April Fools' Day would become a perennial black hole in my calendar, a gravity well into which my attention would be sucked from increasingly great distances in time.
Its strategists were also intensely aware that some enemies to US interests might take a crisis in one part of the world that sucked in the US military to be a green light to start trouble in another.
Australian assistant boss Jim Stynes claimed that the Irish had allowed themselves to be "sucked in" by the "wrestling" in the early stages of the game.
Such aerosol-induced clouds, however, would have silver linings if they formed near a hurricane because the rising air that created them would carry away heat that would otherwise be sucked in to fuel the storm.
It is the point at which the extreme black-hole gravity has taken such hold of approaching objects that those objects will in fact be sucked into the black hole.
India's rising international prestige and economic allure could both be put in jeopardy if the country is sucked into some headline-grabbing regional conflict.
Shell intends to insert heaters into the reservoir 1, 000 feet below the surface and cook the crude in place to 650 degrees Fahrenheit so that it can be sucked up through conventional wells.
It may be part of the mix as a bridge to a transition to new technologies and new energy sources, but we should be pretty modest in understanding that the easily accessible oil has already been sucked up out of the ground.