What's a Gizzy?

"Mary?" I said, "There's a Thing."

"A Thing?"

"Yes," I said. "A Thing. And I want to know just what manner of Thing it is."

"Show me this Thing," Mary said.

So I led her into the research office hallway and pointed at the wall. Just inside the door, where a light switch would normally be, there was a small metal plate that looked like a light switch plate. But instead of a switch or even a button, knob, or lever, there was a small round plastic thing that looked like a round grate, about the size of a quarter. It couldn't be pushed or pulled or twisted or finagled or otherwise manipulated, and shining a light through the holes in this Thing showed only something that looked like solid copper.

Mary stared at it. She cocked her head. "Huh." She cocked her head the other way. She knelt down and peered inside it. "Huh!"

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a gizzy," she said.

"What's a gizzy?"

"I don't have any idea. There aren't any others in the building, and frankly, I've never paid attention to this one."

We began poking at it and circling around to the other side of the wall to see if there was anything there. We shone my flashlight into it, flicked it, tried to pry it, inspected the wall opposite it….

A lady rounded the corner.

"Jill!" called Mary. "What is this gizzy?"

"What's a gizzy?" Jill came over and looked. "Huh." She cocked her head. "I've been here for years, and I've never noticed it before. No idea. Now I'm curious."

So the three of us stared at it and brainstormed. Another lady rounded the corner.

"Kimberly, what's this gizzy?" I asked.

And then four of us were staring at the gizzy, trying to figure out what it was.

"Maybe it's a motion sensor."

"Maybe it's a hidden camera to make sure we're working."

"Maybe it's an alien life form!" (Yeah, that was me.)

Then Mike happened along.

"Mike," Mary asked. "What's a gizzy?"

"A what?"

"A gizzy."

"A gizzy. I don't know of any gizzies. I know about thingummies and whatchamacallits. They're the ones hooked up to the whoosiewhatsits and the doodads. But I don't know of any gizzies."

So we showed him our gizzy. He cocked his head. "Huh. So that's a gizzy." He stroked his bushy beard and cocked his head and checked out the wall above, below, beside, and across from it. "Weird."

"And it's the only one in the building," Mary informed him. "I don't know of any other gizzies anywhere."

"Well, it's a good thing," Mike said. "If there were more than one gizzy, they might decide to have little gizzies, and there would be gizzies everywhere!"

"But since there's only one, I guess gizzies are an endangered species, huh?"

"I wonder if there are different kinds? Do you think the spelling is important?"

"How do you even spell gizzy?"

"G-I-Z-Z-Y, of course."

"Are you sure? What if it's I-E?"

"Maybe there's only one Z."

"What if the first I is really a Y?"

"No, it's definitely an I."

"How about a silent P at the beginning?"

Seeing motion, we all looked up to see red-headed Pam staring at us, eyes wide. Her expression changed from bewilderment to something akin to fear, and she fled into a side room.

"Aw, I guess she doesn't know how to spell gizzy either."

"Maybe it's her gizzy and we weren't supposed to know about it."

"No, there's no way it's her gizzy. It's our gizzy."

The side door opened and Pam tried to sneak away before we could see her.

"What's the matter, Pam? Don't you want to see our gizzy?"

"No!" Pam yelled, and broke into a run.

"Awww, she doesn't like our gizzy."

Then Randy, the security guard, happened by.

"Maybe Randy knows what a gizzy is!"

"Randy! What's a gizzy?"

"A gizzy?"

"Yeah, thingummies and whatchamacallits are easy, because they're hooked up to whoosiewhatsits and doodads, but we don't know what a gizzy is."

"A gizzy…"

"Yeah, see our gizzy?"

"Huh. Never noticed that gizzy before."

Then Darryl, the general manager, came by and found a group of half a dozen employees staring at a small metal gizzy on the wall. "What in the world are you all doing?" he asked.

"Trying to figure out what this thingy is."

"It's not a thingy! It's a gizzy!"

"It's not a button or a switch or a knob or a lever--"

"I've never paid attention to it before--"

"It's a good thing there's only one in the building--"

Darryl came over, glanced at it casually, and said, "It's the buzzer that used to sound if you opened the door without swiping your card, but it's disconnected now."

And he walked away.

"Oh."

"Oh."

"Huh."

"Makes sense."

I stared after him as the crowd of no-longer-curious coworkers dispersed, thinking, "Man… there has GOT to be a better way for that funny situation to have ended."