FOOL'S ERRANDS

 FOOL'S ERRANDS

A "Fool's Errand" is the practical joke of sending a person to fetch some non-existent but plausible sounding item. The joke is usually played at work on a new employee or apprentice and its effectiveness depends on the naiveté of the victim. Here are some of the more common Fool's Errands. There are hundreds of such errands; many are specific to particular occupations. Many of the objects are non-existent items. Others really do exist, but not in the context of the occupation where they are set as a fool's errand e.g. fallopian tubing makes sense to a doctor, but not to a plumber. Many errands rely on an apprentice being overwhelmed by technical jargon; as long as the errand or object sounds plausible, he assumes it to be yet more jargon.

• 2 by 4 stretcher
• 10 feet of fallopian tube
• 10 metres of <commercial air name, for example Lufthansa or Swissair> air-line
• 100m of flightline
• A5 Continuation sheets (secretarial: if it's too big for A5, you use A4)
• A bee-line
• AC battery
• Adjustable needle-nose pliers
• Ants' milk
• Articulated Gyrogorphotor (£10,000 value and lost/stolen!) (assumed to be a fools errand)
• A runaround (sent all over the place; "runaround" is also slang for a beat-up but reliable car)
• Bar stretchers
• Basin Trials (get Junior sailor watching the basins in the bathrooms for any leaks prior to sailing)
• Battery for the dynamo flashlight
• Bearing grease for the Radio Compass/Tacan/VOR etc.
• Big weight/wait (same effect as a long wait)
• Binnacle Alignment Tool (naval)
• Birdseed for the cuckoo in the cuckoo clock
• Bit bucket for the bits lost when the computer system crashes
• Blinker fluid/indicator fluid (car mechanics)
• Box of grid squares
• Box of sparks for spark plugs
• Box of tappet clearances
• Box of topo (civil engineering, "Topo" is a Japanese snack-food)
• BT Punch (naval - popular on ships with 1200 lb. plants, and huge knuckle-dragging BTs; don't specify whether to ask for the left or right punch; a smart HT will suggest taking both "just to be sure")
• Bubbles for spirit levels
• Bucket of steam
• Bucket of compressed air
• Can of blue steam
• Can of squelch (when target returns empty-handed, "remember" it now comes in spray cans not tin cans)
• Canopy lights (air force)
• Cans of Water Slugs (naval)
• Checkered paint
• Chem-Light batteries (air force)
• Compass Oil
• Compass wrench
• Copper magnet
• Coriolis effect technician (IT) - to check direction the token on token ring network is travelling
• Coriolis effect watch, in order to determine when you have crossed the equator. Coriolis effect is which way water circles the plughole! (Naval)
• Coupon rake (banking)
• Cranking down the mast (naval)
• Crocodile Milk
• Curve stretcher (civil engineering)
• Cyrillic Pencil
• Data packets
• Dicer for the level
• DF Bearing Grease (naval)
• Dry water
• Elbow grease
• EMHO log (naval: Early Morning Hard On)
• Find Charley Noble (galley smoke stack) (US Navy, 1950s)
• Find the Golden Rivet (naval - the golden rivet was supposedly the last rivet installed and located in the shaft alley)
• Find the spilt token (computing - when a token ring network cable is unplugged, can end up with everyone on hands and knees searching!)
• Fire warmer
• Flux capacitor (only to be found in a sci-fi movie)
• Frequency grease (if the radar sounds too squeaky), if the new guy brings anything back it's low frequency grease and you needed high frequency grease
• Gig Line (naval)
• Glass axe
• Glass hammer
• Glass magnet
• Gnat's Milk
• Gnat Tit Ointment
• Grape grater
• Green oil for the starboard lamp (naval)
• Hard punch
• Holes for hole punches
• Horizontal tentpegs
• Hose Stretchers
• Howitzer report (ordnance)
• ID-ten-T form (ID-10T - popular in armed forces)
• Jet Blast Compound (aviation)
• Key to the vapour lock
• Keys to the drop zone (air force)
• K9P Cutting Fluid
• Learning curve (draughtsman)
• Left-handed box-end wrench
• Left-handed gavel (auctioneer's or judge's mallet)
• Left-handed monkey wrench
• Left-handed paint roller
• Left-handed punch/right-handed punch (these errands are painful)
• Left handed screwdriver
• Left-handed smokeshifter
• Left-handed tablespoon
• Liquid magnet
• Long drop
• Long stand ("long stands" exist in the clothing industry)
• Long weight (ie wait; storesman goes away for a while to "look" on his return he says "was that long enough?")
• Mercury rods/discs (mercury is liquid at room temperature)
• Metric adjustable wrenches (in metric countries: Imperial adjustable wrenches)
• MIL-TFD-1111 (mythical military/engineering standard: "Make It Like - The F**king Drawing" - For Once)
• Money changing for Gibraltar - "If you're going ashore you better go and cash a cheque for your Giblets" (naval)
• New cursor for the computer (IT)
• New tokens for the Token Ring network (computing)
• Newton's Rings for the camera (Newton's Rings are a light interference pattern)
• Non-conductive cardboard
• Ooievaarskuitenvet (The Netherlands - storks' calves' fat)
• Pachyderm trunking
• Paper-stretcher
• Peedo-file (on a written chit - pronounced "paedophile")
• Pink paraffin for the night lights (red bulbs!, naval)
• Podger, for aligning holes (in some circles, this exists)
• Pot dividers (kitchen staff)
• Polka-dot paint
• Post-hole key (on a race track)
• PRC-E7 ("prick E7") (PRC "prick" is military radio, but E7 is a grade of sergeant; PRC-E7 = "prick sergeant" not a type of radio)
• Prop Wash (aviation)
• Rearrange the 6-ply (6 colored sheets with 5 carbons to put in reverse order)
• Recharge the escape arrows with a torch (naval)
• Recharger for the sound-powered phone batteries
• Relative Bearing Grease for the compass
• Requisition the Supply Officer for 1000 Gas Tight Envelopes (armed forces)
• Ring centres (essentially these are paper punchouts/chads)
• Roll of film for the digital Camera
• Rubber mallet (rubber-headed panel-beating mallets exist)
• Sauerkraut seed
• Sending a sailor to "pilot" the missile (naval)
• Sending new techies at a CommSta hunting for a spool of Red Order Wire to do some repairs (naval)
• Sending someone to Engineering Control to report, "Sir, High level alarm in the cooling system, request permission to blow the MPA" (naval)
• Sending someone to the Chiefs' mess to turn off their lights when "darken ship" is piped (naval)
• Sending someone to the galley to get some oil boiled when the Petty Officer requests boiled oil. Linseed oil is "double boiled" so it can be sent back with the fool saying "you've only boiled this once" (naval)
• Shelf expander (expanding shelves really do exist)
• Shore line stretcher
• Siren Winders (fire/ambulance service)
• Skyhooks (items by this name have since been invented for aviation use)
• Snake oil
• Snipe Hunt (scouts/military, a night-time communal fools' errand)
• Socket for round nuts
• Some electricity (usually the fool is sent away from stores with a battery)
• Some snew (fool usually asks "What's snew?" [what's new?])
• Sonar grease (for when it sounds a bit "squeaky")
• Sound powered phone batteries (naval)
• Spare smoke canister for when the smoke (that runs the computer/other electrical kit) escapes
• Sparks for the fire
• Sparks for the grinder
• Spark samples from the angle grinder
• Squilgee Sharpener (naval)
• Stand mail buoy watch (naval)
• Stand Monkey Watch while sailing past Gibraltar (included a broomstick and a hard hat)
• Striped Paint
• Tartan paint
• Tartan yarn (wool)
• Tuning pipe for a fog horn
• The lost document file
• Virtual ram for the computer network server
• Water Hammer (this is the banging sound made in water pipes)
• Waveguide stretcher (radar operators)