B. McLeod in the Pie Pandemic

As I am sure is true for many of you, my office is in the process of slowly reintegrating staff who have been working at home during the early stages of the pandemic. Social distancing is, of course, a primary concern.

Trying to express the requirement in "feet" has the potential for confusion. All persons of Commonwealth heritage will be well familiar with the point that the standard "English rule" was developed because of the confusion wrought by people with feet of varying sizes. Additionally, in modern times, so many people (particularly those of non-Commonwealth origin) rely on the metric system that any use of social distancing requirements expressed merely in "feet" may be less than 100% effective.

For this reason, and to have a little bit of fun with the pandemic, I have decided that, in my office building, we will use 12-inch pies as a mechanism to help all staff achieve and preserve a ready command of the social distancing protocol. Thursday and Friday, we put down the floor-marking signs I had ordered. In addition to the large print direction for English-speakers, there is a Spanish legend asking staff to maintain an interpersonal distance of 6 pies. We are stocking the pies in over the weekend, so anyone who is uncertain will be able to measure and confirm any given spatial relationship in actual pies. To similar end, a large stock of pies will be available at the building entrance for our guests and invitees. To help cement familiarity with the spatial concept of the 12-inch pie, staff members will be allowed to consume pies of their choice at lunch and break times, and visitors will be allowed to join in during conferences (where seating will also be spaced at a distance of 6 pies).

The plan is not without collateral costs and burdens. It does present the necessity of defending our building against any large, semi-sapient, terrestrial life forms that might be inexorably drawn to drive overland to assault our facility, in an attempt to gain access to our pies. To address this concern, building maintenance and security staff have been surrounding our perimeter with a system of steel bollards and Czech hedgehogs, interconnected with electrified wire. All staff have been advised (for their own safety) not to attempt to take pies out to any large creature seen thundering and bellowing around outside the defensive obstacles. For cases of emergency, we will also have a small catapult installed on the roof, capable of hurling a dozen pies at a time, to a distance of 200 metres, should such become necessary to distract and divert an attacking creature. All roads exiting the Chicago area are being monitored, to provide an early warning of anything that may be on the way.