Looking for Brother

A colleague made his way through the dean's office yesterday with two children in tow, finding me despite my hiding in a locked office in order to get the materials for the next faculty meeting prepared and sent.

I was surprised - the kids were about 10 years old and I did not think this colleague had children. He didn't - the children had appeared in his office, looking for their brother. Their brother worked packing boxes for a Mr. Duck at our school, and they were to go to him. They had been sent all over the school, and since my colleague is actually named Duck, they had landed in his office. But he didn't have anyone packing boxes.

A student I might have sent packing, as it were, but you can't just let kids wander about, so we started looking for faculty with other spellings. Nothing. We found an adjunct that teaches Mondays (it was Wednesday), and called his department. Nope, and the kids had already been at that department.

They were getting anxious, so I pulled out the candy box to give them something to do while we though. I googled the brother's name - no hits at all. Now, university people these days tend to leave some sort of trail that is googlable.

Then I had the blinding insight - "Is your brother handicapped?" The children brighted up: "Yes, of course, he is handicapped!" We have a building on our grounds that houses a project that provides jobs for handicapped people - apparently not just groundskeeping, which they do for us, but also packing boxes. And of course - they are "at" our school.

The colleague, relieved, offered to accompany the kids across to that building, and I got back to work fussing with the motions before the board. Imagine sending your kids with such vague directions into a large university grounds!