One of the most difficult things in retail is when customers want something that doesn’t exist. Yesterday, we had a gentleman who wanted decals of every state that he could put on his car as he visited all the states, eventually ending up with a complete map. He had been looking from Canada downwards without luck.
Now we can see plenty of reasons that such a thing would not exist, but we still sympathize with his desire for it.
His was an unusual request. There are some things that people ask for frequently. For example, many people want reproducibles for our state history. Many want test preparation materials for kindergartners, DVDs that will serve the same purpose as a governess, and on-grade-level science materials for special needs high school students.
There is one item that folks often request that stays in my mind. Teachers want pictures — photographs, preferably, of animals in nuclear family units.
The most natural response to this request is, “As you know, most animals don’t live in nuclear family units.” In fact, That Man and The Empress and I made an effort to find some that did. Many of our suppliers are glad to know what our customers want, and glad to supply it (except for those reproducibles for our state history, etc.) They did Western bulletin boards at our request, and all those jungle-themed things, and sets of photos for preschool. So we thought we might find them some nuclear families in the animal kingdom to work with.
Marmosets, crocodiles, gibbons, and certain birds. Oh, and humans, of course.
This will not satisfy those who want to show the children a Daddy tiger, a Mommy tiger, and a Baby tiger. I can tell you with complete assurance that those teachers do not want a Daddy, Mommy, and Baby marmoset.
Nor do they want the Three Bears (this is Jan Brett’s coloring page), which is where you can find a nuclear family of animals in its natural setting, a storybook. They dismiss this suggestion out of hand, muttering that they just want a Daddy, a Mommy, and a Baby elephant, fox, and pig. They want all the familiar animals that the children will recognize, but in family units. It could be a puzzle, they suggest hopefully, or matching cards, or posters.
Most of our human family materials now show a lot of different groupings, but we can give them flannel board sets with Daddy, Mommy, and Baby. This doesn’t satisfy them either.
The thing that keeps this on my mind is: why? Why would anyone seek to teach something completely false?
We see lots of teachers who teach false things about grammar, say, or gravity, because they don’t know any better. It is widely claimed in English classes that “Yesterday he played; now he plays” is a sensible sentence, by grown people who have never and would never utter that sentence in real life.
But the family structures of animals are not little-known arcane things. We live in a rural, agricultural area. Most of the people asking for these things have seen farm animals in their usual groupings, and forest animals in the wild. There is a sculpture in the poultry science building of our local university (and poultry science at our university is something folks come from around the world for) that shows a nuclear family of chickens. This is not because the people in the department believe that chickens live in nuclear families.
I’m mystified.
Well, while contemplating this deep and important question, I got to 13″ on the Jasmine sweater. I don’t expect to get much further today, because the Butterfly machine at the gym has these balls to grasp while you push, which have left my hands in a painful condition. I am probably doing it wrong.
Today I will be having lunch with Kali Mama and her kids (and perhaps her sister?), who find themselves in my town. This is the second time that I have had the opportunity to visit with a xangan. (Well, I mean besides those xangans whom I know in the physical world.) Exciting!
They often want to teach false things like the pilgrims landed in Florida, there were no Japanese internment camps, and that the wind is generated by something on the North Pole moving things about (4th grade science – my teacher was demonstrating wind by fanning someone and I asked how wind was made. She continued to fan that someone saying “see? wind is like this” to which I replied “you mean there is something moving the air on the North Pole…” and she said yes).
And the story that goes with the picture… “When Mummy tiger goes hunting for any 2 or 4 legged beast for Baby tiger’s dinner, she muse make sure that Baby tiger is well hidden. If Baby tiger is not well hidden then Daddy tiger may eat Baby tiger all up before Mummy tiger returns from the supermarket.” They should stick with paradise ducks and magpies.
I’m no longer in customer service. I know my limits. I’d eventually go bonkers and say something like, “You want a nuclear family of animals? Put a chicken omelet in the microwave!” Like I said, I don’t work in customer service. One cup of Epsom salts, a tablespoon of olive oil, and ten drops of wintergreen essential oil, blended and dissolved in warm (not hot) water. Soak your hand for twenty minutes, then soak for five in cool (not cold) water. If you can’t get wintergreen, use peppermint oil, or just crunch up a bunch of Altoids and use them.
Thanks for visiting my site. RYC: It’s made a little large to really be worn as a pin, although some folks could pull that off stylishly. So for now, it’s strickly an art piece.
Hope you had fun with Kali!! I miss her terribly and can’t wait to see her! I’m green with envy you get to see her 1st. 🙂
This is a fascinating post – I had a great time reading it. It made me want to find other people and make them read it.
I don’t see that specific request for the impossible at the library, but I’m not in the children’s department. I do get a lot of people asking for some book that they think ought to exist. Also Cliffs Notes for titles that don’t have any, and movie versions of reading list titles that haven’t been made into movies.