fandomhigh | Dealing With Idiots | Friday

Entry tags:

dealing with idiots

Dealing With Idiots | Friday | Period 4 (Session 5)

"Sadly, yes, it was necessary for Baldrick to return today."

As if any of his students would require an announcement of that fact to be aware of the dull-eyed dungball up at the front of the room near (but not too near) to Edmund's lectern.

"His presence is required because today, we're going to finish off our section on dealing with the very, very stupid that you don't have to suck up to, via a practical exercise in getting them to do something."

"Oi, that's not hard." Baldrick didn't waste time arguing about the very very stupid designation, at least. "I can do plenty of things. I can catch rats... eventually, when they get really old and slow. And I can whistle!" The sound coming out of that mouth in demonstration was almost as foul as the breath coming out of that mouth, possibly because it was accompanied by bits of Baldrick's breakfast -- or possibly bits of his teeth -- also coming out of his mouth.

"No, you can't. Stop that." Edmund banged him once round the head with his own hat before jamming it back down over not at all enough of Baldrick's face. "But thank you for providing us with a helpful example of the need, when dealing with you and those like you, for extreme specificity in one's demands. Here's another: Baldrick, I fancy a cup of tea. Go put the kettle on." Pants and more pants, he'd undercut himself there. "And come back afterwards," he added before Baldrick had made it to the door. "Until he returns, class, you may talk amongst yourselves, take notes, smoke them if you possess them, whatever."

~~~~~~Ten minutes later~~~~~~

I have nothing helpful to say so here is Baldrick with a kettle on his head

I have nothing helpful to say so here is Baldrick with a kettle on his head

Edmund gazed toward the sight in the doorway. "I rest my case. Baldrick, go back to our lodgings, remove the the kettle from your head, and make some tea with it. Wait there until I arrive. Don't drink the tea."

Exeunt Baldrick, teakettle still on his head. "I would have changed the order of the orders there, but I felt the squirrels could use the amusement of following him through town like that," he added. "Your assignment today is to pair up, pretend one of you is Baldrick or a slightly less odious equivalent thereof and practice giving orders whose results won't give you a concussion from the force of bashing your head against a wall. Imitation-Baldricks need not attempt to duplicate the scent, just the cranial capacity."

[OOC: Open and less smelly once Baldrick's gone!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, this would be fun. Wes walked over to Karla, arms swinging loosely. "Care to be partners?"

"Certainly," Karla said, flashing Wesley a bright smile. For all that the rescue had turned into one giant debacle, she still owed him thanks (and cookies!) for all his help. "Care to give orders or mess them up creatively?"

"I could mess them up, I suppose," he replied.

It was the polite thing to do.

"I'm pretty good at giving orders," Karla said with a smile. "Shall we see what happens?"

She glanced at the list of possible options and a wicked smile bloomed. "What do you think? Want to try to fail at making tea?"

Wesley took a moment to consider how he could approach this. Being a moron wasn't something he was accustomed to, naturally.

Then, working with the absolute cheesiest pun there was, he raised his arms in a T-shape.

Yeah.

Karla snickered against her will. That was clever, at least. "All right, all right," she said. "Put down your arms now and fetch a tea kettle, please. Fill it about halfway with clean water and then bring it back to me."

She had to figure out how to get the water heated without a stove.

Poor Karla and her lack of knowledge of electric kettles.

That was a little harder to mess up, at any rate. Dropping his arms to his sides so dramatically that he slumped over, Wesley went to retrieve the tea kettle. And he did fill it with clean water, but he decided that the best way to carry it back would be upside down, so that water slopped all over the floor.

Oooh. Well-played, Wesley. Well-played indeed!

Karla was trying to stifle her laughter as she watched Wesley heading back with the upside down kettle. "All right, now go refill the kettle halfway with clean water and this time, carry it rightside up as you bring it back to me. Don't spill any of the water and don't put anything inside it except clean water."

She was learning from Rilla's trials and tribulations with Alex.

Drat. There was no getting around that one.

Except!

He could carry it right-side up but with the lid off, and in such a haphazard way that it still spilled! Yes!

Ooh, this was fun.

"No spilling!" Karla called as Wesley started heading back. "I told you that!"

Hee. This was the best class of her week.

Oh, right. "It was an accident," he protested innocently.

Lies, lies.

Okay, right-side up, halfway filled with water only, and no spilling. That didn't leave much room for creativity.

Ah, but there were other kettles on the counter. Including a small decorative kettle that looked like it belonged to a doll. (One of the professor's, maybe?) So he filled that one up instead and brought it back, looking very pleased with himself.

Karla heaved a giant sigh at Wesley, rolling her eyes in mock-frustration. "No," she said slowly. "Go dump this out and put it back, and grab the first kettle you had. The big one. Fill it up halfway, and bring it back, no spilling."

Oh. He was just about out of dumb ideas, then. Sighing in mock-defeat, he returned with the old kettle, halfway filled with water as requested. Hopefully there would be another order he could mess up?

Oh, don't worry, Wesley. There would be. They still had several steps before water could be turned into proper tea.

"Thank you, Wesley," Karla said, still not having figured out how to get the water to boil. Which was a good place to start, right? "Now you have to heat it to a boil."

Best of luck with that.

Well! He was English, after all. Heating tea was perfectly manageable.

Except wait, what was the point of this exercise again?

Right.

Well, if it weren't for that pesky safety factor, he would pretend to get Karla's antecedent mixed up and instead heat the kettle to a boil, rather than the water. But that would be dangerous, so Karla was lucky he didn't try that.

Instead, he busied himself with lighting a match and dropping it into the water, then acting surprised when it didn't work.

Please. He was English.

Karla was far more interested in testing Wesley's ingenuity than actually getting tea. "Well, that clearly didn't work. Dump this water out and get more water in the way I outlined before and heat that water to boiling."

Okay, she just wanted to see what he'd do next.

Sigh. Wesley did as requested, then returned with a fresh kettle. Okay. Heating to boiling. Got it. But this was a classroom! How was he supposed to --? Oh. Right. He kept forgetting he was supposed to be an idiot.

Hmm. What would an idiot do when asked to heat up some tea? Perhaps... microwave it? But this was a classroom -- ah. But it was a Fandom classroom. Microwave located.

Wesley crossed the room purposefully, placed the (metal!) tea kettle inside, and then began pressing buttons at random. But not the "on" one. He didn't want to cause a real explosion.

Karla was hopeless in the kitchen. Very, very hopeless, as Wesley would soon find out. But even she knew not to heat anything metal up in a microwave.

Possibly from experience. She wasn't saying.

"No no!" she cried. "Here. I'll heat up the water. You...fetch us two clean teacups."

Dammit. In a moment, she'd probably realize she was nowhere near specific enough.

Well, at least Karla knew that metal and microwaves were not meant to coexist! Except, well, they were, since microwaves were kind of made out of metal, weren't they? But they weren't meant to live inside each other. Oh. That was worse.

Right! Teacups. Clean ones.

Wesley returned with two very pretty, very expensive-looking glasses that were better suited to holding champagne than tea. Why were those even out, anyway?

[[ooc: i go sleeps now.]]

Karla looked at him, looked at the flutes and very carefully reached out and took them away. "Absolutely not," she said. "Not for tea and not for touching."

Look, he'd dropped water all over the floor. And these looked expensive!

She vanished them quickly and sent him back for something else. "Made of ceramic!" she called.

[Night!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dealing With Idiots | Friday | Period 4 (Session 5)

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!

Re: Activity: Give Orders To An Idiot That They Can't Mess Up!