>How would you design a query interface friendly enough for this customer?

LOL, I got nailed with type of design issue before and ended up writing a massive data mining reporting app to alleviate the need for ad hoc query/reports because I could come up with a better answer.

Nowadays, whenever I have a scenario where end users need to articulate a request that relies on boolean logic... and those same end users have no clue nor need no clue about proper logic, I opt to recommend a wizard interface as opposed to a complex QBE interface. That way you provide hand holding, can rope the user into specifying good criteria, and can do stuff like Jim suggested with the mover list on a field level basis.

The smarter software gets the dumber users tend to get it seems... thats the real injustice in this humorous conversation of yours.