Moldybread’s Weather Balloon
The weather in Shalampax is legendary. At least, it’s legendary in Shalampax. Few, if any, people beyond our borders know anything about our weather, or about Shalampax for that matter.
All Shalampaxians are painfully aware of the hideousness of our climate. However, what many of our citizens don’t know is that often, even when a Category 5 hurricane is ravaging our island, if you head 50 miles in any direction you’ll find clear skies and calm winds. And, the hurricane typically never moves off our island before it dissipates.
To say the least, this is a remarkable phenomenon, but few scientists outside of Shalampax have bothered to study it because it never affects them or anyone they know or care about.
Scientists here would have studied it long ago, except for the fact that there aren’t any Shalampaxian scientists to speak of. That is to say, we do have a couple of scientists, but good taste prevents us from speaking of them. And, if you know anything about Shalampaxians, if good taste prevents us from talking about them, these must be truly hideous characters. They are.
The closest thing we have to a weather expert is Moldybread. His sole claim to expertise in meteorology was gained by his odd habit of looking out the window occasionally as opposed to being glued to his television set for most of his waking hours, as is the case for the rest of us.
Because he possesses a trait that is all but nonexistent in Shalampax, scientific curiosity, and because he wasn’t able to trick scientists elsewhere into doing the work, Moldybread decided to conduct some research on Shalampax’s weather on his own.
Moldybread imported the world’s largest weather balloon. Unusual for a Shalampaxian, he spared no expense. Modybread bought a balloon that can stay aloft continuously for at least ten years, without the need for maintenance.
Moldybread filled the balloon with helium and launched it during the five minutes of moderately calm weather we had yesterday.
Unfortunately, Modlybread does not know much about weather research. He didn’t realize that the monitoring equipment did not come with the balloon. He figured it was all microchips embedded, out of sight, in the balloon. The balloon was, therefore, just a really good balloon and nothing else.
What’s more, no one told him that he was supposed to tether the balloon to the ground.
On the bright side, Moldybread has gotten himself into the record books as the first Shalampaxian to have created a serious threat to air traffic.
I have my binoculars handy so I can watch while the winds carry the balloon around the world. It should pass over here sometime soon I hope – assuming that the Canadian Navy doesn’t shoot it down as a potential North Korean nuclear weapon – this balloon floats around from north pole to south pole, right? Hmmm….is there a Canadian Navy?
btw – being in the Pacific, shouldn’t your storms be called typhoons instead of hurricanes that only occur in the Atlantic? Or are Shalampaxians confused about which ocean they are in?
@David: I’ve heard of this country Canadian of which you speak. I think it has a navy with one sailor and a rowboat. From what I hear, the sailor has a slingshot. His aim is supposed to be pretty good, so maybe he can shoot down the balloon.
You may be right about typhoons versus hurricanes. We really don’t know much about the science of weather here; just what we see on CNN. So we know more about the weather in America than our own weather.