Riddles.
I like them, especially the simple, silly ones.
They set my mind spinning in logical circles where I often miss the silly obvious.
Example: What gets bigger when more is taken away?
A hole.
Or, What gets wetter the more it dries?
A towel.
Riddles are an innocent diversion from a busy world.
I never expect to guess the correct answer to a riddle.
I just go along for the fun of the punch line.
If you tell enough riddles eventually you will elicit a groan or a giggle.
But, what happens when you find yourself immersed in your own personal riddle?
That happened to me the other day, when a severe cold snap hit Michigan.
When local public schools closed for two days I found myself behaving in strange and unexpected ways.
On the first day school was closed, I was up at 5 am, filled with excited energy.
Odd.
I made a list of a hundred things to do, ranging from the trivial daily chores to items of once-in-a-lifetime proportion, like cleaning the 30-year cluttered basement.
Morning until late at night, I ticked off an amazing amount of items on that to-do list.
(Well, not the basement.)
The second day was exactly the same.
What was going on?
Don’t misunderstand. I love accomplishing so many tasks.
But, I’ve been retired eight years and have plenty of time to do tasks whenever I want.
Why, now?
Why did the cold day for public schools trigger such a spurt of productivity in me?
This riddle had me stumped until I finally figured out the simple, silly answer.
Ever hear of Pavlov and his salivating dogs?
The Russian scientist paired the ringing of a bell with feeding a dog. Ring the bell. Feed the dog. Dog salivates.
He repeated this so often that the dog salivated at the sound of the bell, before he ate any food.
That was called conditioning.
After 39 years of teaching I realized I was still conditioned!
No, I wasn’t salivating, like a dog.
Instead, my conditioning was more like my favorite animal, the horse.
More specifically, a race horse shooting out of the gates at the shout, “AND, THEY’RE OFF!”
For 39 years of teaching whenever school was cancelled, I raced to see if I could catch up on my endless “To Do” list.
Didn’t matter what was on the list: school work, grading, preparing. Maybe domestic chores or organizing. Sometimes the day was used to refresh and recuperate from stress, strain, or illness.
Whatever it was, I wanted to make use of every minute and accomplish as much as I could.
Now, eight years into retirement, why did the announcement that school was cancelled, still provoke the same reaction?
Apparently, my conditioning is still with me.
If you’d looked into my corner of the pasture that day, you would have seen that retired race horse shooting out of the gates with joy, racing into another productive day.
The answer to my personal riddle was simply silly, wasn’t it?
Riddles. They set my mind spinning.
Now, I wonder how I can hear that shout on a daily basis?
Sue Agauas 