A carpet measuring mollusk came to measure our carpets today. He is supposed to be giving our landlady a quote for having the carpets replaced.
I call him the measuring mollusk because I firmly believe that a mollusk would have done a better job of measuring. We won't mention his inability to estimate his time of arrival, his difficulties in using a tape measurer, the fact that he didn't know which rooms he was meant to be measuring (and nor did we, since we assumed that he would have actually communicated with the landlady before showing up). No, see me cunningly not mention those comparatively minor issues.
The real sign of molluskdom, however, came at the moment when he looked around the lounge, slightly baffled. "The two walls," he said, gesturing to either side of him, "They're crooked, aren't they?"
"They aren't parallel to each other, if that's what you mean," I replied. "The room isn't rectangular, but more of a wedge."
He breathed heavily and looked at the two walls again, concentrating hard. "So which one is it that isn't parallel?"
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
I'm so evil, I told him to measure them and find out
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10 Comments:
LOL! That's hysterical!
I imagine that he was thinking that 3 of the walls were in a rectangular arrangement and that the fourth was the one that intersected at non-right angles. Given that, I can't fault him too much for asking about your walls that way. Doesn't seem too mollusky to me.
All the same, not something I would have said!
He can't be held responsible, the rocks mollusks cling to rarely form parallel lines, and the seaweed just forms itself around the edges, without the aid of measuring tape..
oops - J was me - I hit enter too soon!
On second thought: How did he figure out which walls met at right angles using the measuring tape?
I have yet to meet a bivalve or a gastropod who could do that.
hilarious. i so would have liked to seem him figure out a way to find out!
it would've really confused him if the ceiling tapered towards the top :-)
+Hi, I've been lurking for a while, but finally felt like saying something on this post :)
i'm just about halfway into my PhD, and have finally got my first set of usable research!!
congrats on submitting your draft :-)
Anonymous, I take your point. But it's pretty obvious in our lounge that none of the walls are at right angles, and it's open plan with the bathroom jutting into one end, so the bit that goes from there across the kitchen is even kind of zig-zaggy.
Juggling Frogs, he didn't figure it out. I had assumed that if angles were a problem, he would have something to measure them with. But no. In the end, he gave up and wrote down something random, as far as I can tell.
The Scientist: hi! And thanks! Congratulations on finding some usable results for your research, too! (It just gets less fun from here on in...)
that's hilarious
You mean ... you didn't TELL him? You big meanie!
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)