Mice
MICE!!
Historically they've been a problem, they've been a solution, they've been the usurpers, they've been the usurped.
Ask a farmer, mice are just little devils incarnate, they eat grain and that's evil.
Ask a farmer, customers are angels incarnate, they eat grain and that's divine.
There is some inconsistency here.
But it was not until Microsoft -- and Xerox, don't forget Xerox -- and cats, don't forget cats -- that mice really took center stage.
Cats[edit | edit source]
Like millionaire Republicans and dollar bills.
Like oak trees and sunlight.
Like shoes and socks.
Like buckets and ... um... where are we going with this, anyway?
Xerox[edit | edit source]
| Before copying |
 |
| ... And after |
 |
In 1953, Xerox invented the concept of copying. Before that, there was only one of everything. Since then we've been overrun with multiples of so many things we don't even have time to say it's a copy, that takes too long, so we call copies clones which has fewer syllables.
In addition to copying Xerox invented mice and attached them, tail first, to all their best computers. For some reason nobody liked mice much when Xerox first invented them and nowadays almost nobody remembers where mice came from to start with. (One theory has them originating on a planet located near the Cat's Eye Nebula, but that's another story.)
Some time later someone found out mice like Apples, too, and lots of mice got Jobs hanging out with Apples.
In fact mice seem to like Kiwis better than apples (at least the mice I've known seemed to, they thought the seeds were kind of cool, though really they liked both pretty well) but there weren't any Jobs in Kiwis.
Microsoft[edit | edit source]
| Chasing those winged mice |
 |
Things were bad enough, with mice running all over everybody's desks, and farmers going berserk because of all the mice in their barns, and mice turning into bats and taking to the air to avoid the cats, and cats learning to fly, and then Microsoft invented internal mice. Never, before Microsoft, did one ever hear a complaint such as, "This computer has MICE!!!"
[As of SP3 WinXP no longer seems to have MICE -- Ed]
