OK, so here’s another thing I’m going to try not to do three times. See, I said every now and then I'd add another one. There’s a caveat with this one though. Once this particular cat is out of the bag, all bets are off. I don’t want to set the bar too high so I’m not going to say never. I mean, sometimes I do slip up, I am only human. So the caveat is that I’m talking about only the truly young here. So what am I talking about?
I’m trying really hard not to swear in front of the little kids.
I live south of Boston. I have family that lives north of Boston. To get from one place to the other, I have several options. I can go the long way mileage wise and ride around the City. Or I can take the short way and go through the city. Time wise, they are about the same. I like going through the city, it’s a more interesting drive. My wife HATES going through the city. She finds it scary. Well, she finds my driving scary in general. Add the traffic and confusion that is Boston to the drive and she’s just terrified. When I head toward Boston, she tenses up, closes her eyes and is just miserable until we punch through to the other side.
When the kids were little, I’m talking little little, preschool, kindergarten little, we had what I ‘ll just say was an incident. We’re heading onto the bridge in Charlestown. We’re almost out of the city, two more miles and we are home free. We are where Storrow Drive merges in to Rte 93. We are in the middle where the lanes merge together. I’m right beside some guy when he decides to merge into my lane. There’s no blinker, he doesn’t look over, he doesn’t speed up or slow down. He pays no attention to me at all. He just “merges”. I had to stand on the brakes to keep from smashing into him. Everything in the car went flying. Lisa who’s already tense starts screaming and I start yelling. I yell “WHAT AN A@#HOLE.” Lisa now starts yelling at me. I look at her and say “ME, I didn’t do anything, it was that A@#HOLE.” We exchange this pleasantry a couple more times. Lisa then looks at me and tells me to watch what I’m saying because the kids are in the car. I say OK, but the other guy is an A@#HOLE.
So, later the next week I came home from work to find Lisa laying in wait. She’s outside waiting for me as I pull into the yard. Oh, the second I see her, I can tell. She’s getting ready to pounce. Looks to all the world like she’s going to jump on me. So I’m cautious when I approach her, but I can’t think of anything I’ve done recently to be in trouble for. That look she’s shooting me can’t really be for me. Can it? As I approached, Lisa looked at me and asked, “Do you know what Caitlin said to me today, do you know what she called me?” Being a little slow on the uptake, I stupidly said “nooooooo???”. A smart man would already have been running. But I’ve never been accused of being too smart. I on the other hand followed this comment by asking “What did Caitlin say?”. Lisa looked at me with death in her eyes and responded “Caitlin called me a A@#HOLE.” At this point, Caitlin is only 4 or 5. I started to chuckle. Again, I’m not the sharpest knife in the draw. I should have known that Lisa didn’t see the humor in this. I should have known that I was only making matters worse. So I’m chuckling and I looked at Lisa and said “ahhhh, don’t worry about it, she doesn’t even know what it means.” I was then informed that Caitlin had used it correctly. Lisa was trying to “discipline” Cait. Caitlin didn’t want to be disciplined. Caitlin looked at her and explained that Lisa was being an A@#HOLE, and that she should stop being an A@#HOLE because, nobody likes an A@#HOLE. At this point, Lisa segued into punishing Cait. She tells me this whole story, and she’s mad. I’m still chuckling because, well it was kinda funny. Lisa didn’t think so. The lecture I got was unpleasant. I had no defense. My laughing didn’t help the cause. I spent several nights out of the big bed again.
Case closed, right? What’s another word for almost right, begins with W? WRONG!
Did you ever see the movie “The Cat’s Eye?” It’s actually three short films by Stephen King. One of the films is about a guy that has to walk round the top of a skyscraper on the outside ledge. As he’s walking around, the disgruntled husband of the woman he’s seeing is trying to knock him off. At one point the guy on the ledge slips and falls into the darkness. The husband starts cackling. All of a sudden out of the night all you can hear is “Youuuuuuu BASTARD!!!” A disembodied voice echoing from the blackness of night in pure defiance. The guy that had fallen, climbs back up onto the ledge and keeps walking. I don’t know why, but one of the guys in the office was struck by this scene and phrase. He thought it amusing. So everything started to somehow contain the phrase “youuuu Bast#$rd”. We started using it like punctuation. It kinda became the department catch phrase. Everything contained a “Bast$#d” in it somewhere. Apparently, I unknowingly took this phrase home with me. OK, maybe it was knowingly.
When Dan the Man was young, we spent an awful lot of time together. When I was around, he was just glued to me. We did everything together. We walked, talked, played games. You name it, wherever I was, Dan the Man wanted to be there too and he wanted to be doing whatever I was doing.. One day when he’s maybe four years old (Apparently, this is an impressionable age, who knew?) we’re out in the yard playing basketball. I have a significant advantage being as at this point I’m about 3 feet taller than him and have him be about 200 pounds. So we are playing 1 v 1. I beat him 15 to 13. (Score another victory for the old man, OLD GUYS RULE!!! hey, a wins a win) After my third straight victory we went into the house to take a break. Our attention is diverted to other things so our competition is suspended for the time being. Dan keeps bugging me to go back outside, but I’m on to other things. Eventually, Dan gets distracted doing some kid thing and I start puttering around. I went outside to get something, who knows what. On the way past the hoop, I grabbed the basketball, bounced it a couple of times, took one shot then went about my business.
About 5 seconds after I do this, Lisa comes stumbling out of the house. She’s killing herself laughing AND she’s trying to yell at me. I looked at her with great puzzlement and wonder. After she catches her breath she looked at me and said “You really have to watch what you say in front of Dan.” I asked what she was talking about. She started laughing again. After a second or two, she repeats her comment. Now I’m wondering what she’s talking about.
Seems Dangerous Dan the Man was busily playing on the floor with his is building blocks when he heard me start bouncing the ball. When he heard it, he jumped up, went running for the door and yelled “WHAT”S THAT BAST$#RD DOING?” Lisa stopped whatever it was that she was doing and asked him what he was doing. Dan looked at her and said “I HAVE TO SEE WHAT THAT BAST$#RD IS DOING”. Lisa asked, “What did you say?” Dan looked at her and said, “THAT BAST$#RD IS OUT THERE PLAYING, HE’S CHEATING, HE’S PLAYING WITHOUT ME.” This is when Lisa came outside for all intents and purposes, to yell at me except she can’t. She can’t because she’s in hystericks. Finally she just said “Look, be careful what you say in front of the kids, one of these times they going to say something in front of my mother then we’ll all be in trouble.”
So, there you go. I really try to keep myself in check, especially around the younguns. They are going to have to become fully versed in the fine art of profanity somewhere else. No more guidance from me. However, once they have come up to speed on their own, all bets are off. I mean after all, once they hit high school, the shock and awe factor is gone anyway. A few well placed swears sometime help make a point. Besides, this is when they started teaching me a few new words. You know what they say, turnabout is fair play.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
All in a day's work
This is going to be another long story, but I promised (ok, threatened) someone I'd put it up. The follow on story about our activities on our day off will be even longer when I get around to posting it. It's a really interesting tale about the "Mystery Spot" and getting caught up in a land slide. But I digress. So without further ado, here goes.
I’m in California with a couple of technical guys from JJWILD for the first phase of a very large conversion project. This is a project that had been almost two years in the planning. The customer was ripping out and replacing the heart and lungs of their Information Technology infrastructure. This project has overcome countless hurdles to get to this point. There were technical obstacles. Not only were we replacing everything, but we were fundamentally changing the way in which this customer delivered Information Technology services. We were leapfrogging two generations of technology. There were financial considerations. After all, how and where does a hospital come up with almost two million dollars to spend on a project that doesn’t generate any revenue in return? And most importantly, there were political obstacles. Not everyone in the IT department was happy to see us out there doing this project. Some folks were annoyed because they felt they should be doing this project, not us. Some folks didn’t want this project to happen at all. It was reported that one senior person had vowed that they would do everything in their power to see that we failed.
To this point we had successfully conquered all obstacles that stood before us. We made Board level presentations to get approvals. We justified the costs to the financial team. We addressed all the technical concerns. We covered all the bases. We developed designs, put together plans, assigned roles, assigned responsibly, developed a timeline. We put together a bullet proof project plan. And most importantly, we rolled over anyone that stood in our way. We got the support of the CIO, CFO, CEO and the Board of Directors early on. Those folks that wanted us to fail, well they were helpless. All they could do is lurk in the darkness on the fringes of this project and grumble.
The day of the actual conversion arrived. We had scheduled 48 hours of downtime. Downtime for a hospital is a major problem. It meant that the clinical departments had no access to the computers. This had the potential to impact patient care. As a result, scheduling downtime was difficult. Typically, down time is kept to a minimum and when you do get it, it’s got to be as short a time as you can possibly get away with. We got 48 hours, which was unheard of. We had to make a commitment that once we started no one was going anywhere until the hospital was back up and running. So we got cots, and food and lots and lots of technical support for not only the Hospital staff and JJWILD, but also all the vendors involved.
At midnight on the chosen day we took down the systems and began our conversion. We had conducted several dry runs so we knew the processes and procedures we needed to do and had some practice doing them. We pre-cabled and preconfigured everything we possibly could prior to shutting down the first system. When that first system came down, everyone jumped into action. By 4:00 AM we were finished. We were standing around looking at each other saying things like, “I wonder what we should do for the next 44 hours?” I kept saying things like “See, it’s just like painting. The magic is in the preparation.” By 5:00 AM we were all sitting at Denny’s finishing our breakfast.
Eventually the JJWILD team went back to the hotel to sleep. When we got up, the great “well what are we going to do now” debate started. We had a free day and a half. We had nothing to do until Monday morning. So we went site seeing. The adventure that was our day and half off will have to be addressed in a separate story so I’ll skip ahead a little.
We got back to the hotel at about 11:00 PM. When I got to my room the message waiting light was flashing on the phone. When I checked the message, it was the JJWILD on call tech support person. He’s having a meltdown. He’s freaking out. Seems he got a call about 4:00 PM that the hospital was down. He’s been trying to reach us since 4:01 PM. It’s now 11:00 PM. He’s been taking angry calls from the customer for 7 hours. He can’t fix anything remotely and he can’t get us. I called him back and got the full story. Now I’m freaking out. I called my work phone. I have about a dozen messages from the customer, each one a little more irate than the one before. After a few minutes the cell phone started going off. One of the things we did on our day off was we took a cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently there is no phone coverage on the PCH. We started getting the queued up voice messages about 30 minutes after we got back into range. Now, I’m way past freaking out. This hospital has been down for almost 24 hours. I’ve gotten voice messages from the technical team, Network Manager, Systems Manager, IT Director, and CIO. The CIO has gotten to the point where he’s threatening to have his CEO contact my CEO. The CIO is beyond mad.
I grabbed my technical guy (I know I’m not suppose to us names, but can I just call him Mike?) and headed back. Mike had been driving all day. I took the keys for this ride. I knew we’d be going fast. I volunteered to take the ticket(s). I jumped behind the wheel and headed out. I put the pedal to the metal and went for it. Normally it was about a 40 minute drive to the hospital. We made it that night in considerably less than 30. At one point as we crested a slight rise in the road, all four tires came off the ground. We pulled into the parking lot on two wheels. We stopped with a screech of tires and a cloud of smoke.
When we get into the data center there are about a dozen people there. We walked through the door and immediately started taking heat. Where were we? Why didn’t we answer the phone? How could we leave with the hospital down? etc etc etc. We asked what was going on. Everybody started talking at once. I looked around and saw the CIO standing with the IT Director. Neither one is talking and neither one is smiling. I asked Mike to see what was going on and I drifted over to talk to the CIO. The CIO started telling me a very angry story. Apparently, the hospital IT team knew the system was down at 8:00 AM. At 10:00 they had called him. He told his people to call us immediately. He got an update at 11:00 and was told at that time that they had not called JJWILD yet. Again he instructed them to call us. This went on all day up to the point that he showed up in the data center and MADE them call us. That was 4:00 PM. And once they did place the call, we couldn’t be reached. He was also looking for his own lead technical person. When they found him, his only response was “That’s JJWILD’s problem, let them fix it”. The hospital’s number one, most senior technical resource didn’t even come in. He just dumped everything on JJWILD and stopped answering the phone. I don’t know who the CIO was madder at, us or his own people.
So Mike’s working with the tech folks. After a little confusion Mike finally gets the story. The whole hospital is not down, it’s just one system. (There are well over 100 by the way). A little less pressure, but not much. Then Mike found out that the system that was down was the one system the JJWILD team hadn’t touched. The hospital IT team had done this one on their own. At this point, we’ve been in the Data Center about 5 minutes. Mike is sitting in the floor, behind a rack of computer gear trying to figure out what’s wrong. He’s got about a dozen people yapping at him. And they are yapping all kinds of crazy and conflicting things. I’m trying to defuse things with the CIO. All of a sudden from behind the rack I heard Mike yell “SHUUUTTTTTTTT UUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!.” The whole place went quiet. There’s a slight murmur going on about being told to shut up, but most people are now being quiet. The CIO looked at me and I can see his blood pressure rising. A line of red started rising from his collar and was progressing to the top of his head. I could hear his teeth breaking. The next thing I heard was Mike very loudly ask “There are two ports on the back of this system and only one cable. Did anyone try the other port?” Have you ever been in a data center? They are loud. There’re fans, and UPSs and air handlers all running, making all kinds of noise. Even devoid of people data centers are loud. Now all of a sudden in this data center you could hear a pin drop. Even the equipment seemed to stop making a sound. People started pawing at the floor with their toes and looking at the ceiling. No one said a word. Mike asked again, “Did anyone even TRY the second port?” No one answered. So Mike moved the cable to the second port. When he did, the system immediately popped up and started to work. Now the hospital’s IT team was looking for a place to hide. They are scattering like cockroaches from the light.
The CIO looked at me and asked “What did he just do?” Mike said all he did is move the cable to the other port. The CIO asked how Mike knew there even was a second port. Mike responded that is was right beside the first one. The CIO is now talking through his teeth. He thanked us for our help and told us we could leave, that he’d talk to us on Monday. We were in the data center less than 10 minutes. As we were leaving, the CIO was gathering up his folks for a little chat. As we were walking out the door we could hear him start. It was something along the lines of "We were down for 20 hours and all you had to do is move one damn cable?........"
On Monday, we got a tiny little slap on the wrist about being hard to reach on Saturday. The bulk of the conversation was centered on what we could do to help him address issues with his team. He couldn’t understand why his folks were so reluctant to call us or why none of his own people thought to try the other port.
Now here’s the funny part. About a month later I’m in the Data Center with the IT Director. We’re discussing what had happened during the cut over. As we talked we walked over to the system that had been the problem. As we were looking at it, the IT Director noticed that the console was flashing an alarm. She pulled up the alarm and it said that network connectivity had been lost and to check the cabling. It even gave the port number.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, the lead technical resource for the hospital, the one that wouldn’t help on Saturday? That’s the guy that was telling people he would do everything in his power to see us fail. You’ll never guess how long he kept his job.
I’m in California with a couple of technical guys from JJWILD for the first phase of a very large conversion project. This is a project that had been almost two years in the planning. The customer was ripping out and replacing the heart and lungs of their Information Technology infrastructure. This project has overcome countless hurdles to get to this point. There were technical obstacles. Not only were we replacing everything, but we were fundamentally changing the way in which this customer delivered Information Technology services. We were leapfrogging two generations of technology. There were financial considerations. After all, how and where does a hospital come up with almost two million dollars to spend on a project that doesn’t generate any revenue in return? And most importantly, there were political obstacles. Not everyone in the IT department was happy to see us out there doing this project. Some folks were annoyed because they felt they should be doing this project, not us. Some folks didn’t want this project to happen at all. It was reported that one senior person had vowed that they would do everything in their power to see that we failed.
To this point we had successfully conquered all obstacles that stood before us. We made Board level presentations to get approvals. We justified the costs to the financial team. We addressed all the technical concerns. We covered all the bases. We developed designs, put together plans, assigned roles, assigned responsibly, developed a timeline. We put together a bullet proof project plan. And most importantly, we rolled over anyone that stood in our way. We got the support of the CIO, CFO, CEO and the Board of Directors early on. Those folks that wanted us to fail, well they were helpless. All they could do is lurk in the darkness on the fringes of this project and grumble.
The day of the actual conversion arrived. We had scheduled 48 hours of downtime. Downtime for a hospital is a major problem. It meant that the clinical departments had no access to the computers. This had the potential to impact patient care. As a result, scheduling downtime was difficult. Typically, down time is kept to a minimum and when you do get it, it’s got to be as short a time as you can possibly get away with. We got 48 hours, which was unheard of. We had to make a commitment that once we started no one was going anywhere until the hospital was back up and running. So we got cots, and food and lots and lots of technical support for not only the Hospital staff and JJWILD, but also all the vendors involved.
At midnight on the chosen day we took down the systems and began our conversion. We had conducted several dry runs so we knew the processes and procedures we needed to do and had some practice doing them. We pre-cabled and preconfigured everything we possibly could prior to shutting down the first system. When that first system came down, everyone jumped into action. By 4:00 AM we were finished. We were standing around looking at each other saying things like, “I wonder what we should do for the next 44 hours?” I kept saying things like “See, it’s just like painting. The magic is in the preparation.” By 5:00 AM we were all sitting at Denny’s finishing our breakfast.
Eventually the JJWILD team went back to the hotel to sleep. When we got up, the great “well what are we going to do now” debate started. We had a free day and a half. We had nothing to do until Monday morning. So we went site seeing. The adventure that was our day and half off will have to be addressed in a separate story so I’ll skip ahead a little.
We got back to the hotel at about 11:00 PM. When I got to my room the message waiting light was flashing on the phone. When I checked the message, it was the JJWILD on call tech support person. He’s having a meltdown. He’s freaking out. Seems he got a call about 4:00 PM that the hospital was down. He’s been trying to reach us since 4:01 PM. It’s now 11:00 PM. He’s been taking angry calls from the customer for 7 hours. He can’t fix anything remotely and he can’t get us. I called him back and got the full story. Now I’m freaking out. I called my work phone. I have about a dozen messages from the customer, each one a little more irate than the one before. After a few minutes the cell phone started going off. One of the things we did on our day off was we took a cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently there is no phone coverage on the PCH. We started getting the queued up voice messages about 30 minutes after we got back into range. Now, I’m way past freaking out. This hospital has been down for almost 24 hours. I’ve gotten voice messages from the technical team, Network Manager, Systems Manager, IT Director, and CIO. The CIO has gotten to the point where he’s threatening to have his CEO contact my CEO. The CIO is beyond mad.
I grabbed my technical guy (I know I’m not suppose to us names, but can I just call him Mike?) and headed back. Mike had been driving all day. I took the keys for this ride. I knew we’d be going fast. I volunteered to take the ticket(s). I jumped behind the wheel and headed out. I put the pedal to the metal and went for it. Normally it was about a 40 minute drive to the hospital. We made it that night in considerably less than 30. At one point as we crested a slight rise in the road, all four tires came off the ground. We pulled into the parking lot on two wheels. We stopped with a screech of tires and a cloud of smoke.
When we get into the data center there are about a dozen people there. We walked through the door and immediately started taking heat. Where were we? Why didn’t we answer the phone? How could we leave with the hospital down? etc etc etc. We asked what was going on. Everybody started talking at once. I looked around and saw the CIO standing with the IT Director. Neither one is talking and neither one is smiling. I asked Mike to see what was going on and I drifted over to talk to the CIO. The CIO started telling me a very angry story. Apparently, the hospital IT team knew the system was down at 8:00 AM. At 10:00 they had called him. He told his people to call us immediately. He got an update at 11:00 and was told at that time that they had not called JJWILD yet. Again he instructed them to call us. This went on all day up to the point that he showed up in the data center and MADE them call us. That was 4:00 PM. And once they did place the call, we couldn’t be reached. He was also looking for his own lead technical person. When they found him, his only response was “That’s JJWILD’s problem, let them fix it”. The hospital’s number one, most senior technical resource didn’t even come in. He just dumped everything on JJWILD and stopped answering the phone. I don’t know who the CIO was madder at, us or his own people.
So Mike’s working with the tech folks. After a little confusion Mike finally gets the story. The whole hospital is not down, it’s just one system. (There are well over 100 by the way). A little less pressure, but not much. Then Mike found out that the system that was down was the one system the JJWILD team hadn’t touched. The hospital IT team had done this one on their own. At this point, we’ve been in the Data Center about 5 minutes. Mike is sitting in the floor, behind a rack of computer gear trying to figure out what’s wrong. He’s got about a dozen people yapping at him. And they are yapping all kinds of crazy and conflicting things. I’m trying to defuse things with the CIO. All of a sudden from behind the rack I heard Mike yell “SHUUUTTTTTTTT UUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!.” The whole place went quiet. There’s a slight murmur going on about being told to shut up, but most people are now being quiet. The CIO looked at me and I can see his blood pressure rising. A line of red started rising from his collar and was progressing to the top of his head. I could hear his teeth breaking. The next thing I heard was Mike very loudly ask “There are two ports on the back of this system and only one cable. Did anyone try the other port?” Have you ever been in a data center? They are loud. There’re fans, and UPSs and air handlers all running, making all kinds of noise. Even devoid of people data centers are loud. Now all of a sudden in this data center you could hear a pin drop. Even the equipment seemed to stop making a sound. People started pawing at the floor with their toes and looking at the ceiling. No one said a word. Mike asked again, “Did anyone even TRY the second port?” No one answered. So Mike moved the cable to the second port. When he did, the system immediately popped up and started to work. Now the hospital’s IT team was looking for a place to hide. They are scattering like cockroaches from the light.
The CIO looked at me and asked “What did he just do?” Mike said all he did is move the cable to the other port. The CIO asked how Mike knew there even was a second port. Mike responded that is was right beside the first one. The CIO is now talking through his teeth. He thanked us for our help and told us we could leave, that he’d talk to us on Monday. We were in the data center less than 10 minutes. As we were leaving, the CIO was gathering up his folks for a little chat. As we were walking out the door we could hear him start. It was something along the lines of "We were down for 20 hours and all you had to do is move one damn cable?........"
On Monday, we got a tiny little slap on the wrist about being hard to reach on Saturday. The bulk of the conversation was centered on what we could do to help him address issues with his team. He couldn’t understand why his folks were so reluctant to call us or why none of his own people thought to try the other port.
Now here’s the funny part. About a month later I’m in the Data Center with the IT Director. We’re discussing what had happened during the cut over. As we talked we walked over to the system that had been the problem. As we were looking at it, the IT Director noticed that the console was flashing an alarm. She pulled up the alarm and it said that network connectivity had been lost and to check the cabling. It even gave the port number.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, the lead technical resource for the hospital, the one that wouldn’t help on Saturday? That’s the guy that was telling people he would do everything in his power to see us fail. You’ll never guess how long he kept his job.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
There’s no such thing a common sense…..No good deed goes unpunished
The kids and I were on a nature walk at Diamond Hill. We used to do this periodically. We’d climb up the old ski slope then walk down one of the less steep nature trails. In some sections, the ski slope got pretty steep, you had to scramble up using your hands and feet. More of a crawl really. We’re on the steep section crawling along one day when I put my hand down on something. I picked it up and discovered that it’s a wallet. I opened it up and find there’s a license, school ID, and other various cards and things inside. Looks to me like some local high school kid has lost his wallet.
I show it to the kids and put it in my pocket. The rest of the walk, the kids are talking about the wallet I found and what I’m going to do with it. I tell them I’m going to return it to it’s rightfull owner. I decide this will be a good object lesson for them. I can teach them about honesty, and the joy that comes from helping your fellow man.
I get the address off the license, it’s just around the corner. It’s less than a mile from where we are. I asked the kids what we should do. Should we throw the license in the trash, should we mail it back or should we try to take it back ourselves. We discuss the wallet and our options for a while and I decide we should swing by the address on the license. I think to myself that this will do the kids some good. It will teach them a lesson in integrity and honesty and the joy that comes from helping people.
I find the house. The kids and I go up to the door and ring the bell. A woman opens the door. I introduce myself. I explain that I found a wallet and was returning it. I handed this woman he wallet. She takes it, opens it up looks at me and says “The money’s gone, that figures” looks up and glares at me. She then goes on to ask what I want. I said I wanted nothing. I told her the kids and I were just trying to do a good deed. She asks why I had brought it back. I told her about the license and that I figured her son (?) needed it. She responded that there was no money in the wallet so she can’t give me anything, continuing to glare at me the whole time. She asks me to step in. She said she’d try to get her son up so he can thank me himself. As she turns, she yells to somebody inside that there was a person at the door with a wallet and that the wallet was empty, the money was gone.
At this point I said no thanks were necessary, turned around and walked off the porch. The kids just said “That wasn’t very nice”
I found a wallet on the great Diamond Hill, I searched out the owner and drove it to his door. I returned the wallet asking nothing in return other than the opportunity to teach my kids a lesson about good deeds. And in return, I am for all intents and purposes, accused of taking the money that may or may not have been in the wallet in the first place.
So, what lesson do you suppose was learned this day? Wasn’t the one I was trying for. That’s for sure.
I show it to the kids and put it in my pocket. The rest of the walk, the kids are talking about the wallet I found and what I’m going to do with it. I tell them I’m going to return it to it’s rightfull owner. I decide this will be a good object lesson for them. I can teach them about honesty, and the joy that comes from helping your fellow man.
I get the address off the license, it’s just around the corner. It’s less than a mile from where we are. I asked the kids what we should do. Should we throw the license in the trash, should we mail it back or should we try to take it back ourselves. We discuss the wallet and our options for a while and I decide we should swing by the address on the license. I think to myself that this will do the kids some good. It will teach them a lesson in integrity and honesty and the joy that comes from helping people.
I find the house. The kids and I go up to the door and ring the bell. A woman opens the door. I introduce myself. I explain that I found a wallet and was returning it. I handed this woman he wallet. She takes it, opens it up looks at me and says “The money’s gone, that figures” looks up and glares at me. She then goes on to ask what I want. I said I wanted nothing. I told her the kids and I were just trying to do a good deed. She asks why I had brought it back. I told her about the license and that I figured her son (?) needed it. She responded that there was no money in the wallet so she can’t give me anything, continuing to glare at me the whole time. She asks me to step in. She said she’d try to get her son up so he can thank me himself. As she turns, she yells to somebody inside that there was a person at the door with a wallet and that the wallet was empty, the money was gone.
At this point I said no thanks were necessary, turned around and walked off the porch. The kids just said “That wasn’t very nice”
I found a wallet on the great Diamond Hill, I searched out the owner and drove it to his door. I returned the wallet asking nothing in return other than the opportunity to teach my kids a lesson about good deeds. And in return, I am for all intents and purposes, accused of taking the money that may or may not have been in the wallet in the first place.
So, what lesson do you suppose was learned this day? Wasn’t the one I was trying for. That’s for sure.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Dear ole Dad, Christmas special
I meant to post this back in December.
Did I ever mention the time Dad lopped off the top of his finger?
We went to see Grandma and Grandpa one Christmas to find Grandpa sitting in his chair with his finger all bandaged and him popping pain killers. Grandpa had cut off the tip of his finger baking pies the day before. Pie baking was grandpa’s thing. He made the pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Grandpa’s pies were out of this world. He took pie baking to a whole new level. A true art form. He’d make Apple and Squash (not pumpkin damn it, it has to be SQUASH) and Blueberry and Pineapple. He’d also make an assortment of meat pies. He really enjoyed the pie baking, it was his special treat to the family for the holidays.
He’d start a couple of days before the Holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc.) and just have at it. He ran the kitchen with military precision. No mess for Grandpa, things was washed as they were used, counters were perpetually being wiped clean, even the floor was carefully attended. The kitchen was spotless before, after and during pie time. You could always tell pie time was nearing. You could tell because Grandpa would start complaining about his tools. The biggest complaint was the knives. Grandpa was unhappy because he could never find a sharp knife. Grandpa complained that you couldn’t cut butter with most of Grandma’s knives.
Well this particular year, my brother decided to do my mother a favor and keep my father from complaining. He decided he would sharpen mom's knives. He went to the house a day or two before Pie Time and sharpened every knife he could find. The knives were sharp enough to shave with when he was done. The next day, Grandpa was getting ready to make the pies. He laid out all his supplies. He got the pie plates, the spices, the apples, the squash, the flour, the sugar and anything else that he needed. He was good to go. When all was ready, it was time to start baking. The first thing Dad grabbed was a bag of sugar. The second thing he grabbed was a knife to use in opening said bag of sugar. The next thing he grabbed was his finger. Seems before the first ingredient had been measured, Grandpa had cut the tip off of his finger.
As people came into the house Christmas day, they would hear the story. They’d walk into the family room, and there was Grandpa sitting in his chair with his finger bandaged and elevated. And Grandpa would announce that he was not able to make the pies this year because of his horrific injury. He had no problem relating his horrific tale of injury and how Grandma had to finish making all the pies (under his tutelage of course). Eventually, someone talked him into putting a festive bow on his bandaged finger. So there he was, sitting in the Kings Seat a bulbous bandage incasing his finger, wrapped in a bright red bow telling tales of the ER.
After a while, the brother that had sharpened the knives came over. As he came into the house, he was singing a little song. By the end of the day, everyone was singing. It went something like this (to the tune of Grandma got run over by a reindeer)
Grandpa cut the top off of his finger
Mak’n pies at his house Christmas Eve
Some folks say the grandma’s got no sharp knives
Just go and talk to Grandpa now he believes
Grandpa was measuring out ingredients,
One was causing him much strife
He couldn’t open up the sugar
That’s when he grabbed himself the knife
Ohhhh,
Grandpa cut the tip off of his finger
Mak’n pies at his house Christmas Eve
Some Folks say that Grandma’s got no sharp knives,
Just go and talk to Grandpa he believes
And so on. There’s a verse about grandma’s dull knives, there’s a verse about his trip to the ER, there’s even a verse about the lesson he learned
Grandpa sat there and smiled the whole day. He kept saying his finger throbbed, but he kept smiling. He even seemed to enjoy the song. Maybe it was all the love and attention he was getting. Then again, it might have been the pain killers.
We always knew Grandpa liked to throw himself into his holiday pie baking. The question that year was who was going to find it?
Did I ever mention the time Dad lopped off the top of his finger?
We went to see Grandma and Grandpa one Christmas to find Grandpa sitting in his chair with his finger all bandaged and him popping pain killers. Grandpa had cut off the tip of his finger baking pies the day before. Pie baking was grandpa’s thing. He made the pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Grandpa’s pies were out of this world. He took pie baking to a whole new level. A true art form. He’d make Apple and Squash (not pumpkin damn it, it has to be SQUASH) and Blueberry and Pineapple. He’d also make an assortment of meat pies. He really enjoyed the pie baking, it was his special treat to the family for the holidays.
He’d start a couple of days before the Holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc.) and just have at it. He ran the kitchen with military precision. No mess for Grandpa, things was washed as they were used, counters were perpetually being wiped clean, even the floor was carefully attended. The kitchen was spotless before, after and during pie time. You could always tell pie time was nearing. You could tell because Grandpa would start complaining about his tools. The biggest complaint was the knives. Grandpa was unhappy because he could never find a sharp knife. Grandpa complained that you couldn’t cut butter with most of Grandma’s knives.
Well this particular year, my brother decided to do my mother a favor and keep my father from complaining. He decided he would sharpen mom's knives. He went to the house a day or two before Pie Time and sharpened every knife he could find. The knives were sharp enough to shave with when he was done. The next day, Grandpa was getting ready to make the pies. He laid out all his supplies. He got the pie plates, the spices, the apples, the squash, the flour, the sugar and anything else that he needed. He was good to go. When all was ready, it was time to start baking. The first thing Dad grabbed was a bag of sugar. The second thing he grabbed was a knife to use in opening said bag of sugar. The next thing he grabbed was his finger. Seems before the first ingredient had been measured, Grandpa had cut the tip off of his finger.
As people came into the house Christmas day, they would hear the story. They’d walk into the family room, and there was Grandpa sitting in his chair with his finger bandaged and elevated. And Grandpa would announce that he was not able to make the pies this year because of his horrific injury. He had no problem relating his horrific tale of injury and how Grandma had to finish making all the pies (under his tutelage of course). Eventually, someone talked him into putting a festive bow on his bandaged finger. So there he was, sitting in the Kings Seat a bulbous bandage incasing his finger, wrapped in a bright red bow telling tales of the ER.
After a while, the brother that had sharpened the knives came over. As he came into the house, he was singing a little song. By the end of the day, everyone was singing. It went something like this (to the tune of Grandma got run over by a reindeer)
Grandpa cut the top off of his finger
Mak’n pies at his house Christmas Eve
Some folks say the grandma’s got no sharp knives
Just go and talk to Grandpa now he believes
Grandpa was measuring out ingredients,
One was causing him much strife
He couldn’t open up the sugar
That’s when he grabbed himself the knife
Ohhhh,
Grandpa cut the tip off of his finger
Mak’n pies at his house Christmas Eve
Some Folks say that Grandma’s got no sharp knives,
Just go and talk to Grandpa he believes
And so on. There’s a verse about grandma’s dull knives, there’s a verse about his trip to the ER, there’s even a verse about the lesson he learned
Grandpa sat there and smiled the whole day. He kept saying his finger throbbed, but he kept smiling. He even seemed to enjoy the song. Maybe it was all the love and attention he was getting. Then again, it might have been the pain killers.
We always knew Grandpa liked to throw himself into his holiday pie baking. The question that year was who was going to find it?
Dear ole Dad
As I've said, it's in my damn DNA. Here's just a quick anecdote about the the man the got it going.
One weekend we were fixing the roof of Dad’s house. This same weekend, his sister, my infamous Aunt Mary was coming for a visit. Never one to miss an opportunity, Dad thought he’d “get” his sister. He thought for a little fun he’d scare her.
Dad had a two and ½ story house with a garage under. The section of roof we were working on was on the end of the house that was over the garage. This put us 3 ½ stories above the pavement. Dad thought he’d scare Aunt Mary by walking around on the peak of the roof. Yeah, that will really make Mary anxious, watching her beloved little brother traipsing around the roof like Billy Goat Gruff. Before I go too far in this story, at the time Dear ole Dad was a 55 year old, 6 foot 2 inch 265 pound man. And he was shaped like a pear. Not exactly the type of guy you’d expect to see climbing ladders or walking around on the roof. So as Aunt Mary got out of the car, Dad started prancing on the peak of the roof calling and waving hello to his sister. Aunt Mary called up for him to be careful. As soon as she did, Dad started to laugh, and then he began to dance and to sing. He started singing “If I Were a Rich Man”. On seeing this, Aunt Mary yelled, averted her eyes and went running into the house. I believe the lyrics that Dad was signing went something like this”
If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha, Ooops, yikes, Wa, wa, wa, Waaaaoooohhh, damn it, give me a hand, QUICK!!!!”
The dancing ended quicker than it started.
You see, as Dad was dancing on the peak of the roof, 3 ½ stories above the pavement, he started to slip. As he started to slip, he twisted and lurched to try to catch is balance. When he twisted himself to stop his slide, he threw his back out. Now he’s lying on the roof unable to move. Now he doesn’t want anyone to see him. We are not allowed to call for help or let anyone know what has happened. He sure as hell doesn’t want the fire department to come to try and get him off the roof. That would make a “scene” and we don’t want a “scene” now do we? No no no, Big Bear prancing around on the peak of the roof singing "If I where a rich man" at the top of his lungs and his sister screaming in the driveway, that's OK. Normal course of business really. But the fire department? That's over the top. AND HE ESPECIALLY DOESN’T WANT AUNT MARY TO KNOW!!! Oh jeez, don’t tell Aunt Mary.
It took us the rest of the afternoon to get him down. There we were, a 265 pound 55 year old dancing bear being helped off the roof by two 125 pound giggling sons. He didn’t let on that he was hurt, and neither could we. Until of course we got him into the house. After all, what could he do to us? He couldn’t move. Boy howdy did he show Aunt Mary. Boy oh boy did Aunt Mary finally enjoy having some leverage on the guy that had been needling her for years.
One weekend we were fixing the roof of Dad’s house. This same weekend, his sister, my infamous Aunt Mary was coming for a visit. Never one to miss an opportunity, Dad thought he’d “get” his sister. He thought for a little fun he’d scare her.
Dad had a two and ½ story house with a garage under. The section of roof we were working on was on the end of the house that was over the garage. This put us 3 ½ stories above the pavement. Dad thought he’d scare Aunt Mary by walking around on the peak of the roof. Yeah, that will really make Mary anxious, watching her beloved little brother traipsing around the roof like Billy Goat Gruff. Before I go too far in this story, at the time Dear ole Dad was a 55 year old, 6 foot 2 inch 265 pound man. And he was shaped like a pear. Not exactly the type of guy you’d expect to see climbing ladders or walking around on the roof. So as Aunt Mary got out of the car, Dad started prancing on the peak of the roof calling and waving hello to his sister. Aunt Mary called up for him to be careful. As soon as she did, Dad started to laugh, and then he began to dance and to sing. He started singing “If I Were a Rich Man”. On seeing this, Aunt Mary yelled, averted her eyes and went running into the house. I believe the lyrics that Dad was signing went something like this”
If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha, Ooops, yikes, Wa, wa, wa, Waaaaoooohhh, damn it, give me a hand, QUICK!!!!”
The dancing ended quicker than it started.
You see, as Dad was dancing on the peak of the roof, 3 ½ stories above the pavement, he started to slip. As he started to slip, he twisted and lurched to try to catch is balance. When he twisted himself to stop his slide, he threw his back out. Now he’s lying on the roof unable to move. Now he doesn’t want anyone to see him. We are not allowed to call for help or let anyone know what has happened. He sure as hell doesn’t want the fire department to come to try and get him off the roof. That would make a “scene” and we don’t want a “scene” now do we? No no no, Big Bear prancing around on the peak of the roof singing "If I where a rich man" at the top of his lungs and his sister screaming in the driveway, that's OK. Normal course of business really. But the fire department? That's over the top. AND HE ESPECIALLY DOESN’T WANT AUNT MARY TO KNOW!!! Oh jeez, don’t tell Aunt Mary.
It took us the rest of the afternoon to get him down. There we were, a 265 pound 55 year old dancing bear being helped off the roof by two 125 pound giggling sons. He didn’t let on that he was hurt, and neither could we. Until of course we got him into the house. After all, what could he do to us? He couldn’t move. Boy howdy did he show Aunt Mary. Boy oh boy did Aunt Mary finally enjoy having some leverage on the guy that had been needling her for years.
Snow tubing
This has got to be one of if not THE funniest thing I ever witnessed in real life.
When the kids were small I would take them snow tubing. One fine snowy winter day we went tubing with a whole group of other families. We didn’t go to our normal spot, Sweatt Hill, which is behind the elementary school in the center of town. Oh no, that hill it too big, too steep, too dangerous. Too many "big" kids went there. (aka the dreaded High School kids) No, we had to go into Rhode Island to the “Private” elementary school. This hill is much softer, much kinder, much gentler. My kids didn't want to go there because, that hill is for “little” kids. But they relented because, everyone else was going.
We get to the hill at the school in Rhode Island and there were already about 30 kids there. This hill isn’t very steep, and it doesn’t have any “jumps”. But it’s long, has a large run off area at the bottom and is about as wide as it is long. It has plenty of room for everybody. So the kids start tubing. Everyone is having a good time. Even the parents make a couple of runs.
I’m standing at the top of the hill with the other parents drinking coffee and trying to stay warm. (Irish coffee, I said we were having good time :-)) I look down the hill and see some guy in a snow mobile suit walking up the hill. I notice him because he’s walking up backwards. I think he was chastising a group of kids that had just flown by him. I then look over at our kids and see that my daughter, Cait the Great, is getting ready to launch herself down the hill. Actually, the boys were getting ready to launch her. After all, she was just sitting on her tube and the boys were running like hell pushing her towards the edge. I yelled at her to watch out for the guy in the snow mobile suit. Too late, she’s off and sliding.
I’m standing at the top of the hill with two other parents, all three of us are yelling at Cait to try to turn. But she can’t hear us. And she doesn’t try to alter her trajectory. She’s just in a tucked position, holding onto the handles for dear life blasting down the hill at a 100 miles an hour. And Snow mobile man doesn’t see her coming because he’s walking backwards up the hill.
She took him out in one clean swipe . She hit him behind the knees and sent him flying into the air. It was beautiful to see. It couldn’t have been a better take down had they spent two weeks choreographing it. If this were the X Games I guess you’d have to say the trick he was trying to pull off was a 720. You do know what a 720 is, right? A 720 is when a skater/boarder jumps in the air and does two complete spins before landing back on his/her feet, usually to the ew’s, ah’s and applauds of the crowd. Snow mobile man only managed a 450. He managed one and a quarter revolutions before slamming head and shoulders into the hillside. He got a few oooooohhhhhhh’s, some OOOOOwwwwwwww’s and a couple of “now that’s just GOT to hurt” from the crowd. Nobody clapped.You should have seen him scrambling and rolling in the snow trying to get back to his feet. A drunken turtle could have rolled over more gracefully. When he did manage to get back up, he was staggering. This guy was rocked. He didn't know if it was 8:30 or Tuesday. And what about Cait? She kept going. It barely slowed her down. She maintained her tuck and slid to the bottom of the hill. She didn’t even turn her head. I bet she kept her eyes open too. See denied it, but I think she was aiming for him.
Now I’m at the top of the hill in tears. I can barely breathe. The other two parents are dying as well. When this guy gets up, he’s covered in snow and he’s pissed. He’s grabbing all the kids coming up the hill. He wants to know who took him down. The kids don’t know. They weren’t watching they were sliding. What about Cait? She moves kind of slow. She was still at the bottom of the hill getting ready for her ascent back to the top when the interrogations started. And besides, she is a girl. She’s not even a suspect. This guy is yelling at all the boys. When she came up the hill, he didn’t even speak to her.
So snow mobile man hobbled to the top of the hill. Oh that’s right, he’s limping and holding his head. He gathers up his kids and leaves. I can’t even look at him. Every time I do I burst out laughing. I had to hide behind the other parents so he wouldn’t see me. What was Cait’s only comment? Her only comment was “Well, he shouldn’t have been standing there then”
When the kids were small I would take them snow tubing. One fine snowy winter day we went tubing with a whole group of other families. We didn’t go to our normal spot, Sweatt Hill, which is behind the elementary school in the center of town. Oh no, that hill it too big, too steep, too dangerous. Too many "big" kids went there. (aka the dreaded High School kids) No, we had to go into Rhode Island to the “Private” elementary school. This hill is much softer, much kinder, much gentler. My kids didn't want to go there because, that hill is for “little” kids. But they relented because, everyone else was going.
We get to the hill at the school in Rhode Island and there were already about 30 kids there. This hill isn’t very steep, and it doesn’t have any “jumps”. But it’s long, has a large run off area at the bottom and is about as wide as it is long. It has plenty of room for everybody. So the kids start tubing. Everyone is having a good time. Even the parents make a couple of runs.
I’m standing at the top of the hill with the other parents drinking coffee and trying to stay warm. (Irish coffee, I said we were having good time :-)) I look down the hill and see some guy in a snow mobile suit walking up the hill. I notice him because he’s walking up backwards. I think he was chastising a group of kids that had just flown by him. I then look over at our kids and see that my daughter, Cait the Great, is getting ready to launch herself down the hill. Actually, the boys were getting ready to launch her. After all, she was just sitting on her tube and the boys were running like hell pushing her towards the edge. I yelled at her to watch out for the guy in the snow mobile suit. Too late, she’s off and sliding.
I’m standing at the top of the hill with two other parents, all three of us are yelling at Cait to try to turn. But she can’t hear us. And she doesn’t try to alter her trajectory. She’s just in a tucked position, holding onto the handles for dear life blasting down the hill at a 100 miles an hour. And Snow mobile man doesn’t see her coming because he’s walking backwards up the hill.
She took him out in one clean swipe . She hit him behind the knees and sent him flying into the air. It was beautiful to see. It couldn’t have been a better take down had they spent two weeks choreographing it. If this were the X Games I guess you’d have to say the trick he was trying to pull off was a 720. You do know what a 720 is, right? A 720 is when a skater/boarder jumps in the air and does two complete spins before landing back on his/her feet, usually to the ew’s, ah’s and applauds of the crowd. Snow mobile man only managed a 450. He managed one and a quarter revolutions before slamming head and shoulders into the hillside. He got a few oooooohhhhhhh’s, some OOOOOwwwwwwww’s and a couple of “now that’s just GOT to hurt” from the crowd. Nobody clapped.You should have seen him scrambling and rolling in the snow trying to get back to his feet. A drunken turtle could have rolled over more gracefully. When he did manage to get back up, he was staggering. This guy was rocked. He didn't know if it was 8:30 or Tuesday. And what about Cait? She kept going. It barely slowed her down. She maintained her tuck and slid to the bottom of the hill. She didn’t even turn her head. I bet she kept her eyes open too. See denied it, but I think she was aiming for him.
Now I’m at the top of the hill in tears. I can barely breathe. The other two parents are dying as well. When this guy gets up, he’s covered in snow and he’s pissed. He’s grabbing all the kids coming up the hill. He wants to know who took him down. The kids don’t know. They weren’t watching they were sliding. What about Cait? She moves kind of slow. She was still at the bottom of the hill getting ready for her ascent back to the top when the interrogations started. And besides, she is a girl. She’s not even a suspect. This guy is yelling at all the boys. When she came up the hill, he didn’t even speak to her.
So snow mobile man hobbled to the top of the hill. Oh that’s right, he’s limping and holding his head. He gathers up his kids and leaves. I can’t even look at him. Every time I do I burst out laughing. I had to hide behind the other parents so he wouldn’t see me. What was Cait’s only comment? Her only comment was “Well, he shouldn’t have been standing there then”
Sunday, February 7, 2010
There's no such thing as common sense - But this makes no sense at all, Episode IV
Let me relate just one more story about my email friend.
One day shortly after our great email debate we were talking about her difficulty in reaching people and/or having them respond to her. At one point she looked at me and said that she had tried to send me four emails recently and that I had ignored them all. As she is relaying this, she held up three fingers. I asked her to repeat her statement and again she held up three fingers. A little deeper into her story, she said she had made three attempts to call someone else, and held up two fingers. She again repeats her point and again she held up two fingers. Throughout our conversation, every time she mentioned a number, she flashed her fingers to illustrate the number she was trying to relate. And each time, the fingers did not match the number. Even when she tried to flash one, she showed the wrong number of fingers (thumb, index and middle, no kidding).
Eventually, I stopped the conversation and made a comment that she was making a mistake. I said that when she said four, she showed only three fingers. And when she said three, she showed two fingers and so on. After I made this observation, she looked at me and said, “Oh, sometimes that happens, I have a finger that doesn’t work”. Now I started flashing my own fingers. I flashed 3, then 4 then 2 fingers. Every time, the combination of fingers changed, and it looked to me like all the fingers got used.
After a second or two of trying to determine which of her fingers didn’t work I looked at her and asked “OK, so which one is it? Which one doesn’t work?” At this point, she looked at me as said “Don’t worry about it. It’s on the other hand.”
One day shortly after our great email debate we were talking about her difficulty in reaching people and/or having them respond to her. At one point she looked at me and said that she had tried to send me four emails recently and that I had ignored them all. As she is relaying this, she held up three fingers. I asked her to repeat her statement and again she held up three fingers. A little deeper into her story, she said she had made three attempts to call someone else, and held up two fingers. She again repeats her point and again she held up two fingers. Throughout our conversation, every time she mentioned a number, she flashed her fingers to illustrate the number she was trying to relate. And each time, the fingers did not match the number. Even when she tried to flash one, she showed the wrong number of fingers (thumb, index and middle, no kidding).
Eventually, I stopped the conversation and made a comment that she was making a mistake. I said that when she said four, she showed only three fingers. And when she said three, she showed two fingers and so on. After I made this observation, she looked at me and said, “Oh, sometimes that happens, I have a finger that doesn’t work”. Now I started flashing my own fingers. I flashed 3, then 4 then 2 fingers. Every time, the combination of fingers changed, and it looked to me like all the fingers got used.
After a second or two of trying to determine which of her fingers didn’t work I looked at her and asked “OK, so which one is it? Which one doesn’t work?” At this point, she looked at me as said “Don’t worry about it. It’s on the other hand.”
There's no such thing as common sense - But this makes no sense at all, Episode III
I’m starting to get a little brighter. I’m learning it’s better to gracefully exit ridiculous situations earlier rather than later. Or maybe I am just losing the will to fight.
A week or two after the email debate, email again raises its head as a source of trouble. I am engaged in a discussion with the same woman that the “new” company has screwed up email because we now have to look up people by the last name instead of by their first. Again, the conversion revolves around being able to spell peoples last names. Eventually I have a flash of brilliance. I make an analogy of looking people up in the white pages of the phone book. I asked the woman I was talking to how she would look up my number in the phone book if they wanted to call me. The response is “Why would I want to call you?” I said it didn’t matter why. This woman then say’s “I would never call you”. I said it didn’t matter. I asked how she would look up my number. She said “I would never call you” and “I don’t know where you live so I don’t know what phonebook to use”. I said forget about calling me. I asked how she would look up anyone in the phone book. She asked whom I was referring to. I said, “how about your neighbors down the street?” The response was “I wouldn’t need to look them up, I know their number.”
At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. I recommended that she call the help desk and see if she can get corporate to change the email policy so that she could look up people by their first name.
A week or two after the email debate, email again raises its head as a source of trouble. I am engaged in a discussion with the same woman that the “new” company has screwed up email because we now have to look up people by the last name instead of by their first. Again, the conversion revolves around being able to spell peoples last names. Eventually I have a flash of brilliance. I make an analogy of looking people up in the white pages of the phone book. I asked the woman I was talking to how she would look up my number in the phone book if they wanted to call me. The response is “Why would I want to call you?” I said it didn’t matter why. This woman then say’s “I would never call you”. I said it didn’t matter. I asked how she would look up my number. She said “I would never call you” and “I don’t know where you live so I don’t know what phonebook to use”. I said forget about calling me. I asked how she would look up anyone in the phone book. She asked whom I was referring to. I said, “how about your neighbors down the street?” The response was “I wouldn’t need to look them up, I know their number.”
At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. I recommended that she call the help desk and see if she can get corporate to change the email policy so that she could look up people by their first name.
There's no such thing as common sense - But this makes no sense at all, Episode II
There are times where I just have to admit that I'm not that bright. I should know full well when I should walk away. However, sometimes I just can't. I've just been told I don't know how to spell my name. I know I should cut my loses and run, but I can't. I just have to respond.
So this woman that sent the email to the wrong person asked how she was supposed to know how to spell my name. My immediate response was, “Well, we have been working together for over 8 years, I thought you knew who I am.” The response I got back was, “Yes, but I (this woman) can’t be expected to know how to spell everyone’s name” Now my name is not that tricky to spell. There are really only two ways spell it. One way has two e’s the other doesn’t. Not to mention, there are only two of us in the whole company. The other guy has the extra e, but he works in Texas. Again the question is asked about how this person should know who is who.
I think most people would have bailed on the discussion. Not me, I just have to keep going. My response is,” well you could look at where we work.” The email directory includes not only the email address, but also the phone number and office address. My comment leads to a discussion about how to determine where people work. I kid you not, an argument is made that this woman is so busy that she cannot take the time to expand the email window large enough so that it shows more of the address record. It takes too long and she is too busy. Again, a normal person would have bailed on this discussion, but not me. So I argued a little bit about the effort required to expand the window. You grab the corner of the window and stretch it. But noooooo, that’s too much work for a busy person. This woman can’t stretch the window for every email she sends. Think of all the time it will take.
When it finally dawns on me that I am losing this argument, I change tactics. I responded that she could always just look at the phone number. That was a big mistake on my part. I’m now embroiled in an argument about having to know everyone’s phone number. Now I’m a logical guy. I assume people are as logical as I. I next pointed out that the office we work for has an exchange of 781 and the exchange for Texas is 210. That should be a good indicator. We then had an argument about the requirement to know all the exchanges across the country. This woman asked how she were supposed to know which exchange was which. To which I responded that she worked out of the main office, she ought to know her own office number. I went on to say that she only need know the exchange for the office she was in because; I worked in the same office. Process of elimination should exclude everyone else. To which this woman responded, not everyone works out of this office. To which I responded that both she and I did. To which she responded, “But Harry doesn’t”.
I finally gave up The long and short of it is, I wasn’t getting emails because I spell my name wrong, it’s too much trouble to look up who/where people are, and Harry doesn’t work in Canton.
So this woman that sent the email to the wrong person asked how she was supposed to know how to spell my name. My immediate response was, “Well, we have been working together for over 8 years, I thought you knew who I am.” The response I got back was, “Yes, but I (this woman) can’t be expected to know how to spell everyone’s name” Now my name is not that tricky to spell. There are really only two ways spell it. One way has two e’s the other doesn’t. Not to mention, there are only two of us in the whole company. The other guy has the extra e, but he works in Texas. Again the question is asked about how this person should know who is who.
I think most people would have bailed on the discussion. Not me, I just have to keep going. My response is,” well you could look at where we work.” The email directory includes not only the email address, but also the phone number and office address. My comment leads to a discussion about how to determine where people work. I kid you not, an argument is made that this woman is so busy that she cannot take the time to expand the email window large enough so that it shows more of the address record. It takes too long and she is too busy. Again, a normal person would have bailed on this discussion, but not me. So I argued a little bit about the effort required to expand the window. You grab the corner of the window and stretch it. But noooooo, that’s too much work for a busy person. This woman can’t stretch the window for every email she sends. Think of all the time it will take.
When it finally dawns on me that I am losing this argument, I change tactics. I responded that she could always just look at the phone number. That was a big mistake on my part. I’m now embroiled in an argument about having to know everyone’s phone number. Now I’m a logical guy. I assume people are as logical as I. I next pointed out that the office we work for has an exchange of 781 and the exchange for Texas is 210. That should be a good indicator. We then had an argument about the requirement to know all the exchanges across the country. This woman asked how she were supposed to know which exchange was which. To which I responded that she worked out of the main office, she ought to know her own office number. I went on to say that she only need know the exchange for the office she was in because; I worked in the same office. Process of elimination should exclude everyone else. To which this woman responded, not everyone works out of this office. To which I responded that both she and I did. To which she responded, “But Harry doesn’t”.
I finally gave up The long and short of it is, I wasn’t getting emails because I spell my name wrong, it’s too much trouble to look up who/where people are, and Harry doesn’t work in Canton.
There's no such thing as common sense - But this makes no sense at all!
I was in the office not too long ago when I was approached by someone questioning why I wasn’t responding to her email requests. My response was that I had not seen any emails. I was informed that I was sent several email messages that I was obviously ignoring. To which, I replied that I had not received any emails. This person and I debated about the emails for a very long time. At one point, I showed this person my inbox. The immediate response was that I must have deleted the messages. I showed this person my deleted folder. Again the argument was, I must have deleted the messages. I was asked to step into this person’s office because she had kept record of all the messages that were sent. She opened up her email an pointed out several emails and said something to the effect of “there they are, I told you I sent them to you”. So I took a good close look and immediately knew the problem. I looked at this person and responded, “You sent them to the wrong person, you misspelled my name”. Now normally, I think most people would expect some sort of apology or at least an acknowledgement that a mistake had been made. Not in this case. The person I was talking to immediately responded that the problem was that, I SPELL MY NAME WRONG!!!! Can you imagine? The argument is, I can’t spell my own name. I was flabbergasted. How do you respond to that?
There's no such thing as common sense - Liberal Logic
I was in the office arguing politics the other day. It’s kinda what I do. (During the 2004 presidential election, I was asked to “step outside” four times. I had one guy grab me by the ear and try to pull me from my chair. I put a cigar out on the back of his hand.)
I had someone tell me something the other day that left me awe struck. I was getting ready to ask him to step outside. The other day I had a guy tell me that the government not only had the right but was duty bound to take my money. The rational? He reasoned that as a conservative, I don’t spend enough of my money. If the government didn’t take it, I would just save it. He told me that I am killing the economy by trying to save. Therefore, the government should take my money and spend it for me to stimulate the economy.
Think about the implication of that for a while. If I make a dollar, the government should take it from me, and give it to someone else, because I’m not spending it. If that’s true, then I should stop working. I should stop working because if I do, the government will and should, take a dollar off someone who is, and give it to me. If I work, I lose. If I don’t work I gain. The bottom line becomes, why work?
Whatever happened to saving for your kid’s college, or your own retirement? It’s quite clear, don’t save just spend and the government will take care you.
This just scares the bejeezes out of me.
I had someone tell me something the other day that left me awe struck. I was getting ready to ask him to step outside. The other day I had a guy tell me that the government not only had the right but was duty bound to take my money. The rational? He reasoned that as a conservative, I don’t spend enough of my money. If the government didn’t take it, I would just save it. He told me that I am killing the economy by trying to save. Therefore, the government should take my money and spend it for me to stimulate the economy.
Think about the implication of that for a while. If I make a dollar, the government should take it from me, and give it to someone else, because I’m not spending it. If that’s true, then I should stop working. I should stop working because if I do, the government will and should, take a dollar off someone who is, and give it to me. If I work, I lose. If I don’t work I gain. The bottom line becomes, why work?
Whatever happened to saving for your kid’s college, or your own retirement? It’s quite clear, don’t save just spend and the government will take care you.
This just scares the bejeezes out of me.
There's no such thing as common sense - Never argue with anyone who's already made up their mind.
I worked with a biker dude who was vehemently against the helmet law. When you asked him why he was against helmets he would not hesitate to tell you his story. It seems that this guy had a motorcycle, but this motorcycle was old and beat up. He was perpetually working on it. One night, after a hard day of drinking he decided he should take it for a ride. According to this biker guy, it was about 1:00 AM when he decided to take the bike up on the highway to see how the motor would run at high speed. It was getting onto the highway that he had his accident. The motorcycle had no headlight or running lights, but that didn’t matter. The guy in the car the hit him should have known that he was there because, well after all, the bike didn’t have a muffler either, so the driver should have heard him. Stupid car drivers. Anyway, getting onto the highway he got broadsided. The car knocked him and the bike into the guardrail. This guy woke up in the ICU a couple of days later with serious head injuries. The injuries were from the helmet. You see, the helmet broke apart when he hit the guardrail and pieces of it imbedded in his skull (I know, yick). He had no other serious injuries to speak of.
So why was he against helmets? To his point of view, since his injuries were the result of imbedding the helmet in his skull, if he wasn’t WEARING the helmet, he wouldn’t have sustained the injuries. Ergo, if there were no helmet, there would have been no head injury. Logical, no?
This guy hit the guardrail so hard that he shattered his helmet. But to him, the issue was the helmet. And no amount of arguing with him could get him to realize that without the helmet, his head would have been the thing shattering.
Everyone who heard this story would try to explain it to him. Eventually, to a person, all would stop arguing. Yeah Bob, if you didn’t have the helmet, you wouldn’t have a problem. Of course, everyone else interpreted that statement differently than Bob.
So why was he against helmets? To his point of view, since his injuries were the result of imbedding the helmet in his skull, if he wasn’t WEARING the helmet, he wouldn’t have sustained the injuries. Ergo, if there were no helmet, there would have been no head injury. Logical, no?
This guy hit the guardrail so hard that he shattered his helmet. But to him, the issue was the helmet. And no amount of arguing with him could get him to realize that without the helmet, his head would have been the thing shattering.
Everyone who heard this story would try to explain it to him. Eventually, to a person, all would stop arguing. Yeah Bob, if you didn’t have the helmet, you wouldn’t have a problem. Of course, everyone else interpreted that statement differently than Bob.
There's no such thing as common sense - Don't it make you go Hmmmmmm?
I worked with a guy that drove a really old beat up car. The Inspection sticker on the car had expired. Knowing the car would fail the inspection test, he didn't even try to get it inspected. After all, you don’t want the rejection sticker on the windshield, that’s humiliating. He decided he would work weekend overtime to make extra money to fix the car so that it would pass inspection. The first weekend he tried to work, he got pulled over for not having an inspection sticker. The cop gave him a ticket and let him go. All week we had to listen to how he worked overtime to make money to fix the car only now that money was going to go to paying the ticket. The next weekend rolls around, the scenario repeats itself, another ticket for not having an inspection sticker. The following weekend, same thing happens. The same cop pulls him over in virtually the same spot. This ticket thing repeats itself more times than you would think possible. Eventually, the cop stops letting the guy go. Eventually, the cop has the car towed. That week in work, this guy is just spitting nails. He’s mad and he’s ranting. I kid you not; the following is a direct quote. This guy actually said “I don’t know WHY he keeps pulling me over, he knows the car’s not inspected.” Fortunately, he worked for a compassionate supervisor. His supervisor gave him enough money to get the car back and get it fixed up enough to pass inspection. But can you imagine, he really couldn’t figure it out. Think about it, when this guy told the story, he would say “…..he knows the car’s not inspected”. And it didn’t matter how many times people tried to explain it to him, he still never got it.
I bet you think this is an isolated incident. It’s not.
I worked at a game company when I was in college,. I made travel games like the ones you see at the Cracker Barrel. We had a shipper there who was rebuilding a Chevy Caprice, a big old eight cylinder gun boat of a thing. He used to take this car from Waltham to Worcester down Rte 30 on Sunday mornings, just to see how it was running. He didn’t want to go Rte 9 because, well it’s busy and the car was not registered, insured, inspected etc. After all, he was still in the process of rebuilding it. After the car got towed away, this guy came into work all upset. He was mad at the cops for taking his car. He couldn’t understand why the cop had stopped him in the first place, after all the cop KNEW the car wasn’t registered.
I don’t know which is more puzzling, the fact that these guys couldn’t understand why they were being pulled over, or the fact that there were multiple people who couldn’t figure it out. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that this confusion is not limited to just these two guys.
I bet you think this is an isolated incident. It’s not.
I worked at a game company when I was in college,. I made travel games like the ones you see at the Cracker Barrel. We had a shipper there who was rebuilding a Chevy Caprice, a big old eight cylinder gun boat of a thing. He used to take this car from Waltham to Worcester down Rte 30 on Sunday mornings, just to see how it was running. He didn’t want to go Rte 9 because, well it’s busy and the car was not registered, insured, inspected etc. After all, he was still in the process of rebuilding it. After the car got towed away, this guy came into work all upset. He was mad at the cops for taking his car. He couldn’t understand why the cop had stopped him in the first place, after all the cop KNEW the car wasn’t registered.
I don’t know which is more puzzling, the fact that these guys couldn’t understand why they were being pulled over, or the fact that there were multiple people who couldn’t figure it out. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that this confusion is not limited to just these two guys.
There's no such thing as common sense - Part duex
I once managed a convenience store (Cumberland Farms). I had the responsibility to keep the store staffed, stocked and profitable. Staffing was the big issue. I was responsible for keeping the store open. If someone couldn’t work, I had to fill the spot. As a result, for a while I was working between 90 and 100 hours a week. I’d work my shift, and because I was short staffed, worked the other daily shifts too. There were weeks I worked every hour the store was open. Eventually I was able to hire enough people to run the store. I hired this one guy to work nights and weekends. I spent over a week training him. When I was confident he could go it alone, I assigned him his first solo weekend. I gave him Sunday morning. This ended up being my first weekend day off in a couple months, and I was elated. Sunday morning rolled around and I got a call. The new guy was stuck on the Cape. His van had broken down the day before and he wasn’t going to be able to get it fixed until Monday. He was going to be unable to work. That meant there was no one to open the store. As a result, because I was the manager, I had to go do it. I lived close enough that I walked to the store. So I got dressed and headed over to open up. Now this guy literally lived around the corner from the store. Total distance from the store to his door couldn’t have been two hundred feet. As I was crossing the street to get to my store, I glanced down the side street where he lived, and there it was. The van that was supposed to be broken down on the Cape was parked out front of the house. The van was noticeable for several reasons. It was red, had a custom paint job, big fat tires, chrome bumpers and a huge motor just pouring out from under the hood. Did I mention this big red gaudy van was parked on the road in front of his house not 200 feet from the store? I opened the store and started making calls to get a replacement for my employee that was stuck down on the Cape. . At a reasonable hour of the morning, I called his house and got what I was told was his mother. I asked for my employee. I was told he was sleeping. I asked about the Cape, I was told he hadn’t gone to the Cape and he had been home all weekend. I asked how the van was running; I was told it was running fine. Wednesday when he came to the store to get his check (he wasn’t working Monday or Tuesday), I fired him. He was angry and wanted to know why. I asked about his breakdown. He regaled me with a very long story about going to the Cape and getting stuck in Sandwich. I then had to explain to him that I walk to work and as I was crossing his street, I could see his van parked in front of his house. He then launched into a story about having it towed. I then had to explain to him that I had spoken to his mother. He was mad, he attacked me. He abandoned his attacked after I brandished a length of steel pipe. I asked for his key to the store. He refused to give it to me. He threatened to return after I locked up and “rob the store blind”. I had to inform him that the locks had already been changed. He threatened to return and vandalize the store. He’d reap his revenge if he had to break every window to do it. I just looked at him. At this point I told him to go ahead, it wasn’t MY store. I also mentioned that, I knew where he lived; it was around the corner about 200 feet away. His brilliant response was that, I wouldn’t be able to prove it was him. I just had to shake my head. He took his check and left the store, never to be seen again.
So, let’s think about the logic of this. A guy that lives 200 feet from the store and drives a bright red custom van and leaves it parked on the street tried to get away with saying said van is broken down on the Cape. When he’s caught in the lie he assaults me and threatens to return to vandalize and “rob the store blind”. And when he is told that I’ll just call the cops on him because after all I know it’s him and where he lives, his response is that I won’t be able to prove it was him.
Did I forget to mention there were three customers and a new weekend trainee in the store at the time this was going on?
Sometimes you just have to scratch you head and wonder.
So, let’s think about the logic of this. A guy that lives 200 feet from the store and drives a bright red custom van and leaves it parked on the street tried to get away with saying said van is broken down on the Cape. When he’s caught in the lie he assaults me and threatens to return to vandalize and “rob the store blind”. And when he is told that I’ll just call the cops on him because after all I know it’s him and where he lives, his response is that I won’t be able to prove it was him.
Did I forget to mention there were three customers and a new weekend trainee in the store at the time this was going on?
Sometimes you just have to scratch you head and wonder.
There's no such thing as common sense - The begnning
I thought I'd shift focus for a little while. OK, some might say lose focus. Anyway, I just thought I'd make note of just some of the odd things that happen in life. The things you look at or hear and just have to say "what the hell was THAT?"
I had a long list of items to review, too long actually. I've been taking criticism for the length of some of my posts. I find that kind of ironic. For 50 years I've been the quiet guy in to corner, now I'm the long winded guy with the blog.
I’ll try to keep these vignettes brief. So without further ado, I begin a new chapter in my story telling career. Here goes.
I was visiting family in Connecticut one weekend not long ago. On Sunday for something to do we took a ride looking for open houses to visit. We spent the afternoon looking at houses for sale. No one was planning on buying, we were just looking around. It was a long afternoon. We must have seen ten houses and walked 5 miles. As we were heading back at the end of the day, I was sitting in the back seat, staring out the window, fantasizing about the house we had seen and just plain veging out. As we pulled up to a stop light in downtown West Hartford, I saw I sight that I never expected and couldn’t believe. I saw a man trimming his hedges. Normally, this scene wouldn’t even register on my almost turned of mind. I was too busy fantasizing about buying houses and I wondering if I could incorporate some of what we had just seen into my own home. Under normal circumstances, all around me would have been nothing more than visual white noise. However, this was so unique, I couldn’t keep from noticing. You see, this particular guy was trimming his hedges with his lawn mower. No, he wasn’t just running them over. Rather, he had lifted the running power mower up to chest level, was holding it so that the blades were spinning perpendicular to the ground. He was rocking back and forth with the mower in an attempt to clean up the bushes. From the looks of it, he has already trimmed about 20 feet of Privet and had about 20 more to go. I just looked. I didn’t make a sound. As we pulled away from the traffic light, my sister softly said, “Did you just see that?” I snapped back to reality and responded. Four of us were in the car, all four had seen. No one said a word as we were watching this knucklehead. It was only after we were out of sight of Mower Man that the bizarreness of the scene sank in and we started to question what we had witnessed.
You just have to wonder; who in their right mind thinks pruning bushes with a lawn mower is a good idea. How can anyone think wrapping their fingers under a mower deck with a spinning blade is wisdom? Or that holding a running motor that close to your face and chest is no big deal. You just have to wonder, what the heck was he thinking?
I’ve been telling my kids since they were old enough to understand that there is no such thing as common sense. This is always the example I use.
I had a long list of items to review, too long actually. I've been taking criticism for the length of some of my posts. I find that kind of ironic. For 50 years I've been the quiet guy in to corner, now I'm the long winded guy with the blog.
I’ll try to keep these vignettes brief. So without further ado, I begin a new chapter in my story telling career. Here goes.
I was visiting family in Connecticut one weekend not long ago. On Sunday for something to do we took a ride looking for open houses to visit. We spent the afternoon looking at houses for sale. No one was planning on buying, we were just looking around. It was a long afternoon. We must have seen ten houses and walked 5 miles. As we were heading back at the end of the day, I was sitting in the back seat, staring out the window, fantasizing about the house we had seen and just plain veging out. As we pulled up to a stop light in downtown West Hartford, I saw I sight that I never expected and couldn’t believe. I saw a man trimming his hedges. Normally, this scene wouldn’t even register on my almost turned of mind. I was too busy fantasizing about buying houses and I wondering if I could incorporate some of what we had just seen into my own home. Under normal circumstances, all around me would have been nothing more than visual white noise. However, this was so unique, I couldn’t keep from noticing. You see, this particular guy was trimming his hedges with his lawn mower. No, he wasn’t just running them over. Rather, he had lifted the running power mower up to chest level, was holding it so that the blades were spinning perpendicular to the ground. He was rocking back and forth with the mower in an attempt to clean up the bushes. From the looks of it, he has already trimmed about 20 feet of Privet and had about 20 more to go. I just looked. I didn’t make a sound. As we pulled away from the traffic light, my sister softly said, “Did you just see that?” I snapped back to reality and responded. Four of us were in the car, all four had seen. No one said a word as we were watching this knucklehead. It was only after we were out of sight of Mower Man that the bizarreness of the scene sank in and we started to question what we had witnessed.
You just have to wonder; who in their right mind thinks pruning bushes with a lawn mower is a good idea. How can anyone think wrapping their fingers under a mower deck with a spinning blade is wisdom? Or that holding a running motor that close to your face and chest is no big deal. You just have to wonder, what the heck was he thinking?
I’ve been telling my kids since they were old enough to understand that there is no such thing as common sense. This is always the example I use.
Monday, February 1, 2010
And you thought I was slow.....
I got a telemarketing call just a few minutes ago. I answered the phone and a voice came on and said: ..
“Hello, Joe?”
To which I said, “Yeesss?”
The voice provided a name and said they were from Mass. Audiology
To which I said “Who?”
The voice said “Mass Audiology, we’re doing a free screening in your area”
To which I said “What?”
They said, Mass Audiology, we’re doing a free screening, how’s your hearing?”
To which I said, “Could you repeat that?”
They voice said, “Mass Audiology, we’re doing a free screening, do you have to turn up the TV to hear it?”
To which I said, “Excuse me?”
The voice then says “Mass Audiology, are you having troubles with your hearing? We’re doing a free screening in your area.”
To which I said, "What are you saying?”
The voice, then speaking a little more loudly says “WE’RE DOING A FREE HEARING SCREENING IN YOUR AREA, HOW'S YOUR HEARING”
To which I said “I’m sorry, I can’t make out what'you're saying. Could you reapeat that?”
At this point, I think they got it. Next thing I heard was dial tone. You’d think they’d be quicker on the uptake.
Unwanted phone calls can be fun.
You know, you have to wonder about the people they have soliciting over the phone. You know who I mean. I mean the people that call you to get you to vote for certain candidate, or donate to a special charity or clean your chimney or gutters or sell you replacement windows, and so on. The list is endless. And they almost always seem to pester you at inconvenient times, like when you are having dinner, or getting ready for bad. Oh you can put yourself on the “Do Not Call” list. But it doesn’t work. I used to get annoyed by these calls. I would take that annoyance out on the unsuspecting solicitor. I got yelled at more than once by my family for doing that. Then for a while I would just hang up. Sometimes I tried to have some fun and see how long I could keep them talking. Every now and again, one would catch me with my guard down and I’d end up in a nonsensical conversation.
I was sitting around the house one night just minding my own business when the phone rang. I picked it up and a voice said “Joe?” I answered”Yes, who’s this?” The guy on the other end of the phone goes, “Joe, I can help you Joe.” I again asked, “Who’s this?” This guy then said, “Joe, Joe, I can help you Joe, I can really help you.” I said “Who is this and what do you want?” The response was, “I can help you Joe”. The guy went on to say, “I came by to see your lawn and I can help you, I really think I can help you.” At the time I got this call, my yard looked like it was used to test missiles. To say it was torn up would be an understatement. I had big piles of dirt everywhere (I’d just had the addition put on), there were tire ruts all over the place. I hadn’t weeded the lawn in years. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t really a lawn in the first place. It was more just, really short weeds. I learned a long while ago that weeds are hardy. During the dog days of summer when everyone else’s grass is all burnt and brown, my weeds are nice and green. And from a distance, it looks like lawn. This guy on the phone was telling me he’s seen my lawn and can help me. He started telling me he came by to look at it. I’m curious about what he thinks I have and what he can help with. So I asked him what he thinks he can help me with and that I’m not paying him to come cut my grass. He told me I misunderstood. I asked him how much lawn he thinks I have. He said about 10,000 square feet. I responded to him that I have two acres, of which, about 50,000 square feet of it is lawn and that there was no way I’m paying him to cut it. He again said I misunderstood. At this point, I asked a fateful question. I asked “just what do I misunderstand?” His response was that he wanted to spread around some weed killer then fertilize my lawn. I blurted out, “Wait a minute, there is no way I’m going to pay you to fertilize my lawn so that I have to cut it” (heavy emphasis on a long drawn out I). He started going on and on about the “value” of a good lawn. It’s at this point that I explained to him that as long as the lawn passes the basketball test, I don’t need to cut it. He asked a couple of times about the basketball test, so I explained it to him. I explained that if I can roll a basketball onto the lawn and still see it when it’s out there, then the lawn does not need cutting. I went on to explain that the weeds don’t grow very fast or tall and that’s a good thing. It means I don’t have to cut the lawn very often. At this point I asked him just why I would want him to kill the weeds and feed the lawn so that the grass grows fuller and taller and I end up having to cut it more often. After all, cutting the lawn is work and I don’t like to work. The voice offered up that he could cut my lawn if I wanted. I explained that this last comment brought the conversation full circle and that there is no way I’m paying anyone to cut my two acre lawn. Next thing I heard was “click” then dial tone.
Of course, then there are the times when you just want to have some fun.
The other night the phone rang. I picked it up. The caller asked to speak to Lisa. I asked “who’s calling.” I was provided a name (let’s call him Bob). I asked what the call is regarding. Bob said he’s calling to talk about a specific political candidate. Without getting up from the couch or shielding the phone’s receiver, I yelled for Lisa. She yelled back “WWHHHAAATTTTT!!!!” I told her she had a call. She yelled “who is it?” I yelled “It’s “Bob”. She yelled “Who’s Bob?” I yelled that he was from the office of XYZ candidate and he wanted to talk to her about her vote. She responded that she didn’t want to take the call. I had not even tried to mute the receiver. I had just held it far enough away so that I wasn’t yelling directly into it. Naturally, Bob could hear both sides of this exchange. At this point I got back on the phone and said “Ah Bob, I just spoke to Lisa, and she wants me to tell you, she’s not here.” Bob stammered a little bit and asked “When will she be back?” I again moved the receiver away and yelled, “He wants to know when you’ll be back.” I give it a second then got back on the phone and said “Bob, she wants me to tell you that she left yesterday before I got home from work so I don’t know where she is or when she’ll be back. She wants me to tell you that I think she’s at her mother’s” Bob couldn’t hold it any longer, he started to laugh. He was laughing so hard he could barely talk. He thanked me for my time and hung up.
What I am starting to be surprised at is the persistence of the “professional” telemarketers. You can’t rattle some of them. Sure, some can tell they are being hosed and hang up quickly. The guys that try to sell the extended car warranties, they don’t fool around. My goal is to try and keep them on the line for as long as possible. I have yet to make a minute. I don’t know what kind of BS filter they have, but it’s good. Others don’t seem to care. It appears that as long as you are on the phone, they have a sales opportunity and they won’t let go.
After we paid off all the credit cards and got rid of all but one, we used to get tons of calls from every bank under the sun. They were all trying to get us to take more cards. I tried everything to get them to stop calling. Nothing worked. One day, an exceptionally pushy woman called to offer us a Discover card. I let her go through her whole sales pitch. I then told her I would be glad to let her fill out the application and that I’m surprised they had called me. She asked why I was surprised. I very matter of factly explained that the legal proceeding from their law suit against me had only just been settled. I said I was surprised because, their lawyer seemed to be kind of mad. He seemed upset that they were only able to recoup about 10 cents on the dollar from me. This woman didn’t care. She started asking me application questions. As we were filling out the application, I asked her who’s going to pay for the damage. She asked about damage. I said “the damage the repo men did to the trailer when they came for the stereo and TV.” She said she didn’t know, and went on with the application. She wanted to know how much credit I needed. I told her $1m. She asked about my job, I told her I’m unemployed. She asked about outstanding loans, I told her the bankruptcy cleared that all up, I have none. She asked about my assets, I told her I’m renting the trailer but that as soon as I scratch up enough moola, I’m going to get the Gremlin back up and working. That should be worth some money. She asked about references, I told her she could talk to my wife. She asked about the wife’s job. I told her the wife picks up “odd jobs” out on the streets. There was the obligatory education question. I told had I had some high school, and that I was studying for my GED while I was awaiting trial. After the while, I started saying that it was really nice that they were going to extend me more credit given all that we had just been through, what with them losing so much money on me and all. This woman did not care. All she wanted was me to authorize her to apply for a credit card in my name. Ultimately, she won. I finally had to hang up on her. She didn’t care what I had to say, she just wanted that applications submitted. Though I had a lot of fun weaving my tale of dysfunction, this phone rep won the battle, I’m the one that hung up.
For shear persistence though, my hat goes off to the collection agency that was looking for Judy Castille. Judy, if you’re out there, the collection agency wants to talk to you.
Judy bought a car. Apparently, it was a nice new car. Unfortunately, Judy also decided that she really didn’t need to pay this nice new car. Eventually, Judy’s loan was put out for collection. Unfortunately, the collection agency had/has the wrong phone number. Somebody transposed a couple of digits. They had/have the area code backwards. The number on the application is/was correct. Unfortunately, whoever programmed the autodialer for phone system did it wrong. Let’s say the area code should have been 805, what they entered into the dialer was 508. The rest of the number was good. Using the wrong area code game them my home number.
The collection agency has been looking for Judy for over three years.
At first, I was nice when they called. I would nicely explain that they had a wrong number. Over time, all the civility of the interaction ebbed away.
These guys were/are persistent. Almost every day there would be a new message on the answering machine. Three or four times a week we’d get a call. These calls would come late after dinner, first thing in the morning, on the weekends, holidays it didn’t matter. We could get a call almost any time or date. Soon I started getting “cranky” with these people. At first, I tried to explain their error. Eventually, I got to the point where just would let them have it. It got so bad that my wife would race me to the phone, just so she didn’t have to listen to me rant and rave at these people. Hey, I was mad what do you expect? We don’t know a Judy Castille, but the Collection agency won’t take no for an answer. They kept calling, so I kept barking.
Eventually Lisa embarked on a quest to end the calls. After several days and multiple phone calls, Lisa announced she had solved the problem. All was again right with the world. She had escalated the problem up through the proper channels of management and we would no longer be getting calls for Judy. See, no yelling, no arguing no fighting. Just persistence and a pleasant demeanor and all is taken care of. How nice.
It was nice not getting calls as I was trying to drift off to sleep. I was reminded almost nightly. “You didn’t have to be mean to people”, “This is how you get things done”, “See how good this works, no more calls and nobody’s angry”. I heard that admonishment almost daily for a while. A very short while.
It took about three weeks for the calls to start back up. NOW, the wife couldn’t say anything to me. Her way hadn’t worked. Now I had free reign. These jamokes were in for some trouble. Every time I got on the phone, I let them have it with both barrels. Now I’m enjoying it because, no one at would dare say anything to me. I started looking forward to the calls.
Early one sunny Sunday morning the phone rang. As I raced to answer it before anyone else could I could hear my wife yelling “BE NICE, WE HAVE COMPANY!” My mother and sister had come to spend the weekend. Please understand that it’s about 9:00 on a Sunday morning. Everyone sitting around the kitchen table still in their jammies sipping coffee and debating which mass we were going to attend. I answered the phone and the voice on the other end asked”May I speak to Judy Castille?” I responded something to the effect of “How many times do I have to tell you people, Judy doesn’t live here?” As this disembodied female voice starts to say something, I heard my mother say “Joseph, be nice. It’s Sunday morning.” So I back it down a notch in deference to my mother. I asked if the line was recorded. The voice responded that sometimes it was. I asked the woman on the other end of the line to please make sure it was because I had something to say. After a second or two the woman came back and again asked to speak to Judy. At this point I launched into a monologue about how they had an error in their phone system and were calling the wrong number. I told them that they had entered the wrong area code. I chided them for not fixing their problem. All the while my mother and wife are in the background telling me to leave this poor woman alone. My sister on the other hand was seeing the humor in the whole situation. The woman I am speaking to then asks why I won’t let her speak to Judy. I asked if she was listening to me. She said she was and asked if I knew how to get a hold of Judy. I responded that I didn’t. The woman then asked if I knew Judy’s correct phone number. I told her they had it correct on their forms, they just input it into their phone system incorrectly. The woman then asks me if I know how that happened. I responded something to the effect of “How the heck would I know. It’s your system, ask someone who works there.” The woman now says that it’s not her system she doesn’t know anything about it. She again asks for Judy and inquires why I won’t let her talk to her.
At this point I changed tactics. I said to this woman “OK, if you won’t believe me that Judy doesn’t live here, how about this? OK. Ready? Here goes. Hello, this is Judy how may I help you?” At this point everyone in the kitchen started roaring. They’d been listening to me argue with this woman for 10 minutes, this sudden change in approach seemed to really catch them off guard. Not the woman on the phone though. She immediately introduced herself and started to explain that I was behind on an almost $20,000 car loan and that they were looking for a payment. Not the response I was looking for but OK, I’ll play along. My response was that I was not going to be making a payment. The woman asked why? I told her because I had lost the car. I shouldn’t be paying for a car I don’t have. The woman asked how I lost the car. She wanted to know if the bank had already taken it. I said no, I said it was just gone. The woman asked if I knew where it was. I responded that if I knew where it was, it wouldn’t be lost. She then explained to me that it doesn’t matter that I lost the car, I still owed the money. At this point, I said to her “You do know that I’m not Judy, right?” She said, “OK, yes I understand. Why aren’t you making your loan payments?” My response was, “I can’t, I don’t have any checks.” She then asked if I had a debit card. I said yes. Her immediate response is that I can pay with that, just give her the number off the card. I again said, “You do realize I’m neither Judy nor a woman. Right?” She said yes, and to go ahead and read her the debit card number. I asked her how many numbers she wants. She said she wanted all the numbers s off the card. I asked how many is that, she said she didn’t know and that the numbers should be on the front of the card. At this point I told her I don’t really have a debit card. She said she was ready and to start reading off the numbers. I thought to myself, what the heck and start repeating numbers: 5, 7, 3, 4, 6. I said whatever number I could think of. After I recited a handful, I asked if she had enough. The woman said she didn’t know and asked how many are on my card. I again told her that I don’t have a card, I don’t know how many numbers there are and that I’m not Judy. Her response was that she thought she needed a few more numbers. At this point, I yelled over to the people having coffee in my kitchen “hey does anyone know how many numbers are on a debit card?” I got no response. I then asked the folks in my kitchen to help me make up numbers. At this point, the woman on the phone asked me if I really had a debit card. I started to laugh and said “HELLLLO, I’ve told you three times, no I don’t have a debit card and I’m making up the numbers. Why do you think I’ve been asking you how many numbers there are?” At this point, I think dawn broke on marble head. The woman responded, “OK, so you don’t have a debit card, do you have a credit card? You can make the payment with a credit card.” Now I’m dying. I can barely breathe. After a second or two I collect myself enough to ask the woman “So let me get this straight, you know that Judy is not paying her bills and has had a loan put out to collection. You’re trying to collect on that loan aren’t you? You also know that for the last 10 minutes I’ve been making up debit numbers to give you and that I’m not really Judy. You’re seriously asking for a credit card number? If I was really Judy, do you think I’d have a valid credit card? And since you know that I’m not Judy and that I just made up a bunch of numbers for the debit card, what makes you think I’ll give you valid numbers for a Credit Card. You’re not serious are you? You are recording this conversation aren’t you? I couldn’t make this stuff up. This is unreal.”
My mother was looking at me in a state of shock. Her mouth is agape and her eyes are popping. She’s speechless. My sister, well she’s on the floor. She’s roaring, tears are rolling down her cheeks. And what about Lisa? Lisa’s just shaking her head. The kids left the room at “Hello?” They’re the smart ones.
Round about this time, the woman on the phone started to get it. She tried one more time to get me to pay the bill. She asked me for my checking account and bank number. It was a half hearted try. My response to her request was “are you kidding me, you’re not serious are you?” At this point she thanked me for my time and disconnected the call. When I got off the phone, my mother advised me that I should go to confession before I next took communion.
After this call, I thought I was done with Judy Castille. I hadn’t heard from anyone concerning Judy in about a year. This morning I listened to a voice message from a lawyer. Apparently they are suing Judy. The Lawyer said that this was a serious matter and he wanted to talk to Judy before it went any further.
I wonder how much fun I’m going to have when he finally gets a hold of me.
Alice is as Alex does.
I’ve had several people ask me who Alice is. You see, Alice is a friend of mine. Well, “friend” might be too strong a word to describe him. Ah, you’re confused aren’t you? Alice, him? I’ve gotten my English/grammar confused again haven’t I? Not really. Let me explain.
Not so long ago I had a customer in California. I’d visit this customer 2 – 3 times a month. This went on for three years. I would fly out to Monterey on Monday so I could be on site first thing Tuesday morning. Usually, I’d spend three days on site and then fly home on Friday. The Account Manager (Alex) would go with me once a month or so.
Eventually, this trip got to be routine. Monday night I would stop by the London Bridge Pub for a couple of Guinness and a fish and chips dinner. Tuesday, dinner was at the little fish place on the Pier or Sushi depending who came along. Wednesday was reserved for dinner with the customer at Tarpys Road House. Thursday typically ended up being burgers and beer, then a few games of pool. I typically took the first flight home Friday morning. That usually meant up at 5:00 AM so I could make the 6:30 AM to LA. It was all very predictable, and very boring.
After almost three years, the list of projects that was keeping me busy out in sunny California came to an end. The last day of my last trip was reserved for wrap-up with the customer. Alex had accompanied me on this trip. His job was to thank the customer for their business and mine for more. The day ended up being rather short. Our meetings went smoothly and quickly. We were headed out by 2:00 PM. On the way back to the Hotel, Alex suggested we grab an early dinner, a couple of cocktails and call it a day. Sounded like a good idea to me, after all, we needed to be up and out by 5:00 AM to catch a flight.
On the way to Monterey, Alex suggested we deviate from our normal, boring routine. Basically he said he was sick of Tarpys, Sushi, Pool and the London Bridge Pub. He said that since this was our last night we should try something new. So this time instead of heading to the Pier we headed into Downtown Monterey. Monterey is a kind of an upscale, artsy kind of place. As such, they travel to the beat of a different drummer. They are accepting of all manner of oddity.
One of the things we hadn’t noticed in our three years going out to Calif. was that none of the restaurants open before 5:00. I guess it’s kind of a nouveau California thing. There we were, walking around downtown looking for a restaurant or bar that was open. There was not a one to be found. Not even a McDonalds. Eventually Alex started stopping people on the street to ask if anyone knew of some place we could at least get a drink. Everyone had the same response. Nothing opens before 5:00 PM. Finally, he stopped a women who recommended we try some hotel at the top of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. She thought they might have a restaurant and it might be open. It might be open because, the hotel isn’t really in Monterey.
We found the hotel and restaurant. Just like the woman said, it was at the top of the cliffs, overlooking the Pacific. The building was amazing. When you first entered, you walked into the lounge. The lounge was huge. It was wood paneled floor to ceiling. There was a bar in the center and along the outer wall there were floor to ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. The ceiling had to be 12 feet tall. At one end was a gigantic fireplace at the other was a grand piano. In front of the windows were seating areas. These seating areas had sofas and coffee tables. There were no “bar tables” anywhere. At the back corner was the hostess for the restaurant. We sauntered over to put our names in for dinner. The Hostess informed us that the restaurant didn’t open for an hour. Not a problem, we’ll just have a couple of drinks and wait. At this point, there were a grand total of four people in the place: Alex, the Hostess, a bartender and me. I started to stroll around the lounge to check things out. Alex stayed to talk to the hostess for a minute. Soon I was at the far end of the lounge checking out the piano and enjoying the view of the ocean.
You know how they say that even in a room full of crying children, a mother can pick out the sound of her own baby, or that somehow you can always pick out someone saying your name from across the room, even in a crowd? What happened next I suppose is kind of like that. I was all the way across the lounge. I couldn’t tell what Alex and the hostess were discussing. All of a sudden I heard “murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur IT’S OUR FIRST DATE.” I heard that last part like it had been shouted through the PA system. I closed the gap between me and Alex before he could finish putting the period on that sentence.
I looked at Alex and asked “What did you just say?” Alex looked at me and responded “Don’t worry; I’ve got it taken care of.” The hostess looked at me and smiled lovingly. I asked “Did you just say this was our first date?” Alex looked at the hostess and said “He’s shy.” The Hostess looked at me and said “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you.” To which I responded “Hey, I’m married, to a woman AND I have two kids!”. Alex looked at the hostess again and responded “He’s hasn’t decided to come out yet.” The hostess looked at me and said “don’t worry, we’re discreet.” I said “DISCREET!!!, OK, but I like women. Really. I’m married.” At this point Alex informed the hostess that yes, I am married to a woman, but that I’m getting a divorce so that I can embrace my true inner self. The more I protested the more ammo it gave Alex. And he was good. He kept explaining away my protests as “insecurities”. After all, it was my first time. And the hostess loved it. She was very reassuring. For me, it was a losing battle. Alex was enjoying making me uncomfortable, and this woman thought the whole scene is adorable.
Eventually I went to the bar and ordered a drink. A good stiff drink. A double. A double Beefeater martini. Put it in a water glass and keep it coming please. I took my drink and sat by the windows. Alex came drifting over and he was wearing a Cheshire Cat grin. He sat down. I told him I wasn’t happy. His response was”Don’t worry, no one knows you here.” We’re going back and forth a little bit when all of a sudden the Hostess appears with two glasses of white wine. She looked at us lovingly and asked about our first “spat”. She said the wine was on the house in honor of our first date. Maybe it would get me to relax. I looked at Alex. I just wanted to stand up and punch him. The whole time he’s just smiling and snickering. Soon the Hostess came back, this time she was carrying an assortment of horderves. Again it was “on the house, for the new couple.”
Soon it was 5:00 and time to be seated for dinner. Alex walked in first. As he’s was being shown to a table I heard him ask for something “romantic”. Could it get any worse?
We got a lovely table. It was a window table. It overlooked the cliffs and the ocean. It was around the side, in a little alcove. It was a nice quite cozy little spot from which to watch the sunset and have a romantic dinner. Maybe I’ll go sit in the car.
We ordered dinner. As we were waiting for our salads to arrive, the waiter came over and gave us a couple of egg drinks. I don’t really know what they were. I figured they were egg drinks because they were served in egg shells. We were told they were from the chef. I looked around the restaurant. No one else got cute little egg drinks. After the salad, again two glasses of wine showed up. We were told they were “from the staff”. We were also given a special sorbet to cleanse our palates between courses. Again compliments of the chef. I looked around and didn’t notice anyone else getting palate cleansing sorbets. While waiting for dessert, the chef sent us tiny little custards. By this point, I had given up trying to see if anyone else was getting this “special” treatment. The intention was clear.
As we were leaving, the hostess asked if we needed a room. I said NO! She said she thought we were a cute couple and wished us well. I saw her grab Alex and say a few words. He smiled and laughed. I don’t want to know what she said. I figure I’m better off not knowing.
In the final analysis, on my last trip to California I had a nice romantic dinner overlooking the ocean from the cliffs right outside of Monterey. I was treated like royalty. The wait staff couldn’t have been nicer, the meal couldn’t have been better. Unfortunately for me, I had to have this romantic experience with Alex, a 6 foot 3 inch 280 pound 60 year old bald Italian guy from Brooklyn.
I have referred to my partner from this story as ALICE ever since. For all of those who have been wondering why I call him ALICE, now you know. Fitting, don’t you think?
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets slimed
In a previous life, I worked in an environment where we were free to be ourselves in the office (so to speak). None of that stiff shirted, starched collared, buttoned down business life for us. Though shirts and ties where the typical dress code of the day, the formality of normal corporate life went unenforced. As a result, we took full advantage of our freedom. The plain English version of what I am trying to say is, practical jokes were a way of life and beware to those that didn’t pay attention.
The number one practical joker was a person I’ll call Brian. Brian was an old phone company guy. As such, he had an entire arsenal of practical jokes. Some of them were clever, some not so clever. He would take the ear piece from the phone, tape down the switch hook. Forward your phone to the janitor and all kinds of other mindless pranks. Brian’s favorite target was a guy I’ll call Timmy. Timmy was a Walter Mitty type guy. It seemed like every morning he had another wild story to tell. He was always the hero. He was always rescuing someone from a burning car wreck, saving the wife from a 50 foot falling pine tree or rescuing the neighbor from a frozen lake. Funny thing though, none of Timmy’s heroic acts were ever in the paper or witnessed by another living sole. This became perfect fodder for Brian in his quest for harrassment. And Brian harassed Timmy at every opportunity, public or private.
We were working in Boston. Travel was dominated by either the “shuttle” or train schedule. People were always rushing to catch something at the last minute. As such, even short delays could result in missing a train and a late trip home. Brian would do whatever he could to delay Timmy. For example, Brian would zip tie one sleeve in Tim’s jacket, usually the left sleeve. This worked best if there was an inner sleeve to the coat, like in Ski jackets. Why the left sleeve you ask? Most people will put their right arm in their jacket first. It was funny to watch people struggle to get their left arm in and not be able to do it. It usually took a minute or two for people to catch on to what was happening. Timmy would grab his coat and go tearing down the hall way, arms flailing trying to get his jacket on only to realize too late that the inner sleeve had been tied shut. There were dozens of little things that were done just to harass Timmy. Brian would fill up one sleeve in Tim's coat with old, damp newspaper. He’d fill his pockets with packing peanuts, he’d turn the fingers of Timmy’s gloves inside out, he’d adjust the size of Timmy’s hat. All little things, but just annoying enough that Timmy would have to stop to fix them, usually in full view of the office.
I kept trying to get Timmy to respond. I kept giving Timmy good little ideas for getting even. But Timmy was timid. Timmy didn’t want to stir up trouble.
Then came the final straw. When the office was remodeled, whoever put the coat rack back up must have been a giant. The coat rack was mounted pretty high on the wall. Timmy would hang up his coat and throw his hat on the shelf. Timmy was not abnormally short or anything, but when he went to get his hat at the end of the day, he could only reach it by standing on his tippy toes and stretching up as far as he could. He could just barely get it. After witnessing this for a couple of days, Brian though it would be funny, to push the hat back as far as he could. And it was hysterical. There was Timmy hopping up and down like a puppy trying to reach the hat. After witnessing this for myself one day, I looked at Brian and said “You know what would be really funny, is if you filled the hat up with packing peanuts.” So Brian did. And it was really funny. I’m talking 3 Stooges funny. There’s the whole office watching Timmy jump up and down to get his hat and when he finally does, he’s drenched in packing peanuts.
The next morning, Timmy was still mad. He was talking to me about how mad he was and what a jerk Brian was for that trick. I seized on this opportunity to try to talk Timmy into getting even. I suggested that Timmy fill the toe of Brian’s shoe with Vaseline. It’s not uncommon for folks to leave a set of shoes in the office. They usually have an old pair of shoes for getting to and from the office, then a good set for wearing at the office. I tried to convince Tim, that this presented him with a golden opportunity for evening the score. But Tim didn’t want to ruin a good set of shoes. I said “No problem, do it to the shoes he wears to and from the office, he won’t mind. Those are his crappy shoes anyway”. Tim was still reluctant. I finally told him that if he taped a baggie inside a shoe, he could fill up the baggie with the Vaseline and the shoe would be protected. With that, Timmy’s face lit up. The wheels of revenge were turning.
The next day, this devious plan was put into action. Timmy waited for Brian to go to a meeting in the boss’s office, and then staged a commando raid to get a shoe. He snuck around the back of the cubicles (these were 4 foot cubes BTW). He hid behind poles so as not to be seen. He belly crawled the last 10 feet into the cube. He grabbed a shoe, hid it under his shirt and then made a beeline for the men’s room. Once safely hidden in a stall, Timmy put his master plan into action. He carefully taped a baggie into the toe of the LEFT shoe. Everyone puts the right shoe on first. It would lull Brian into a false sense of security if only the left one were booby trapped. Once the baggie was secured, Timmy filled it with Vaseline. My idea was to just put a little blob in the toe. Timmy reasoned that if Brian noticed the baggie, he might not put his foot in all the way. Timmy decided he should fill the entire toe of the shoe. He must have used a half a tub of the stuff. Once the shoe is rigged, Timmy very carefully put it back in place. Another commando raid was staged on Brian’s cube. We’re talking a 40 year old man in a white shirt and tie crawling around the office with one shoe full of Vaseline. And everybody knew what was going on. Timmy even asked people for help. He had look outs at the ready to run interference for him, just in case Brian’s meeting looked like it was ending early. The shoe was replaced and we all eagerly awaited the end of the day.
The day ended and Brian was getting ready to leave. He kicked off his dress shoes and started to put on the commuting shoes. The whole office was now watching. He got the right one on, and then slipped his foot into the left. It looked like he was going to vomit. It was the slowest reaction I had ever seen. His eyes grew large the corners of his mouth curled down and a very guttural uuuuugggggghhhhhhhhh echoed from his throat. He pulled his foot from the shoe, and it was just dripping with Vaseline. He knew immediately what had happened, and who had done it. And there was nothing he could say or do about it. He peeled off his sock and hobbled to the men’s room to try to clean up. The entire office was roaring. There was no cleaning this up, at least in the office. He came out of the men’s room looking like someone had punched him in the stomach. There was no getting the Vaseline out of the sock or shoe. Oh sure, he got a lot of it out, but not all of it. And that baggie thing? It didn’t really work. When he slid his foot into the shoe, the baggie just pushed into the toe. You could see Vaseline oozing out from under the tongue and between the laces.
Brian had no choice but to put the sock back on, put his foot back into the shoe and go home. When he got home, his wife took one look at his foot and threw the socks and shoes away. Brain later said his foot was water repellant and slippery for days. On the plus side, Brian had one really soft supple foot.
After this, Brian pretty much left Timmy alone. Timmy beamed about the great Vaseline prank for months afterwards. Tim never ratted me out either. He never told Brian that I’m the one that gave him the idea or that I had put him up to it. He wanted full credit.
Blight by any other name is still a festival
And speaking of the Ghetto…..
We didn’t just decide we were in the Ghetto on a whim one day. If you must know, the city hung that moniker on us. As a matter of fact, they referred to us as “Ghetto Dwellers”. They put that in writing. Here’s another thing a wish I had kept, the flyer that the city stapled to the front door explaining our plight and why where we lived was a Ghetto. We did however, embrace the concept. As such the Ghetto became the place to be.
There were officially 10 of us that comprised the group from the Ghetto. During the height of our occupation, we had control of four apartments. These apartments were something special. The one I lived in had a total of three rooms. I had a roommate. Before we moved into the apartment, we were debating who got which room. Officially, there was one bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. On move in day, I took one look at the bedroom and announced “I got the living room.” The bedroom was just large enough for a mattress. There was maybe a foot of walking space around the bed. I don’t know who built the closet. I don’t know how realistically you could even call it a closet. It wasn’t deep enough to hang your clothes in. A hanger was wider than it was . One winter, the pipes in the bathroom froze. We called the landlord. His immediate response was, “what did you do, close the door?” That was a good question. You see, there was no heat in the apartment. The only heat came from the side of the stove. If you opened the bedroom door, the bedroom got all the heat; the rest of the apartment froze. And if you closed the bathroom door, the pipes froze. More than one morning we woke up to find the water in the toilet frozen. And we had creepy crawly roommates as well. My roommate embarked on a quest to rid the apartment of pests, one cockroach at a time.
About a week after we moved in, my roommate’s brother asked if he could crash on the couch. What do you say to that kind of request? Obviously one brother couldn’t turn his back on the other. Of course he could crash on the couch (ahh yes, that means he’s sharing my room by the way. I didn’t think that through). That very night, the brother calls a friend in New York, tells him he has a new apartment and asks this guy to move in. And this guy invites another guy. Soon, there are five of us sharing this three room apartment, four in the living room, one in the bedroom.
Look up Ghetto in the dictionary. Where we lived fits the definition. And our little group of 10 comprised the minority in this area. There were a lot of people who were afraid to come to my apartment. I used to own a piano. I had a guy come tune it. I had to walk the piano tuner to his car, in broad daylight, because he was nervous. We’d have parties. We’d have to walk people to and from their cars. I always got a kick out of that. We lived in these apartments for several years without incident. No one ever bothered us and we didn’t bother anyone. But still, some people were afraid to come see us. Maybe it was us.
I worked at a bank a few blocks down the street. Periodically, I would go home for lunch. As luck would have it, one of the days I was home for lunch the City came knocking on the door. The “Inspector” handed me a flyer and told me he’s looking to “inspect” the apartment. He went on to say that the City was inspecting all the apartments in the area. He explained that the City is doing this in an effort to stop the spread of BLIGHT. Naturally, I swung the door open wide and invited him in. We had a lovely chat. I explained to him all the little nuances of living in this apartment. We talked about the heat, the frozen toilets, and all the little uninvited guests. As the inspector left he handed me a pamphlet. The pamphlet detailed the cities effort to stop the spread of blight.
I get home from work that day and all the guys are there. As I’m telling them about the Blight Inspector the phone rings. It’s the landlord, Alarena. I’m pretty sure that’s actually two names, it was just always said as one. Alarena wants to know about the inspection notice he’s found. I tell him what happened at lunch. His immediate response is “YOU DIDN”T LET HIM IN DID YOU???!!!” I tell Alarena that yes, I in fact did let him in. Alarena blows a gasket. I hang up and start to chuckle. This is too good. Later in the evening I am relating this story to the couple that lives upstairs. This couple are actually the founding members of the Ghetto, they were there first. As such, their word is law. When I complete my story, they look at me and announce that this sounds like the basis for a party.
And so was laid the foundation of the Blight Festival.
The Blight Festival was a two day party. It started Friday night when the core group of Ghetto Dwellers got together for the setup. It started right after work, about 6:00 PM. It was small at first, 9 or so of the 10 Ghetto Dwellers and a couple of girls. Mostly, it was buying booze and food, then a lot of guitar playing. The next day is when things got into full swing.
Officially, the party started at 2:00 on Saturday. Saturday morning was prep time. We had to devise games, competitions and other things to keep our guests occupied. We also had to set up the grills. Quite a few people were invited to come to the Festival. A question was soon posed. How would people know which houses were hosting the party? Easy a banner was made. The couple from upstairs made a sign. It was simple; it just said “Charles Street BLIGHT FESTIVAL”. A banner was made next. The banner was made from a bed sheet and consisted simply of a giant cockroach. The Blight Banner was suspended over the driveway between two of the apartment houses. The cockroach was bright green, and filled the entire sheet.
This was a Blight Festival and as such, we did things in a blighty kind of way. There was no dumpster or even trash barrels for these apartments. Garbage bags were just piled at the end of the parking area. Where else would set up the grills for a Blight Festival? We set them up in the trash pile. They weren’t grill grills. There were cheapo $4.00 Hibachis. We had several Hibachis. We set them up on anything we could find. An old bench, an old table or even just on the asphalt.
There was lots going on all day. At 2:00 PM, the Blight Festival was officially kicked off with a proclamation from the second floor balcony. There was a puppet show from the same balcony a short while later. And all manner of flying things were launched from there as well. Airplanes and rockets and streamers and anything else that might fly. We had games and competitions. There was Beer Bottle Bowling, The Great Trash Bag Toss, and music, lots and lots of music. Several of the Ghetto Dwellers played the guitar. As such, there was live music all day and night. We even had an acrobat. One of the guys was juggling and walking around on his hands. Alarena came home during the height of Beer Bottle Bowling. He had to wait to get up the driveway until the preliminary match was complete. He was a little, agitated by the bowling. And he was pretty torqued by the Trash Bag Toss too. Whenever he got out of the car and saw the cockroach banner, well he was just speechless. I think was awestruck by the ingenuity and level of craftsmanship that went into the banner. Either that or he was having a stroke.
This party moved between the four apartments all afternoon and night. Hundreds of people came and went (all right, maybe that’s an exaggeration but there were a lot of people). The party continued until Sunday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, things had pretty much wound down. All the guests had left and it was just us. Late in the afternoon the one official Ghetto Dweller who was unable to attend the Festival returned. He parked is his usual spot by the trash heap and came over to see what was going on. As we are recapping the highlights of the Festival, one of the guys decided he’s going back to my apartment for a shower and he leaves.
So there we are just recapping the weekend’s events when we hear sirens. We think nothing of it, we hear them all the time. Then we see the fire trucks, again, we don’t react. Then we see the trucks pull into our complex. NOW we react. We run outside to see what’s going on. Apparently the guy that went for the shower wanted one last burger. He decided he should use new coals for his burger. So he dumped the old coals into the trash. Needless to say, he set the trash a blaze. There is the trash fully engulfed in flame, with a car sitting in the middle of it. The perfect ending to the perfect party. I know what you’re think’n. You’re think’n you’ve heard some fire stories before. You’re think’n you know who threw the hot coals in the trash pile. Let’s put this question to bed right here and now. No, I was not the one to throw the hot coals in the trash. And I have witnesses.
On Monday, Alarena came out to seek his revenge. He wasn’t happy about the Festival or the Blight Banner still hanging between the buildings. He was mad; he was going to evict the ring leader. So Alarena goes up and pounds on the door of the only Ghetto Dweller that didn’t attend the party, and he threw him out. How ironic is that. The one guy who had absolutely nothing to do with the Festival had his car torched and then got evicted.
I'm sure there's some kind of a lesson to be learned in here. I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is.
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