Banging the Big Stick

A question from "Zippy": "What sort of work would I be most suited to?”

My first thought is to say, “How would I know? What do you want to do?” But I have a feeling there’s more to Zippy’s question than meets the eye.

Do cats work? Yes, but cat work is different to person work. A cat works so no one notices that it’s work. When a person works they make sure everyone knows about it.

So for this we will look in Jenny’s box of Magic Photographs for an answer.

This is an old photograph of a man who has wandered too far from home.

He carries a lamp but there’s no light in it. The photographer has cleverly positioned himself so that the star appears to be inside the lamp. The star is not in the lamp, it is in the sky. So why has the man let his lamp go out?

Things went wrong for him. He had been advised to try working from home and he just sat there and didn’t have anything to do.

Ever since, he has been wandering around, looking at the ground and picking things up and putting them down again.

Every now and then he bangs the big stick on the ground. Maybe an ant keeps climbing up the stick.

He has just noticed that when his head is bowed he is the same height as the stick. This has made him smile.

I hope that answers your question, Zippy.

(Jenny has just pointed out to me that she used to bang on the floor when the people downstairs were noisy. But I don't see what that's got to do with the question. Anyhow we've moved since then.)