The patrons leaning on the bar at bustling country pub Flannery’s and Gore were shocked when a wild-eyed man with a slide-rule in his pocket burst in the door.
The man leaps on the bar and shouts: “Everybody, this pub is about to collapse.
“I’m an engineer and I’ve just been looking at the walls outside - they’re about to give way.” In the stunned silence, some punters think they hear a faint creaking noise from the walls, but can’t be sure it’s just not the crickets.
Suddenly another man with an even bigger slide rule enters the pub and shouts: “Oh my God you people are going to die!
“The walls are about to subside. I think it’s leaks from the beer lines. You all need to stop drinking so much right now.”
Thoughts of violence briefly flit though some of the more capacious consumers of the pub’s products.
The first man shout from on top bar counter: “Actually, I think it’s the plumbing. But the walls are definitely about to collapse.”
A man at the end of the bar pipes up: “Don’t be ridiculous. Leaky beer lines couldn’t bring the house down.”
“Or plumbing,” says another punter.
“So can’t we just cut down the drinking and using the loo so much?”
The mayor, seated at one end of the bar, says: “Well we can’t keep drinking and using the loo like we have been.
“It’s time to act, and act now on dangerous building change.”
The mayor spoke for another 40 minutes but mostly unheard as punters returned to the bar.
Finally the hotel owner sighed.
“Mayor,” he says, “I can’t shut the pub. It’ll ruin me.”
“Can’t you have someone look at the plumbing?” asks the mayor.
“Why don’t you wait until you get an agreement from all the other mayors to look at the plumbing in their pubs,” suggested another punter helpfully cutting the mayor off before another lengthy dissertation
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?” yells the engineer on the bar. “YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”
The second engineer disagrees. “Well, we probably have until Tuesday at least, if we can slow down on the drinking and water use.”
“So it seems to me,” says the mayor, “we can leave, we can cut back on the beer, we could form a town committee to look at those options”.
“You could probably put the price of beer up and charge for the use of the water,” says the local shop owner, the richest man in town, who charged passing tourists a big sum for water bottled out of the local dam.
“That would probably stop people using as much.”
Everyone looks at each other nervously.
What happens next?
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