It's Story Time Boys and Girls

Today in our story, let’s build a polypeptide.

Imagine if you will, a big hotel (in a super big hotel chain) in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Therein worked a Master Chef, Maurice (just like any of the other Master Chefs that worked in any of the other 50 trillion hotels in the chain). Maurice had just received a very important e-mail message from the CEO of the chain, Mr. Smithers (no relation). The message stated that several of the hotels in the Tri-State area were desperately short of Maurice’s very famous frosted chocolate brownies (according to the latest hotel customer satisfaction surveys). Mr. Smithers requested that Maurice search through his unbelievably huge recipe file and find the recipe for frosted chocolate brownies and get them made, pronto, and keep getting them made until all the people in the hotels in the area had enough of those frosted chocolate brownies – his very famous frosted chocolate brownies.

So, Maurice rolled through his unbelievably huge Rolodex file of recipes until he found the recipe for his very famous frosted chocolate brownies and he made a mental note of it. He continued to roll until he had also found the recipe for the frosting for his very famous frosted chocolate brownies (because the brownies just wouldn’t be very famous at all without the frosting now, would they?) and made a mental note of that too.

Once Maurice had made a mental note of the recipes for both the frosting and the brownie cake for his very famous frosted chocolate brownies, he called for his runners to come into his office. The runners would have to get instructions and the shopping lists for the ingredients. You see, Maurice was far too important to ever leave his Master Chef’s office for fear he would be captured by that “other” chain and be viciously tortured for all his recipe secrets because of that “other” chain’s never-ending quest for truly quality food. Hence, the runners came to his office instead and waited for his directions and the lists. Maurice was also way too fat (from eating all his own very famous entrees and desserts) to get through the office door.

After Maurice had dictated the recipes for the frosting and the cake for his very famous frosted chocolate brownies, from mental notes he had made previously, the runners left the office (in single file) carrying posters they had made while taking dictation notes from Maurice. Each poster carried the name of one ingredient and one instruction for putting together those very famous chocolate brownies of his.

When the runners got back to the main galley (still in single file) they waved their very beautiful posters, all made with scented felt markers and glitter glue (and rulers for neatness) in the air so the shoppers could see them. Now, each shopper on Le Staff du Maurice (as they say in the notable cooking circles in Paris and Scranton) was responsible for just one ingredient and just one instruction for using that ingredient. That way, nothing would be forgotten or missed. Because if anything was forgotten or missed then those very famous frosted chocolate brownies just would not be so very famous anymore would they? And, everyone would be disappointed and they wouldn’t get all the tasty treats they required and they may even start acting out or turning to lives of crime. There would be great cost incurred in curtailing this delinquency and resurrecting normalcy just because Maurice’s very famous chocolate brownies weren’t very famous anymore.

Now, the shoppers were heavy coffee drinkers so they were speedy, nervous little people. They would scurry around from place to place just waiting to do their shopping whenever the opportunity arose. Often, they would sneak away to the street markets downtown Scranton and shop for their special ingredients even when the runners hadn’t received mental note dictation from Master Chef Maurice – even when there were no beautiful, scented and glittery posters telling them what to do. It was like they were possessed or driven by some deep, mysterious, inner desire to go and buy milk (or eggs as the case may be) or, maybe it was just the coffee kicking in – who knows? Anyway, they all had their one specialty item they were trained to shop for and that would be their only item to pick up. You can well imagine how many shoppers there must have been – but that’s the way Maurice and Mr. Smithers, the CEO, wanted it – ever since the Roland episode way back in the early days of the hotel chain. Roland, it seems, had been a shopper for many years and was looking for a promotion to the position of runner. His specialty items were actually three in number. They included Cling Peaches (in heavy syrup), extra virgin olive oil and yeast. Apparently, he got mixed up one shopping trip, couldn’t remember what to get and ended up going rogue right there in the middle of the market – buying everything in sight in the hope that something would be right. Needless to say, the recipe wasn’t followed and the flambé was a total disaster. The kitchen had to be shut down for an indefinite period and the whole hotel felt the pinch of that. Even the rest of the hotel chain reverberated in the shock of the incident. Since that time, the philosophy has been – “one shopper – one item”. In fact, things have now gone the other way just to be on the safe side – if the item is an important or often-used item, like chocolate (mmmmm chocolate), more than one shopper may be responsible for the same ingredient. While the runners wait for the shoppers to return they line up (still in single file) in front of the breeze-way window into the kitchen and chat about the high cost of gas, with the kitchen staff who are always chompin’-at-the-bit and acting like they “just wanna git that sucker in the oven” so to speak.

Well finally, there they are (bless their speedy little hearts) zipping and zoom, zoom zooming around out in the lobby, bumping into lamps and coffee tables, trying to find their way back to the galley. The runners hold up their beautiful scented and glittered posters so the shoppers can see them and one-by-one, all of them make their way to the single-file line of runners by the breeze-way window into the kitchen and deliver their special ingredient. They are so pleased to have done such a wonderful job that they immediately speed off to find more milk (or eggs as the case may be). As the item is handed off to the correct and appropriate runner it is relayed to the kitchen staff along with the special baking instruction. After all the ingredients and instructions are handed in and followed and the kitchen staff has made the very famous frosting and slathered it generously over all the sides and top of the very famous brownie and has transformed them both into the most wonderful and delicious and most very famous frosted chocolate brownies any tourist or business person has ever seen – everyone gets to eat them until they have had enough. Once everyone has had enough, they fill out the hotel guest satisfaction survey cards lying around willy-nilly in the lobby and other strategic locations situated throughout the hotel. The cards are sent immediately to Mr. Smithers, the CEO of the super big hotel chain, and he reads them and he smiles, as he should, and he e-mails Maurice to stop handing out the recipe for his very famous frosted chocolate brownies and to get cracking on his equally famous cheese soufflé.

Ah, such is the life of an important and famous Master Chef . . . in huge hotel . . . in a super huge hotel chain . . . in a magnanimous universe!!

Cast, Crew and Stage Directions (in order of appearance)

CHARACTER PLAYED BY

Hotel Cell in the body (somewhere)

Hotel Chain The body

Master Chef Maurice The DNA molecule

Mr. Smithers (CEO) The brain

Frosted Chocolate Brownies Very important protein

Public Opinion Poll Chemical feedback loop

Rolodex Recipe File Genetic code / sequence

e-mail Neural stimulus

Recipe For Brownies Gene code for important protein

Runners Messenger RNA (mRNA)

Maurice’s Office Cell nucleus

Message Dictation Transcription

Scented, Glittery Posters Codons

Ingredients Amino Acids

Galley Cytoplasm

Shoppers Transfer RNA (tRNA)

Single Item Only Anticodon

Roland Nucleic Acid Mutation

Breeze-way Window Ribosomal RNA (rRNA)

Kitchen & Staff Ribosome

Baking of the Brownies Translation

Hotel Survey Cards Chemical stimulus