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Date Posted: 06:14:56 02/12/12 Sun
Author: David Leonhardt
Author Host/IP: xplr-54-143-168-69.xplornet.com / 69.168.143.54
Subject: A Tube Can Be Many A Thing

What do we mean when we speak of a tube? A tube is simple a hollow cylinder, open at both ends, so that things might pass through.

For example, a culvert is a tube. It allows water to flow past your property, under your driveway, without plugging up and flooding onto your lawn or your driveway. It is hollow, so that water can pass. It is a cylinder shape. And it is open at both ends, or else it would be of little use.

Another excellent example of a tube is a pipeline. Yes, if you call it a pipe, it is a tube - in this case a very long one. In this case, the tube is considerably longer than a culvert is transporting oil or gas long distances over land or under water. Unlike the culvert under your driveway, the oil or gas pipeline is not always straight - hence the need for tube bending companies. There are many twists and turns and bends along the way. And although both ends are technically open, they both open into enclosed containers: one to corral the oil of gas into the tube and the other to capture the oil or gas as it comes out the other end.

“The tube” is also something people watch. While watching tubes might not sound like a very exciting hobby, it is fun when “the tube” is the television. Old time TVs used huge tubes to show their pictures, and given that images passed through the TV from the broadcast tower to the viewers’ eyeballs, it was a fitting name. But no longer.

In Britain, the tube is the subway (metro, underground, etc…) This makes sense, as it is like a long pipe through which flow the trains and the people on them. Although the ends are covered up to shield the tracks from the elements outside, it does allow the free flow of trains between stations.

In fact, there are some tubes that are not open-ended at all. This is sort of cheating the system, like a non-tube tube.

Consider a tube of toothpaste. It is indeed open at one end, but at the other end it is closed up. Can this really be a tube? No. The end is closed up specifically to avoid any toothpaste flowing through that end. In fact, it is closed up to contain the toothpaste. The “tube” is in reality a container.

And what about “tube socks”. They should be called container socks, as they are in fact meant to contain your feet, not to allow your feet to pass through them. If your feet do pass through your socks, you can cry out, “Darn socks!” If your foot passes through, that means you have a pretty big hole. Maybe the hole is even too big to darn.

Which brings us to the quandary of what to call it when you go to get your tubes tied. If they are tubes before tying them, they certainly are no longer tubes once they are tied. The very idea of tying them is to impede flow, not facilitate it. It’s a bit like walking around with a toothpaste tube…er..toothpaste container inside you. Now doesn’t that sound like fun?

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