Saturday, August 28, 2004

Laws of Physics Need Not Apply

I have recently determined who are the best candidates for developing all the whiz-bang technoligical developments that Star Trek has been dangling in front of our noses for decades (tricorders, warp drive, transporters), but the scientific community have poo-pooed as being physically impossible: British postal carriers. Yes indeed; there is an entire army of hardworking civil servants out there who are completely immune to the laws of physics. I suggest we round them all up, put them in a room with some coffee, donuts, and random bits of electrical equipment, demand functioning transporters within one year and let nature do the rest.

Why, you ask, are British postal carriers (as opposed to American postal carriers, who are dejected, disgruntled time-bombs waiting for an inopportune moment to go off) going to succeed where the best current scientific minds (Steven Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Marley) have failed? Because this morning there was a parcel on the floor of my hall, which had arrived there by being stuffed through the letter slot, but which could not POSSIBLY have passed, unscathed, through an opening that size. I stared at it, awestruck by the physical impossibility of the scenario. Then I tried it myself. Mr. Bean-like, I stood on the front stoop of my house for 25 minutes trying to fit the package through the letter slot again before finally carrying it back inside with me, considerably worse for wear.

I now live in constant terror of what may fall through my letter slot, which is apparently a minor tear in the space-time continuum. Today, oversize packages; tomorrow, livestock; next week, a Romulan war-bird. Oh god, where does it end?

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