Why can’t the lazy brown dog have jumped over the quick fox? Wait, what? The lazy blue fox jumped over the quick brown dog. No. That’s not it. Well… isn’t it. I mean if the purpose is to test all the letters of the keyboard, either of those works as well as the quick brown fox doing the jumping over the lazy dog, even if I want to make the dog blue. On the other hand, none of them work because they only check letters and don’t stray into the numbers and symbols. What about them?
Imagine being a typing teacher in the classic 1960s classroom in front of a bunch of 1960s high schoolers and having to answer questions like that. Actually, there wouldn’t be any answering. Back then the teacher would have simply slapped her yardstick across the black board (or did you call them chalkboards?) and sputter out, “Because I said so!”
None of that has anything to do with what I was going to write this morning. I sat down and stared at a blank screen looking for the perfect opening when I heard my inner Warhol say, “Don’t think about art. Just get it done.” And that’s what fell out of my fingers.
I was going to talk about the first time I ever talked in front of “civilians.” It was way back in a different century. We, the people I worked with, had put together a program to increase awareness that there are pharmacies in hospitals. We were going to do a “brown bag” where people would put all the prescriptions in a bag and bring them to us and we’d check for duplicates, interactions, out dates, and some other etceteras. I went on a local talk radio show to promote the program. I got there for my 15 minute time spot and the producer asked if I could stay and do a second spot, they just had a scheduled guest call in to say he couldn’t make it. I was thrilled!
Everything went fine for the first 3 minutes when I did my prepared comments. And then the host said “Let’s open the phone lines for your questions.” And boy did they have questions! Everything from vitamins to flu shots to why can’t they invent something to work on Aunt Bessie’s daggum headaches. To say I wasn’t ready for that broad of a discussion would have misused “understatement.” It was a humbling experience.
We talked about humbling experiences and why humility is a virtue too few consider a virtue in this week’s Uplift, Out of Town Experts. I think you’ll like it. Check it out.
The Real Reality Show Blog 
Oh, the memories of typing class! And working to increase my speed so I could someday become a secretary! That was my mom’s hope. She had been one and thought that being a secretary or being a teacher was the only way to go. Ugh. But then you switched it up with your talk in front of “civilians”. I wish I could have been there, listening on the radio to a multitude of random questions that most people would never think to ask. Kudos to you, my friend, for being present enough to answer all those inquiries.
Typing class was a mixed bag for us. It was a required class. The justification was “when you get to college you’ll be turning in a lot of papers that will need to be typed.” Boy that was a long time ago!
This seems like a no act of kindness goes unpunished story. You did good answering the questions, but I’d be reluctant to go on radio again after what happened.
Oh no no. The radio is where you want to go. Nobody can see your mental scrambling!