May, 2010

My Kid Swindled Your Honor Student At The Ferengi College Of Business, Where Students Learn To Profit From More Than Just Mistakes

Back in college—when I was a dewy-eyed young thing madly in love and ready to be The World's Greatest Teacher, I took a day-seminar on communicating.

The instructor stood at the table with a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on his table. After we had gone around the U of tables and introduced ourselves, he said, "There is a 3x5 card in front of you, and a pencil. On the 3x5 card, please write the instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich."

There were a couple of snickers, but we set to work. Within minutes, everyone was done—except for one little smidge of a girl across from me who was writing at the speed of light and had already covered the first side of the card. The instructor craned his neck and smiled faintly, but politely let her continue for several minutes until she finished with a small sigh. She handed hers up the row; he glanced at it, fought back another smile, and put it at the end of the cards.

"Now, I shall read out the instructions on the card. My assistant, Bob, will follow the instructions." Bob, who had been quietly skulking in the corner, came forward. The instructor cleared his throat. "'Put the peanut butter on the bread.'"

Bob put the jar of peanut butter on top of the bread.

"Well, that doesn't look very tasty. Let's see: 'Take bread out of the bag, put the peanut butter on it.'"

Bob grabbed a fistful of slices from the bag and set the jar on top of them.

"Marginally better."

The instructor continued thumbing through cards. "Much the same. Oh, something new. 'Yell, 'Honey, make me a peanut butter sandwich and bring me a beer!''" The small class burst into laughter, and the guy in the far corner turned fire engine red. "Aside from adding an ingredient to the list—alas, I have no magic wand to turn you into a sandwich." More guffaws as he flipped cards. "Ah." His eyes flicked toward the young woman who had turned in her card last. "Miss… Yamamoto?"

"Jayna," she added.

"I'll bet a quarter I can guess her major field of study. With no hints. Any takers?"

Sucker bet, I was sure, so I sat and waited. Bob finally popped a quarter on the table. The instructor scrawled something on a piece of paper. "Miss Yamamoto?"

"Computer Science, Programming and Core Theory."

The instructor held up the paper. COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. He snagged the quarter and pocketed it. "Many of you are English majors—but only a computer programmer could communicate well." He pulled out her card. "Bob." Bob stood at attention. "'Step one: Remove twist-tie from bag. Step two: set twist tie in secure location, so as not to lose it. Step three: Open bag.'" Bob was following the instructions exactly as dictated. "'Step four: Remove two slices of bread. If new loaf, choose from one of the following: A: two pieces from the front; B: two pieces from the middle; C: two random pieces. . Choice is dependant upon result desired later. Choice A will result in loaf being used uniformly front to back. Choice B will result in bread slices being well matched, having started at the apex, or top curve, of the loaf and working outward in both directions. Both A and B will result in the "heels" of the bread being left to the end and matching up. Choice C will result in mismatched pieces and possible anger of parent, spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend. If a loaf is already in use, it is advisable to continue the pattern already set.'"

Damn, she could write fast.

"'Step five: Set bread on plate so that the 'outsides' are resting on the plate and the insides are facing up. This will result in a uniform sandwich. Step six: Remove lid from jar of peanut butter. Step seven: Set lid in secure location, so as not to lose it. Step eight: If using 'natural-style' peanut butter—'" He broke off. "In outline form, no less. Using Miss Yamamoto's instructions, even a phys-ed major could make a perfect peanut butter sandwich."

After that, we drew cards for partners, removed pictures from envelopes and took turns describing line illustrations—a square with a triangle on top and a circle in the middle of the triangle; a cube with a star on top, things like that. But we weren't allowed to say "triangle" or "circle" or any definitive term. We had to say things like, 'Two inches from the left margin, draw a vertical line five inches long that is balanced from the middle of the page margin. At the top of the line, draw a right angle horizontal line all the way to the right, until you are two inches from the right hand margin. At the bottom of the line, draw a right angle horizontal line all the way to the right, until you are two inches from the right hand margin. Starting at the end of the top horizontal line, draw a vertical line straight down to the second horizontal line.' Jayna Yamamoto and I both drew tens, and that was how she described a square, the first part of our picture. We won, hands down.

I remembered that weekend because of popcorn night.

We frequently grab a fun movie—in this case, Wargames—pop popcorn, dish up ice cream and kick back. We Mallards are a wild and crazy bunch.

John Wood, as Professor Falken, had just ordered Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy off the island. "Listen carefully. Path. Follow path. Gate. Open gate, through gate, close gate. Last ferry 6:30, so run, run, run."

I burst out laughing. Computer geeks; a special breed.

"Is it that funny?" Lily teased.

"Norma Dorchester," Ev said, who had been laughing almost as hard.

I stopped laughing. "Oh, my god. I hadn't thought about her in years."

"Norma Dorchester?" Ducky asked.

"Part-timer, about ten, fifteen years ago. Very part-time—she lasted three days."

"That's a record," Ducky laughed.

"We asked her to straighten up the shelves. You know—take out things that didn't belong there, clean up the alphabetizing," I said.

"Un-for-tu-nate-ly," Ev said, suppressing her giggles, "We didn't explain it in detail."

"Didn't think we needed to," I added.

"So, after a couple of days, one of the customers came to the front desk with a puzzled look. 'The rainbow is quite nice, but I'm having trouble finding the new Jill Churchill. Could you help me?' We went back—and discovered Norma had been very, very carefully rearranging the books… by color of spine. All the red books here, all the blue books there… Very pretty, really. Just not so hot for finding things."

"It took her three days to screw up eight full bookcases. Took us three weeks to fix it."

"How did you miss it for three days?" Ducky asked.

I shrugged. "We thought she knew what she was doing." Before anybody else could say it, I added, "That was my first mistake: thinking."

Ducky reached for the popcorn. "Better not make it a habit, then."