Question: Assume that if you drop a buttered piece of toast, it will fall to the floor butter-side down. (I’d say this was a certainty, but that would overlap with Murphy’s Law. Of course, you could also add jam on top of the buttered toast.) Also assume that if you dropped a cat from a second floor balcony, the cat will land on its feet. Now: What if you attach a buttered piece of toast to the cat’s back and tossed them both off the balcony? Will the cat land on its feet, or will the butter hit the ground?

Answer: Did you know gravity is a metaphysical property…that we don’t know what gravity is? Oh, sorry, that’s another question. Actually, the answer to the question has opened an interesting world of behavior in much the same vein as quantum mechanics, which is to say – crazy obscure. Clearly, the laws governing the fall of buttered toast dictate that it must, perforce, land with the butter-side down. Equally strict laws concerning feline aerodynamics demand that the cat not land on its back. Obviously, the combined construct – a cat with buttered toast on its back – indicates that Nature would have no way to resolve the paradox in behaviors.

Therefore, the buttered cat simply does not fall.

This, as we have learned, is the secret of anti-gravity. A cat with buttered toast on its back, when tossed from a balcony, will quickly settle at a height where its twisting movement and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. If you scrape some of the butter off the toast on the cat’s back, the cat will begin to ascend. If you remove some of the cat’s fur, it will slowly descend. As we have learned (those of us in the circle of the informed), most civilized species of the Universe use this principle to drive their ships within planetary systems (where gravity exists, of course). The humming noise recalled by most of those who sight UFOs is, in fact, the purring of multiple fat, happy, and toasty buttered cats.

The very improbability of this behavior is what recommends its efficacy. However, there are problems with the power of the conundrum. If the cat (or cats) should become hungry and eat the toast from its/their back, the effect will be cancelled and the interplanetary vehicle will be smashed. This outcome may be avoided by using a collar that prevents the cat’s mouth from reaching the level of its back. Then there is the problem of steering. As everyone knows, steering cats is even more difficult than the management of programmers; however the solution to the problem is similar in both cases.

Programmers can be given proper orientation with the use of freshly baked pizza. No programmer can resist the smell of pizza and will instinctively move toward or to the source of the aroma. Similar effects can be obtained with cats using fresh fish. Supplying fish will also completely avoid the problem of hungry cats eating the buttered toast. In either case, the movement of programmers or cats can be used for directional steering.

In such ways are the ineluctable forces that surround us and bind us used to their greatest effect.