Also, It's Empty

Well, the good news is, I have a pool now…

When you say it like that, it can mean only one thing.  There's also bad news.  Can I go swimming first?

By all means.  

But you're right, there is, of course, bad news that goes along with my new status as Swimming Pool Owner.  That being that I'm not sure how long I'm going to be a Swimming Pool Owner.  

Those things tend to be reasonably expensive and remarkably difficult to move.  

Not necessarily. 

In the case of normal-sized swimming pools, I would tend to agree.  In the case of stupid little inflatable kiddie pools, not so much.  My new pool is very much of the latter variety.  

So, I got out my floaties for nothing?

Pretty much.  See, not long ago, we had a storm travel through the Greater Jeremy Area, which brought along with it some strikingly strong winds.  These winds caused some downed trees, some power outages, and some redistribution of people's lawn crap.  In my case, the power was out for about three hours, and when I awoke the following morning, I was delighted to learn that I had become the new owner of somebody's crappy inflatable swimming pool.  And by "Owner," I mean that it blew into my back yard and stayed there.  I'm hoping that sometime soon, the original owner will drive by and reclaim it.  Otherwise, it will become the owner of the trash collector next week.   

His Quest For Plywood Failed

Pop Quiz!  What’s the top speed of a sheet of plywood on top of an SUV?  

African or European plywood?  

I don't see how that's relevant.  

Well, in the sense that different wood types in Africa and Europe would create different densities and strengths of plywood.  Also, a Monty Python reference is always relevant. 

Fair points.  

Regardless, I don't actually know the answer in any quantifiable unit, but I can now definitively answer with a qualitative, "not much."  

Today's bit of knowledge has been brought to you by some poor schmuck I watched (and sadly did not video) trying to leave a parking lot with some plywood strapped to his roof.  I use the word trying to imply the word failing.  

So here's how things happened. 

Our erstwhile hero is in the parking lot of a certain home improvement chain store that we've mentioned on the Blag here before.  He has purchased two sheets of plywood which are too large to stow in the back of his SUV.  He subsequently places the sheets on the roof of said SUV and wraps a couple of bungee cords width-wise around the wood, connecting inside of the passenger compartment.  There was nothing in place on the front of the stack to counteract the effects of any airflow underneath the wood which might be generating lift.

Yes, our friend is about to get an important lesson in physics, isn't he? 

As he begins driving away, he apparently realizes that the front of this apparatus needs some support, so he rolls down the window and places his left hand on the side of the plywood, maybe a foot and a half from the bungee cord.  This worked remarkably well for the first 50 yards or so of his journey home.  After that, predictably, things went south.  

Not long before the end of the building, the plywood achieved liftoff, breaking in half roughly along the bungee cord boundary, soaring and spinning majestically about 20 feet in the air as the SUV rolled away.  Fortunately for everyone, the parking lot was nearly empty, and none of the shards of the former sheet landed on anybody or any other cars.  Our hero stopped his car to pick up the pieces of both his plywood and his dignity before angrily shoving all of the mess (which, serendipitously now fit) into the back of his car.  

I was left to lament the fact that I could only make a Blag entry about the events, with no Youtube video from which to make a fortune.

It Begins...

What makes elephants sick?  Pachygerms!  

You have some serious explaining to do.  Why are you doing this to these nice people?  

It has become very important for me to learn some new terrible jokes.  You're all my test subjects.

This is a magnificent way to lose readers, you know.  

Nonsense.  All of the loyal readers here love great jokes.  And terrible jokes.  

So anyway...what's important to know here is that the company I work for has taken steps recently to overcome its former reputation of being old and stuffy.  They're trying to make ourselves look like a younger, hipper, edgier company to work for.  To accomplish this, they have done key things like install a Scrabble board on the wall for people to walk by and play with, buy a giant connect four board which is now placed in a somewhat random location, converted one of the conference rooms into a Lego room, and created "lounges" where there were once couches.  These lounges consist of some giant bean bag chairs and a table.  

Here's where this becomes noteworthy.  The bean bag chairs are not filled with beans, or those little plastic beads, or those styrofoam beads.  They're filled with loose fluff which has no structural integrity whatsoever.  If you sit in these chairs, you immediately sink directly to the floor, surrounded by bean bag.  It's not comfortable.  But, you still have a table.  But wait, there's more!  The table is covered with a plastic coating, making them serviceable as a white board!  There are also markers for drawing.  How delightfully fun is this?

Mildly fun, at best.

Exactly!  So, somebody has to take it upon themselves to increase the fun, and that somebody's me!  Not long after these tables were installed, I took the one near my office and converted it into an anonymous tic-tac-toe game.  I drew a board and placed an X in the center square.  I came back the next day to find an O in one of the other squares, and the game was afoot.  

Well, that lasted only a couple days before people started cheating.  I've now decided to turn that table into a comedy forum for the sharing of the greatest jokes ever told which can be written on a white board.  It will start with today's Elephant joke and slowly improving the comedy level until there is nowhere left to go, and I'm forced to deploy The Skeleton Joke.  Hopefully, and with your help, there will be a long long time in between then and now.  Submit your greatest jokes here!  And remember, this is for work, so keep them clean.