This week at engineeringdaze, we are going to follow the exploits of the first engineer, the caveman named Tork. Tork was so advanced for his era, being an engineer, that he was frequently shunned by other cavemen. But that is another story. Today, we look at a number that was important to Tork.

Tork wanted desperately to  have a cave-dwelling relationship with a cavewoman. The number 2 was high in his engineering caveman mind. “If there is me, and there is her, there is 2 of us.” Though an engineer, he was still a caveman and did not have lofty thoughts. Some may think these thoughts are not much different than most any man, caveman or otherwise. But for Tork, who lived in a time when numbers were not used that much, the number 2 was special. He, being an engineer, understood that 2 meant more than him. He understood that 2 meant he had to impress the cavewoman. He understood that 2 meant possibly devising equations in order to calculate his chances with the cavewoman. Indeed, 2 was a very important number to him.

Unfortunately, Tork suffered the same difficulties that all engineers that followed him would suffer. Tork used 2 small sticks to draw in the dirt at times, and figure things out. He carried them with him in a small pouch he fashioned in his caveman “shirt”, and he held them in place with a piece of bark. Thus, he cursed all engineers throughout history by first “inventing” the pocket protector, and then being seen as too much of a geek by most cavewomen, who were attracted to the cavemen whose arms were stronger due to having to pick up big rocks instead of calculating how to live without having to do that.

Meanwhile, Tork was still hoping for: 2.