“Communitive. Ta-tive? No, it’s communitive.”
“Commutative, the commutative property,” I said. “I think. I mean, what do I know, consider the source.”
“No, communitive,” my co-worker Dan said. “The one that says A+B is the same as B+A.”
“Right, I got it. Because I was working on the thing for Scott, and I know you don’t care which of us gives it to you as long as – “
“Oh I care!” He looked at me with his chin down, eyes lifted up under his brow as if to say, how dare you accuse me of not caring. He was kidding in his caring, and I laughed, and so did he. It was after 7 pm on a Wednesday.
“I get it!” I said, “YOU need the thing WE’RE doing, and you don’t care what order –“
“Commutative?!” He smiled at me and then went back to the serious chin-down face, and picked up the phone.
The Perseverant 