It sounds like a bad joke: How many men does it take to make a tin can telephone?

Apparently the answer is "more than three". How many more? Your guess is as good as mine. For bonus points, how impressed will a three-year-old boy be with said phone?

I won't regale you with the details, but the imagery is pretty good. Imagine three grown men playing with scissors, string (and then wire after the string didn't work), washers and a couple of tin cans for twenty minutes while the youngsters get grumpier and grumpier.

I consider myself a fairly smrt individual. However, the events of last night displayed for me in sharp detail that my calling has nothing to do with tin cans or string.