You can't go up and down at the same time.

 

The numeral six no longer works

on my laptop.

This was very inconvenient.

Because most of my PIN numbers

have the number 6 in them.

I could, of course, change

all my PIN numbers to exclude

the number 6.

But first I'd have to enter my

old PIN number in order

to change it.

Which I can't do.

Because the number 6 key

doesn't work anymore.

Got it?

And why should I 

go to the tremendous

expense (for me)

of buying a new

laptop when it's just

one lousy key that's broke?

Luckily,

or so I thought at 

the time,

there was a place 

over by the Rec Center,

where I go swimming

each morning,

that advertised itself as

"Computer Repairs and

Meditation Center."

So one morning I took

my laptop to them.

A young man with a shaved head

greeted me politely:

"What seems to be the problem?"

he asked.

"Number 6 key is stuck or broke --

anyway, I can't strike the number six."

I told him.

He looked wise and compassionate.

"Of course. The number six is 

the smallest perfect number. Many

lives have been crushed when it

was made unavailable to them."

He bowed his head --

evidently in genuine grief.

I gave him a minute or two,

then coughed. 

He looked up and beamed at me.

"We can have that fixed 

for you in a jiffy. While

you wait, please visit our

meditation room" he said.

"Uh, what do I do in the

meditation room?" I asked him.

"I'm not really the spiritual

or introspective type."

"Not a problem" he assured me.

He handed me a dirty white

index card.

It read: "You can't go up

and down at the same time."

"Just meditate on that while

we fix your keyboard" he told me.

He reached under the desk

to push a button, I guess,

and a hidden door 

slid silently open to my right.

He had started to sweat,

and would not meet my eyes.

But I figured, heck, I'm right

in the middle of Provo, Utah, 

so what could possibly go wrong?

And nothing did.

It was a pleasant paneled room

with comfortable leather chairs

and wind chimes that remained

silent. But they were nice

to look at.

I had just settled myself

and began to consider why it is

that you can't go up at the same

time you go down, and had conjured

up a pogo stick in my mind,

when the young man entered

and told me my laptop was fixed.

The charge was ten dollars.

That sounded fine to me,

so I paid it, thanked him,

and went back home.

Where I found that instead

of making a 6, the so-called

fixed key now made a 9.

I was furious.

So I went right back to 

the repair and meditation place.

But it wasn't there anymore.

Instead, there was a greenhouse

growing geraniums. 

I asked the groundskeeper,

an old man in bib overalls

sucking on toothpick,

where the repair and meditation

place had gone to.

"You been bamboozled, young feller"

he said to me with a dry chuckle.

"A seesaw can go up and down

at the same time!"