There has been a little article that I’ve been working on involving belief versus non-belief that I’ve been trying to finish. And in working on that article, I came across two separate stories about the subject that I wanted to use. The first one fit perfectly with the main argument and was simple to explain. But the second one is one that I REALLY wanted to include in the article but just couldn’t do it without losing readers on the subject, because the point is so subtle, and it involves some thinking on behalf of the reader.
So I’ll go ahead and give it to you here…
The owner and manager of a men’s clothing store was called out front because of an argument between his best salesman and one of his best clients.
The salesman was a seasoned pro in the world of fashion. He could find the right clothes to make a person look and feel like a million bucks.
The client was a tenured astronomer at the local university, one of the finest minds in the area, twice nominated for the Nobel Award, and with an IQ of 140.
And yet, despite their intelligence and professionalism, the two of them were almost at each other’s throats over something that the manager wanted to get to the bottom of quickly. So he pulled them aside and talked with both of them. They both gave pretty much the same story from their own perspectives.
The scientist entered the store and told the salesman that he needed to get a complete set of clothes. He was going to be putting on an exhibit at the planetarium and he needed to dress appropriately. He specifically requested that the clothes he gets were without any kind of color.
The salesman nods, says he knows exactly what the scientist has in mind and shows him a wide variety of shirts and slacks. The scientist would look at the clothes, then give a disapproving nod and say that they looked good but were not in the color he requested. The salesman then would then point him to another set of shirts and slacks, but still the scientist would only say that they were not in the color he specifically requested. The salesman tried every shade and stripe, and yet the scientist did not approve of the choice. The salesman even pulled out clothes from the back that hadn’t even been put on the racks yet, but the scientist would simply say that, while they looked nice, they weren’t in the specific color he requested.
And that is when the argument truly started, as the salesman felt slighted by the scientist’s seemingly unrealistic expectation and then asked him to clarify what the scientist considered to be the “specific color”.
So now, my intelligent readers, you need to put your thinking caps on and figure out the riddle between the scientist and the clothing store salesman.
What color was the salesman trying to sell the scientist? And why couldn’t the two of them agree on what the “specific color” is?
