h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The strangest thing happened to me yesterday. I returned to the hostel rather late, and decided that Chinese takeaway would be just the thing for lunch. When they handed me the Styrofoam packet in a plastic bag, I noticed that there were no utensils inside, and requested a pair of disposable chopsticks. Now I *quite clearly* remember seeing the girl stuffing a pair of wooden chopsticks into the bag... but when I got back to my room, I found that they had mysteriously transformed into a small plastic spoon. I can't explain it. Has the world gone mad while I wasn't looking?

On a less peculiar note: I've been invited to join a local Brass Quintet as trombonist! Practice begins next Thursday (never mind that, like a certain 6-foot ape descendant, I could never get the hang of Thursdays)... and if I understand correctly, we are scheduled to torment the city with Canadian Brass arrangements next month...

1. The chopsticks transformed into a spoon. = impossible(?)
2. Someone switched bags on you in between. = unlikely
3. You saw what you wanted to see go into the bag. = possible
4. The spoon was already there and you missed it. The chopsticks were added but then fell out through a hole in the bag. = possible

Ah, the old Canadian Brass torture...

That's what I think happened too, although if you were to get me to testify in court, I would *swear* that I saw chopsticks. Time to get my eyes checked!!!

Oh yes, Canadian Brass. I don't think anybody really appreciates their music... well, save for the Canadians, at least! You haven't lived until you've heard them play the Marriage of Figaro. It's my friend Alex's favourite Mozart composition, and when he heard it he wanted to hurl the speakers out the window.

You interupted the incubation period too soon... Ten minutes longer in the bag and you would have found a newly hatched .

Have you so soon forgotten the lessons of the late Dent Arthur Dent?

Don't you remember his favorite rabbit bag, full of pretty stones, being replaced by a bag that wasn't his bag, full of plain stones that plainly were not his stones?

You've simply been through a standard zed-zed-nine/plural-zed-alpha type probability shift.

Happens all the time in the plural zones, you've just got to accept it and move on. Really. It gets simpler with practice. Honest.

Yea!

Boy! Silly me.

I could have sworn that this thread had been started by Farlander, yet as I recall Farlander is taking leave from H2G2 to complete his Masters' Degree dissertation. I must have been merely hallucinating. I've been enjoying far too much alcohol and caffeine.

When the real Farlander returns, he'll get a kick out of the confusion.

> 1. The chopsticks transformed into a spoon. = impossible(?)

I'd argue that this was "merely" highly, highly improbable...

Rho

One could, I suppose, do research on the matter - "Investigations on the Dynamics of the Spontaneous Rearrangement of Molecules in Eating Implements in a Stable(?) Environment". I imagine it would be good for an IgNobel Prize!

Well the styrofoam and plastic bag may be suitable contributing materials if there is any difference in mass between the chopsticks and the spoon. However, I don't think the chinese takeaway can really be regarded as a stable environment - more like a catalyst for improbable reactions.

Yes, the high cabbage-and-beans content would do that to any food, I suppose. Although it would be more accurately defined as 'catalyst for volatile reactions'.

That's why I always keep a couple of pairs of chopsticks with me at all times!
I think I know what really happened; remember the careless thing Arthur said after his brief lesson about Earth? Remember the consequences? Perhaps after you asked for the disposable chopsticks, your voice was sent back in time and drifted into the bedroom of a pair of honeymooning Thppt rulers from the planet Ptui. In their language it probably meant, "I have to tell you something, darling - I'm gay!"
Such a remark would bring about anullment - and upset the father of the bride so much it would cause a war. Once they eventually figured out what REALLY happened, they travelled to Earth, stole into your bag, and removed the chopsticks, replacing them with a plastic spoon.
Too add insult to injury, they could have put a spork instead, but probably couldn't find one.