Obstructionism

“Those who block, block themselves.”

~ Oscar Wilde on Obstructionism

“We hate you.”

~ Everyone on Obstructionists

“Sometimes I find obstructionism rather inconvenient”

~ Captain Understatement on obstructionism

Obstructionism, one of the new emerging religions of the modern world, is expected by some experts to overtake Christianity by the year 3000. It is a religion of few followers, but their numbers are growing by the day. The primary belief is that of obstruction.

Sacred items

Rather than use things like prayer mats, altars, bread, wine, profound music, sermons, and singing to convey their devotion, obstructionists prefer materials like brick walls, huge piles of junk, roadblocks, large trees, opaque windows, and doors with hinges on both sides. Obstructionism believes these objects are holy, but understands that the objects may be damaged or destroyed by frustrated people who are unable to get by. For this reason, the heavier and more indestructible an object is, the holier it is.

A typical obstructionist's house will consist of four walls and a roof made of rocket-proof concrete. The most devout obstructionists will also add a floor to prevent tunneling under to get in. Obstructionists often build their houses on major roadways, or even arrange for it to be airlifted onto the busiest intersection nearby.

Origin of Obstructionism

You just try getting past that!

The pioneer of obstructionism was Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Qin was the original builder of one of the greatest pieces of architecture and one of the holiest objects of all: the Great Wall. Unfortunately, one day he decided to build a moat around his doctor's house (without a bridge) to lift the poor doctor out of his materialistic life into a greater truth of obstructionism. When the newly-enlightened doctor managed to get out, soaking wet and furious, he claimed to have made an 'elixir of life' which would make Qin immortal, and thus able to box people in forevermore. He neglected to mention that the elixir was actually mercury, and Qin died of mercury poisoning.

Engineering Obstruction

This is a basic obstructionist's house, though the owner needs practice; it only blocks part of the road.

A favorite profession of obstructionists is engineer. This is because it gives them the capability to build objects with the intent to block, rather than try to change another object to increase blocking radius, which is much harder.

Obstructionists often build huge skyscrapers on government funding. When they do this, a clever obstructionist will always build from top down, so that by the time it is finished without any doors, it is too late to stop the builder. An example of this is the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea. The official version is that it never opened due to structural instability, but actually it was built with no entrances or openings to outside, or between any rooms inside either. Also useful is to build tall buildings sideways so that they cover a lot of the ground and make very long detours as people have to go the whole length of the building to get around.

Blocking Traffic

An obstructionist who has become an engineer may build overpasses three feet off the ground to prevent cars from going under, or building overpasses with supporting pillars on the roads. This is very useful because bridges are very big and hard to get rid of, especially considering the amount of money that was probably put into building them.

Another famous instance of obstruction in traffic which has become quite common now, is the speed bump. On March 7, 1906, an obstructionist in Chatham, New Jersey, installed several of these obstacles 5 inches high. Through excessive use of speed bumps, in accordance of the final wish of the inventor, many roads were rendered impassable through application of speed bumps every two feet. A new innovation with regards to speed bumps was to make them taller. In industrial areas, speed bumps 5 feet tall were reported to exist, though this is unlikely. Certainly, there are verified instances of speed bumps 4 feet high. A final breakthrough was put them on angles rather than straight across the road, and piling them up on top of each other. This has been used to such an extent that often the result no longer resembles a road anymore. This continued until the rate of major car crashes across the US reached 200 per second, speed bumps were abolished or reverted to their original, more mundane form.

Al Gore and Early Cars

Al Gore, the founder of Early Cars Inc., built countless huge early cars on roads to block them back in 20000 BC. This makes it seem like Al Gore must have invented obstructionism, but this theory fails on several counts. Al Gore had a time machine, which he used to come from the 21st century back to 20000 BC to invent early cars, because he knew he would make a killing if he purchased the stock market before it was created, so he probably heard about obstructionism and tried to take credit for that too by inventing it before Emperor Qin. But the real reason that Al Gore cannot have invented obstructionism is because he does not exist.

Inconvenience Stores

Inconvenience Stores, patented by Gary Larson, M.D., Ph.D, B.Sc (x2), B.A. are a sub form of obstructionism. While not actually blocking people from getting things, inconvenience stores prevent people from getting what they need by placing objects on, for instance, a 30 foot high shelf, or by placing something like a bag of chips in a corner of the store, surrounded by a wall of (for example) toothpaste tubes, everyone's favourite commodity.