mere cat

Flxibility

I have a so-called “ergonomic” desk chair, but I thwart its good intentions by sitting with one leg tucked under me most of the time. As you can imagine, that posture can lead to some problems. Being in the throes of middle age, I'm not as flxible as I used to be, and my knees have actually been giving me problems.

Whoa.

Typing that last sentence derailed my train of thought, and it's a good thing, too, since I don't have much more to say about my knee pain. Perhaps you noticed that I misspelled the word “flexible.” Every time I see the word flexible, I am reminded of a mystery that has haunted me since childhood. As a child, I noticed that the city transit buses were all made by a company called, no, it can't be, yes, it is, Flxible. (OK, that's hardly a haunting mystery, is it? Hey, I was a kid. And a good speller, too.)

I stared at the marque on countless buses over the years in an effort to see the missing “e” in the logo, but I finally gave up and had to admit the name was spelled without it. To get some closure, I just googled the word and learned all I needed to know about this company. I will share. The company started in 1913 making a sidecar for motorcycles connected by a flexible joint. Imagine going around corners with a rigid sidecar attached, and you can see the value of this invention. Henry Ford's inexpensive automobiles made sidecars obsolete overnight, and the company switched to making buses. The name changed from Flexible to Flxible in 1919, although I was unable to discover why the name was changed. Flxible went out of business in 1995. Mystery solved.

Well, my knee is starting to hurt again. Time to switch, uh, legs.