Blubrik Eats Crow...Nummy!

As I was leaving the Mothership last Friday, I received a call on my cell phone.

"Blu, we have a serious problem. What is this color?" asked Super Daddyman.

"It's blue." I said with the cocky self-assuredness of having not been significantly wrong in a professional capacity in many years.

"You're sure? Blue, you say? The Subasians think it's yellow."

"Nope, blue. Absolutely."

"Alright. Can you think of any tests we can perform to prove it's blue?"

"I'll log on tonight when I get home from the airport and run some."

"Great! Thanks!" Super Daddyman chirped happily as he hung up the phone.

I spent the weekend sending numerous emails on the qualities and properties of the color blue and how this color that we were witnessing could not possibly be yellow. The Subasians violently disagreed, claiming I obviously had no idea what color blue was and wouldn't know yellow if it bit me. I stood my ground. Blue, I would say, and that was that.

This continued through the weekend. I performed tests that supported my blue-tinged conclusions, and the Subasians denied them. On Monday evening, I presented conclusive proof that the color was quite blue and the Subasians fell silent.

I have since learned that when the Subasians fall silent, you're in trouble.

On Tuesday morning, at 8 A.M., Hoss the Boss calls me.

"Blu, have you checked your email?"

"No, Hoss." I replied, groggily. "I'm still asleep."

"Well," he said gravely, "the Subasians proved the color was yellow."

I was logged in one minute later.

Sure enough, the Subasians had spent Monday evening proving the color in question was in fact yellow. Very yellow. So yellow in fact that only an idiot could claim it was blue. The report was very long and very detailed and not a little smug.

"Yes, it looks like it's yellow." I dourly admitted to Hoss. "I will have to eat crow today, won't I?"

Hoss agreed and left me alone to contemplate how I would face professional humiliation.

Admittedly at first, I was angry at having been proven so very wrong. Then I began laughing. I pictured the Primordial Goo detecting a severe imbalance in my karma and deciding to teach me a lesson. I had been right about so many things at work for so many years, I had stopped questioning my own conclusions. If my right brain concluded some color was blue, my left brain no longer felt it worthwhile to perform even the most perfunctory of fact checks. I considered some things my sensei would say to me on this and laughed again.

I concluded being wrong wasn't so bad. It was rather healthy in a way. Still, being healthy and being pleasant aren't exactly coterminus.

I spent the day, a very long day, painting in the new color to get the project done by Wednesday morning. When I was done, at 9 P.M. that night, I transported myself to Smith & Wollensky for a quiet, late dinner.

"What would you like, Mr. Blubrik?" asked my waiter, Joe.

Without looking at the menu I ordered. "I want a glass of Oban, neat, and that ribeye there, medium rare."

"Nothing else? No salad, creamed spinach...?" asked Joe.

"Nope. Just the scotch and meat, please."

"Bad day at work?" he asked sympathetically.

"Oh, comme ci, comme ca." I sighed.

Joe patted me on the shoulder and said, "I'll bring you a double, on the house."

As I sat there and waited for my drink, I considered that crow might taste quite a bit like steak and smiled.