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Made me think of a Martin Amis quote about burgling and that it could be re-done about plumbing so I googled it and changed the word burgling for plumbing. Kinda works
“Little did they know that the place they were about to plumb -- the shop, and the flat above it -- had already been plumbed the week before: yes, and the week before that. And the week before that. It was all plumbed out. Indeed, plumbing, when viewed in Darwinian terms, was clearly approaching a crisis. Plumbers were finding that almost everywhere had been plumbed. Plumbers were forever bumping into one another, stepping on the toes of other plumbers. There were plumber jams on stairways, on groaning fire-escapes. Plumbers were being plumbed by fellow plumbers, and were doing the same thing back. Returning from plumbing, plumbers would discover that they themselves had just been plumbed, sometimes by the very plumber that they themselves had just plumbed! How would this crisis in plumbing be resolved? It would be resolved when enough plumbers found plumbing a waste of time, and stopped doing it. Then, for a while, plumbing would become worth doing again. But plumbers had plenty of time to waste -- it was all they had plenty of, and there was nothing else to do with it -- so they just went on plumbing.”
“Little did they know that the place they were about to plumb -- the shop, and the flat above it -- had already been plumbed the week before: yes, and the week before that. And the week before that. It was all plumbed out. Indeed, plumbing, when viewed in Darwinian terms, was clearly approaching a crisis. Plumbers were finding that almost everywhere had been plumbed. Plumbers were forever bumping into one another, stepping on the toes of other plumbers. There were plumber jams on stairways, on groaning fire-escapes. Plumbers were being plumbed by fellow plumbers, and were doing the same thing back. Returning from plumbing, plumbers would discover that they themselves had just been plumbed, sometimes by the very plumber that they themselves had just plumbed! How would this crisis in plumbing be resolved? It would be resolved when enough plumbers found plumbing a waste of time, and stopped doing it. Then, for a while, plumbing would become worth doing again. But plumbers had plenty of time to waste -- it was all they had plenty of, and there was nothing else to do with it -- so they just went on plumbing.”
