The Alex and Amelia Mysteries

Alex sat in the recliner that faced the dining room. Having eaten his dinner, he now watched as his little sister experienced the wonder of freshly steam broccoli.

He also marveled at the strength of her throwing arm with said broccoli.

Watching her made him think of his first big case. It was hard for him to imagine that it had been only a year ago. Mom and Dad had gone to the hospital to see about doing something regarding mom’s weight gain. She’d been packing on the pounds, especially in the stomach area, for several months, and it was looking pretty serious. She’d been having trouble getting around and looked at the stairs going up like they were eight inch monsters she needed to crush to get to bed at night.

Alex had sampled the food, as he’d heard that eating too much makes people put on a lot of weight, but it didn’t have the same effect on him or dad. He started to worry that something might be wrong with Mom.

Nanna and Grandpa came to stay with Alex for a few days, which made things even more mysterious. It wasn’t like mom and dad to stay away overnight. Alex knew there was only one things to do: mount a search and rescue operation.

Alex made his way to the kitchen, and began stockpiling food stuffs for the long search. Unfortunately, the only thing he could reach was the salt and pepper. Next he went down to pack some clothes, but he could only reach the lower drawers, which had his pajamas, and he knew he wasn’t allowed outside wearing only pajamas.

After several hours, he looked at his pile of supplies: a pepper grinder, three chips found beneath a sofa cushion, a pair of pajama bottoms, a sock, and his toy piano, and concluded this would have to do. But, as he went to find a bag to carry his supplies, Nanna and Grandpa came and put him in the car.

To his surprise, they took him to the hospital, and mom and dad were still there! Mom had lost a lot of weight. Apparently, they found a baby inside her! Alex looked at the small figure as dad was holding her. He knelt down and showed the two to each other.

“Alex,” dad said, “Meet Amelia. Your little sister, and partner in crime.”

Alex looked at his dad, a little bewildered. Crime? Dad just didn’t understand. Alex didn’t commit crimes, he solved mysteries. He looked at his new little sister and smiled. At last, a partner to help him…

A shriek of glee from Amelia snapped him back to the present. Something new had appeared on her tray. Alex dropped down to look more closely. It looked like a cheerio, but there was something else spread on top of it that smelled sweet.

But before he could finish his examination, Amelia grabbed the cheerio and popped it in her mouth. They didn’t find out what it was, but Amelia knew it was delicious!

Case: UNSOLVED

Dusk

This is a story I told Amelia as she drank her bottle of warm milk just before she went to bed.

This is the quiet time.

All day the people have been pulling strands and strings, guiding their day this way and that. They make each day their own, not controlling, but influencing the day with their pulls. Some grab on to as much as they can and pull as hard as they can. Others find single strands and give light tugs.

But at the end of the day, the smart ones let go.

And as they let go, the day begins to unravel. The strands twist and wriggle free and the tapestry of the day falls apart. And as it does, the light gives way to dark, the blue gives way to black, the sun gives way to the moon, and the sky gives way to the stars.

This is the quiet time.

The air is heavier here in the quiet time, for it is filled with dreams. Breath in deeply, inhale the dreams. Take them into you and let them course through your veins. Milk feeds the body, but dreams feed the soul.

This is the quiet time. Let go of the day, breath in the night, and sleep tight.

Education vs. infrastructure

Hypothetical: You come stumble into a developing nation just hit with a disaster. The plight of the people moves you to act. You have millions of dollars and time at your disposal. What do you do?

A particular planet money podcast, referenced once already in a previous post, has had me thinking a lot about this sort of scenario. “Education is key to bringing these people to a greater level of independence and prosperity.” I would argue that is not sufficient enough to be true.

What good is calculus to a girl who hauls water for six hours a day for her family?

The education, one might argue, would allow her to leave and move on to bigger and better things, but would she be able to leave as long as the family depends on her for getting the water?

The Planet Money episode I refer to centers around one man’s attempt to build a school for a town in Haiti devastated by the earthquake. Originally, listeners raised about $3000 for the town to build it’s own school, but that money was used up before a foundation was fully laid. A volunteer with a long career in construction and planning then tried his hand. Ultimately, the school was built, but it took longer, cost more, and was tremendously scaled back from the original, but still modest beginnings.

People developed the use of roads and trade long before literacy became commonplace. Is it foolish to prioritize education over infrastructure? One of the main reasons the school took so long and had to have it’s scope of work reduced is that there was not sufficient industry to supply them with raw materials, nor roads to transport those materials to them.

There is the obvious trap that this is a guy living in a developed nation discussing solutions for developing nations, generalizing over a complex set of situations unique to each country. But, even industrial revolutions tend to happen before education becomes a priority.

There is also a need for balance, you can’t  focus solely on education or infrastructure, which is really what I worry is going on now. I also don’t think this contradicts my previous views on mission trips (though I had to stop and work on that for a bit). The best kind of trip involves education of the people going, while they help rebuild.

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

Alex knew this would be a tricky case. Every time he and Amelia tried to get close to it, one of the parents would step in and impede their investigation.

The item in question was a drink that mommy and daddy would both have on occasion. It looked a lot like his grape juice, but they always drank it in these clear glasses that started wide on the bottom, got super skinny in the middle, and widened out again at the top where the juice was.

Amelia tried to use her charms to get a sampling. By pointing and asking, she’d managed to sample different kinds of cheese, chicken nuggets, macaroni, bread with cream cheese, and on and on. But not in this case. Their refusal to let either kid try it only piqued their curiosity.

So, with some clever cunning, Alex and Amelia coordinated Operation Juicegrab. They had to wait for one of  the parents to be out of the picture, so both could focus on just a single one. At last, after waiting for brutally long three days, one evening daddy went downstairs to work on his computer, leaving mommy alone sipping from the funny glass on the couch. Alex and Amelia put their plan into action.

Alex cautiously made his way to the nursery, just beyond the living room, trying to act casual. Once there, Amelia took her place near the couch. The plan was for Alex to make a noise, mommy would put the glass down to check on him, leaving it free for Amelia to grab and crawl away with it.

At the signal, Alex cried out. Sure enough, mommy got up to check on him, but placed the glass on the counter, not the end table. Amelia scooted over as quickly as she could, pulled herself up, and reached out as far as she could, but the glass was too far away. She called to Alex to come help her.

Alex raced out of the room, saw the situation, and made a break for the glass. But, mommy emerged from the nursery with a puzzled look on her face. She saw where Alex was headed and took off in hot pursuit.

Alex leaned into the sprint, making every moment count. He was 8 feet from the glass! 4 feet! 1 foot!

But mommy caught him as his fingers brushes the clear, smooth texture. The glass tipped, and the juice sloshed around inside, but then settled as mommy reached out to steady it.

Both were heartbroken at the failure of the plan. Mommy looked at them both, still more puzzled. Then, daddy came upstairs to help put them to bed.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

“Stairs! The Final Frontier! These are the adventures of Amelia Rose. Her one year old mission, to explore where she can’t get to. To seek out new toys and new things to chew on. To bravely go everywhere she’s seen her brother go before!”

Occasionally, Alex and Amelia’s Daddy would say this, or things like it when carrying Amelia around. Now that she could crawl, he didn’t carry her as much, so she didn’t hear it as often, but she still needed help with the stairs. But she did not understand why he said these things.

Alex had similar stories from when he was smaller. There were times that Daddy would be changing a dirty diaper and say, “In the words of JFK son, ‘Ask not what your diaper can do for you. Ask what you can do, in your diaper!’”

Daddy always had satisfied look when he said these things, believing them to be very clever, but Alex and Amelia simply found them cryptic. After comparing notes for several months, they arrived at the only logical conclusion: Dad is weird.

CASE: SOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

For a long time now, Alex was the primary investigator, with Amelia providing assistance, mostly in the form of determining what was and was not edible. But now, she could truly say they were partners.

Amelia could crawl.

No longer bound to the limitations of dad showing up to move her in for a closer look, Amelia could finally approach mysteries. Literally.

Her big break came with the appearance of the bag left on the floor. She’d seen her mother with it many times, usually when they were out, and from that bag came the most marvelous things.

Alex was not around, so she had to take this one on solo. Steeling her resolve, Amelia crawled over to the bag and began to examine its contents.

The findings were amazing. There was a treasure of wonders to behold. She pulled out a heavy black object that would occasionally ring, chirp, buzz, and glow. She pulled out an even heavier, smaller bag that was rolled up with lots of colorful plastic cards and some green paper with funny pictures on it. As she unrolled it, a little side pocket came open and small metal discs rolled out, making a wonderful sound as they hit the ground and rolled away in every direction. She pulled out a tissue. Then another. Then another. Peering in, Amelia found a little pouch full of tissues. Excitedly, she pulled them all out. She found a little plastic cylinder she’d seen mommy apply to her lips on occasion. She found bags of snacks that mommy would give her, but she couldn’t get them open. She could tell this was all only the top layer…

But then, disaster! Dad showed up, made a face, and pulled Amelia away right in the middle of her investigation. He picked up all of the things Amelia had found and returned them to the bag, except for the tissues, which he stacked up and placed on the counter, and hung the bag on the wall out of reach.

Amelia was crestfallen. Her first solo investigation, and dad ruined it! But then, dad picked her up carried her over to her favorite stuffed puppy dog toy. Within moments, the hurt went away and Amelia found herself laughing again.

CASE: UNSOLVED

What is the cost of being right?

We’ve all been there. The argument with the person who refuses to be convinced. Even with all of the evidence, data, logic, emotion that you throw at them, they stand their ground and remain true to their belief. It’s frustrating, because you know you’re right.

The problem is that whether you’re actually right or not is not what matters anymore. What matters is that you know it, and it is important for the other person to acknowledge it. Or, at least know that you were right.

I’ve been reading case studies about companies that fall apart because the leadership team got into an argument like this. The same thing has destroyed personal relationships as well.

There is a whole body of evidence surrounding what is known as the backfire effect. The premise is that, contrary to what logic dictates, instead of changing one’s personal opinion when presented with facts that contradict that opinion, we tend to believe more strongly in our opinion, and instead devalue the facts that run against us. By extension, we devalue the source of the facts, the methods by which they were gathered, etc, etc, etc.

So now you’ve got someone who needs the other side to understand how wrong they are, the other side refusing to concede, and actually becoming more and more certain that they are actually right. They will respond with arguments of their own, resulting in a backfire effect on the first person.

Two people who both now have to prove themselves right, and the other person wrong, both only becoming more and more convinced by how right they are.

Rock, meet hard place.

This isn’t something everyone does all the time, but I do think it is something any of us can fall victim to if we aren’t careful. I was tempted to use the word petty several times when writing this, but that suggests immaturity in a situation where their brain is actually taking them down a road without them realizing it. It’s okay to believe that you’re right, but be careful where that takes you.