Well, we made it through the weekend! Keith's family came to visit and we had a great time hanging out. Overall, it was pretty laid back. But even so, and with all the help they gave me, I was still pretty worn out by Sunday evening. I'm very glad this is a 4-day week! (For my international readers: Friday we have off to celebrate our Independence Day.)Most of the weekend we used paper plates for everything, because it just made life a whole lot easier. But I decided to really step it up a notch on Sunday morning and use real plates. I set the table with placemats, the smaller square plates, silverware, juice glasses, napkins—the works! If you didn't know better, you might actually think that Keith and I eat meals at the table on a regular basis.
So anyway, I turned all of the square plates at an angle to the rectangular placements, so they appeared as a diamond-shape to the diners. I liked the contrast of shapes. I did this as I set the table, and then completely forgot about it.
Maybe a half-hour later, after all of the eggs, goetta, watermelon, etc. had been consumed, Keith's sister Jessica looked around the table. She realized that half of us had left our plates as set, and the other half had turned them so the straight edge was against the table edge. Upon further inspection, we realized that all of the engineers (which includes Keith's dad, because his mom argues the kids got their engineering brains from him) had turned their plates so the straight edge was facing them. All of us non-engineers had left them cock-eyed.
I hadn't meant for the plates to be a psychological experiment, but I think the results were very telling!
* In case you're not as big a dork as I am, you may not realize the title is a reference to Spock on the original Star Trek television series.
4 comments:
Haha I read the title of this post and heard Spock's voice!!!
Now I'm wondering whether I would have turned my plate or not ...
I didn't get the Spock/Star Trek reference at all, so (a) it's a good thing you explained it and (b) I am not as big of a dork as either you or Cathy. Ha ha!
I don't know if I would have turned my plate or not, but the whole thing reminds me of eating lunch @ the cafeteria w/ some of my enginerd pals in college. One guy used to line up all of his glasses and silverware and whatnot just so, and sometimes would even rearrange items on other people's trays (once they were finished) to suit his organizational preferences. We all got a big laugh out of it . . . Sigh. Good times.
Excellent observation with the plates... I would of course have turned it. I am getting worse and worse for being "tidy" as I get older.
I've started reading websites like LifeHacker and ZenHabits too... I am beyond help lol
I'm not surprised to hear that you fall on the side of the plate turners, Jonathan;)
Funnily enough, though, I am not a plate turner yet I love organization and sites like LifeHacker. What does that mean, hmmm?
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