Gulf of Messico

In the time it takes to type "BP" enough oil to fill your jacuzzi has blasted out of a drill hole on the sea floor. Under normal circumstances the public would be filled with outrage but during the year 2000, in a remarkable display of marketing foresight, British Petroleum changed their logo from a green shield with bold face, capital letters to a sort of green, leafy, salad with small case letters. It has proven more difficult than expected to get mad at this group of humble veggie lovers.

THE CRISIS SO FAR

No contingency plan was in place for for an event such as this, an event that BP officials assured was impossible (see: Titanic) so now the Louisiana wetlands and fishery are threatened and the plumes of oil seep into the loop current that will gradually spread the oil up the east coast.

All attempts at stopping the spewing slime have failed. The heavy encasement that was supposed too cap the well bombed, the detergent (also toxic) used to break up the oil into little beads was just plain stupid and now there's talk of filling the well with old golf balls, chopped up tires and some sort of thick sludge followed by cement. Given the unprecedented nature of this disaster, none of this has been attempted at depth, ever.

The worst case scenario may end up being the best case scenario; everglades and other wetlands destroyed, east coast beaches befouled, ecological and humanitarian crises of a nightmarish degree and THEN maybe the world will become serious about weaning itself from oil and put the proper amount of money and energy into a viable alternative. With any luck tornados and hurricanes will make things even worse, slathering oil , like globs of sunscreen, all over the fat ass of the US, the American south.

THE BLOB SOLUTION

Warning: the following section is graphic and revolting in nature. The young and the squeamish (not to be confused with the ABC soap opera of the same name) should look away.

This is an advice column so now it's time for me to weigh in.

Other well meaning do-gooders have offered ideas: Using human and animal hair to make booms that soak up or disperse the oil http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/local&id=7455194 is a quaint and somewhat disgusting notion.

One woman has suggested using specially treated tea bags to do the same thing.

I synthesized the two ideas, hair and tea bags,

( Urban Dictionary definition of "teabag": The act of dunking into or pressing against any object, liquid or bodypart using the male scrotum.)

and discovered that the unshaven human scrotum, with all it's hairy folds and recesses, can mop up an oil slick 8 to 10 times larger than its own surface area!! Teams of appropriately large-balled men straddling low lying catamarans should do the trick. The Danes with their reputed testicular mass and boring, often depressing, Danish lives are ideal candidates.

An even better idea involves cutting our losses. Let's face it, the disaster is upon us and there's no turning back but there is a silver lining.

According to the American Oceanographic Institute of the Culinary Arts, the Gulf is naturally wok shaped and by mid-August it will be primarily filled with oil. It also happens to be the largest shrimp hatchery in the world. Do you see where I'm going with this....a tanker or two filled with soy sauce, a squadron of crop dusters loaded up with 5 spice powder, a lit match, an obese demographic with voracious appetites and voila, the largest stir fry in history!! The shrimp don't go to waste, most of the oil gets burnt off and an economically devastated population gets to hold their heads high once again when the Guinness Book of World Records people come to call as they most certainly will!

Sure this blog is here to entertain but every once in a great while duty calls. I urge all like minded citizens to head south, a brigade of hungry, chopstick toting volunteers that we'll call Appetite for Humanity. Tell 'em The Blob sent you.

Oh yeah, guys...you're welcome to try the first idea as well. If you're worried about your own hygiene there are people already on the ground ready to help with the delicate clean up job. You've seen footage from previous spills...brigades of women with soapy, gloved hands gently massaging the thick oil off of baby otters. You do the math!