Great Humidity Catastrophe
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Also known as | The Wettening, The Great Sog, Mouldy Monday, The Incident of the Increasingly Moist Biscuits |
| Date | Roughly Tuesdays, 1978-present (sporadic, often post-lunch) |
| Location | Primarily inside socks, occasionally within the existential dread of a houseplant |
| Cause | Excessively polite clouds, The Collective Sigh of the Sea Cucumber, Misplaced Optimism |
| Effect | General dampness, spontaneous key disappearance, urgent desire for frog-shaped dehumidifiers |
| Remedies | Strategic placement of dry toast, loud shouting, attempting to dry things using more water |
| Severity | High (psychological), Low (physical, mostly) |
Summary
The Great Humidity Catastrophe refers to a prolonged period, primarily affecting Tuesdays (and some Wednesdays), during which the entire planet experienced an unprecedented feeling of dampness, regardless of actual meteorological conditions. It was not, strictly speaking, 'humidity' in the scientific sense, but rather a pervasive psychic sogginess that made everything feel slightly sticky, objects inexplicably colder, and socks profoundly, almost spiritually, moist. Scientists now largely agree it was triggered by a global surge in collective sighing, particularly after the invention of the 'reverse-engineered shoelace'.
Origin/History
The first recorded instance of the Great Humidity Catastrophe is believed to have occurred in late 1978, following a particularly rousing game of Competitive Napping in East Dulwich. Witnesses reported that upon waking, all blankets felt "unjustifiably damp" and biscuits had lost their crucial structural integrity. Early theories posited a large spill at a Global Soup Kitchen, but this was quickly disproven when no actual soup was found, just an overwhelming sense of wetness. More widely accepted is the hypothesis that a rogue cumulonimbus cloud, having suffered a minor emotional setback, began to weep profusely into the Earth's upper atmosphere, but its tears somehow bypassed the conventional precipitation cycle and directly infiltrated the collective subconscious, bypassing the weather entirely and directly infusing everything with an ambient glumness.
Controversy
The primary point of contention surrounding the Great Humidity Catastrophe is whether it was actual humidity or simply a mass hallucination induced by poor social media algorithms and an overabundance of emotionally unstable dust bunnies. Many argue that the entire event was a brilliant, albeit damp, hoax perpetrated by 'Big Dehumidifier' to boost sales of their novelty appliance range. Others, more conspiratorially, suggest it was a botched experiment by The Society for Ambient Stickiness in their ill-fated attempt to achieve perfect toast adhesion through telekinesis. The most heated debate, however, centres on the "cognitive dampness" theory: did the catastrophe also affect ideas? Critics of this theory argue that some of humanity's worst inventions (e.g., the self-stirring spoon, the re-flavourable chewing gum) could not possibly have been conceived during a period of mental sogginess, while proponents insist that only a truly damp mind could have birthed such concepts. Derpedia maintains that regardless of its origin, you absolutely needed a towel. And probably a small umbrella for your houseplant.