How High is Your NQ?

Well, dear readers (please be assured I am only referring to SOME of you), it seems as though the time has come once to put on that thinking cap and let our wonderful (again, SOME of you) audience feast upon our abundance of knowledge dealing with a topic in today's issue.

It comes to our attention that there have been a portion of our readers that are unhappy with the speed at which the PGPE is published, and because of that, are writing angry letters and threatening everything from suing us to cancelling their subscription. Well, we just have one thing to say to that: It's not nice. So today we are going to talk about being nice to people.

As the philosopher once said, "Nice is nice," which made the townspeople happy, so they fed him a noodle. Anyway, most of us know that nice is good, but don't have the courage to do something about it. But guess what? Being nice isn't all that hard. In fact, many people find it quite easy to do. So to start out with, here's a little test of your NQ (niceness quotient).

You are walking down the street, when suddenly you see an old lady down on her knees looking for a lost piece of aluminum foil. Do you:

(a) walk on by?
(b) help her look for the foil, then carefully support her as she gets to her feet?
(c) tell her that it's getting late and that you could take her home?
(d) grab her around the waist and fling her as far as you can?
(e) all of the above

Let's examine the answers.
Is it (a)? No, since as you walk past, you pay little heed to her calls for your help as you leave the vicinity.
So is it (b)? No, because if you stop to help her, she might feel that you think she is incapable of finding it herself, get mad at you, and kick you in the shin, getting both of you nowhere.
What about (c)? No, she needs to find that foil, and the thought of you trying to stop her will probably drive her into hysterics.
How about (d) then? No, then she would forget where she lost the aluminum foil.
So that leads us to only one conclusion. Is it (e)? Yes. Let me explain.

When you first walk on by, this will give her a chance to realize she can't find it on her own and needs your help, at which time she will call out to you for assistance. You should then walk back to her, help her locate the lost foil, and help her back up. Since by that time it would be getting dark, you then mention that fact to her and begin to escort her home. Once you reach her house, however, she realizes that she locked her front gate and forgot the key, leaving you only one way to get her in...

We hope this little exercise has been useful for the furtherment of your training in the art of niceness. Stay tuned for next time when we'll teach you Karate. As the philosopher once said, "Orange is the bliss of loveliness that comes on the tide of tranquility." But nobody believed him.