Saturday Scraps

The next time you castigate someone for being lazy, consider this:

Lazy people are no doubt the inspiration behind most of the labor saving devices we have today, as the driving force behind labor saving devices is to find easier ways of doing things.

So, the next time you load your dishes in a dishwasher, sit on your riding lawn mower, throw your clothes in the washer, use a simpler computer program, and so on, thank the lazy people of the world.
__________________________

I have a confession to make.

Back in college, I stole a book from the library. Even in the late 70s, that college had an electronic system, where one could not take a book off the premises without checking it out, as an alarm would sound at the door if you tried.

But I got the book without checking it out.

How? I happened to know a guy who was the janitor there, so I told him the book's title and location and he grabbed it at night when the alarm system was turned off.

Why did I do this? It was a book I'd previously checked out and I'd been so pleased with it that I wanted my own copy. However, it was the type of book one would not find in a bookstore. I tried to get the library to order another copy that I'd buy from them, but they refused to do that.

So, a few months later when I made the acquaintance of the janitor, I asked him to do this. Because the book hadn't been checked out, who knows how long it was before the library people knew it was missing, and when they did, they probably just thought it had been misplaced somewhere within the library.

I still have the book, by the way.