Incoming

Today's Track: Soundtrack: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Call me a geek if you want, but PBS is great television.
No, really. Not only is it educational, but, at times, it can be downright inspirational.
Case in point: On a recent episode of long-running series This Old House, the crew was engaged in remodeling a house in one of Florida's more hurricane-intensive regions. The show's host/commentator/irritating bore was questioning the project's architect/designer on camera. The subject of windows was addressed, being highly crucial in the sense that the house had, at that point, very few of them. According to the interviewee, the house's new windows would represent the highest and finest state of the modern window-design art. They would have to be of significantly higher quality than average to stand the abuse of potential hurricanes. They would in fact need to be--and here I really, really wish I'd been paying enough attention to have gotten the exact quote--capable of sustaining the impact of a coconut traveling at 100 miles per hour. (And that's only in it's paraphrased form. To hear the man himself deliver the original line, utterly deadpan, was much better.)
Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking: How much do I have to pay to get to see that?
As a responsible human being, I feel as though I should state that hurricanes are terrible, destructive things, often laying waste to life and property for miles in every direction as they pass. With the added danger and demolition potential of airborne coconuts, it's a real nightmare.
That having been said, think about it. How would you feel if you looked on helplessly as a bunch of coconuts--dense, heavy, hair-covered projectile vegetation from Hell--thundered into a building at almost three times the municipal speed limit?
You'd laugh until you fell face first in the mud, probably. I know I would.
I realize that natural disasters are no laughing matter, as we are so often reminded by stern-faced media spokescreatures. But--due in large part to the efforts of the Fox Network--it is now almost impossible to view any catastrophe less devastating than the Crimean War without mentally adding a cartoon soundtrack and amusing voices.
Besides that... I mean, it's a coconut!
I personally know of several people who would wait in line for tickets to see that. The only problem is getting the things in flight on demand.
--Swallows?--
Hurricanes, as a rule, are not generally available at command. But I'm sure someone somewhere has already come up with an idea that would do the trick--if so, please let me know.
I'm frankly surprised the U.S. military has not looked into coconuts as a practical and humorous waste of taxpayer defense dollars.
(Unfortunately, I don't have a link to any of the documents relating the Air Force/Navy project which involved the aerial release of incendiary device-equipped bats, which would really have gone over well at this point. I urge you to look into it, though.)
In any case, I bet you'll never look at a palm tree in quite the same way again.

By the way, for those of you who want to know, yes, I think I would laugh if it happened to my house.