Larry, let's try this out.

You're in the desert. There is no electricity, no computers, the sun is blazingly hot, and the air-con is not working.

You need to trade with some travelling nomads (you also now finally have time to think about that job offer you passed on and why you didn’t go to the toilet back at the office when you had a chance).

Lying around are some beads with strange holes in them. Also some perfectly parallel sticks and a vending machine which provides bolts and nuts and requires no money (hmm, and no electricity apparently). Your name is also Larry, Larry Yakshagger, but this is not relevant to the challenge itself.

Now Larry, or Mr Yakshagger as you prefer when subordinates address you in the office, the challenge is to build a system that can keep track of the money for the trading using either a computer you make yourself (yeah, right, good luck buddy) or build an SQL database (which is what MS recommends, yes!, but I won’t mention that as I don’t want to influence you).

My guess is that the abacus will be constrructed and work in a far shorter time span than the SQL system (which, for some reason, has not gotten past the planning stage). But I might be wrong.

The moral of the story; you can construct any scenario to fit a specific tool set and, hence, is where the phrase comes from.

Déjà-vu Larry, Déjà-vu...