A little birdie told me
Posted By Sika on June 10, 2009
Someone pointed out to the prison officials at Zomba Central that an old, tattered, faded Malawian flag might not be the best thing in the world to have flying at a government institution. So, they decided to replace it with a fresh, clean, bright and shiny Malawian flag.
So bright and shiny in fact, that it still had deep wrinkles and creases, probably from sitting in storage for a gajillion years.
When they went to put up the flag, they discovered that, having sat unused for years on end, the strings to raise and lower the flag were stuck.
After staring for a while at the top of the flag pole, someone realized that in fact, they had the perfect tool at their disposal.
That’s right: A prisoner.
Some poor, feckless prisoner was asked to shimmy all the way to the top of the flag pole in his off-white shorts, although he probably stripped off his equally-off-yet-differently-shaded white top. At some point, someone realized that sending someone up a very high and wavering pole to do fiddly work was perhaps not the best idea, and so they yelled for the prisoner to come back down.
Then they yelled at him to stop stripping the paint from the pole as he came back down.
The prisoner safely reached the ground and was sent back out of the admin area.
There was much debate over what to do next. But suddenly it all became clear:
There was a hinge at the bottom of the pole.
The pole was then brought near to the ground, and the flag was changed out by people standing with their feet quite firmly on the ground.
The end.
Awesome!