Lifeboat

5 people found themselves aboard a sturdy lifeboat in the mid-Pacific, with no land within a thousand miles and no compass. Life wasn't all bad though. There were plenty of fish around, and the small Asian woman had brought a bamboo pole which could catch fish without difficulty. She continued making more of these poles, and the others used them too. They had far more food than they needed. They were also fortunate that she had brought the tools to make portable desalinizers and so they all had plenty of water to drink. And the weather was good.

They originally had a problem when they tried to urinate and defecate over the side of the boat -- they had no sails and without a wind, they found that they could no longer catch fish or use the nearby water for desalination and drinking after they'd fouled it. But the Brazilian and the African guy both had plenty of buckets, and so they used those and, unfortunately, had to keep them on board after use. They found they could throw no more than one bucket overboard a day without losing their food and water supplies, and they produced more than that. They lived with the smell, because it was better than having no food or water. The chubby white man was entertaining and could tell good stories to keep them from getting bored and going crazy. But he ate about twice as many fish as the rest of them and got chubbier daily, and filled more buckets too. He also threatened to stop telling stories if he had to sleep with the stinky buckets close by, so everyone else had to take the buckets to their sides of the boat instead.

The others put up with his good natured ribbing, since he told good stories and kept spirits up. When he wasn't doing that, he would play with his fish tank. Chubby had a fish tank on the boat, full of fish that were perfectly good to eat, but he kept them in a tank instead and watched with amusement as they ate each other. He claimed that he was growing the best and tastiest fish this way. The European woman also had a fishtank, but she fed tiny fish to the population constantly and kept her fish all the same size, and they didn't eat each other. Since some days there were no fish in the sea nearby, they all took to keeping extra live fish in tanks for those days, but none had tanks as big or fish as healthy-looking as the largest in Chubby's tank. Chubby would sometimes call people over to look at how one of his fish had eaten most of the others in the tank, and gotten really large and fat. He would crow over the size of his biggest fattest fish, and proclaim that his system of fish raising was working much better than the European woman's, since all her fish were smaller than his biggest ones. Chubby and the European would have long talks about the merits of their fishtank methods, and they become good friends despite their differences. The others would shake their heads in puzzlement -- their small fish were enough to live on, and eventually they didn't talk much to Chubby except to listen to his stories, but since there were enough fish for everyone, nobody cared much.

After a few weeks, they had all become used to this state of affairs, when the African guy shouted "Hey!". A wave had just come over his side of the boat and gotten his feet wet. The European woman took some careful measurements and announced that the boat was riding lower in the water than before. The others looked over the side of the boat and most agreed, though nobody had taken measurements before. The chubby white guy, now quite obese, couldn't or wouldn't look over the side, and scoffed, saying that this was a nice theory, but that no measurements had been taken before, so there was no reason to think the boat was any lower. And besides, even if it was, there was no reason to think that the increasing numbers of smelly buckets on the boat, or his own growing obesity, could be in any way responsible. It was quite possible that boats just naturally rode lower in the water sometimes, and higher other times.

Chubby slept on the high side of the boat anyway, since he had no buckets nearby, so the occasional complaints from the others when small waves washed over their sides didn't really disturb him. He ate more fish and produced more smelly buckets than ever. The European woman wanted to help out, so she served out some of the fish from her tank to the other passengers, and poured some of her tank water overboard, to lighten the load on the boat. Chubby refused to follow suit, saying she was just promoting socialism and he wanted no part of it.

After a while, it was obvious to everyone, even Chubby, that the boat was riding fairly low in the water. Small waves washed aboard several times daily, sometimes even getting Chubby or washing into his fish tank and killing a fish or two. The African and the Brazilian spent most of their days bailing the boat, while the Asian woman sat in one place, making new fishing poles and repairing the desalinizers. She was getting fatter too, but she was pretty small to start with.

All of them would occasionally ask Chubby to watch his eating, or reduce the water and fish in his tank, to keep the boat higher in the water, but he wouldn't hear of it. He thought they were just being alarmist. He ignored most of them, and paid attention only to the European and to his own chatter. When she asked him to reduce his tank size, he chided her and said his fish were still bigger than hers, and that she was motivated by fish tank envy.

Eventually, they all had a boat conference, noting that the gunwales were only inches above the waterline and still sinking, and they all made an agreement limiting the fish they could eat daily, and the amount they could excrete. They confirmed that they could safely throw one bucket a day overboard without poisoning the water around them, but no more. Anyone who was able to excrete less than the limit of 1/5 of a bucket was rewarded with credits they could use to get extra bamboo fishing poles or more story time from Chubby. Chubby originally agreed, but shortly had a change of heart. He claimed that the "boat sinking" theory was still just a theory, that it had nothing to do with his increasing weight or the now 2 full buckets he produced daily, that nobody could prove it did (which was true), and that he wasn't convinced that this wasn't all just a scheme to make him stop playing with his fish tank his way.

He repudiated the agreement and continued to eat and excrete 2 buckets a day, but now it was up to 2.5, and the boat rode inexorably lower by a millimeter or so each day, as more fish came on board, got eaten and turned into smelly waste in buckets, which were stored far away from Chubby. The others were unable to change his mind, and since he still told the best stories, plus he was big enough to knock any of the others overboard, they couldn't force him. Occasionally the European woman, who was the only one he'd talk to now, would ask him to rejoin the agreement and pour out some of his fishtank, reduce the number of fish he ate, and try to cut back down to the 2 buckets a day he'd been producing just a few days before, and he would laugh at her and say she still hadn't proved that the boat was sinking, let alone that his smelly buckets could be responsible for it. He saw no reason to change his successful way of life.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21717090-1702,00.html