Picas (and why you care)

Have you ever heard of pica?

I did once. On a slideshow, junior year of high school, on how to make a yearbook. It was before computers (BC).

Heather has never heard of pica (her school was apparently rich enough to afford computers--AC).

Picas can quickly be forgotten in this up-and-coming AC age. A pica was a unit of measurement used in paper and print press (or, alternately, a person who has the irrational urge to consume dirt, ashes, bones, etc. usually brought on my mental illness [source: dictionary.com]).

The horrible memory of the high school slide show pica reference was quickly brought to the forefront of my mind last night when I was visited by The Pica Fairy (TPF).

TPF was disguised as a freshman student here at the University. She stopped by the paper to help with layout ("I really like layout and I'm good at counting picas" she told our Editor-in-Chief who was also in the dark as to the definition(s) of pica but allowed her in because she said she was good at something). Since I am the assigned layout person, she was supposed to "shadow" me.

Now, folks, as Layout Person, I have a job to do, so I gave the girl some pages to look over and make comments, you know, for fun. This is when TPF struck. The pages I got back were covered with little notes that said things like, "pica," "full pica," "pica?" along with all sorts of little arrows and lines. Nothing to the affect of, "this picture could be more square" or "this line could be thicker" or "these boxes don't quite line up." Allow, I think she might have referenced that last one with a pica comment.

She then proceeded to ask me several questions as to how we check our layout.
Actual dialogue (do not try this at home):

TPF: So do you line up the picas at the bottom?
Me: Ummmm [as I rack my brain to remember if I eat ash or know was a pica is].... I'm sorry what did you ask?
TPF: Do you line up the picas at the bottom of every text box?
Me [acting like I knew exactly what she was talking about and definately too cool for picas]: Oh, no, we just eyeball it around here.
TPF: Oh, well, at my high school* our teacher was really dedicated to excellance, so we had to count picas. We got a lot of awards.
*her high school: paper was definately better than APU's and Simpson College.

Now, I'm sure counting picas is of terrible importance. But, seeing as I am a full time student, and producing a fine paper without a pica count, I've decided to just dislike her.

Plan of action (to be executed by Heather, myself, and the rest of the staff):

~drop "pica" into everyday conversation, as a joke
~roll eyes at other staff members while TPF is in the room (but not so she can see, not that she would be looking with all the pica-counting anyway)
~throw all her edited pages away and say, "thanks for wasting your time" under our breath
~make up a word of our own (suggestions: apon, wudnut, etc.) and write it all over pages, then ask her to please count the apons
~laugh manically when she realizes how dumb she is.

Well, thats all we can think of now. Please post suggestions.