Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin

“Oh,” I said, unconvinced.

“Really, kid. You’ve got to learn this. Let me try an example. Suppose for a minute you’re a soldier assigned to guard a pass. Your superiors put you on the post and give you a stack of ten-pound rocks. All you have to do is watch to see if anyone comes, and if they do, drop a rock on their head. Are you with me so far?”

“I guess so.”

“Fine. Now it’s a long, boring duty, and you have lots of time to think. You’re very proud of your muscles, and decide it’s a bit insulting that you were only given ten-pound rocks. Twenty-pound rocks would be more effective, and you think you could handle them as easily as the ten-pound variety. Logical?”

I nodded vaguely, still not sure what he was driving at.

“Just to prove the point to yourself, you heft a twenty-pound rock, and, sure enough, you can handle it. Then it occurs to you if you can handle a twentypounder, you should be able to handle a forty-pounder, or even a fifty-pounder. So you try. Then it happens.”

He was getting so worked up I felt no need to respond.

“You drop it on your foot, or you pull a muscle, or you keel over from heat exhaustion, or any one of a hundred other things. Then where are you?”

He leveled an accusing finger at me.

“The enemy strolls through the pass you’re supposed to be guarding and you can’t even lift the original tenpound rock to stop them. All because you indulged in needless testing of idiotic muscle power!”

I was impressed, and gave the matter serious thought before replying.

“I see what you’re saying, Aahz, but there’s one flaw in your example. The keyword is ‘needless.’ Now in my case, it’s not a matter of having a stack of ten-pound rocks that would do the job. I have a handful of gravel. I’m trying to scrounge around for a rock big enough to do some damage.”