Yesterday evening at 7:03p.m. EVT (Eastern Virtual Time), the captain of the Ship of Fools, Pequod Hornblower, shed three, albeit very large, tears when he admitted that he was tweeting while steering the ship into the harbor. Focusing all of his efforts on making sure his messages exactly conformed to Twitter format and did not exceed the character limit, he took his eyes off the ship’s course and ‘accidentally’ eliminated 15,726 Twitter followers in the process. The victims of this unfortunate mishap were going about their usual monkey chain building business when the giant ship appeared at Twitter’s harbor entrance. Realizing that a large contingent of possible followees were close at hand and could be had, the social media devotees flocked to the dock, preparing to greet the new arrivals by tweeting ‘follow’ invitations to the passengers on board. An eye witness described the scene:“Everyone was waving and cheering as the huge ship floated towards them, happy at the prospect of having so many new ‘friends’! Much too late they realized that the ship was not slowing down at all and, before they knew it, the bow of the ship rose up before then like a tsunami wave and then crashed into their ‘unfollow’ buttons, kicking one and all out of Twitter. It was a sad, sad day!”It is estimated that the captain’s astonishing incompetence on the job had detrimental effects on twenty seven million, four hundred forty two Twitter residents, sixteen thousand, eighty one Twitter dogs, several thousands Twitter cats and a gerbil, not to mention the crew of the ship who, immediately following the incident, were so outraged, they tried to hang the man from the nearest yardarm. Twitter police had to be called in to disperse the murderous mob. After cooling down, the group filed charges against their less than superior officer, alleging he was a f***ing idiot. A spokesman for the cruise line company, operator of the ship, in a rare, by-partisan joint press conference with Twitter government officials, assured the victims and their families that a full and transparent investigation of the incident will be launched immediately after the two sides agree on who the members of the investigating committee shall be. When asked how long the selection process will take, the spokesman said:“We will do our utmost to reach consensus as soon as possible although, given the current political atmosphere, we suggest you don’t hold your breath.”
To the question regarding the restoration of the ‘unfollowed’ to their rightful place among the Twitter population, the spokesman indicated that resurrection on such a massive scale would not be possible at this time. Sorry.Lawyers from all over the world are now flocking to Twitter, anxious to sign up as many of the victims of this unfortunate event as they can, in an effort to launch a massive class action suits against everybody and their mother. Stay tuned for further details of this ridiculous story as it unfolds… Or not.Reporting to you live at the scene (we consider reporting dead highly unprofessional), this is, A.J. Aston for ABC News (Aston Broadcasting Company)
