Back in the day there was this toy (ok, you can actually still purchase it at a home party) from Tupperware that my brother still has, if I am not mistaken. My mom got sucked in and bought it for him when he was a wee blonde boy at home. I, as the younger sister, was clearly not allowed to play with this toy (like the rest of his precious possessions in true older sibling fashion). I recall the beloved Indiana Jones hat that I so desperately wanted to "just put on my head to see". He had it expertly place on top of a styrofoam head and one day the temptation proved to be too much and I did it; I entered his room by opening a close door and voila ... my desire was satiated. Until he came home that is. What I didn't know was that he had secretly placed a hair from his own head in the latch of the door so he would know, by its absence, that I had broken in. I still got the pleasure of placing the hat on my head, though. Can you say "baby of the family?"
Anyway, there are many more stories I could write about my apparent deafness to instruction as a child but I was reminded of the old Tupperware toy, that I DIDN'T play with, today, as I attempted to change the ink cartridge on our stupid fantastic printer. I even had to call Neal to ask him to please kindly, without sarcasm, walk me through this impossible simple and delightful process. He did laugh a little but he knows when I am ready to blow so he refrains in the middle of crisis until I admit my own ineptness. I finally DID get the cartridges installed properly (insert required fanfare) but it was not until I calmed down enough from my total spaz to actually listen to Neal's instructions and look at the helpful pictures, which I had completely disregarded (ok, I actually didn't even try to look for help at first). Are you beginning to worry about my teaching abilities? I am convinced this explains why I don't "get" The Way They Learn by Cinthia Tobias. Oh well. One less book to go mental over. So ...
The colour cartridge goes in the slot where the hexagon is, and the black cartridge goes where the black triangle is. In fact, the whole BACKGROUND of the black cartridge slot is black, in case you don't pay attention to the acute triange illustrated ever so mockingly helpfully. That was when Neal reminded me
"there's this toy, you know ... where you put the right shaped plastic block into the right shaped plastic slot in the blue and red ball" And that was when *I* decided to inform him that I had clearly, CLEARLY, never been allowed to play with it, for if I had, this would surely never have happened.
