Simply put, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to know both the exact position and the exact velocity of an object at the same time.
Tony Billoni texted me that he would be in Ithaca at the same time that I was in Ithaca.
But when the time came, I was already leaving Ithaca, heading west... to Buffalo. He was heading east ....from Buffalo.
He called me on my cell phone. Maybe we would pass on the New York State Thruway. In which case, he said, he would cross the median and slam into me head-on. HA HA. What an imagination!
I asked Tony what kind of car he was driving. A black Ford Escape with black luggage and orange straps on top. He said he would call in about an hour. Maybe we could still meet?
Driving north up the country road from Cornell about an hour later, passing the Mennonite farms, I saw a sign for "sweet corn" and pulled across the two lane highway over to the shoulder of the southbound lane. Oh well, no corn and no farmer. I began to pull out precariously when my cell phone started ringing.
It's Tony calling on the phone!!! It's Tony in his SUV!!! Sure enough, Tony's black Ford Escape was hurtling towards me 200 yards away!!
I remembered what he said about the head-on collision so couldn't resist the opportunity to drive straight towards him veering off the shoulder, accelerating wildly, kicking up plumes of dust.
It was kind of dangerous but I headed my black Nissan Quest (nicknamed Godzilla) right towards his oncoming SUV!!!
The look on his face, I will never forget!! "We're all going to die!! Who is this maniac?"
I swerved back into my lane at the last instant, avoiding a collision. My heart was racing! Wow! I can't believe I just did that!
I attributed my impulsive behavior to the strange confluence of spontaneously occuring events: the cell phone ringing, the sight of his car, the fact I was somehow situated on the wrong side of the road at the same time he was in my sights and the memory of his statement about the head-on collision. Even my normally cautious wife somehow understood, this was a highly unlikely scenario which demanded some sort of performance art.
Tony called. He said the police would be arriving in about fifteen minutes to arrest me. I thought he was telling the truth. It was his form of revenge.
