The other day the initiator of the neutral-inclusive Norm was at a supermarket to buy some food, juices and household supplies. It was the last day that they were handing out prophets. For two weeks the chain to which this supermarket belonged had been offering pictures of prophets to their customers, one for every standard amount of money spent. They were immensely popular with people of all ages. There were eleven of them, of eleven different religious denominations. The problem for the collectors, however, was that some prophets were given away so often that you would stumble over them --you saw their pictures already lying on the pavement in the streets-- whereas others were very hard to come by. Some shoppers would even (almost?) start a fight when a customer who was not very interested in these free gifts, but had not declined them, received a picture which turned out to represent the last prophet that would make their set of eleven complete.

One of the shoppers was a joiner who, except for the last two weeks, seldom visited this supermarket, but now went there for the pictures of the prophets. 'E had already collected ten of them, and on this last day 'e desperately wanted to get the eleventh and last one. 'E got altogether three pictures for the enormous quantity of groceries 'e had bought, but two prophets were of the type you could find anywhere in the streets and the third one was rare indeed, but one 'e had already. So 'e was terribly disappointed, altho 'e would have enough sustenance now to eat and drink 'er disappointment away. Before leaving the supermarket the joiner looked around 'im one more time to see if there was, perhaps, another shopper who had ended up with a prophet 'e already had, a prophet that might just be the one lacking in the joiner's set.

While 'e looked at the lines of people waiting to pay for their groceries, the joiner was struck by an incomprehensible spectacle: one of the customers who was being served did not seem in the least interested in the pictures, even refused to accept a prophet offered to 'im by the cashier. Imagine, this one could have been 'er last prophet!

The joiner walked up to the customer who had mistified 'im as soon as 'e was finished, and asked 'im with some anger in 'er voice why 'e had not accepted the picture. "Because", the other said with some irritation, "i'm not normally interested in prophets and their activities, certainly not at a supermarket, where i come to do my shopping. I've not been here for some time and didn't know they had this action. Otherwise i'd definitely have gone somewhere else." "But", the joiner said, "i've got already ten of them. Your picture might have been the eleventh and my set would've been complete." "I'm sorry, i can't undo this", the other replied. "Your set wouldn't have been complete anyhow, because there's one prophet who doesn't allow 'er image to appear on paper or anywhere else. So there should actually be twelve in one set." "No, a set of eleven is a complete set", the joiner maintained. This dispute was never settled.

"Do you have some kind of professional interest in pictures of prophets or, perhaps, in people's reactions to such pictures?" the unknown other asked. "No," the joiner answered, "i'm just a simple joiner." "Well," the other rejoined, "then i am the even simpler child of a carpenter." "You're kidding me" the joiner said, little amused, while they walked out of the supermarket. "Why should i?" the carpenter's child asked. "I'm not a carpenter myself, but my father was once. He died when i was only seventeen years old. I felt like mentioning it, because in spite of the prophets that divide us, we have something in common in our families: the making and repairing of wooden stuff, like furniture and doors and frames in buildings. Are you really a joiner or only the child of a joiner?" "Both", replied the joiner (and child of a joiner), who was still not sure whether the other was serious or not.

...

58.NML-64.NLL