This is the sort of story that’s usually apocryphal. There’s a reason these spread and surely it’s worth telling if it improves your work with developers.

In the version I saw, a woman from Michigan is vacationing with her family in a small Connecticut town frequented by the rich and famous. She gets out for a little solo hike one morning and returns via the cute downtown, where she decides to splurge on an ice cream cone.

She walks into the little sweets shop and the place is deserted… except for Paul Newman sitting at the counter eating a donut.

Her eyes met the famous actor’s steely blues and he nodded. Determined not to be starstruck, she smiled politely and walked to the counter.

The clerk is apparently used to this, because they scoop her ice cream and ring her up without a reaction. The woman grabs her change in one hand, chocolate cone in the other, and avoids eye contact with Paul Newman as she makes her way out of the store.

Back at her car, she realizes she has a fistful of cash… and no ice cream cone.

She walks back in expecting to see the cone in the clerk’s hand or one of those holders. But she couldn’t see it anywhere.

That’s when she saw Paul Newman, a bemused smile on his face.

“You put it in your purse,” he said.

A story like this spreads because it’s immediately identifiable. Surely we’ve all been flustered and done something without much thought.

Our habits can fool us.

At the likely fictional vacation home of Paul Newman and with your very real work with developers.

You see your DX and documentation through your internal lens, not from the perspective of the developers you want to reach. This is as natural as any other habit.

But to others observing, it can come across like ice cream in a purse.