinger’s cat, being both present with you and away and missing you horribly at the same time.
In conclusion, my dearest Cal.E., I look forward to being in your presence in the near future and basking in the glory of your beauty, wit, and intelligence. Until then, I must bid you adieu.
Yours for now and for eight more lives,
Tucker Tucker Two
d.: Wow! Tucker is a romantic. I never would have thought the big lug had a letter like this in him.
C.: But what does it mean?
d.: It means he misses you and that he’s motivated by the thoughts of seeing you soon. It’s quite a romantic email.
C.: There are several things I don’t understand since I’m not from this planet. For instance, who is Schrödinger’s cat?
d.: Well, Schrödinger’s cat isn’t real, but theoretical. A twentieth century theoretical physicist was trying to explain to his peers that matter doesn’t always exist in only one state. He used the example of a cat in a box that, until the box was opened, could be thought of as both dead and alive simultaneously, because the cat could or could not have been poisoned by a process he created. I don’t completely understand everything about it, because I’m not a theoretical physicist.
The way I think of it is this: when I was a hospice nurse, many of my patients were comatose. Their family members would usually ask me if the patient could hear their voices. I said I believed the patient could, but I don’t know that for a fact. No one does, because, if the patient came out of the coma, s/he couldn’t remember what had happened to him or her while in the coma. So, one could believe that the patient could and could not hear the voices of his or her loved one simultaneously.
C.: Thanks, d.c., that really…confuses me more!!!
d.: Okay, another way to think of it is this. In one of the STAR WARS movies, Yoda uttered the now famous line, “Do or do not. There is no try!” Much like your namesake, Yoda believed in absolutes, not theoretical possibilities. However, Albert Einstein and, I suppose, Yoda, have been proven wrong by some twenty-first century theoretical physicist who have proven that matter could exist in two different states simultaneously. Do you understand now?
C.: I do. Tucker really is a lot smarter than we’ve been giving him credit for being.
d.: Well, that’s all the time we have for today, folks, please join us tomorrow for another brain-teasing episode of Cal.E.’s Korner.
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