Barba's (2012) paper is a serious and thoughtful analysis of a vexing problem in behavior analysis: Just what should count as an operant class and how do people know? The slippery issue of a "generalized operant" or functional response class illustrates one aspect of this problem, and "variation" or "novelty" as an operant appears to fall into this category. Given the traditional and fundamental operant approach to response differentiation through shaping to establish a specifiable functional response class, how do people understand "variability" as a response class? As Barba's review attests, this issue has been discussed for more than two decades without significant resolution. What people do know is that degrees of variations in patterns of responding can be brought about by imposing special contingencies. In this commentary, the author shares some random thoughts on operant variability. In puzzling over the many mysteries occasioned by the methods and results of research devoted to "variability as a generalized operant class," the author views this area as representative of how little people know or understand about the complex dynamics of behavior.