Employee discovers carp at road-work
Do you know this riddle: A dead man lies in an extensive forest. He wears flippers and diving goggles. No water can be detected anywhere in the neighbourhood. How do you explain this? Jan Smits, Co-ordinator Training & Advice at the Institute for Education and Teaching Professions (ILS), uses this riddle to teach people to ask open questions. The solution – the diver was dredged up by a water bomber and dropped in the burning forest – he experienced himself last week. The direct object was not a diver this time, but a carp.
Flapping fish
‘Monday afternoon, at the end of a hot day, I cycled home from the ILS and passed the crossing Dobbelmanweg-Hazenkampseweg’, Smits says. ‘The crossing was being reconstructed and had been a huge hole with drainpipes since a week. That day, they had filled the gap and had sprinkled the sand with water at the end of the day to avoid dust. I had to walk with my bicycle through the sand and I saw something flapping from the left corner of my eye. I thought of a bird being busy, but with precise consideration I discovered it was a flapping fish in the middle of the crossing.’
Throw back
‘I don’t know anything about fish, but onlookers claimed that it was a kind of carp. I quickly cycled home and got a bucket full of water. With some difficulty I managed to get the fish in the bucket and it soon started to move more exuberantly. With the bucket I cycled to the Goffertpark, where I knew a pond. I emptied the bucket and the fish was gone within two strokes of the tail.’
Riddle explained
So what happened? ‘I could think of just one thing: the crossing had been sprinkled by a tanker which pumps up water from a pond or open water. With that pump, the carp was captured in the tanker and while the tanker sprinkled, the fish ended up at the crossing of Dobbelmanweg.’
