Where did my sock go?

So it has been forever since I did this! But once again I am bored and fancied getting the old imagination running. So I googled the worst question ever and was met with this absolute beauty! 'My sock went missing when I put it in the wash/dryer. Where did it go?'

SOCKS LIKE VACATIONS TOO! Jeez, the poor thing's been working day in, day out probably way beyond it's retirement age!! (You know what I mean... that scratchy feeling of wearing thread. Perhaps some slight discolouration depending on the standard of shoe. Maybe even a hole!) And you begrudge the old soul it's only means of escape?!? Socks don't get the opportunity to retire into cruises and questionable 'Meals on Wheels'. The only way out for a tired sock is to try and sneak out under the radar. Risking their delicate lives (much like Nemo) by taking their chances with the pipework of washing machines or the unbearable heat of the dryer! 
Sadly, for the 63% that make it out of the laundering instruments, this is not the end of their journey. They then have to 007 their way past the growing population of house elves. Those cute but creepy tykes are to socks what owls are to mice. They know precisely what they want (the same as Martin Luther King) and they will not stop until they get it!!* 
Luckily, for the 27% which make it past the house elves, there is only one remaining obstacle. Chewing gum. No! Not the stuff still in the packet you ninny! The stuff which people carelessly spit out onto the pavement. It is sticky! And as we all know, socks are notorious for their problems with eyesight deterioration. It is very difficult for a sock to spot chewing gum before they are straight on top of it and sometimes even then they do not realise. This results in two scenarios; 
1) The sock realises and is stuck. 
2) The sock does not realise, continues to travel and unravels. 
I'm sure you'll agree that neither of these are particularly desirable outcomes for the sock.

Following the chewing gum hurdle, a heartbreaking 3% of socks make it back into the wilderness to live out their last scraggly years. 
And there you have it. The whereabouts of ambitious socks last seen in the wash/dryer.


*Interesting side fact; you will often hear a high pitched chanting, 'What do we want? FREEDOM! When do we want it? NOW!' It is recited at such great speed though that your brain hasn't the time to process the words and merely translates this as a dull fan noise. This is actually the singing of fed up house elves on a mission to find escaping socks.

Friday, Friday, gonna get gowned on Fridayyyy

In three short days time I will officially be a graduate. I will have donned the fancy gowns and mortar board, and I will hopefully not have embarrassed myself by falling/ losing my gown/ forgetting my name and any number of painfully plausible possibilities. Naturally this means I am job-hunting. And of course this means that I am spending an unhealthy amount of my time wasting time thinking about how cool the world would be if employment wasn't a necessity.


I haven't put a great deal of thought into the practicalities of this (shockingly), but here's an idealistic expectation of the world without 'work'.


Obviously, money would have no place in this world of no employment. Ironically, the only negative I see in the possibility of this happening is that it would put the people that print it/ work in banks/ offer loans etc. out of work. This wouldn't be an issue in this 'no-work' world... Win! Without money, there would be no stable grounds on which poverty would be based. Well done Charlie! You just eradicated poverty! (I get that poverty is waaaay more complicated than this... but this is my daydream!!)


Also, so much more time could be spent doing what you wanted! Imagine reaching the age of 90 and coming to the sudden realisation that you never learnt to play the recorder. (I don't see how it would be possible to pass through primary school and not learn this wonderful instrument... but there's a possibility I guess) How depressing if you were the only person you ever knew that couldn't once play he recorder. All because of that darn-freakin' job you had to have forever! (I understand that maybe recorder isn’t what you would choose to spend your unemployed life perfecting, but that is your shout*)


‘This no-work-world is sounding pretty sweet’ I hear you thinking. And it’s possible! If you just dedicate your life to unemployment, who knows what the future might hold?! 


*Just a heads up that should this world happen, you can expect to be seeing me in the Guinness book of records with my recorder and my Grade 76 certificate! Try not to be too jealous of my achievement. ;)

What if the Earth were a bouncy ball?

I have written my last ever essay! Ever! Which means I now have time to think about life’s big questions… Like where we would be if the Earth was a bouncy ball.


Obviously the biggest difference to day-to-day life if the Earth was a bouncy ball would be the ferocity of a bouncy ball. Aeroplanes, helicopters, birds and superman would all be in grave danger. The impact of the bouncy ball being bounced off of the Earth would propel the ball at a great speed into the surrounding atmosphere. A side effect of this would mean that the Earth itself would be susceptible to shifting in space as well. The biggest danger though, lies in the very slim possibility that multiple bouncy balls could be ‘bounced’ at the same time onto the surface of the Earth worldwide. Studies show that there is about a 0.052% chance of this happening, but should this happen outer space would be in turmoil! The Earth would be whizzing through space with millions of other bouncy balls and collision would be almost certain.


Another concern in this scenario would be the natural process of precipitation. Rain would be annoying. Hail would be lethal. Imagine having to suffer the attack of one hailstorm multiple times, from all angles. It would be like partaking in a paintballing game with Mother Nature… whoever you are, you would lose.


The final life-changing aspect of the Earth as a bouncy ball would be the effect on athletic competition. The buoyancy which the Earth as a bouncy ball would provide would speed up everybody. No one would be spectacularly fast anymore and so running as a sport would become insignificant. The triple jump, long jump, high jump would also be rendered as no longer challenging and therefore scrapped as competitive sports. Javelin would be highly dangerous, and so health and safety certainly would not allow it! The same applies for shot-put.  

If I was a stickman...

If I was a stickman my left leg would be twice as long as my right leg because then if I was a stickman-footballer I would probably be left-footed and left-footed footballers are better. I wouldn’t have feet though because I don’t like feet and not having any would mean I could save money on socks and shoes. I don’t think this would affect my footballing because the ball and I would both be 2D so I wouldn’t need the same lift or grip feet give in 3D. 
I would be a traditional black biro ink (hopefully bic). I think traditional stickmen probably make the best stickmen, though I am a little worried that due to my traditional frame of a line, I would feel hungry a lot of the time. I’d probably eat foods drawn in those cool scented gel pens everyone had in year 5.
Everyday I’d do something new and exciting because everything would be made of paper which is pretty cheap. I might even have a stickfriend drawn up so that I didn’t feel lonely and I had someone to do the new and exciting things with. 
The first new and exciting thing I would do would be climbing stairs that go all the way to the top of the page. This would probably take a whole day and leave me exhausted so then I’d sleep. Maybe the next day I would float back down to the foot of the stairs in a hot air balloon shaped like an elephant. 
I don’t think I’d have hair so hopefully I wouldn't catch fire as easy.
I might have a different number of fingers on each hand, I don't know how this would work out.

What if the hokey kokey is what it’s all about?

I finished a draft of my dissertation two days ago … Ahr Yehrr … So I’ve done nothing the last two days … So today, this happened.


If the hokey kokey is what it’s all about then getting places would take a lot longer. We’d have to put our left leg in, our left leg out, in, out, in, out, shake it all about, do the hokey kokey, and turn around… before proceeding to do the exact same with our right leg and then alternate until we reached our destination. This would probably mean leaving at least two hours before you needed to be anywhere.
Also, a great deal more people would suffer from confusion as a result of the constant ‘turning around’. The effects of this prolonged dizziness would probably work in the same way as alcohol, leaving the ‘turner’ with beer goggles. Because everyone would be victim to CBGS (Continuous Beer Goggle Syndrome) pregnancy rates would rise quite significantly, causing the over population problems already prevalent in the world to be of much greater importance. However, another side effect of CBGS would be a decrease in divorce rates, because there would be no sobering realisation of what it is that your beer goggles allowed you to marry and procreate with. 
In addition, the average person would most probably be significantly better at singing through constant repetition of the scales, (8) Woooooooaoh the hokey kokey, Wooooooooaoh the hokey kokey (8) etc. This persistence with the vocal chords would surely have a favourable effect upon the hokey kokey-er. 


But alas; the stable left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot walking pattern of mankind, the rising divorce rates, and the inability of the general public to sing (as proved most weekends by *Simon Cowell’s determination to make more money) is proof that the hokey kokey is probably not what it is all about. 

*I sort of take this back, not the singing thing (as a whole we're shocking) but the dig at Simon Cowell, he seemed really nice on Jonathan Ross.

Catch the pigeon!

Tomorrow I am running 13 miles dressed as Muttley. I am running with Dick Dastardly.

I am excited for this, but here’s five things I’d be more excited about…   

  

… Repainting every ceiling in Bermuda using only a Tipp-Ex. Bermuda’s small enough that I don’t think this’d be too strenuous, also I hear the weather there’s lovely this time of year*

… Swimming through a swamp. It would be a great workout for the arms, boost the old immune system and there might be a chance encounter with some sort of swamp monster

… Having my hair cut. I just really need a hair cut … practicality.

… Taking a long weekend on Pluto. Pluto was my favourite of all the planets, now it is my favourite of all the dwarf planets

... CHRISTMAS!! I really, really, really, really like Christmas though obviously not as much as that weird man who celebrates it every day, Jee

Exciting as these alternates are, if I were doing one of these tomorrow there’d be no hope of catching that freaking pigeon.

*This is a lie, I’ve never spoken to anyone about a pleasant time to visit Bermuda.

I forgot the mushroom and my passport

It took me a couple of minutes this morning after my alarm going off to realise that in my head I was repeating the sentence “I forgot the mushroom and my passport”. I then questioned what the hell I was dreaming about. These are my three favourite scenarios...

Dream 1

Clearly I am Super Mario.

Dream 2

I have taken to the recreational use of mild hallucinogenics. I have gone to Amsterdam to stock up on said hallucinogenics and whilst at the airport in Amsterdam waiting for my flight home I have realised that I have forgotten the mushroom and my passport. Drat.

Dream 3

I have acquired a time machine. My passport is not to travel across country but across time and I wanted the mushroom to take back to the past with me either to the time of the dinosaur in order to prevent them from extinction (because I’ve heard they may have died of starvation…). If this was my destination we’d probably still have dinosaurs. Alternatively I would take the mushroom back to the start of the first war and suggest the enemies just throw mushrooms at one another. If this was my destination war probably wouldn’t exist today because throwing mushrooms would look ridiculous and get them nowhere.

… I really don’t have a clue what I was dreaming about, but I’m grateful I don’t analyse my dreams.