I recently went to get ice cream as people are wont to do in the summer months, and came across a sign reading:
“We serve more than 43 flavors!”
Interesting. More than 43. So, does that just mean you serve 44? Or did Flippy the sign-painting monkey just get tired of repainting the sign after the 43rd? On an aside, I am going to do my dardest to bring Flippy the sign-painting monkey into another Thought. He just seems rife with comedic possibility. But I digress…
Anyways, as my turn to order my mint chocolate chip ice cream in a sugar cone arrived, I decided to ask the wise ice cream scooper guy what the “more than 43” really meant.
So, I said, “Hey, ice cream scooper guy, what does that more than 43 really mean?”
He replied, “We have more than 43 flavors.”
“Mmhmm. But why not just say we have 44 flavors, or 63 flavors or 100,000,000 flavors instead of more than 43? Say the number you actually have, you know?”
“Because we ran out of banana, so we couldn’t pay Flippy to change the sign anymore.”
I knew it had to be the monkey…