Getting Abreast of Science

A few weeks ago, a friend who was visiting Canada sent me a very strange text message.

“Once again you’re ahead of your time,” it read. “Today here in Canada it’s ‘Boobquake Day”.

I wondered what on earth he was talking about so I quickly looked up ‘Boobquake’ on the web. I discovered that, in response to claims from a religious cleric that women who show cleavage are causing earthquakes by their provocative behaviour (or words to that effect), a young Canadian uni student had set down a challenge.

Her idea was to enlist the help of women everywhere to scientifically disprove the theory that seismic activity was linked to flashing a bit of ‘cleave’. While her boob-atious participants were encouraged to keep it tasteful, the message was clear; put the puppies on parade and let’s see if the earth moves!

However, while I’m sure the earth certainly may have moved for many of the happy male observers of the Boobquake phenomenon, the scientific evidence suggested no such movement on the part of the world’s tectonic plates. In fact, a scan of earthquake activity on Boobquake Day showed the seismology of the day could have barely snapped a bra strap, let alone dumped tall buildings into the bubbling earth’s core. Study complete. Cleavage clearly off the hook.

But you still might be wondering why my friend had linked me to a national day of boobology? And the answer is that, some months ago I had been involved in my own little cleavage incident.

While testing some video-conferencing equipment prior to a meeting, I was seated in front of a video screen while colleagues were beaming in ‘on-screen’ from Melbourne. As we tweaked the equipment – adjusting the sound and lighting – my Melbourne colleagues commented that it was a bit dark at my end and suggested I needed some more light in the room. I noted that the overhead lights were already on, so I did the logical thing and leaned forward over the screen to flick open the venetian blinds.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to me that the camera for the video equipment was actually located at the top of the screen (upon which I was casually leaning my chest as I adjusted the blinds). Thus by the time I stepped back from my chord-twirling activities and looked back at the screen, I found my city colleagues covering their faces in horror and laughing hysterically. Apparently they had just received an unbidden and inappropriately intimate guided tour of my C Cup!

Howls of laughter erupted as I (pointlessly by this stage) squealed and covered the offending portion of my personage. This incident (now known as Boob Cam) has become something of an office legend; the reverberations of which are still echoing around the hallways (and in my friend’s head, evidently, judging by his quickness to link me to Boobquake).

Well, anyway, I’m sure that, with a little therapy, my Melbourne colleagues will recover from the Boob Cam incident, but I do wonder how the religious cleric is coping after 200,000 women popped open their buttons on Boobquake Day.

Forget earthquakes; the poor chap probably had a heart attack when he saw all that jiggling flesh!

Well, anyway, I hope he’s learned his lesson: never mess with scientific chicks.

They’ll bring you ‘undone’ every time!