Two offensive linemen in a rented boat catch an unusually large number of trout in a secluded cove. As they start back to the marina, one reaches over with his felt-tip pen and marks an X on the starboard bow. “I want to make sure we can find this spot again tomorrow,” he explained. “Idiot,” his friend replied, “what makes you think we’ll get the same boat?”
It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of this anecdote:
There was a man from the state of Chu who was crossing a river. His sword fell out of the boat into the water, and he quickly marked the boat, saying, "This is where my sword fell." When the boat stopped, he got into the water to look for his sword at the place where he had marked the boat. The boat had moved but the sword had not. Is this not a very foolish way to look for a sword?
In Chinese the expression is 刻舟求劍, literally "Marking the boat to find the sword"; the original story is from the 3rd century B.C. 呂氏春秋 Lǚ shì chūn qiū (Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Lü), but instead of stupidity, it's used more in the sense of stubbornness or inflexibility. This follows the original sense, where the anecdote is used to argue that the law must change to suit changing times.
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