One Apple A Day #05
“It’s not working!”
Jenna takes her eyes from the book she’s reading and looks at me, puzzled.
“What are you talking about?”
“This spreadsheet. It’s not working.”
“Have you tried the classical stop and restart?”
“The program works perfectly. It’s my method that is broken!”
She can’t understand. No one can understand. I started using this method when I was 12. Since then I made various improvements. It has always worked. Always. I have my spreadsheet with all these empty cells and a group of rational functions that I built in years. All my decisions. All my choices have been made using my method. I input all the variables, set all the critical factors and priorities and bam. The method tells me the right thing to do. It never failed. Never before Today. I don’t know what happened. I input all the data as usual, I checked all the variables, reviewed all the parameters. Yet I’m sure the result is wrong. I fee it. It never happened before.
“It’s wrong Jenna. Something is wrong. I don’t understand. I did everything as usual but the result feels so wrong. I don’t know what to do”
I shared this flat with Jenna since the first year of university. A boy and girl on the same flat. For all the college years. Quite an explosive mix. But it works. It’s not a surprise for me. My method told me that it was the right choice four years ago.
Jenna is beside me, watching my monitor. Her eyes run through the cells and the numbers. She’s smiling.
“What? Why are smiling? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. The method works perfectly”
“So what? This can’t be the right answer”
“Oh, the answer is right. But, you know. To do the right thing is not always the right thing to do.”
“What? What do you mean? What are you talking about? Do you mean that I should do the wrong thing? What about my method? It never failed? If I do the …”
She stops me with a kiss.