Episode 5 Narrative Example: “From Daphne With Love”
It was a mandatory housemate meeting on Monday night. Daphne paced back and forth impatiently in front of an easel covered with a cloth as her housemates jostled on the couch getting comfortable, stowing away phones and trying to look interested. When the wiggling and complaining began to settle down, and Anish put his cereal bowl down, Daphne turned and channeled her best drill sergeant voice.
"Alright, everybody focus up!" Daphne turned to face her three mostly silent housemates. "The annual Wake Tech Dessert and Pastry fair is next Monday at Flavors Restaurant and I AM GOING TO WIN THAT COMPETION!"
"Flavors? What is that?” asked Anish.
"Are you kidding?!" Daphne's eyes flashed with surprise, "It's Wake Tech's restaurant, operated by students in the culinary program. Haven't you ever been there?"
"You would think he'd know about the restaurant run by his housemate and her classmates!" said Gilbert, secretly glad that Daphne hadn't discovered his lack of knowledge about Flavors.
“I didn’t know we had a restaurant! I'm a ramen noodles and fruit loops kind of guy," Anish said, as he reached for the bowl on the table, as if to prove it.
Daphne continued, "Well, anyway...It's time for you to help me out. Everybody knows my coconut cake is the finest tasting cake to come out of Greensboro, but they are judging the cakes on design, and I need you three to look at my cake designs."
"Are you serious? You've got a week to do that," said Anish. "Why are we wasting valuable time tonight when we can talk about this next weekend?"
"Because," said Maria, "your housemate is planning ahead, so she'll have time to do the best job she can. If she runs into a problem, or changes her mind, she'll have time to adjust her cake. Don't you plan ahead for big due dates?”
"No, I just do it well at the last moment!" Anish put the now-empty bowl of cereal back on the table.
"ANYWAY," Daphne interrupted, “to get back to what is IMPORTANT, let's take a look at my latest creation, the M&M DoubleNut Special!" Daphne pulled the cloth from the easel, uncovering a hand-drawn design of a cake, presumably a coconut cake. It was decorated on the tops and sides with peanut M&M's of all colors, organized in rows and shapes around the cake.
"Wow, that reminds me of my psychology class," said Gilbert as he jumped up from the couch and retrieved his psychology text book from the backpack on the floor next to the door. "These people called 'Gestalt psychologists' said that individuals organize colors and shapes using five basic grouping principles. See? right here!" Gilbert had opened his book to page 170 and was pointing to five lettered images on the page.
"How would this help me?" asked Daphne.
"Well, maybe we should analyze the designs you made on your cake to see how they align with the five grouping principles described in the book. We might make a change or two if we think it would make your design work better." Gilbert began looking from the picture in the book to the image on the easel.
"Hey, you’re right," said Daphne, who quickly noticed what Gilbert had been talking about. "Let's do this..."