Tom Whipple There are certain expectations, my wife gently pointed out, that come with a white kitchen shelf. Delicately, so as not to hurt my feelings, she praised the competency of the paint job — it was indeed, broadly speaking, white. She also noted that the shelf was attached to the kitchen wall, another traditional prerequisite.

But, she said, there was just one thing. Shelves, she pointed out, are almost always flat. This shelf, the product of several evenings of my work and a fair bit of swearing, very much was not. As a visual aid, she put an orange on the shelf and we watched together as it dolefully rolled on to the floor.

It was early in our marriage and, Icarus-like, I had

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