When I was attending flight school we had an instructor no one could tolerate.   I will call him Fred, but that obviously was not his real name.  Fred was very quick to ridicule people and was extremely arrogant.  One day Fred crossed the line and really made us mad, so the “secret committee” took things into hand.  I of course will never acknowledge whether or not I was personally a member of the secret committee, but I was very aware of what went on.  A strategy was developed to teach Fred a lesson.

It started with the phantom noise.  We were being trained on cutting edge electronic equipment.  One of our guys had an uncanny ability to make this high pitched noise without moving his lips.  It sounded like the worse kind of electronic feedback.  At random intervals he would make the noise and then the rest of us would act shocked and look around.  We would ask Fred for help.  It was hysterical.  Fred, who was incapable of admitting he didn’t know how to fix the problem, would go through a complicated procedure to adjust the equipment and eliminate the feedback.  Of course the sound would increase or decrease whenever he adjusted anything, so he thought he was making progress.  Eventually he thought he had it fixed.  But, as soon as he got up, the “hum” returned.  Sometimes the “hum” would go away for several hours, even a complete day.  Then, at the most inopportune moment it would start up again.  The biggest problem the rest of us had was avoiding the giggles as Fred went crazy trying to fix this.

Then attention was turned to Fred’s car.  Step one was to put a small rock in his hub cap.  This of course made a lot of racket and sounded scary.   This worked better than we expected, because incredibly Fred asked us for help.  We were all glad to offer advice.  One guy took the car for a test ride.  As soon as he got out of sight, he removed the hubcap and put the rock in his pocket.  Then he returned the car and said he couldn’t hear anything wrong.   Fred took his car around the block and miraculously the noise was gone.  He was very relieved.  But while Fred wasn’t looking, another guy took a different hub cap off and put the rock back.  This went on for weeks.  Sometimes the rock was there, sometimes it wasn’t.  The sound moved from one side of the car to the other and even moved from front to rear.  Finally one of our guys offered to fix the problem for $50.  He took the car, drove out of sight, pulled over and took out the rock.  Then he picked up the rest of us and we spent the evening spending that $50.  When Fred got his car back the next morning, he was thankful that the problem was fixed and considered the $50 well spent.  We actually agreed on that.

The secret committee probably would have left Fred alone, except that someone heard Fred on the phone talking with his girlfriend.  Fred mentioned that he was going to try a fuel additive that was supposed to increase gas mileage.  The secret committee voted to help.  The first time he filled up, someone waited until his tank was half empty and added an extra gallon.  Fred bragged about the improvement in gas mileage.  The next week someone added two gallons of gas.  Fred was ecstatic.  He bragged about his gas mileage to anyone who would listen.  This of course could not continue, so the secret committee voted to stop adding gas.  Fred was depressed.  That is when the secret committee wondered what would happen if a gallon of gas was siphoned off.  Now Fred was really concerned.  As the final touch, the decision was made to siphon off two gallons of gas.  Now Fred was near tears.   Once again he asked us for help, so someone suggested it was time for a tune-up.

Fred got the tune-up and his car was running great.  That, of course, was not acceptable.  So the secret committee came up with a new plan.  A spark plug was pulled and the top of the plug was covered with scotch tape.  Naturally that sparkplug wouldn’t fire anymore, so the car started to miss.  Fred didn’t seem to be concerned enough, so the decision was made to up the ante.  This time two sparkplugs were disabled.  Now his car ran just plan awful and it was hard to start.  Fred was totally depressed and talked about selling his car.  Once again he asked for our help.  The car was taken for another test drive.  Once again, as soon as the car was out of sight, the driver pulled over and took the tape off the spark plugs.  Fred was thrilled that his car was running great again, but worried about this happening again.  That is when someone suggested that the whole problem was probably just bad gas, so the suggestion was made that Fred switch from Texaco to Shell.  Of course the only Shell Station was way on the other side of town, and it was more expensive.  Fred became a life-long fan of Shell gas.

At this point we were pretty much done with our training, so we moved on.  To the best of my knowledge Fred never figured out we were messing with him.  Perhaps the best part of this story is that Fred was much nicer to us while all this was happening, because he appreciated all the help.

There is no point to this story, other than I thought it might be a nice break from ObamaCare.

TDM