The Principle of Maximum Resistance Versus The Lids
There is a simple, well understood concept that items we purchase for our consumption will of course, require preserving with a covering of some sort, namely, a lid.
We humans are clever devils. We have developed numerous containers so that we can pour milk into our warm beverages without the inevitable spillage resulting from the milk being in a jar. We have cartons, boxes, jars, packets and bottles. All designed to solve the complexity of how we can keep our food and beverage items in a condition suitable for our consumption and without the risk of spillage, until this Tuesday.
Mr Marcus March was in his kitchen preparing a simple snack and a large beverage of the bean variety generally know as coffee. It so happened that he needed to open a new tin of coffee, a fresh carton of milk and a new bag of sugar. Little did he know that he was about to meet a complexity of universal proportions known as āThe Principle of Maximum Resistanceā.
First, the coffee tin. A deceptively simple silver tin with a red lid. Easy. Marcus broke the seal, got one fingernail under the lid and lost it. Not the lid, the fingernail. He frowned, whilst shaking his hand like a man who had touched something very hot.
āBugger, that hurt, he muttered.
After several more tries and the use of a dinner knife, he peeled the lid off. But before his celebrations could reach cosmic proportions, he was faced with a deceptively simple silver foil covering with a pull strip. With no visible means of pulling it.
Now, had Marcus known about The Principle of Maximum Resistance, he would have known that it originated from a planet called Zaponia in the Andromeda galaxy. It is widely considered that on Zaponia, The Principle of Maximum Resistance worked to guide the powerful inhabitants to use the least amount of force to open things because they had a tendency to break things through their natural strength, though some might say it was simply that they were ham-fisted.
In any case, the Principle states that the hungrier and more desperate you are, the packaging would fight back harder. It is a simple state of being. A law of physics that the Zaponians have benefited from for millennia.
Marcus didnāt know this. Henceforth, he tried to remove that foil lid with determined flexing of his fingers. To no avail. He tried his dinner knife trick but merely stabbed his finger. So, in the end, he stabbed the knife through the seal to get to the coffee. āRight, fill the sugar caddy up, he said. Like a man who knew it would be easy.
And indeed it was, at first. The paper packaging ripped open with ease. And Marcus, being no fool, folded the top open to facilitate the pouring of the sugar into the caddy. Ah, you see, once again The Principle of Maximum Resistance, sprung forth. He poured the sugar, achieving about 50.34% into the caddy, and the rest all over the counter. Because the packet top somehow tore down allowing far more sugar out than he intended.
āWhat the hell? Whereās the damn dustpan?
Marcus stamped around the kitchen in a mild fury.
His face now resembled the colour of bruised plum. But he soldiered on. Next, the milk. A fresh carton with a screw cap. Once again, Marcus fell victim to that millennia-old law of physics. The one he didnāt know about.
āAh, a milk carton, easy, he said.
He grabbed the carton in the manner consistent with undoing a screw cap. He shredded the skin from the inside of his thumb and the side of his forefinger. He kept going, using as much, admittedly puny, human force he could muster (Marcus was no Zaponian) but to no avail.
He stopped. Held a finger up in air in the manner of a man whoād been struck by a compelling idea.
āIāll get my pliers! He declared.
Off he went to fetch his pliers from the shed. And on his return, he clamped their metallic jaws around the milk cap. And after much grunting and straining, managed to get the screw cap off. It was ruined of course. So he decanted the milk into a jug. One with no lid.
āBrilliant, I can now make my brew! He declared.
But then, he uttered a sigh not dissimilar to the sound of a deflating tractor tyre. His realisation was simple.
Heād forgotten to boil the kettle.