Ficlets

“That’s kinda boring.”

“Well, it gets better. Francis Bacon? In 1626, he had the bright idea of trying to preserve meat by freezing it.”

“Ok…”

“This idea came to him suddenly, while he was riding around in a carriage with a friend. He was so excited by this idea he made the driver pull over, bought a chicken from some random farmer-lady, and proceeded to bury it in the snow. Of course, he caught pneumonia and died within a few days.”

I sighed. “So what? Don’t bury dead chickens in the snow?”

“No. Let other people do the dirty work.”

“Meh. What about Descartes?”

“Well, he was hired to work as a tutor to a princess. Because of her busy schedule, he had to give her lessons really early in the morning, like 4:00 AM.”

“Ouch.”

“The problem was that he did all his best work at night, and was used to being able to sleep in. After a while, the stress compromised his immune system, he got sick, and died.”

“Damn.”

“The lesson here should be obvious, though. Nothing before noon.”

“Now that’s useful.”