Doctor Oooooooh
Faraday Evening Skit
April 25, 2008
© Igor Tsukerman
Disclaimer. This is a completely true story, but any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. It took me exactly 8 hours 44 minutes to write it on my flight overseas, not counting another 22 hours of delays. It took two more weeks to decipher what I wrote during turbulence. Parts of the skit may be disturbing to some people. Parts of the skit may be incomprehensible.
Writing a Faraday evening skit is no easy task. Is there anything funny about our Department or College? Let’s face it – this Department is not a joke. What about the Dean – would I dare to say anything funny about him? Of course not. Besides, he is a very nice man, who has a wonderful ability to say in just 5 minutes what could be said in 30 seconds.
To be honest with you, I was about to give up writing this skit when the letter arrived in the mail. It was not the usual white envelope but looked rather like a wine bottle twisted in a knot, with a whole gamut of colors. The bottle felt warm and glowed in the dark. It exuded a Starbucks-like distinctive bold and rich aroma with exquisitely pleasant flavor combinations, full bodied yet not bitter, with a clean sparkling acidity, delicate nuances and a hint of complex, lingering spiciness of horse manure. The cork of the bottle served as a postal stamp, with a large holographic 3D image of the Thévenin generator.
Gay Boden, who knows everything, immediately determined that the bottled letter came from Mars. The whole Department gathered to open the bottle, with the exception of Dr. Ugweje, who had moved to warmer climes, Dr. Grover, who was being late from his class, Dr. Welch, who was on strike, Dr. Hartley, who was starting a new NASA project and had a kick-off-some-butt meeting, and Dr. Tsukerman, the not-so-bright member of the Department, who was not able to come up with a good excuse. The cork finally succumbed to pressure that built up after Greg Lewis yelled for 10 minutes at the resonance frequency of the bottle.
The letter was written on the 3D stationery of the College of Martian Arts, or COMA, with the official motto: “COMA − a great way to work”. The author of the letter, a recent COMA PhD Dr. Oooooooh, addressed the Department Head as “Your Excellency Dr. Alex” and stated that he, Dr. Oooooooh, was applying for a faculty position in the Department. “Your Excellency have surely heard,” said Dr. Oooooooh, “about COMA and about the cutting-edge research by the COMAtose scientists in the areas of telecommunication, telepathy and teleportation. Your Excellency Dr. Alex should also be familiar with the seminal papers by Professor Woooooooow, Dr. Oooooooh’s thesis advisor, on telepathic interference and error correction.
The reason he was interested in the University of Akron, Dr. Oooooooh continued, was the new Landscape for Learning that he saw on TV. Besides, he was impressed with a quote from Mr. Dave Barry: “Akron: meeting yesterday’s challenges tomorrow”.
Your Excellency can rest assured that Dr. Oooooooh will not be deterred by Akron’s extremely hot climate. Although he, Dr. Oooooooh, will be missing his daily swimming routine in the lovely lakes of liquid nitrogen, he will spend his vacation time at the South Pole to relax.
Admittedly, the overwhelming gravity force in Akron could make it difficult for Dr. Oooooooh to walk, but he could always switch to one of his 14 rolling modes. In addition, the gravity pull could be tempered if Your Excellency Dr. Alex would let Dr. Oooooooh borrow a bit of hot air from some Department members.
Dr. Oooooooh is available to be interviewed on a short notice. If convenient for Your Excellency, he could even come to Akron last month if he leaves Mars next week, avoids the hit-and-miss hour in the asteroid belt and travel from there backward in time.
In addition to the cover letter, the application package contained Dr. Oooooooh’s vita with a list of publications, including
Oooooooh and Woooooooow, Paradigmatic cataclysmic interference;
Yaaaaaaah and Oooooooh, Proctoblematic channel-specific wireless encapsulation;
Woooooooow and Oooooooh, Telepathic sensual massage.
Gay Boden, who knows everything, immediately realized how exceptional Dr. Oooooooh’s candidacy was. (If anyone wonders at this point how Gay gets to know everything, the answer is very simple: Greg Lewis tells her.) The Search committee had already received hundreds of letters, most of them from geographically close places like China and Australia. There had been only a handful of applications, all uninspiring, from other planets, mostly from such a backwater as Jupiter. Gay immediately fired off an e-mail to the Search committee.
The committee comprised the brightest minds of the Department and, to balance that off, also included Dr. Tsukerman.
Transcript of the Committee Meeting
Dr. Carletta (chair). It was very nice of you to come to this emergency meeting on such a short notice.
Chorus. You bet.
Dr. Carletta. As you know, we have received a very strong application from Dr. Oooooooh, a COMAtose researcher.
Dr. Tsukerman (the not-so-bright committee member). Makes sense. If he’s comatose, he won’t cause us any trouble.
Dr. Carletta. No, no. He’s from COMA – College of Martian Arts. Address: 18 COMA Geyser, Nitrolake, Mars AB 21135-3904.
Dr. Hartley. What’s AB? That can’t be Alabama.
Gay, who knows everything. The Asteroid Belt.
Dr. Veillette. I’ve read Dr. Oooooooh’s resume – he cannot teach any of our courses.
Dr. Husain. Anyone can teach Circuits I – Igor has proved it.
Dr. Veillette. There is a cultural barrier. Different terminology. He calls the Thévenin generator the Uuuuuuuh generator. He addresses our Chair as “Your Excellency,” not informally as we do, just “The Honorable Dr. Alex”.
Dr. Tsukerman (the not-so-bright committee member). But he’s published great papers in top journals, with an excellent citation record. One paper has been cited 2,300 times.
Dr. Hartley. Which one?
Dr. Tsukerman. “Telepathic sensual massage with error correction.”
Dr. Giakos. Is he a man?
Dr. Tsukerman. Let’s invite him for the interview.
Dr. Carletta. I agree.
Dr. Veillette. But he can’t teach any of our courses.
Dr. Tsukerman. Ok, we could do a phone interview first.
Dr. Giakos. Calling Mars? How will that work? Does Mars even have an area code?
Gay, who knows everything. Sure. It’s the square root of two pi.
Dr. Hartley. How do you dial the square root of two pi?
Gay. Easy – you can do that directly from Matlab.
Dr. Husain. But there is a time delay. We’ll never be able to have a conversation in real time.
Dr. Hartley. There must also be a time difference. What time zone is Mars?
Gay, who knows everything. 2 hrs 30 min and 3 months ahead of us. It’s July there already.
Dr. Tsukerman. Let’s just invite him. He has a paper with 2,300 citations.
Dr. Veillette. No! He cannot teach any of our courses.
Dr. Carletta. Overruled.
One week later
Dr. Oooooooh appeared in the Department exactly on time, at 9 o’clock sharp. There was nothing remarkable about him, and he looked like a normal human being – 3’4″ tall, with four legs called steppers and four arms called grabbers (two of each were in the front and two in the back). Dr. Oooooooh explained, in an exquisite, British-accented English, that this was all very convenient, as he could walk in either direction without having to turn around. Instead of two eyes, a strip all around his head gave him full panoramic vision, which was also quite handy. This eye strip was called a gazer.
His steppers and grabbers were fully retractable and could be pulled inside for the downhill rolling mode. His steppers could also be curled into miniature wheels, making it convenient to show Dr. Oooooooh around by simply pulling him behind like a carry-on bag at the airport.
Everybody took turns dragging Dr. Oooooooh along the hallways on different floors, and Erik even rode a bike over the campus, with our Martian guest cheerfully rolling behind. Dr. Oooooooh was ecstatic − whooping, howling and occasionally even barking along the way.
There were serious interviews, of course. The most serious question of all was whether Dr. Oooooooh was indeed male. On the off chance that he was, for example, a woman, the Department could fill the endowed Chair position for Women in Engineering. Unfortunately, even Gay, who has particularly strong credentials in gender identification, failed to come to a definitive conclusion in this case.
The Department seemed to be charmed by Dr. Oooooooh. He gave everyone hearty hugs with all four of his grabbers and two of his steppers. This felt very nice, even though in some cases Greg Lewis had to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after these hugs – four times to the faculty members and twice to Dr. Oooooooh himself. An article in the Akron Beacon Journal headlined “Local Hero Mouth-to-Mouth with a Martian” quoted Mr. Lewis as saying, “this has been my most pleasant and exciting experience since I dated my first girlfriend”.
In the evening, Professor Hartley took Dr. Oooooooh out for dinner to the most talked about place in Akron, Guy’s Party Center. Dr. Oooooooh was thrilled that he would party that night but wondered if they could go to Gal’s Center instead. No, explained Professor Hartley, its Guy’s with the capital G, so it’s not really guys. Besides, it’s not really a party, just gatherings with boring speeches and long skits.
At the dinner table, Dr. Oooooooh looked cool, despite the fact that she-he had been sweating all day in the terrible Akron heat (20 degrees, with the wind chill of minus 10). Dr. Oooooooh even hugged the waitress, which she apparently liked – at least she did not complain (but needed to be resuscitated).
Waitress. My name is Debbie, and I’ll be serving you tonight.
Dr. Oooooooh. (Gives the waitress a hug.)
15 minutes later.
Waitress (slightly dazed and discombobulated). What would you like to drink?
Dr. Oooooooh. May I have a glass of liquid helium with bubbles, please?
Waitress. Sorry Sir, we do not have that.
Dr. Oooooooh. Liquid nitrogen with bubbles?
Waitress. No. Sorry.
Dr. Oooooooh. Where I live, we have that at any snack bar. What do you have?
Waitress. Coke, diet Coke, Sprite, …
Dr. Oooooooh. Or no, I’ve had enough of these Coke products on Mars.
Dr. Hartley. I think our guest would like something stronger than liquid helium.
Waitress. Russian vodka?
Dr. Hartley. Oh no, not as strong.
Waitress. I can offer you some French wine.
Dr. Oooooooh. What is “French”?
Dr. Hartley. “French” means “made in France”. France is a country where Frenchmen live, most of them in the city of Lille. Not to be confused with Belgium.
Dr. Oooooooh. And what is “wine”?
Dr. Hartley. It’s an alcoholic beverage that people drink to feel good.
Dr. Oooooooh. I feel good already.
Dr. Hartley. Well, you’ll feel even better. Jennifer, please let us have a bottle of French wine.
Waitress. I’m Debbie.
Dr. Hartley. Whatever.
Waitress. Would you like red wine or white wine?
Dr. Hartley. Does it come in different colors?
Waitress. Only two.
Dr. Hartley. Then the second one, please.
One hour later.
Dr. Oooooooh turned out to be a terrific dancer. Three bottles of wine appeared to have had absolutely no effect on him, except that he had to keep one pair of his steppers and one pair of his grabbers on the floor to maintain his balance. For a few seconds, when he was able to get himself off the floor, he showed some really colorful gypsy moves, followed by Irish tapping. He was singing very loudly all along, something that Dr. Hartley mistook for a Frank Sinatra song but actually turned out to be Britney Spears.
All in all, it was a wonderful evening. The only downside was that on the way back from Guy’s Place Dr. Oooooooh could not make it into Professor Hartley’s car. Professor Hartley had to discharge Dr. Oooooooh in the trunk, where Dr. Oooooooh slept quietly. They arrived at the Akron-Canton airport just in time to catch the last flight to Mars, with the usual stopover of negative two days in the asteroid belt.
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