Last night, our family reached another important movie milestone. We showed our children “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” So many iconic scenes! So many lines that I tried not to speak aloud! And, of course, so many questions from Ruby. Edward, being four, did not have so many questions, mostly because he spent much of the movie chasing the puppy around the house and trying to score extra snacks and desserts. Ruby, on the other hand, had a ton of questions.
The most important question to her, apparently, was the burning question of when Indiana Jones’ office hours were. He told the class that he would be in the office on Thursday, but not Wednesday. Well that settles that for those two days, but what about Friday? You know, perhaps part of what makes movies PG instead of G is the number of adultish things in them that cause kids to ask questions. No one in The Little Mermaid ever droned on about their office hours.
I explained to Ruby that college professors often had specific days of the week when they made themselves available to students. Their “office hours,” if you will, were generally on only one or two days of the week, so while they may be in their office as much as they wanted, there were certain times set aside for them to have to be there, in case somebody wanted to talk to them. So if his normal office hours were on Wednesday and Thursday, and he was going to be out fighting Nazis on Wednesday, he needed to let the students know not to come that day.
“But he could have office hours every day…” she insisted, trying to grasp the complexities of academia and completely not paying attention to the entire scene of exposition in which they explain exactly what the ark is, what they need to have to find it, and why it is important.
“Well, that would be very unlikely,” I told her. “Professors have classes to teach at different times on different days, so I don’t know of any professor who has office hours every day. It’s not like Mama’s office, where she goes in Monday through Friday and works at her desk most of the time. Indiana Jones probably has some days where he teaches most of the day, and doesn’t have time to meet with students. He seems busy, and he probably has tenure, so I think it’s safe to assume that he only has office hours on Wednesday and Thursday.”
“Why are they in the snowy mountains now? Is that where the ark is?”
“No, he’s in Nepal, because he needs to get the top of the Staff of Ra in order to find the location in the map room of the Well of Souls, and, oh, nevermind. He needs that girl’s necklace.”
She really liked the movie. Initial explaining aside, I think she “got it,” and followed it really well. There were some questions about World War II, and Hitler, and why Indiana Jones does not like snakes, and if the snakes were poisonous or not, but mostly she just watched and enjoyed. It was pretty awesome.
When it was over, I asked her if she liked it. She said that she did, but she had one more theory about it all as the credits were rolling.
“Dad, maybe it was a holiday weekend, and the school was closed that Friday, so he didn’t have office hours that Friday, but maybe just on other Fridays…”