54 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
Subject: Half Inch Magnetic Tape
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I keep a 2400 foot tape in a terrarium at home. It's very
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docile unless provoked, and easy to feed. It likes to have
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empty plastic tape spools and old, scarred disk platters to curl
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around while it takes in the sun, but beyond that it isn't too
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demanding to take care of. It gets along well with the other
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pets, like our four telephones and two modems; they never give
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us any trouble.
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We've sort of been wondering what other people feed their tapes.
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Ours gets a steady diet of house cats and tennis balls, with the
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occasional table lamp for variety. It's especially fun to feed
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it a cat and watch its digestive processes at work (a tape is
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one of the few pets you can own that actually lets you see its
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food going down).
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We discovered that the trick to feeding our tape is to give it a
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tennis ball as an appetizer, preferably by throwing the tennis
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ball with considerable force into the center of the tape while
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it lies coiled on the living room carpet. The tennis ball
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enhances the tape's telepathic energy, allowing it to attract a
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nearby house cat with waves of mental force, causing the cat to
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duplicate the tennis ball's plunge into the center of the tape.
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The cat then realizes its ghastly mistake, and it struggles
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violently with the tape; the tape erupts in a tremendous frenzy
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of raking talons and yawning fangs, and starts bouncing across
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the floor in kind of drunken dance.
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Occasionally the cat will squirt free and flash through the
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kitchen like fried lightning, coming to rest atop the piano from
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whence it can direct its baleful glare at the tape now waiting
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patiently on the floor; but eventually the fatal attraction
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overcomes the cat's sense of self-preservation and the furious
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battle is again engaged. This is the point where the tape may
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inadvertently be attracted to table lamps and other furniture,
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which must be carefully unplugged before the tape hurts itself
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and any innocent bystanders. The fight can continue for some
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time, but in the end the poor cat will run out of energy and the
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last you see of it is a long furry tail flicking listlessly
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above the pile of tape, like a dilapidated flag of truce.
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At this point the cat will be asleep and the tape will have
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sated itself upon the energy, and may be (carefully) replaced in
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its terrarium. The cat of course is reusable, and will gain a
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new charge overnight if you throw it outside before going to
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bed. The tennis ball may have disappeared, in which case you
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should look upstairs behind the clothes dryer (a natural
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hyperspatial accretion and dispersion point).
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I guess my main question is, is so much natural energy healthy
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for a tape?
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--
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