Looking for Cracks in the Pavement
October 7, 2009
The ministers and the lawyers convened to discuss amending the Law of Unintended Consequences. Being the sorts of people who prefer the specific to the general, they asked each other: if we use airtight language to define and proscribe every action that is within or without of the Law, surely we will no longer need to keep creating new policy… right?
So they set out codify the Universe. Each leaf must meet certain parameters for its plant’s species. Each pickle slice on a hamburger must be at least this width, this height, this diameter. Each hair on your head had to be within an eight of an inch of the specifications established — contractually — with your hairdresser.
The ministers hired inspectors. The inspectors hired assistants. The assistants badgered trees, pickle factories, salons. The environmentalists, the cucumber growers, the hair-dye manufacturers hired lawyers to protect them from the assistants, from the inspectors, from the ministers, from the other lawyers.
So, people remain protected from improperly formed leaves, from overly large dills that threaten to overwhelm the other flavors of the comprise a cheeseburger, from lopsided bangs.
It has been a smashing success, the ministers ask themselves and you. Hasn’t it?
