Bored

So I've been talking to the little people who live in my monitor stand,
and they claim that their crusade against the ring binder reinforcement
rings is over. I must say I think they're right - I certainly haven't
seen any at my desk in a long time. I must admit to feeling deeply
uncomfortable about this sort of Stationery Cleansing, though.

Now, claim the little people, the whole world is theirs, and they are
pledged to be good stewards of it and look after it. I think they're a
little bit worried about the environment, although I've promised to
tidy up all the paper.



Right now, I'm trying to encourage them to expand. I've explained to
them about Other Desks, but their reaction was extremely sceptical.
"How do we know other desks exist?" one of their mini-scientists
demanded, waving a shaving of pencil lead at me. "And if they do exist,
how do we know they will have breathable atmospheres?" I did point out
that if you go right out to the extreme limit of The Desk, it is
possible to catch sight of other Desks, but their eyesight isn't very
good, and their telescopes are laughable. They also demanded to know
how they were supposed to get there - I explained about rubber bands,
and elicited only a shocked silence.

"How fast?"

"Um. Thirty miles an hour?"

"And how big is a mile?"

I had to look it up. "It's about 170,000 centimetres." Too late I
remembered about their weird units. "Wait! A mile is... 224,000 U's.
Ish."

They laughed like hyenas at this one. At the moment, they're convinced
that they'll die if they travel more than about 30 U's an hour. One of
them managed to clamber to his feet to ask, "And how does the man with
the red flag stay in front?" Then they all collapsed back into laughter.

I waited patiently, but to no avail. They'd clearly had enough of my
nonsense. Still giggling and wiping their eyes, the little delegation
crawled back into the monitor stand.