Cross Training Leads to Tragic Result

BOULDER, Colorado – Mr. Jack Hough, a retired graduate of the Colorado School of Yours, Mines and Ours, has embarked on a lecture tour to warn members of the oil and gas industry about the dangers of cross training engineers and geologists. Speaking to the La Brea Tar Pit Survivors Association he offered a cautionary tale:

My younger brother, Beat Hough, earned a degree in geology from Rice University in Houston and then a master’s degree in geology from Wheat University in Nebraska. He obtained employment with an oil and gas exploration company in Bangor, Maine.  After one too many cans of Moosepeace Beer he decided to take evening classes in pottery-making with the hope of meeting a human female. However, being barely conscious, he mistakenly signed up for petroleum engineering. Upon learning of the error, he was too embarrassed to change.

 

In due course he graduated with a master’s degree in Petroleum Engineering. His employer then fired an engineer and told Beat to handle both jobs. However, this caused a tremendous conflict between the two hemispheres of his brain. In simplistic terms, the conflict was between the creative and logical areas of his brain.

 

Mr. Hough continues,

The antipathy between the two halves became so very sharp that his brain and skull began to split along the medial longitudinal fissure. With time and the aid of a team of neuro- and plastic surgeons he wound up with two complete heads. The left head controls the left, and geologically-oriented side of his body and the right head, focused on engineering, controls the right side.

 

He (they) found it impossible to work, what with the left arm continuously punching the right head and the right arm slapping the left head. Regrettably, his (their) employer had to let him (them) go. Now, he (they) is (are) doomed to a lifetime in the employ of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, or possibly Bendovus Energy.

Mr. Hough went on to say that many legal issues have arisen due to Beat’s condition. For example, does he get to vote once or twice in elections? Can a massage parlor charge him double for a neck massage? Does discrimination against bi-cranial Americans fall under federal statutes? He concluded by saying that he wishes no one else has to suffer like his brother has.  No one in the world should suffer the fate of dealing with a geologist and an engineer for their entire lives. And for his close family, nobody should endure the torture of experiencing talking to both and engineer and a geologist while only one other person is present.  That’s not fair to anyone, ever.

Doctors and other specialists believed that this supernatural combination would lead to self-destructive behaviour that would see Mr. Houghs’ lives cut short, so they call it nothing short of a miracle that they are still alive and doing relatively well.