One Red Cent Trying to Make Sense: The Ice Cube Tray Conundrum

“An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” ~Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion

If ever a body were at rest and Sir Newton required further proof of his physics, suffice it to say I would happily splay myself on his table as a specimen and willingly subject myself to additional testing. We had successfully completed our last television pilot, my overtime paychecks were marinating in the bank vault and having paid my rent for the first time in months without dipping into my savings I slept ever so contentedly.

*Ring*

In an Oscar-award winning performance of cheerily answering a phone from the dredges of Spielberg-worthy dreams wherein I found myself battling aliens in Hi-Def (no less), I scrambled for my cell somewhere in the depths of my purse; and flipping open the old-school cell, managed to professionally receive the call telling me that I had been hired for a mid-season show to begin filming mid to late May, scheduled to shoot through the end of July! This would be a nearly seamless transition, no “unbalanced force” in sight!

And with grateful appreciation once again, a body at rest could stay at rest.

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“Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object.)” ~Sir Isaac Newton’s Second Law of Motion

With all due respect to Sir Isaac Newton, I wasn’t entirely convinced that his formulations took into consideration all possible incongruousness. (Incongruities?)

#1: My “mass” was never happier than to be lying on the bed watching a marathon of “Star Trek the Next Generation” television episodes. (Mock me if you will, but I still think Patrick Stewart aka “Jean-Luc Picard” is a hottie!)

#2: In fact, my lazy “mass” was thrilled to be home, but being eye-balled by my feline companion plaintively puling for fresh milk I had no choice but to get my “mass” up and walk to the local Russian Delicatessen. Ergo my argument with Sir Newton, in that without the “G factor” (in this equation “Guilt”) my mass shouldn’t logically have been budged by a five-pound meowing ball of fur.

But standing in-line with my quart of moo-juice, I hung politely behind the lengthy line of the four-foot tall babushka-clad ladies ordering cuts of, um, well; I don’t exactly know what “meats”.

#3: Muttering something Eastern-European and physically pushing my mass aside in a swarthy desire to acquire a container of a (maybe?) cabbage-based side dish (?) from a nearby refrigerator I clung onto my container of milk, amazed at the four-foot tall force of nature able to strong-arm her way around me. (Hey, she might’ve been short, but she was sturdy!)

And that’s when Sir Newton dawned on me.

Standing up to my full five-foot six (and a half!) stature, I caught the eye of the shaved-headed Russian guy behind the counter, my potential hero, my very own “Ivan-Luc Pikardski” and tapping into my best femme fatale look of sorrow at the idea of my dairy product curdling before I ever reached the front of the cash register, he beamed down to my rescue to cash me out immediately.

(High-Five, Newton!)

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“For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.” ~Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion

My mass officially off the bed, I found myself ready for some acceleration!

Now, it’s one thing to have a couple of weeks off from work, yet quite another to have your laptop freeze for hours on end… And finding a site to help me optimize my poot, I logged on for any helpful information that might speed up the motion of my equally ‘inertia-challenged’ computer.

Sponsored by Microsoft and immediately intuitive to my current Windows system just by clicking on the page; helpful suggestions popped up all over the place with step-by-step menus and recommendations as to just how to accelerate my computer. All I had to do was click on the drop-down menus!

Just click on the icon…!

Just make the page go…!

Just sit, and wait, and sit and wait…!

But as Sir Newton might have surmised so many years ago, my computer succumbed to his First Law of Motion, and preferring to stay at “rest” froze itself up and refused to reboot for the next forty-five minutes…

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Not going to lie, I retreated to the kitchen for a cocktail only to be confronted with one more “G factor”.

Despite my mass of being an adult of relatively normal size, the “G factor” (in my second equation being “GROSS!”) wriggled across the floor in search of wall paper paste (I have none!), propelling me upward and onto a counter top in nanoseconds with all manner of natural accompanying girlish squealing. (Picture below is courtesy of Google images, because SERIOUSLY I didn’t wait around to take a personal photo op.)

And not going to lie, I eventually managed to squash the tiny creepy infiltrator with a wet napkin despite its nearly friendly likeness to “Cindy Lou Who” (My sincere apologies to Dr. Seuss fans).

(Seriously... she's got antennas!)

But with a nerve-calming hearty cocktail in hand, I continued to ponder the laws of motion.

As of two phone calls this morning I’m starting work Monday on the new show, and frankly I’m somewhat anxious that I’ve been told in advance that I’m on a week-to-week basis depending on the lead actress’ decision as to whether or not to keep me for the series. (We've not yet met, but she reserves the right to dismiss me at will.)

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For now, I’m sticking with Newton. No force has yet been exerted on me regarding the sit-com and my hopes remain high to work with yet one more Hollywood icon!

In fact, my only real conundrum at this point is the newly purchased mystery below:

Here’s the minus: