The hammer is a meaningless wood-metal contraption, according to a recent scientific revelation: If the universe has no meaning and life has no purpose, the hammer is therefore just a stick of wood attached to a strangely-shaped piece of metal.
“It’s really quite surprising,” said the city-appointed evolutionist of Delaware, Charles Wallace. “But it’s the only reasonable conclusion that can be made. If Evolution—which is fact—has taught us anything, it’s that the world is meaningless. For some reason, only now do we fully understand how this truth affects the hammer.”
Only god-created things have purpose, Wallace said, explaining that because nothing on earth was created by god—who doesn’t exist—the hammer therefore is meaningless.
“All I can say is, I’m glad I’m not a carpenter,” Wallace said. “Jesus must be taking this pretty hard right now.”
Members of the Hammer Society of Delaware are outraged, and slightly confused, by Wallace’s conclusion.
“I’ll show him the hammer has no meaning—when I nail his head with it!” said Joe Barger, head of the Hammer Society. “I ain’t been using this damn tool for nothing all these years. Hell, I’ve won at least twenty bar-fights with ‘em. Tell me that ain’t no meaningful purpose. Wallace—he better not come by the bar any time soon. I have my hammer waiting!”
To members of the Delaware Carpentry Union, this finding has had a more sobering effect.
“Well, I just don’t see the point anymore,” said union member Dan Smith. “I always thought when I hit nail into a piece of wood I was doing something. Apparently I wasn’t doing nothing at all—just smacking a piece of metal against a piece of wood like a fool.”
Mark Phillips, head of the union, killed himself yesterday by jumping off the roof of his self-built home. Witnesses of the suicide said Phillips yelled, just before jumping, “I just can’t live in no hammerless world!”
The economic and manufactural reverberations of Wallace’s finding, though yet unclear, are likely to be massive, said John Peters, Delaware economist.
“All I know, is pretty soon hordes of jobless carpenters and hammer makers are going to be aimlessly roaming the streets, full of confused anger and wielding their now-worthless hammers.”
