Commentary: What? When? Where? Why?

The wisdom of questions to extract vital information

One of the most important skills you can pick up is the ability to ask questions.

"Why?" you ask. And see, you're already getting the hang of it.

Asking questions has become sort of a business thing. The automobile manufacturer Toyota insists its employees "ask 'why' five times," which puts them right on pace with every 9-year-old in the world. Though I'm sure the answer in Toyota boardrooms isn't, "Because I said so; now go play or that Xbox is going to sleep with the fishes."

Asking questions is a very critical, often late-learned skill for most parents. In fact, the most important thing a father or mother can say is, "Why do you want to know?" Those of you with young kids, remember this when one of them asks you, "What's the worst thing you ever smelled?" or "Can you really use a sheet as a parachute?"

I, for one, have gone through life asking questions, often in a professional capacity and sometimes just for fun. A note: Some of us define "fun" differently. Take, for instance, the Lovely Mrs. Smith, who, apparently has never wondered aloud what they ship Styrofoam in, or why, if Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, only one of them can talk.

Now most people come to question-asking gradually and over much of their formative years. I started all at once, right after I had my wisdom teeth taken out.

Yeah, that's going to require some explaining, huh?

Here's the deal. I had my bottom two wisdom teeth taken out when I was about 17 years old and living in Central Arkansas. My father was in the Air Force, and in that capacity, had to travel, which meant most minor chores like my own doctor and dentist appointments were up to me to manage.

Normally, that wasn't a big deal. However, as your typical 17-year-old, I wasn't great at little things like details, or grasping the Big Picture. So, when the dentist who was going to take my teeth out asked me if one of my parents was going to be there for the surgery, I just said "Yes." I mean, my dad wasn't, but my mom was.

What I should have said was, "Why do you want to know?" Because that would have given him a chance to say, "Someone is going to have to drive you home." Which was an important detail since, well, my mother doesn't drive.

You can kinda see this one rolling downhill, can't you?

On the day of the extraction, I showed up at the dentist's office, got gassed (another story for another time), was relieved of two wisdom teeth that were in the process of outliving their usefulness, was wheeled out into the waiting area and released to the care of my mother.

At this point, it's worthwhile to mention one more thing asking questions accomplishes. It allows people to get past their preconceived notions. Notions, for instance, that since EVERYONE drives, the person you're turning a recently drugged dental patient over to is capable of operating a motor vehicle. Or the notion that, since you've never driven, people definitely shouldn't assume that everyone can drive, so someone who just had two wisdom teeth taken out must be all right to operate a car. I mean, if not, they would have said something, right?

When I think back on that event, I come to the obvious conclusion that Providence has something important in store for me to accomplish. Or the Good Lord does, in fact, protect children and fools. Particularly in those cases in which they are one and the same.

Or, most likely of all, my lifetime supply of luck has been exhausted and I'm relying on the residual good fortune of others.

What I can also say, with complete seriousness, is do not try this at home. At any point in this, I could have asked rather important questions about whether I should be driving, suggested to anyone that, wow, I sure didn't feel so swell, so maybe we should consider a cab or just quit being a surly, uncommunicative teenager long enough to mention to someone behind the counter that, you know, the reason I have the keys in my pocket isn't that my mother didn't have room in her purse.

Somehow, we made it the few miles from the dentist to our house without doing anything that would turn this from childhood memory to tragedy. And from that day on I've made good on my pledge not to drive impaired. Again, thank goodness for cabs.

So I might not be so sure the key to business success is asking "why" a prescribed number of times. But if the Wisdom Tooth Unpleasantness taught me anything, it's that life goes better if you ask it at least once.

Commentary on 06/24/2016

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