Contributed by
MadKaugh
William Hazlett Upson wrote a series of pieces for the Saturday Evening Post about a salesman for The Earthworm Tractor Company, written as a dialog of letters and memos between Alexander Botts and his boss. The format of the stories was stated goal/ obstacle/appearance of eminent failure or worse/boss expresses disapproval and intention to cut losses/Botts has cleverly resolved the situation in his company's favor.
One of these pieces involved the same Möbius strip twist of a flat drive belt. The WW II era Botts stories were told in the context of the war. In this one Botts had to borrow a bulldozer to prepare a land strip. The NCO in charge of the bulldozer would not release it to Botts. Same NCO was preparing to apply red safety paint to the outside surface only of a large drive belt such as used to be used to connect stationary engines to machinery. Botts unpins and reassembles the belt with a half twist forming a Mobius strip, the NCO and his assistant paint the belt, find paint on the inside, clean it off, find that they've cleaned the paint off the outside - in the mean time Botts has appropriated the bulldozer and prepared the strip.
The various Botts stories are available in published collections; I read this one in 'The Best of Botts' long ago.
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