Story # 23: "Many Hands Make Lights Work"

Okay, so this is the last story from my late-night creative spurt. I will admit that it's entirely possible that the quality of my output decreased exponentially as my tiredness increased, and that this is the weakest entry among them. But I do think there's at least some value in this story. Perhaps not. Either way, here it is.  ~  JH

"MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHTS WORK"

There's an old joke, which has never been very funny, that poses the question:  How many __________ does it take to screw in a light bulb? The fill-in-the-blank in question is usually a ditzy blonde, a member of a minority group, or some other personage deemed to be unfit to perform basic electrical work. The joke's punchline varies, is ever only slightly amusing, and becomes less amusing with each telling.

Presumably, the point of the joke – if indeed there is one – is that the stupider you are, the greater the number of people like you it takes to inefficiently accomplish a simple task, thereby serving to make you appear even stupider. Collectively stupider, in fact.

I never liked that joke very much, and I still don't. But I did gain a newfound appreciation for the meaning behind it last night, as I observed a group of twelve or more highly intoxicated or severely hungover frat boys cursing at the moon because they couldn't figure out how to switch the sun on.

I strolled over the group of guys and instructed them that, in order to make the sun rise, they had to yell the secret password – which happened to be a particularly controversial and quite offensive word – at the top of their lungs repeatedly. And then I walked away.

The hapless frat boys were soon arrested for disturbing the peace, while I enjoyed a quiet evening at home. That probably wasn't a very nice thing for me to do.