Following the Noodle

Her name was Atlas, Susan Atlas, and in spite of her name (and the fact that her great uncle was a guy named Rand McNally) she had a terrible sense of direction, almost legendary. Indeed, at the restaurant where we were having our second date, after she ordered her meal she stood up to go to the powder room.

"And where might you be going, Atlas?" I asked, though I knew the answer. For some reason, Susan and I called each other by our last names.

"To use the faculties," she explained.

"The faculties? How are you going to use them? Is perhaps one of them going to teach you the basics of modern algebra in the ten minutes we have between now and when our food arrives?"

She stared at me, and then she blinked once. It wasn't a casual "my eyes are dry and I need to moisten them" subconscious kind of a blink; it was a hard "maybe I'm having a bad dream and if I close my eyes and open them again I'll find myself somewhere else" kind of a blink.

"Darn," she said, upon completing the blink and discovering that I was still in front of her.

I smiled.

"So ... have who teach me what?" she asked.

"You said faculties, the plural of faculty. Faculty generally either means a teaching staff or a sense or skill that provides the capability to do something. In terms of capabilities, I'm not sure that faculties makes sense in this restaurant setting. In terms of a teaching staff, the plural faculties is a word that isn't normally used because faculty itself comprises a plural concept, you know, like you might say he is a member of the faculty. However, if you had several schools represented, each bringing its own faculty, then you might say there were various and sundry faculties present."

With a dazed look, she meekly asked, "Listen, is this, uh, an Aunt Ruth story? Because if it is, I think I'm in the wrong place. They told me to be here by 10pm, and here I am."

"No, you're fine," I assured her. "This is a date story, not an Aunt Ruth story."

"Whew, I'm glad," she sighed, expressing relief. "I really do need to go to the powder room."

"Well, Atlas, do you remember what happened on our last date, when you got lost coming back from the powder room?"

"I, uh, well, I just turned down the wrong hallway."

"The wrong hallway," I echoed. "Atlas, there were four tables in the restaurant. How could you possibly have ended up in the restaurant next door?"

"I ... dunno. I just wasn't paying attention."

"I have a solution. We can get you there and back again, without you needing to be escorted by me."

"Oh yes, please tell me. Do you have one of those PBS things?"

"PBS things?" I asked, perplexed.

"You know, everybody is buying a PBS these days, what with all the maps and a voice that tells you where to turn and what to wear to work that day and so forth."

I sighed, "No, I don't have a, uh, a PBS. But I have a better solution. We can tie something around your ankle so that you can get there and back again."

"Oh, like a feather," she said, nodding her head.

"A tether," I replied.

"Oh, right, a tether."

"The problem is, I didn't bring any rope with me. However, there is that plate of spaghetti over there," I said, motioning to the table next to ours. "The patrons of the establishment who dined there didn't, for some reason, even touch that plate of spaghetti."

"I wonder why," pondered Atlas, furrowing her brow with an alarming intensity.

"Perhaps it is just a convenient literary plot device for this story," I casually (and in my opinion brilliantly) observed.

"You call this literature?" Atlas snorted.

"Look, the guy is trying. Now can we get on with the story? So, the spaghetti ..."

"So," interrupted Atlas. "You want me to eat that spaghetti, and then what?" She had a rather bewildered look.

"No, I want to tie a spaghetti noodle around your ankle."

"You're kidding," she laughed.

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Before she could say another word, I, as quickly and nimbly as the Artful Dodger might pick a pocket (or two), retrieved the plate of spaghetti, tied one end of a noodle around her ankle, and pointed her toward the door of the facilities she wanted to use.

I watched as she walked toward the door, and I closely monitored the noodle as it unraveled itself from the plate. Fortunately, this indeed was a plate consisting of one very long noodle -- how they managed that, I'm not sure -- but just as the noodle was nearly entirely unraveled and was beginning to stretch, the unraveling stopped. She apparently had reached her destination.

Two minutes later, I noticed a tug on the remaining end of the noodle (I had picked it up in my hand so that, as a fishing line might tug, I could tell when she was returning). I looked toward the restroom door and, sure enough, she was walking, head bent downward, following the noodle and gathering it back up as she made her way back to our table.

"It worked!" she exclaimed. "Do you think you can help me do this on Monday morning when I go into work so that I don't get lost?"

"Atlas," I began. "Atlas, you work from home. You don't need the noodle to go or return from work."

"Oh ... right," she nodded.

"And now Atlas, I have a question for you. This is our second date, and I think we know each other well enough for me to be able to ask you this."

"Sure, go ahead," she responded, sitting up in her chair in anticipation of the question.

I looked at her. You might say that this was the whole purpose of the date, providing a vehicle to get to this point. And so I asked the question.

"Who is John Galt?"

Atlas shrugged.