A Bit of Absurdity in the World

On my drive home on the southbound 5 through Oceanside, I pass by the Cavalier Mobile Estates. I have often considered this nonsensical juxtaposition of words. Cavalier—as in the dandyish Royalists who fought against the Puritans in the English Civil War? It's hard to imagine such a cavalier laying his belaced head down in a mobile home. Or “cavalier” as in “reckless, pompous, arrogant?” Again, when I think of mobile homes, these aren't necessarily the first qualities that come to mind. Or how about the bizarre idea of a mobile estate? Thinking back to what an “estate” has meant historically, it might well be the hundreds of acres that a nobleman—a cavalier, say—used as his personal hunting reserve and riding range and open space park, et cetera. I guess back in the day an “estate” was a mansion and environs which were expansive enough and subjugated enough such that the common folk working on the estate produced enough wealth to sustain the mansion at the middle. None of that really makes sense when you're talking a paved lot that is about three or four feet bigger on a side than the mobile home at the heart of it. Or how ludicrous is it to be talking about a “mobile estate” in the first place—as though an estate in the classical sense were something so inconsequential that you could pick it up and carry it around?

When I think of a mobile home, I think of depressing poverty. I'm sure there are exceptions to this; I'm sure that not all occupants of mobile homes are depressed or poor. But I very much doubt that very many of them are gallant princes wearing velvet and lace and riding off to show those upstart commoners what's what.