Ellen Idelson was a contractor. She was performing contractor Kabuki. It’s a ritual in which (a) the contractor explains in great detail the impossibility of the job you’ve asked him to do, (b) you demonstrate extreme remorse for even suggesting such a thing by withdrawing your request, and (c) he tells you he’s found a way to do it, so (d) you owe him one for doing what he was hired to do in the first place.
