FileTitle: Joke250.html
Category: Humor
Type: Joke
Description: Serious Groaner
Subject: Xenobiologist Discovery

-- [ From: Keith E. Sullivan * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --

One day a planet is discovered out Antares way whose sole inhabitant is
an enormous humanoid, three miles high and made of granite.  At first
it is mistaken for an immense statue left by some vanished race of
giants, for it squats motionless on a yellow plain, exhibiting no
outward sign of life.  It has legs, but it never rises to walk on them.
It has a mouth, but never eats or speaks.  It has what appears to be a
perfectly functional brain, the size of a condominium, but the organ
lies dormant, electrochemical activity at a standstill.  Yet it lives.
This puzzles the hell out of the scientists, who try everything they
can think of to get some sign of life from the behemoth--in vain.  It
just squats, motionless and seemingly thoughtless, until one day a
xenobiologist, frustrated beyond endurance, screams, "How could
evolution give legs, mouth and brain to a creature that doesn't use
them?"  It happens that he's the first one to ask a direct question in
the thing's presence.  It rises with a thunderous rumble to its full
height, scattering the clouds, thinks for a second, booms, "IT COULDN'T,
" and squats down again.

"Migod," exclaims the xenobiologist, "of course!  It only stands to
reason!"  --Long-Drink McGonnigle