High Wires and Low Rollers - Your Questions Once Again Answered

A correspondent, disputing the earlier ruling on which way the toilet paper should hang submits the following cartoon in evidence:

To visit shoeboxblog.com and see this and other funny stuff:

The correspondent in question is co-owned by a number of cats and gives this as an excuse for putting the toilet paper facing the wall, as if it is a misbehaving child forced to sit in the corner. Tsk, Tsk, and Tsk again.

A simple adjustment can be made to the toilet paper roll which allows the paper to be freely dispensed for human beings but not for life forms without hands (however superior they may be in intelligence to the average Congressperson).


Observe the ordinary roll of toilet paper:

Should your house be inhabited by small animals who enjoy using this object as a toy, here is how you can adjust the roll:

Step One: With Roll Lying on Side, Squish.

There is no Step Two:













One now can mount the roll on the roller, with the free sheet facing toward the room. If no sheets are left to dangle, there will be a tendency for the torn sheet to be at the top of the roll. The human can then grasp the sheet, lift and tear off the desired quantity. Because the roll does not spin quite so easily, it loses its attraction to the felines in the vicinity...unless your cat is a shredder in which case you should hire it out to those candidates and corporations with the most to hide. The next image may be too graphic for some viewers:

Ahem. Well...

---------%-------%---------%-%---Birds on Power Lines--------%-----%--%--------%----------------

Another correspondent asks about birds on power lines...don't their feet tingle and why don't they get electrocuted.


Actually, power lines are a hazard to birds. If you touch a power line and then touch something else, it does not matter whether you are feathered or not, you will be zapped. Little birds are small enough to sit on the wire and touch nothing else; since they don't complete a circuit they are safe. The larger the bird, the greater the chance of its being electrocuted. For more details, go to this excellent government website (unless you are a Republican who wants to shrink government, in which case you can remain uninformed and may experiment by touching all the power lines you like...see how that works for you.)  www.fws.gov/birds/documents/powerlines

The same correspondent asks why psychics don't win the lottery.  First of all, the odds of winning the lottery are about 1 in 16 million. Even if you know via your psychic powers 2 of the 6 numbers that are going to be drawn, you only drop the odds to something like 1 in 39,000. Secondly, psychic powers are only granted to enable the psychic to help other people; God or a falling power line would strike them dead if they tried to profit in this way. Thirdly, there are no such thing as psychics.