ASM826 shares a stimulus fable, in the tradition of Aesop:
Billy-Bob’s wife had been nagging him about the water level in the swimming pool. It was almost a foot low and the walls below the tile were showing. Billy-Bob knew that if his wife wasn’t happy, he would have no peace, so bright and early on a Saturday morning, he decided to fix the problem.
He went out and looked at the pool and, sure enough, it was low. Since he had a gas powered irrigation pump, he hauled it over from the barn. Pretty good sized pump, Billy-Bob thought, I ought to be able to fill this pool by lunch time.
He stuck the outlet hose in the swimming pool, and since he didn’t have any other source of water, he stuck the inlet hose in the swimming pool, too. Then he started the pump. Now the hoses were worn, and they leaked, and the fittings on the pressure side did too, but the motor ran strong and the pump was definitely moving water.
Billy-Bob went up on the porch and sat in the shade for a half an hour and then went back down to the pool. Water level looked about the same, although there was a small trickle running down the back side of the hill where the pump was sitting. He went over and pulled the outlet hose out of the pool, and water was shooting out of it. Reassured that he was pumping water into the pool, he dropped the hose back in, topped off the gas tank and went to do some other chores.
A couple of hours later, his wife came and got him. When he got to the pool, the water level was lower than when he started. Puzzled, he checked the hoses again, and again was reassured to see water pumping into the pool. Then he had a idea what the problem really was. Turning to his wife he said, “You keep an eye on this, I going to the farm supply store, we need a bigger pump.”
(Hat tip to Borepatch.)