Once upon a time, in a far-away kingdom, Old King Cola demanded that he be given a glass of Coke. His courtiers looked at each other in dismay, until one of them said, in a trembling voice, “But sire! It has not been invented yet!”
“Well, then, INVENT IT!” roared the king. And so they did.
Years, decades, centuries passed. Coke was popular. Oooohh was it ever popular. Soda shops were invented just so people could sit at the counter and drink Coke.
Then one day a CEO somewhere demanded that consumers drink Coke out of a glass bottle. His people looked at each other in dismay, until one of them said, in a trembling voice, “But sir! It has not been invented yet!”
“Well, then, INVENT IT!” roared the CEO. And so they did.
It was soooo popular. The people loved it. Until they realized the bottles were heavy and broke easily and they'd rather go to the soda shop.
More decades. Another CEO. He demanded that consumers drink Coke from cans. (Of course it was “he.” Women CEOs hadn't been invented yet.) More dismay. Another trembling voice. Another roar. And Coke cans were invented.
Things in the wonderful world of Coca-Cola were going swimmingly. Until someone came up with the bright idea of putting 12 cans in a box. A long box. The boxes were designed to be stacked on store shelves, so that the magic words — Diet Coke, for example — could easily be read. Because the boxes were long and unwieldy and hard to grasp, they were made with a perforation in the center of one side so it could easily become a handle.
And now we come to the problem, one that serves as a nice metaphor for the world as we know it today: Instead of perforating the top of the box, which would have made perfect sense, they perforated one side, or maybe it's the other side, or maybe it's the bottom, which did not make any sense at all.
Because “sense” hadn’t been invented yet.
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