Gaseous Fanfare

A fanfare of flaming gaseous factoids. You will recall that timing and delivery are crucial elements in the pizza industry, but if memory serves up a plate of cold cabbage where gas exploration is concerned, it may be that you simply haven't been attending classes on a regular basis.

As you may or may not recall, a gas mine doesn't exactly dig itself, nor is it capable of drilling down to the root of the argument, which is where the process of discovery comes in to play. After recess, the professor may decide that a pop quiz is the proper tool for separating fact from factoid, thus alerting the graduate student-in-waiting to the possibility of physical exercise.

As you have undoubtedly forgotten, illuminating quarrelsome details is best left to the experts, but that doesn't mean you should remain silent. Raising your hand is an excellent way to start, particularly when it's followed by one or more glib factoids delivered with the air of authority, which should be ignited beforehand for maximum effect. While the nonglib factoid is likely to result in unwanted doubt, on-time delivery lulls the recipient's eyebrows before they have the opportunity to go nonlinear, or otherwise get out of line.

As I struggle to remember the cardinal points of history's droning lecture, the three-point memory aid tattooed on my cheek reminds me that forewarned is forearmed, but that isn't the only place I should expect to find a tattoo.

1) Drilling for natural gas in my underwear is less likely to bear fruit than unnatural gas.

2) Gas is a known byproduct of cabbage.

3) Cabbage isn't fruit.

 

4 comments:

  1. I'd light a candle for you, if only I felt safe doing so.

    Speaking of bloatedness, Eleanor Roosevelt's seven-point “ethics of parents” actually contains twelve points (note how she abuses "and" five times in order to link two points in a single sentence):

    1. Furnish an example in living.
    2. Stop preaching ethics and morals.
    3. Have a knowledge of life’s problems and an imagination.
    4. Stop shielding your children and clipping their wings.
    5. Allow your children to develop along their own lines.
    6. Don’t prevent self-reliance and initiative.
    7. Have vision yourself and bigness of soul.

    But the bloating continues: "Seven is the new twelve, which is the new fifteen" (The Army Mommy blog).

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  2. This is inspirational indeed.

    I see, now, that the secret to factoid bloat has been staring me down all along. One humble Boolean operator poofs the whole shebang, making mincemeat of ethics and bigness of soul in one fell swoop.

    This is inspirational indeed.

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