Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Salmon Disappear!

A story in The New York Times, entitled "Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace," describes the severe decrease in the numbers of Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River Basin. I didn't really read the article, but am faking it so that people think I read "All the News That's Fit to Print." I mean, do you know how long it takes to read some of those newspaper articles? Why don't they just put all that newspaper stuff on TV, then we wouldn't even need to learn to read. It would save so much time.

Getting back to that newspaper story I didn't read, I'm sure that fish scientists probably have come up with a number of hypotheses about the massive salmon disappearance. Fish scientists come up with all kinds of ideas about a lot of stuff. Did you ever see on TV all the different kinds of fishing lures these fish scientists have invented? It really blows my mind. It's like, whoa, they even got a fishing lure that makes noise and jumps up and down like some Beatles. I can't believe it.

But these fish scientists, with all these theories based upon their education, training, and experience in the field, don't really use their imagination to come up with the real answer. Oftentimes, I use my imagination, which I guess is a pretty good one, since a couple of my doctors, y'know, have coined a scientific name for it -- they call it a delusional system, which is pretty special, I guess -- to discover the real answer to many problems.

I investigated the disappearance by conducting thought experiments, just like Einstein used to do. Thought experiments are perfect vehicles to attempt to answer the problem, since no Chinook salmon are destroyed in the process. I wouldn't want those PETA people after me. I have enough trouble with the fish at the West Side Market all looking at me, their little fish mouths opening and saying things as I walk by -- I can perform these thought experiments without touching or even looking at a Chinook salmon.

So, there are two alternatives that are likely, the second more probable than the first; and knowing how things are in the universe, both have most certainly combined to cause the disappearance of the Chinook salmon.

First, the disappearance of the salmon is the fault of my sister-in-law. She has single-handedly decimated the population of salmon. She is to salmon what the Japanese are to whales. She eats salmon every day at least three times a day. She has between-meal snacks that are salmon. She will eat salmon omelets for breakfast and leave the eggs.

She once had a pet salmon, but she had to get rid of it because her mouth watered every time she would see it -- she ate it over two days after it was smoked for her. She demanded that Ben & Jerry's make salmon ice cream. When she didn't hear from the company, she made some herself. She broke up with a special male friend named Salmon because he did not like a particular salmon salad she made for dinner one night. Nobody has ever seen him since that night.

If salmon is not on the menu at a restaurant, she does not go to the restaurant. She will bring salmon with her to parties just to make sure she has an adequate supply. She found vacuum-packed salmon that did not need refrigeration and bought the entire stock at each of the stores located in the city in which she lived. Now she orders directly from the supplier, in addition to buying salmon at grocery stores and restaurants.

You may be skeptical, but you are not familiar with my sister-in-law.

To understand my second hypothesis, you have to review some recent history. You will recall in this past year that billions of bess up and disappeared in the Great Bee Disappearance of 2007. The simplest and most logical of all of the various explanations advanced was that the queen bees of many bee populations were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials; and the rest of the bees followed them, as bees naturally do. One needs to know only a little bit about astronomy to understand that at this time of the year, the sun crosses the celestial equator on its way from the southern to the northern hemisphere. As all of you should know, this is called the vernal equinox; and the point at which the sun crosses the equator lies within the constellation, Pisces, the fishes. And as you all know, extra-terrestrials are pretty clever about leaving clues and stuff. So, as with the bees, extra-terrestrials, and not the same ones which absconded with the bees, swooped down and vacuumed up the Chinook salmon to take to their home planet.

And the more I think about this problem, the more I think that maybe my sister-in-law is one of them. Why else would she be eating salmon all the time? Yes, she was an advance scout and discovered a treasure trove of salmon in this part of the universe.

Posted by Bill at March 20, 2008 06:01 PM