News Flash by Jim Croft, jrc_at_anbg.gov.au Horrified Canberran car and sea kayak owners gasped in disbelief as their seemingly benign yellow Puffin turned viciously against their white station wagon and maliciously cracked the windscreen from one side to the other. What horrified the owners most was the Puffin's sinister and shrewd use of the laws of physics, using the stress of differential expansion on a hot day to exploit a small chip in the unsuspecting windscreen. Cunningly positioning itself on the roofrack between the sun and the windscreen, the malevolent kayak shaded, cooled and contracted one part on the helpless windscreen, while the sun heated and expanded the remainder. Unable to withstand the excruciating pressure, the windscreen developed an agonizing crack along its entire length. The distraught owners fear that the windscreen will have to be put down, and the constabulary have confirmed that this is indeed the case. `I just can not understand it.' said one of the owners. `It can't have been jealousy - we never take the car paddling in interesting places, the kayak is allowed in the house - and the kayak is always on top when they get together.' Inquiries of car owners with sea kayaks reveal that this is not the first time such an unprovoked attack by a kayak on a flawed windscreen has occurred, and the community is worried when next will two treasured positions turn against each other, or indeed against their owners or innocent bystanders, remembering earlier carnage of cars driving over kayaks or cars letting go kayaks from roofracks at high speed. The atmosphere here in the nation's capital is quiet, but tense... *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jul 28 2000 - 18:50:56 PDT
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