There are six computers in the southeast corner of the ground floor of the student center. These are available for general use by students. To use one of the work stations, you sign on with your university "NetID," a useful code that allows you to access almost anything in the technological world at Northwestern.
I was finishing up a study guide this morning, getting ready for my class in "Love and Evil." The student center is pretty empty in the morning. It will fill up around lunch time. I don't think college students get up and come to the dining area at an early hour.
A young woman came over to the computers in an obvious hurry. Her backpack suggested to me that she might be on her way to a class. She had earbuds attached to an I Pod. She went to one computer, then the next, punching a few keys on each. Every computer failed her. She worked down the three units across from me and then attempted to start up the two on the same side of the table as I was seated. I thought it odd that only my computer was working. She was clearly frustrated.
After trying all of the computers, she asked me for help.
"Can I interrupt you?" She pulled the sound buds out of her ears. "Do you know how to log on to these computers?"
The computers were not broken. She was just unsure how to sign on. I explained.
"Press CTRL-ALT-DEL at the same time."
"I tried that and it didn't work."
She demonstrated for me by awkwardly putting her fingers on the control key, the ALT key, and....BACKSPACE.
"Delete," I told her. "Not Backspace."
"They do the same thing," she responded.
"Not in this case. You need to press Delete."
"They do almost the same thing. The only difference is that you use Backspace when you are beyond a letter and want to go back. Delete is when you are on a letter."
I told her I knew that to be true but it didn't apply in this case. The keystrokes for logging in are specifically CTRL-ALT-DEL. It actually has no relation to the function of deleting something, which is where you would find the similarity to backspacing.
"That seems strange," she said. "Where is Delete? I never use it."
I pointed out the key. Then I said, "My Chromebook doesn't have a Delete key. You always have to Backspace."
"I don't have a Chromebook," she said.
Shortly after this, I thought I might like a bottle of milk. I went to the Dunkin Donuts that was recently opened in the Norris Center. I hear about this fast food stop all the time from the student docents who lead groups of prospective students through the student center. These well-scrubbed young people have a memorized patter about the food at the university.
"This is the Norris Center. You will spend a lot of time here. It seems like everyone comes to the Norris Center. In fact, the slogan is 'Meet me at the Norris Center' so you see it really is the center of life here at Northwestern. We have every kind of food here. Northwestern was rated third in the nation in the quality of our food. We have a Subway but, since this is Northwestern, we call it "Norway." There is a Starbucks but we call it "Norbucks." The Dunkin Donuts just opened. I think we should call it "Nunkin Nonuts" but I don't think anyone else agrees."
Who rates the food in colleges?
I asked the young woman at the Dunkin Donuts counter if they had milk and she answered that they did. She then asked me if I wanted whole milk or skim. I said skim and reached for some cash.
"We don't sell milk by itself."
This seemed odd but every company has policies. I thought I would like a bagel and said I would take a multi-grain with the milk.
"We don't sell milk with bagels."
Really?
"What do you sell the milk with?
"Only coffee. If you want milk by itself, you have to go to the store."
You have probably solved this riddle, and much more quickly than I did. I was about to order a coffee just to get my bottle of milk when it occurred to me that she was talking about adding milk to the coffee as a kind of creamer. I turned down the coffee.
"Do you want the bagel?"
A line was forming behind me.
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