The Ties That Bind

The late author Alexander King had a theory that the end of the world would be by paper, that the insurance forms, credit card receipts, purchase orders, and the rest of it would simply pile up and smother us all.

My newer theory is that we will all eventually smother but it will be by men's neckties. I was cleaning out a closet last night and I have 74 ties, including a tie-it-yourself bow tie that I'm sure I never knew how to tie myself. And, this does not include the ties that were so outlandish that I have given them away over the years to be used as assorted parts of Halloween costumes. I seldom wear a tie anymore, except to funerals, and then I always wear the same black one. The leaves me with 73 spare neckties and clearly way too much spare time.

As of today, the world's population is estimated to be 6,374,453,044. Assuming one-half are men and that each has 74 neckties, there would be about 236 trillion neckties out there -- that's about 4,075 neckties per square miles of the earth's land surface. As I said, way too much spare time...