A Photon’s Life
I spent pretty much my whole day at work goofing off. Not goofing off in the sense of wearing funny pants and dancing around on the street like a crazy person. More like sitting at my desk, giving the impression of doing actual work, but doing no actual work that I was getting paid for whatsoever.
This is what I mean by goofing off, just in case my clarity was temporarily inferior.
But all that goofing off paid off, and I was finally able to track down that last offending photon from the gang that had mugged me last week. They thought they were so tough with their wavelets and mysterious particle-like properties, but I knew they’d shrink behind their pet rabbits if I really put the pressure on. And pressurize them I did. Those photons were squashed within a micron of their lives, and wouldn’t you know it, they just completely spilled the photonic beans.
From there it was easy to trace the leader’s driver’s license, plant some evil corn in his lawn, twist his molars in surprising new directions, and generally act like a mischievous little prankster to get under the photon’s skin. After that it was just a small leap across the Great Gurgling Canyon of Katydids to reach that final photon, the one who was probably the mastermind behind the entire operation.
And boy, did I let him have it. I shouted at that photon for hours, telling him loud stories about plumbers who had lost their drills, misnamed freshmen who didn’t know who they were, illuminated locusts that never needed to buy a light bulb, and the pair of seasick otters who dreamed up a cure for dyslexia last week.
After all of my stories, the photon broke down crying. He didn’t mean to mug me. But he was so severely dyslexic that he didn’t really have a choice. What else could he do, play golf?
He had a point. It’s a hard life I lead, going back and forth between yelling at photons and feeling sorry for them. But in the end they all wind up in the black hole that I keep in the dishwasher, never to be heard from again. That’s a photon’s life, at least in my house.