There's an old joke that goes, "A logician's spouse says, 'Please go to the store and buy bread. If they have eggs, buy a dozen.' The logician returns with twelve loaves of bread."
The other week I called up Mountain University's maintenance department.* "Our dishwasher's gasket is coming out and, er, kind of rotting," I said. "Can you replace it?"
"Sure," they said.
Two weeks later, I came home to find a new dishwasher.
* Our apartment is owned by Mountain U.
A logician myself who is married to a logician (pity our child who will grow up taking everything literally), I approve of the joke and maintenance's response.
ReplyDeleteI exaggerate for effect, naturally, but it was pretty close.
DeleteI also tend to be extremely literal-minded. And Dr. S's next-door colleague likes terrible science puns. I can't imagine what our children will learn from this combination.
It is unclear this was a bad result. If one piece of a device is going, maybe it saves them time and money to just put in a new one. Work on a slowly breaking piece of equipment can cost more than a new device.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this line of reasoning is typically foreign to the university setting, where "this is now so badly off it might explode" is interpreted as just another excuse for slow results.
It was fine by me, but I found it very... typical (the university is RICH) that they would fix a $5 gasket with a $400 dishwasher.
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