Music to Tear Your Hair Out By

Let me propose An Hypothetical Situation:

You receive a form to fill out.

At the top of this form, It Is Written:

This form will be returned to you with a number assigned.

At the bottom of this same form is a box within which It Is Written:

#XXXX

Let me ask you this:

Would you then conclude that "XXXX" is the number that you have been assigned?

So.

Some clients have assumed that their number is "XXXX" and have proceeded accordingly. This causes all sorts of pretty little paperwork problems.

Thus, I've been singsonging to myself sotto voce all morning:

The letter "X" is not a number!!! "X" is a mathematical constant which represents a numerical value which is Yet To Be Determined!!!

...like a refrain, over and over and over, occasionally punctuated by such phrases as,

Did you not watch Sesame Street as a child? Were you deprived of PBS? Did your parents forbid educational TV in the household?

A co~worker, who is more forgiving than I, astutely observed that the clients may have mistaken the "X"s for roman numerals; which then left me chanting* all afternoon:

Latin is a dead language! Latin Is A Dead Language!!!

What on earth would possess anybody to think for a moment that we would correspond with our clients in Latin? Vacca Foeda!

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out...

Man. Maybe if I cut down on the coffee, I'd be a little less testy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* [chanting] Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.

Posted by edgar at July 4, 2003 05:35 PM