Into the Wild Blue Flounder

My childhood model airplane aspirations always ended in disaster, or at least what passed for disaster to a ten-year old. I'd painstakingly and lovingly cut and shape and glue together all those little balsa wood struts and pieces, stretch the "skin" over the frame, and when my little beauty was done I'd wind up the rubber band-powered propellor and crunch, the whole thing would collapse in a ball of splinters and ripped paper. My later attempts with gasoline power fared no better. One of the first jokes I ever knew would resonate in my mind. One man tells another he's been laid up in bed. "What was wrong?" the friend asks. "Flu." "Oh, and crashed, I suppose." Ba da boom.