Well here we are at Christmas Eve, 2008; and to borrow from Dickens, the Christmas Present is kind of a shambles. Some good ideas are still just ideas, and I wish I had a maid and Martha Stewart’s staff in my employ. Yeah, I know, if I were as smart as Martha Stewart, I would have my own staff. But I don’t, and there is way too much Christmas to go around.
Actually I could be content just to remember Christmases Past when my family wasn’t all grown up and there were small children in my home to make a Christmas for.
After all, it’s the children who are mostly nice and the grown-ups who are naughty, but you can’t threaten big people using the Santa-won’t-come routine. In the Christmas Past, Santa was not only a good motivational tool, but he was a good scapegoat, as well. There was always someone to blame when Christmas was less than perfect.
Well, we had a few of those, but there was still plenty of goodwill to make everyone merry. Kids are pretty forgiving that way. Some years though, I was ready to shoot Santa myself.
His choice of toys was what I had to quarrel with. Maybe since he didn’t have to live with his toys for the rest of the year he was a little short-sighted, but his selection was incredibly awful sometimes. I don’t think he ever left anything that didn’t require batteries, make a lot of noise, or fit the neighbors better than us.
He has left trucks so big you had to park them in the garage, and cars so small that they got lost under the bath mat. He has brought guns that mimicked submachine and never ran out of ammunition. He has left building sets with more parts than my Ford, and all of them just that necessary.
He has dropped off games with instructions in French, sweatshirts that would fit himself and no one else, and bicycles that take eight hours to put together.
Of course there comes a time when each kid gets older and you realize its time for either the kid or yourselves to grow up and take responsibility for Santa and his ideas. And just once in a while, when you/he got it right, you might even like to take little of the credit for yourself.
My grand-nephew’s parents thought it was time to sit him down and explain to him that Santa might be a bit of a stretch for even a ten-year-old’s imagination. So the other day they tried to let Santa out of the closet without too much trauma. When they told him who really leaves the presents, the kid was unconvinced. He said, “I don’t believe that, because there is no way that you guys could afford what Santa brought me last year.”
So hold off on the expensive presents until you can get credit for them. Let Santa bring the games with French instructions.
But let you be the one who gives love and laughter—cookies made while little helpers stand on chairs, forays to find the perfect tree which will soon have its symmetry destroyed with overloaded bottom branches, the Christmas story read from St. Luke in children’s halting voices, Jingle Bells sung off-key all the way to Grandma’s house.
Christmas is about the toddler standing in front of the lighted tree murmuring “Christmas, Christmas.” It began with a Child who was born in a stable. May it live on for children everywhere. And may our celebrations reflect the wonder of it all.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Butterbeans remember the Sixties
Remember that good old decade—the Sixties? Well yes, a good share of you don’t remember it since you weren’t born yet. The rest of you are not remembering things too well. So I will help you out. That was the time when all the girls wore long hair, all the cars were Chevys, and all the schools were five miles away with snow every step of the way. For some reason, Chevys were never driven to school.
Life was definitely simpler then. Just ask Father Butterbean. All of the tee-shirts were white and so were the socks. All of the music was mellow; all of the jeans were Levis. All of the phones were AT&T. All of the tennis shoes were Keds. Well, it’s pretty much still that way for Father B.
There weren’t any teen-age identity crises back then because there were only two identities—hoods and everybody else. And once you arrived at school after trudging through the snow, there were only two halls that could qualify as Halls.
If you were rebellious you were a Hood. You still wore Levis and white socks. The only difference was that you carried a pack of cigarettes rolled up in your white tee-shirt sleeve, and you stood in Hood Hall only it wasn’t called that then.
Girls weren’t rebellious much, and they all wore dresses or skirts except for when they wore their Keds with their regulation gym shorts.
I’m not sure how many Halls there are these days. At least half a dozen. If I am wrong, don’t tell me about it, because I grew up in the two-Hall era and get most of my information regarding current high school culture third or fourth hand.
I may have heard of Jock Hall, Cowboy Hall, Skate-or-Die Hall, Stud Hall, Granola Hall, Reggae Hall and Rock Hall. If there isn’t a Rap Hall, I don’t know why not.
Finding a Hall to stand in with so many possibilities available must be excruciating since standing in the wrong hall could be social suicide.
And just because a kid has gotten through the crisis and negotiated the hall maze (figuratively speaking), that doesn’t mean he is through making decisions. Before a high schooler can leave the house in the morning, he has to make several different choices on several different levels. Sooner or later, he has to decide whether his reputation can stand up to blurring the image for one day. Say he hangs out in Cowboy Hall. Can he get away with wearing khakis when his Wranglers are dirty?
Then he has to decide whether to wear short or long khakis and with what. (In the Sixties, shorts were worn only when the temperature exceeded 80 degrees. The cutoff (pun) temperature is somewhere around 20 degrees these days. That may have been because shorts lived up to their name back then.)
Say our dude decides to keep it simple and wear jeans, a tee-shirt and sport shoes. He still has to decide which one of each, and each component by itself possibly has unforeseen implications in terms of image. “Do pink tee-shirts go only with Reggae gear or can they show up in Jock Hall occasionally?”
Shoes, by themselves, no matter which hall their owners habituate, could present monumental problems. You can’t tell me that Cowboy Hallers don’t have anything but Justins in their closets. At the very least, they have basketball shoes, hikers, joggers, something for church, and hunting boots. Can a cowboy’s image survive the wearing of alternative footwear in Cowboy Hall when his boots hurt his feet?
What I really want to know is whether those very baggy, very low-slung pants (they probably have a name that I don’t know of) can show up in every hall. I also want to know whether baggy-pants halls empty out at the same rate as jock halls during fire drills—presuming they still have fire drills at school.
I have never been great at making decisions. In fact, waffling is something I have raised to a fine art. The trick is to use the postpone-and-wait method which means that if you wait long enough you won’t have any choices anyway.
If I were 40 years younger and trying to get ready for school, I wouldn’t be able to decide which shoes to wear unless the dog had eaten every pair but one. And I would be late for school every day and wouldn’t get to stand in any Halls.
Life was definitely simpler then. Just ask Father Butterbean. All of the tee-shirts were white and so were the socks. All of the music was mellow; all of the jeans were Levis. All of the phones were AT&T. All of the tennis shoes were Keds. Well, it’s pretty much still that way for Father B.
There weren’t any teen-age identity crises back then because there were only two identities—hoods and everybody else. And once you arrived at school after trudging through the snow, there were only two halls that could qualify as Halls.
If you were rebellious you were a Hood. You still wore Levis and white socks. The only difference was that you carried a pack of cigarettes rolled up in your white tee-shirt sleeve, and you stood in Hood Hall only it wasn’t called that then.
Girls weren’t rebellious much, and they all wore dresses or skirts except for when they wore their Keds with their regulation gym shorts.
I’m not sure how many Halls there are these days. At least half a dozen. If I am wrong, don’t tell me about it, because I grew up in the two-Hall era and get most of my information regarding current high school culture third or fourth hand.
I may have heard of Jock Hall, Cowboy Hall, Skate-or-Die Hall, Stud Hall, Granola Hall, Reggae Hall and Rock Hall. If there isn’t a Rap Hall, I don’t know why not.
Finding a Hall to stand in with so many possibilities available must be excruciating since standing in the wrong hall could be social suicide.
And just because a kid has gotten through the crisis and negotiated the hall maze (figuratively speaking), that doesn’t mean he is through making decisions. Before a high schooler can leave the house in the morning, he has to make several different choices on several different levels. Sooner or later, he has to decide whether his reputation can stand up to blurring the image for one day. Say he hangs out in Cowboy Hall. Can he get away with wearing khakis when his Wranglers are dirty?
Then he has to decide whether to wear short or long khakis and with what. (In the Sixties, shorts were worn only when the temperature exceeded 80 degrees. The cutoff (pun) temperature is somewhere around 20 degrees these days. That may have been because shorts lived up to their name back then.)
Say our dude decides to keep it simple and wear jeans, a tee-shirt and sport shoes. He still has to decide which one of each, and each component by itself possibly has unforeseen implications in terms of image. “Do pink tee-shirts go only with Reggae gear or can they show up in Jock Hall occasionally?”
Shoes, by themselves, no matter which hall their owners habituate, could present monumental problems. You can’t tell me that Cowboy Hallers don’t have anything but Justins in their closets. At the very least, they have basketball shoes, hikers, joggers, something for church, and hunting boots. Can a cowboy’s image survive the wearing of alternative footwear in Cowboy Hall when his boots hurt his feet?
What I really want to know is whether those very baggy, very low-slung pants (they probably have a name that I don’t know of) can show up in every hall. I also want to know whether baggy-pants halls empty out at the same rate as jock halls during fire drills—presuming they still have fire drills at school.
I have never been great at making decisions. In fact, waffling is something I have raised to a fine art. The trick is to use the postpone-and-wait method which means that if you wait long enough you won’t have any choices anyway.
If I were 40 years younger and trying to get ready for school, I wouldn’t be able to decide which shoes to wear unless the dog had eaten every pair but one. And I would be late for school every day and wouldn’t get to stand in any Halls.
With Berthanomics you feel better already
I know that if you spend any part of your day listening to the news, talk shows, talk radio, or reading the papers, blogs, etc., you might be sick of hearing about the economic crisis we are in. Well, I am here to give you Bertha’s perspective on the whole mess which may or may not be correct, but I do have experience in dealing with messes—and this is the deal—whoever makes the mess cleans it up. Yeah right. But that is another column.
My theory is this: stock values are down; retirement accounts are worth less; real estate is worth less; the dollar is worth less. We heard last week that financially speaking the last seven years have been wiped out.
Well, trust the media to give you some meaningless piece of information which is designed to unnerve you. (It’s not the vampire movies that are scary these days, but the six o’clock news.)
But back to the economic situation. Yes, our money is worth less, and we have less of it, but in case you haven’t noticed, everybody’s money is worth less and they all have less of it at roughly the same percentage you do. Not only that, you have probably noticed that the price of lots of goods, gas, groceries, cars, houses, and electronics, are down and just about everything else you can get for a deal.
So if we have less money but it costs less to get things, we just might come out even anyway.
According to Berthanomics, we are all still in the same place we were before the bust. Okay, maybe seven or even twenty years before the bust. But we still buy what we used to. We just pay less for it, so having less of it is okay. Right?
There are a couple of positive things going on as well which could help to tip the scales to better than even for some people. The money in our bank accounts remains in our bank accounts. Your banker hasn’t called to say that your account now has fewer dollars in it. And most likely no one has cut back on your paycheck either, so the money you have to work with is more than before, relatively speaking. You still have x amount of dollars only now it will buy more. (Just don’t think about your stocks. or instead of thinking about how much they were worth at their peak, think about how much it cost to buy them.)
It’s like playing Monopoly with only half of the money, but making all of the properties cost half as well. You still get to collect the full amount when you pass “GO.,” and so does everyone else.
And for once, being on a fixed income is a good thing. Unless or until someone unfixes your income, advance to “GO.” And remember, Park Place only costs $175. I have to admit though that you will probably have to keep taxes at $200. They aren’t going to go down anytime soon.
As games go, I hate Monopoly; it takes too long to play, it is boring, and I never win. “I knew it,” you say, ”Bertha is not a closet financial genius, she is an idiot. She doesn’t even know how to play Monopoly, let alone understand finance.”
You may be right. I suppose you are thinking of all of the things that may never come down in price. But I don’t know anyone who thought that gasoline would ever come back down either.
The alternative to Berthanomics can look pretty dismal. You find yourself wondering whether you are going to be able to eat bugs when your food runs out, or whether you want to buy a horse in case you can’t drive your car. Thinking about going without electricity could really make you crazy.
My daughter says that if she finds herself eating bugs someday, cooked or not, then she has bigger problems than hunger anyway and starving might be a solution rather than a problem.
So when you get your next mutual funds statement, think about the Butterbean Financial Institute’s Monopoly model, or better yet, go ahead and play a game with half of the money kept in the box. (You could always put it into circulation if you decided to.) It will still be boring and you might lose, but it won’t take as long to do it, which may or may not mean something.
My theory is this: stock values are down; retirement accounts are worth less; real estate is worth less; the dollar is worth less. We heard last week that financially speaking the last seven years have been wiped out.
Well, trust the media to give you some meaningless piece of information which is designed to unnerve you. (It’s not the vampire movies that are scary these days, but the six o’clock news.)
But back to the economic situation. Yes, our money is worth less, and we have less of it, but in case you haven’t noticed, everybody’s money is worth less and they all have less of it at roughly the same percentage you do. Not only that, you have probably noticed that the price of lots of goods, gas, groceries, cars, houses, and electronics, are down and just about everything else you can get for a deal.
So if we have less money but it costs less to get things, we just might come out even anyway.
According to Berthanomics, we are all still in the same place we were before the bust. Okay, maybe seven or even twenty years before the bust. But we still buy what we used to. We just pay less for it, so having less of it is okay. Right?
There are a couple of positive things going on as well which could help to tip the scales to better than even for some people. The money in our bank accounts remains in our bank accounts. Your banker hasn’t called to say that your account now has fewer dollars in it. And most likely no one has cut back on your paycheck either, so the money you have to work with is more than before, relatively speaking. You still have x amount of dollars only now it will buy more. (Just don’t think about your stocks. or instead of thinking about how much they were worth at their peak, think about how much it cost to buy them.)
It’s like playing Monopoly with only half of the money, but making all of the properties cost half as well. You still get to collect the full amount when you pass “GO.,” and so does everyone else.
And for once, being on a fixed income is a good thing. Unless or until someone unfixes your income, advance to “GO.” And remember, Park Place only costs $175. I have to admit though that you will probably have to keep taxes at $200. They aren’t going to go down anytime soon.
As games go, I hate Monopoly; it takes too long to play, it is boring, and I never win. “I knew it,” you say, ”Bertha is not a closet financial genius, she is an idiot. She doesn’t even know how to play Monopoly, let alone understand finance.”
You may be right. I suppose you are thinking of all of the things that may never come down in price. But I don’t know anyone who thought that gasoline would ever come back down either.
The alternative to Berthanomics can look pretty dismal. You find yourself wondering whether you are going to be able to eat bugs when your food runs out, or whether you want to buy a horse in case you can’t drive your car. Thinking about going without electricity could really make you crazy.
My daughter says that if she finds herself eating bugs someday, cooked or not, then she has bigger problems than hunger anyway and starving might be a solution rather than a problem.
So when you get your next mutual funds statement, think about the Butterbean Financial Institute’s Monopoly model, or better yet, go ahead and play a game with half of the money kept in the box. (You could always put it into circulation if you decided to.) It will still be boring and you might lose, but it won’t take as long to do it, which may or may not mean something.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Responsible Christmas tree ownership
Last week we took our annual trip to cut a Christmas tree. Those of you who value convenience in completing holiday chores will think we are crazy. Why go up on the mountain for a tree when you could have a artificial one which would only require a trip to the basement? But then how much fun is that?
We don’t really have to go far, and this year we didn’t even have to get our feet wet or cold.
I know life is about being responsible, not having fun. I’ve been telling my kids that for years. I began to wonder about the extent of that responsibility when I learned while picking up tree permits that things may have changed a bit. It seems that the permitting process has undergone some restrictive changes. What else is new? I only wanted to cut a tree, not adopt one.
Well, it worked out, but I began to wonder about our traditional tree harvesting. Could I possibly be overstepping the bounds of social responsibility by choosing a live fragrant tree instead of a manufactured one?
I thought going organic was a good thing. Just how green does this tree have to be?
So, after the fact, I checked the websites to see whether cutting a live tree could possibly be politically or environmentally incorrect.
I found out that fir or pine “holiday” trees last longer—as opposed to what other kinds I couldn’t tell you. And there really are organic trees. They are raised on farms where very few fertilizers or chemicals are used. (Hey, the trees I cut are as organic as they get since they raise themselves without help of any kind.)
Artificial trees on the other hand are made from PVC and could possibly emit bad tree gases. In addition they are made in Japan or China and leave big tree prints by virtue of being shipped long distances. On the other hand, again, most are already strung with lights and relieve the owner from excessive handling of the some kinds of lights which may have lead in them.
One website suggested taking a walk in the forest to enjoy the trees in their natural habitat instead of having one of any kind, which translated means “do without a tree,” and which led me to grumble something about taking a hike yourself.
Doing without is what we nearly had to do the first year we moved back to the Basin after living away for several years, and it was a rather traumatic experience. It seems we delayed a little too long in going to buy a tree at the tree lots. There was not a tree anywhere in town. We learned that not many trees are sold in the stores because most people actually go and cut their own.
We finally scrounged a tree from a friend who had decorated with short, obese spruces at a wedding reception. It was the tree I would “dubs” for you if we were playing “There’s Your Tree” as we usually do while riding to the forest to cut one.
So rather than be stuck with “your tree,” after that we got the permit and cut our own. At least we had no one to blame but ourselves if when we got it home it looked like Snoopy’s master had picked it out.
So over the years, we have added Christmas tree hunting stories to the vast collection of family hunting lore. There was the year that our dog jumped out of the truck and bounded off through the snow, never to be seen again. If someone picked him up thinking they had found a good hunting dog, they were mistaken. (There are unexpected benefits.)
One year when the snow up there was especially deep, wading through it waist-high was the only way to see how tall that tree (at least 30 feet from the road) really was. The snow was piled up alongside the road as high as a car, which uncharacteristically kept us from getting stuck that year. But one of our tall high-schoolers climbed up the berm and jumped off the other side. He was nearly never seen again as well. When Father B. climbed the berm to check on his progress, all he saw was his hat.
If Christmas is about experiences and relationships, then we are doing the right thing. If it ever becomes about saving fuel and time, then we have thought of a helpful solution. While the guys are up there hunting for deer or elk in the fall (which activity is never about fuel or time) and they spot the perfect tree, they can “GPS” its location. In late November, we can drive right to it and be back home in the time it takes someone to go to the basement and haul up the plastic.
Meanwhile, we can say we did our part to reduce CO2 emissions by cutting three trees.
We don’t really have to go far, and this year we didn’t even have to get our feet wet or cold.
I know life is about being responsible, not having fun. I’ve been telling my kids that for years. I began to wonder about the extent of that responsibility when I learned while picking up tree permits that things may have changed a bit. It seems that the permitting process has undergone some restrictive changes. What else is new? I only wanted to cut a tree, not adopt one.
Well, it worked out, but I began to wonder about our traditional tree harvesting. Could I possibly be overstepping the bounds of social responsibility by choosing a live fragrant tree instead of a manufactured one?
I thought going organic was a good thing. Just how green does this tree have to be?
So, after the fact, I checked the websites to see whether cutting a live tree could possibly be politically or environmentally incorrect.
I found out that fir or pine “holiday” trees last longer—as opposed to what other kinds I couldn’t tell you. And there really are organic trees. They are raised on farms where very few fertilizers or chemicals are used. (Hey, the trees I cut are as organic as they get since they raise themselves without help of any kind.)
Artificial trees on the other hand are made from PVC and could possibly emit bad tree gases. In addition they are made in Japan or China and leave big tree prints by virtue of being shipped long distances. On the other hand, again, most are already strung with lights and relieve the owner from excessive handling of the some kinds of lights which may have lead in them.
One website suggested taking a walk in the forest to enjoy the trees in their natural habitat instead of having one of any kind, which translated means “do without a tree,” and which led me to grumble something about taking a hike yourself.
Doing without is what we nearly had to do the first year we moved back to the Basin after living away for several years, and it was a rather traumatic experience. It seems we delayed a little too long in going to buy a tree at the tree lots. There was not a tree anywhere in town. We learned that not many trees are sold in the stores because most people actually go and cut their own.
We finally scrounged a tree from a friend who had decorated with short, obese spruces at a wedding reception. It was the tree I would “dubs” for you if we were playing “There’s Your Tree” as we usually do while riding to the forest to cut one.
So rather than be stuck with “your tree,” after that we got the permit and cut our own. At least we had no one to blame but ourselves if when we got it home it looked like Snoopy’s master had picked it out.
So over the years, we have added Christmas tree hunting stories to the vast collection of family hunting lore. There was the year that our dog jumped out of the truck and bounded off through the snow, never to be seen again. If someone picked him up thinking they had found a good hunting dog, they were mistaken. (There are unexpected benefits.)
One year when the snow up there was especially deep, wading through it waist-high was the only way to see how tall that tree (at least 30 feet from the road) really was. The snow was piled up alongside the road as high as a car, which uncharacteristically kept us from getting stuck that year. But one of our tall high-schoolers climbed up the berm and jumped off the other side. He was nearly never seen again as well. When Father B. climbed the berm to check on his progress, all he saw was his hat.
If Christmas is about experiences and relationships, then we are doing the right thing. If it ever becomes about saving fuel and time, then we have thought of a helpful solution. While the guys are up there hunting for deer or elk in the fall (which activity is never about fuel or time) and they spot the perfect tree, they can “GPS” its location. In late November, we can drive right to it and be back home in the time it takes someone to go to the basement and haul up the plastic.
Meanwhile, we can say we did our part to reduce CO2 emissions by cutting three trees.
Monday, November 24, 2008
What's a penny really worth?
I remember when we had a houseful of kids. That was in the days when I knew where all of them were going to be spending the next holiday—like Thanksgiving. Now it takes all of them up until the day before to figure out whether they are going to go to the inlaws’ or to my house—”over the river and through the woods” notwithstanding.
But in that bygone household, on any sort of day, the value of various things could be measured by where they were kept.
Things of the most worth like diaries, notes from boyfriends, five-dollar bills and packs of gum were generally kept out of sight and under lock and key if possible.
Level two valuables like homework assignments were kept on the kitchen table, on the desk, in pockets, and occasionally in bookbags.
Sometimes there were slipups like when we kept our watches instead of our homework in our pockets and they got laundered. (Just ask me who makes the best watches.) (Just ask me how homework fares in the heavy-duty cycle.)
The things of least value were kept on the floor. The floor was public domain. Anything found on the floor could be snapped up by an ungrateful public. What was left were things like broken pencils, gum wrappers, playground gravel, lint, and last but not least—pennies.
If you really want to know the value of something, just watch a kid. Will he walk past a dollar bill and not pick it up? Will he walk past a stick of gum? Will he walk past a penny?
The value of a penny is such that no one will pick it up. Well, I will pick pennies up when I clean the level three repository, not because I intend to move them to levels one or two, but because they litter up the place.
The only thing that kept me from throwing them out with the playground gravel is that they were federal property on public domain. I’ve heard that it is a federal offense to destroy or throw out money, and I don’t want to tangle with the feds. I will leave it to them to throw the money around.
So I put the pennies I swept up in a Fleischman’s yeast can or a quart mayonnaise jar. After a while, the jars began to be a clutter too. Mostly at the level two repositories.
Everyone in our house knew that pennies were public property. Whoever wanted them could have them, but not even the kids would expend the time it took to roll the pennies and carry them to the bank.
One day we did get ambitious or poor, and we rolled a quart of pennies and took them to the bank hoping to exchange them for real money. The tellers didn’t want them either.
So what was I going to do with all of those pennies? It occurred to me that I could pay the kids to take them, but it doesn’t seem right to have to pay someone to take money when what it is is money.
From time to time I hear that congress or someone might abolish the penny, so if they ever have a penny referendum, vote against pennies. They are a public nuisance, a waste of good copper, an eyesore and a mess you can’t get rid of.
One week I got lucky though. Someone was collecting change at the high school for a worthy cause. We unloaded a couple of quarts of pennies—a jar for each high schooler–a couple of days in a row. I guess that the charity was happy to get them. I don’t know how they were able to turn them into real money. Maybe they paid the bank to take them.
I had quite a fright that week, though. I noticed a nickel lying on the floor for two whole days. It was in plain sight, not far off the main drag. I finally picked it up and put it in a comeback cup.
But in that bygone household, on any sort of day, the value of various things could be measured by where they were kept.
Things of the most worth like diaries, notes from boyfriends, five-dollar bills and packs of gum were generally kept out of sight and under lock and key if possible.
Level two valuables like homework assignments were kept on the kitchen table, on the desk, in pockets, and occasionally in bookbags.
Sometimes there were slipups like when we kept our watches instead of our homework in our pockets and they got laundered. (Just ask me who makes the best watches.) (Just ask me how homework fares in the heavy-duty cycle.)
The things of least value were kept on the floor. The floor was public domain. Anything found on the floor could be snapped up by an ungrateful public. What was left were things like broken pencils, gum wrappers, playground gravel, lint, and last but not least—pennies.
If you really want to know the value of something, just watch a kid. Will he walk past a dollar bill and not pick it up? Will he walk past a stick of gum? Will he walk past a penny?
The value of a penny is such that no one will pick it up. Well, I will pick pennies up when I clean the level three repository, not because I intend to move them to levels one or two, but because they litter up the place.
The only thing that kept me from throwing them out with the playground gravel is that they were federal property on public domain. I’ve heard that it is a federal offense to destroy or throw out money, and I don’t want to tangle with the feds. I will leave it to them to throw the money around.
So I put the pennies I swept up in a Fleischman’s yeast can or a quart mayonnaise jar. After a while, the jars began to be a clutter too. Mostly at the level two repositories.
Everyone in our house knew that pennies were public property. Whoever wanted them could have them, but not even the kids would expend the time it took to roll the pennies and carry them to the bank.
One day we did get ambitious or poor, and we rolled a quart of pennies and took them to the bank hoping to exchange them for real money. The tellers didn’t want them either.
So what was I going to do with all of those pennies? It occurred to me that I could pay the kids to take them, but it doesn’t seem right to have to pay someone to take money when what it is is money.
From time to time I hear that congress or someone might abolish the penny, so if they ever have a penny referendum, vote against pennies. They are a public nuisance, a waste of good copper, an eyesore and a mess you can’t get rid of.
One week I got lucky though. Someone was collecting change at the high school for a worthy cause. We unloaded a couple of quarts of pennies—a jar for each high schooler–a couple of days in a row. I guess that the charity was happy to get them. I don’t know how they were able to turn them into real money. Maybe they paid the bank to take them.
I had quite a fright that week, though. I noticed a nickel lying on the floor for two whole days. It was in plain sight, not far off the main drag. I finally picked it up and put it in a comeback cup.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Bertha the CEO
Does anybody out there have a company they want taken down? Here’s the deal: I am willing to do it for a lot less than $60 million.
I seem to be eminently qualified.
I don’t really know much about running a big business. I am probably weak in financial analysis and understanding of the markets. I have a poor grasp of financial consequences for overspending, overlending, etc.
I don’t have any highly relevant strategies for producing bottom-line results.
Since there would be a lot more ways to get it wrong than get it right, I don’t think I could accidentally be successful, and with my experience, I could probably run a corporation into the ground more quickly than just any CEO.
I am able to remain insulated from risks by packaging them and handing them up the chain which gives a whole new meaning to the term “passing the buck,” which I can do as well as anyone. I am also creative at making excuses.
What with affirmative action guidelines supporting age and gender, I should look good on paper, if not in the mirror.
Additionally, I have a large pool of potential hirees who are related to me.
And like I said, I am cheap. I could work for ten percent of what the average executive makes. I am willing to operate on a minimum of perks and benefits. I am nearly old enough for Medicare anyway.
Library books are my most extravagant entertainment so I wouldn’t need an expense account.
Even if we are not “too big to fail,” I should be able to evoke a certain amount of sympathy when we topple. One look at me and the government would feel sorry for us and bail us out for sure. And if they didn’t, oh well, what’s a billion or two?
How does this sound: Failure-prone CEO looking for a position in a large high-profile corporation with an elevated implosion potential. Will relocate to any city with a library. Salary rate negotiable but below the accepted standards. Benefits not necessary.
What have we got to win?
All kidding aside, after I land my position, and before I jet to southern California for my first company retreat, there is something I want to do. I want the be the one to send AIG’s execs (past or present) a spam e-mail, the kind that you can’t get off your screen, with big flashing red stars asking if they know what their credit score is?
Did anyone anywhere ask the board of directors that before they spent money they didn’t have on mortgages that weren’t viable? Just checking.
In my pre-CEO life, things like that mattered. I always thought that being able to get a second mortgage didn’t mean you should. Well, I am not only old, but old-fashioned.
“People aren’t going to be able to use the equity in their houses to meet their expenses,” was an observation one news commentator made about the credit mess. Well, you can live in your house, or you can get the equity out. In today’s market, they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Okay, this is Bertha speaking. I might have misunderstood the expediency of using other people’s money instead of my own. I already said that I have a poor grasp of financial matters. But one thing I have learned: it’s best if no one has to bail you out, because as Jay Leno said the other day, “Here’s the way a bailout works. A failed president and a failed Congress invest $700 billion of your money in failed businesses. Believe me, this can’t fail.”
Bertha the CEO
Does anybody out there have a company they want taken down? Here’s the deal: I am willing to do it for a lot less than $60 million.
I seem to be eminently qualified.
I don’t really know much about running a big business. I am probably weak in financial analysis and understanding of the markets. I have a poor grasp of financial consequences for overspending, overlending, etc.
I don’t have any highly relevant strategies for producing bottom-line results.
Since there would be a lot more ways to get it wrong than get it right, I don’t think I could accidentally be successful, and with my experience, I could probably run a corporation into the ground more quickly than just any CEO.
I am able to remain insulated from risks by packaging them and handing them up the chain which gives a whole new meaning to the term “passing the buck,” which I can do as well as anyone. I am also creative at making excuses.
What with affirmative action guidelines supporting age and gender, I should look good on paper, if not in the mirror.
Additionally, I have a large pool of potential hirees who are related to me.
And like I said, I am cheap. I could work for ten percent of what the average executive makes. I am willing to operate on a minimum of perks and benefits. I am nearly old enough for Medicare anyway.
Library books are my most extravagant entertainment so I wouldn’t need an expense account.
Even if we are not “too big to fail,” I should be able to evoke a certain amount of sympathy when we topple. One look at me and the government would feel sorry for us and bail us out for sure. And if they didn’t, oh well, what’s a billion or two?
How does this sound: Failure-prone CEO looking for a position in a large high-profile corporation with an elevated implosion potential. Will relocate to any city with a library. Salary rate negotiable but below the accepted standards. Benefits not necessary.
What have we got to win?
All kidding aside, after I land my position, and before I jet to southern California for my first company retreat, there is something I want to do. I want the be the one to send AIG’s execs (past or present) a spam e-mail, the kind that you can’t get off your screen, with big flashing red stars asking if they know what their credit score is?
Did anyone anywhere ask the board of directors that before they spent money they didn’t have on mortgages that weren’t viable? Just checking.
In my pre-CEO life, things like that mattered. I always thought that being able to get a second mortgage didn’t mean you should. Well, I am not only old, but old-fashioned.
“People aren’t going to be able to use the equity in their houses to meet their expenses,” was an observation one news commentator made about the credit mess. Well, you can live in your house, or you can get the equity out. In today’s market, they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Okay, this is Bertha speaking. I might have misunderstood the expediency of using other people’s money instead of my own. I already said that I have a poor grasp of financial matters. But one thing I have learned: it’s best if no one has to bail you out, because as Jay Leno said the other day, “Here’s the way a bailout works. A failed president and a failed Congress invest $700 billion of your money in failed businesses. Believe me, this can’t fail.”
I seem to be eminently qualified.
I don’t really know much about running a big business. I am probably weak in financial analysis and understanding of the markets. I have a poor grasp of financial consequences for overspending, overlending, etc.
I don’t have any highly relevant strategies for producing bottom-line results.
Since there would be a lot more ways to get it wrong than get it right, I don’t think I could accidentally be successful, and with my experience, I could probably run a corporation into the ground more quickly than just any CEO.
I am able to remain insulated from risks by packaging them and handing them up the chain which gives a whole new meaning to the term “passing the buck,” which I can do as well as anyone. I am also creative at making excuses.
What with affirmative action guidelines supporting age and gender, I should look good on paper, if not in the mirror.
Additionally, I have a large pool of potential hirees who are related to me.
And like I said, I am cheap. I could work for ten percent of what the average executive makes. I am willing to operate on a minimum of perks and benefits. I am nearly old enough for Medicare anyway.
Library books are my most extravagant entertainment so I wouldn’t need an expense account.
Even if we are not “too big to fail,” I should be able to evoke a certain amount of sympathy when we topple. One look at me and the government would feel sorry for us and bail us out for sure. And if they didn’t, oh well, what’s a billion or two?
How does this sound: Failure-prone CEO looking for a position in a large high-profile corporation with an elevated implosion potential. Will relocate to any city with a library. Salary rate negotiable but below the accepted standards. Benefits not necessary.
What have we got to win?
All kidding aside, after I land my position, and before I jet to southern California for my first company retreat, there is something I want to do. I want the be the one to send AIG’s execs (past or present) a spam e-mail, the kind that you can’t get off your screen, with big flashing red stars asking if they know what their credit score is?
Did anyone anywhere ask the board of directors that before they spent money they didn’t have on mortgages that weren’t viable? Just checking.
In my pre-CEO life, things like that mattered. I always thought that being able to get a second mortgage didn’t mean you should. Well, I am not only old, but old-fashioned.
“People aren’t going to be able to use the equity in their houses to meet their expenses,” was an observation one news commentator made about the credit mess. Well, you can live in your house, or you can get the equity out. In today’s market, they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Okay, this is Bertha speaking. I might have misunderstood the expediency of using other people’s money instead of my own. I already said that I have a poor grasp of financial matters. But one thing I have learned: it’s best if no one has to bail you out, because as Jay Leno said the other day, “Here’s the way a bailout works. A failed president and a failed Congress invest $700 billion of your money in failed businesses. Believe me, this can’t fail.”
Bertha the CEO
Does anybody out there have a company they want taken down? Here’s the deal: I am willing to do it for a lot less than $60 million.
I seem to be eminently qualified.
I don’t really know much about running a big business. I am probably weak in financial analysis and understanding of the markets. I have a poor grasp of financial consequences for overspending, overlending, etc.
I don’t have any highly relevant strategies for producing bottom-line results.
Since there would be a lot more ways to get it wrong than get it right, I don’t think I could accidentally be successful, and with my experience, I could probably run a corporation into the ground more quickly than just any CEO.
I am able to remain insulated from risks by packaging them and handing them up the chain which gives a whole new meaning to the term “passing the buck,” which I can do as well as anyone. I am also creative at making excuses.
What with affirmative action guidelines supporting age and gender, I should look good on paper, if not in the mirror.
Additionally, I have a large pool of potential hirees who are related to me.
And like I said, I am cheap. I could work for ten percent of what the average executive makes. I am willing to operate on a minimum of perks and benefits. I am nearly old enough for Medicare anyway.
Library books are my most extravagant entertainment so I wouldn’t need an expense account.
Even if we are not “too big to fail,” I should be able to evoke a certain amount of sympathy when we topple. One look at me and the government would feel sorry for us and bail us out for sure. And if they didn’t, oh well, what’s a billion or two?
How does this sound: Failure-prone CEO looking for a position in a large high-profile corporation with an elevated implosion potential. Will relocate to any city with a library. Salary rate negotiable but below the accepted standards. Benefits not necessary.
What have we got to win?
All kidding aside, after I land my position, and before I jet to southern California for my first company retreat, there is something I want to do. I want the be the one to send AIG’s execs (past or present) a spam e-mail, the kind that you can’t get off your screen, with big flashing red stars asking if they know what their credit score is?
Did anyone anywhere ask the board of directors that before they spent money they didn’t have on mortgages that weren’t viable? Just checking.
In my pre-CEO life, things like that mattered. I always thought that being able to get a second mortgage didn’t mean you should. Well, I am not only old, but old-fashioned.
“People aren’t going to be able to use the equity in their houses to meet their expenses,” was an observation one news commentator made about the credit mess. Well, you can live in your house, or you can get the equity out. In today’s market, they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Okay, this is Bertha speaking. I might have misunderstood the expediency of using other people’s money instead of my own. I already said that I have a poor grasp of financial matters. But one thing I have learned: it’s best if no one has to bail you out, because as Jay Leno said the other day, “Here’s the way a bailout works. A failed president and a failed Congress invest $700 billion of your money in failed businesses. Believe me, this can’t fail.”
Monday, November 10, 2008
Duct tape to everyone's rescue
By now everyone has heard of Wasilla, Alaska. Being the home of recent Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is not it’s only claim to fame though. It is also home of “The Iditarod,” and the “Iron Dog,” which seems to be the race Sarah’s “dude” has won.
But then even more interestingly, a few years back it was named the Duct Tape Capital of the World which is pretty good considering they probably don’t make duct tape within a thousand miles of there. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.
There are a few other cities, mostly in Ohio, where they do make duct tape which also claim the title, but Wasilla earned it by being the city whose Wal-Mart store sold more of it in 2002 than any Wal-Mart in the world. According to the Duct Tape Guys, who are the premier duct tape pros, that was 325 miles of duct tape, or the equivalent of 314 feet of tape per Wasilla resident.
I’m not sure what they do with all of it up there, but I read that Wasilla resident Bill Murphy put some of it to good use when he was jumped by a grizzly bear while hunting for moose (the second main past time, next to duct-tape taping, for Wasillans).
No, he didn’t wrap up the bear and tape it to a tree as Sarah Palin would have done, but he did bind up the severe bite wounds to his shoulder which held him together while he rode his four-wheeler back to his pickup and then drove himself to the hospital. Most any Wasillan could have done that, and they all have the duct tape to do it with.
So is it “duct tape” or “duck” tape? I always thought that people only thought it was “duck tape” because the “t” on duct is essentially silent anyway, and they didn’t associate it with the use for which I assumed it was obviously invented which is to hold furnaces and air conditioners together.
Well, actually duct tape has been around for a long time. Maybe longer than duct work. It was originally developed for the military during World War II as a water resistant sealing tape for ammunition cases. The tape, usually black or gray, was made of a sealant-coated fabric. That fabric was similar to a fabric called duck. So it’s “duck” name may be older than it’s “duct” one. Call it what you want. If you say it fast enough, no one will know the difference anyway.
The point is, though, according to Wikipedia, shortly after it was issued to military personnel, it began to be used to repair equipment such as jeeps, firearms and aircraft. I believe American Airlines uses it to repair airplanes today, and NASA does send it into space with the shuttle. My son, the pilot, once used it to mend a hole in the wing of his fabric-covered supercub which resulted when it collided with a stray goose during a power-line-inspection run.
Duct tape is the best friend of all dads whose little boys think they can fix anything. It is the first thing DIYers think of when they have a problem.
So from it’s beginnings it was used to fix things, especially in an emergency. Since then, it has come a ways to its current stature which is that of cultural icon. Of late, it has become the raw material used for manufacturing almost anything. I have seen purses, belts, wallets, notebook covers, Ipod covers, American flags, shoelaces, flip-flops and designer clothing. If you think you are missing some of the possible uses for duct tape, there are books and websites to fill you in. Some people take this very seriously. Myself, I like the security of having a roll in my car for the traditional reason.
Yet even I, who am usually pop-culturally clueless, have joined in and made magic wallets for my grandkids in their favorite colors. They were the hot item at the next show-and-tell.
I don’t know who to credit with this dead-on assessment of duct tape, but it is good: “Duct tape is like The Force. It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.”
I’m going to go put some on my fridge right now. Shall I use camo grunge or neon pink?
Speaking of fridge, maybe our friends in Wasilla have discovered some way to tap into The Force and harness its energy for producing heat. Could be another well-kept secret. Or maybe they are just using it to hold their furnaces together.
But then even more interestingly, a few years back it was named the Duct Tape Capital of the World which is pretty good considering they probably don’t make duct tape within a thousand miles of there. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.
There are a few other cities, mostly in Ohio, where they do make duct tape which also claim the title, but Wasilla earned it by being the city whose Wal-Mart store sold more of it in 2002 than any Wal-Mart in the world. According to the Duct Tape Guys, who are the premier duct tape pros, that was 325 miles of duct tape, or the equivalent of 314 feet of tape per Wasilla resident.
I’m not sure what they do with all of it up there, but I read that Wasilla resident Bill Murphy put some of it to good use when he was jumped by a grizzly bear while hunting for moose (the second main past time, next to duct-tape taping, for Wasillans).
No, he didn’t wrap up the bear and tape it to a tree as Sarah Palin would have done, but he did bind up the severe bite wounds to his shoulder which held him together while he rode his four-wheeler back to his pickup and then drove himself to the hospital. Most any Wasillan could have done that, and they all have the duct tape to do it with.
So is it “duct tape” or “duck” tape? I always thought that people only thought it was “duck tape” because the “t” on duct is essentially silent anyway, and they didn’t associate it with the use for which I assumed it was obviously invented which is to hold furnaces and air conditioners together.
Well, actually duct tape has been around for a long time. Maybe longer than duct work. It was originally developed for the military during World War II as a water resistant sealing tape for ammunition cases. The tape, usually black or gray, was made of a sealant-coated fabric. That fabric was similar to a fabric called duck. So it’s “duck” name may be older than it’s “duct” one. Call it what you want. If you say it fast enough, no one will know the difference anyway.
The point is, though, according to Wikipedia, shortly after it was issued to military personnel, it began to be used to repair equipment such as jeeps, firearms and aircraft. I believe American Airlines uses it to repair airplanes today, and NASA does send it into space with the shuttle. My son, the pilot, once used it to mend a hole in the wing of his fabric-covered supercub which resulted when it collided with a stray goose during a power-line-inspection run.
Duct tape is the best friend of all dads whose little boys think they can fix anything. It is the first thing DIYers think of when they have a problem.
So from it’s beginnings it was used to fix things, especially in an emergency. Since then, it has come a ways to its current stature which is that of cultural icon. Of late, it has become the raw material used for manufacturing almost anything. I have seen purses, belts, wallets, notebook covers, Ipod covers, American flags, shoelaces, flip-flops and designer clothing. If you think you are missing some of the possible uses for duct tape, there are books and websites to fill you in. Some people take this very seriously. Myself, I like the security of having a roll in my car for the traditional reason.
Yet even I, who am usually pop-culturally clueless, have joined in and made magic wallets for my grandkids in their favorite colors. They were the hot item at the next show-and-tell.
I don’t know who to credit with this dead-on assessment of duct tape, but it is good: “Duct tape is like The Force. It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.”
I’m going to go put some on my fridge right now. Shall I use camo grunge or neon pink?
Speaking of fridge, maybe our friends in Wasilla have discovered some way to tap into The Force and harness its energy for producing heat. Could be another well-kept secret. Or maybe they are just using it to hold their furnaces together.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Hole in the road
Why did the chicken cross the road? Well, it left this side of the road, but I didn’t see it surface on the other side.
You know the inevitables—death and taxes. Bertha is adding one to the list. If you talk to anyone who owns a car, you will soon hear a complaint about the condition of the roads.
In the old days, the roads were unpaved, sometimes muddy or sandy and vehicles got stuck. Someone might not come along for hours. But after they paved the roads it was potholes. And don’t worry, someone is right behind you. You just have to keep right on going over, around or through the potholes or get run over.
Out in the county where I live, there are some shining examples. I am pretty good at missing them because most of them have won tenure. But my car still appears on the upper reaches of the front-end alignment frequency chart.
I guess the harsh weather is to blame for most of our potholes, and our weather is in the same place on the weather charts. What can I say?
Just so you know, it is not only a local problem. When we lived on the other side of the state, things were worse. One spring, I’m not kidding, this notice appeared in the Classified Ads of the local paper:
“WANTED. One dead horse to fill the hole on Utah Avenue.” Utah Avenue is a main cross-town artery.
Not all of the holes in the roads are the fault of Mother Nature. A friend of mine was complaining about the manhole covers. Some of them have sunk a little too far to be called covers. Maybe liners. He said, “You know they make rings that they can put on the edges of the casings to raise up the covers. How hard could it be to get some of those?”
So I was reading in another paper about manhole covers. I don’t want to make any suggestions, but apparently in other parts of the country thieves steal the covers and sell them for scrap metal. How do you think it feels to hit an open manhole with your passenger side front wheel? We should be happy.
I have to quote the story though. “According to a report in USA Today, hundreds of covers have been ripped off in several states the last three months—another sign of the sluggish economy.” Is that a pun?
Pun or not, it is a stretch to get my mind around the sluggish part since I thought the manhole covers had disappeared because the price of steel has soared.
My brother, who lives in New Jersey, blamed the weather for his manhole-cover anecdote. You may think it only happens in the movies, but one day it was raining so hard in Hoboken that the manhole covers began to pop. I think those things weigh more than I do. He just tried not to be on top of one when it blew. For your information, black, sticky, gooey material describes the stuff they put in potholes, as well as what comes out of manholes. His advice: When it rains, don’t ever run out of gas on top of a manhole.
Speaking of running out of gas, I told him that I hadn’t ever run out of gas since I got the kind of car that displays the number of miles you have left on your tank. Well, my brother the scientist says, “I don’t know how accurate those devices are though.”
I replied, “What? You’re in research. Do you need me to tell you how to test that? I know how to figure that out. I have let the little gauge get down to ‘0 miles left’ at least three times, and I haven’t run out of gas yet. So I know mine works.”
He said, “Great, but I can’t be conducting those kinds of experiments. I wouldn’t want to run out of gas on the New Jersey Turnpike or anywhere near it.”
We could all use a little device that says “pothole dead ahead,” though, providing it was accurate. Some of those holes are surely big enough to show up on satellite views and be entered into a GPS system.
You know the inevitables—death and taxes. Bertha is adding one to the list. If you talk to anyone who owns a car, you will soon hear a complaint about the condition of the roads.
In the old days, the roads were unpaved, sometimes muddy or sandy and vehicles got stuck. Someone might not come along for hours. But after they paved the roads it was potholes. And don’t worry, someone is right behind you. You just have to keep right on going over, around or through the potholes or get run over.
Out in the county where I live, there are some shining examples. I am pretty good at missing them because most of them have won tenure. But my car still appears on the upper reaches of the front-end alignment frequency chart.
I guess the harsh weather is to blame for most of our potholes, and our weather is in the same place on the weather charts. What can I say?
Just so you know, it is not only a local problem. When we lived on the other side of the state, things were worse. One spring, I’m not kidding, this notice appeared in the Classified Ads of the local paper:
“WANTED. One dead horse to fill the hole on Utah Avenue.” Utah Avenue is a main cross-town artery.
Not all of the holes in the roads are the fault of Mother Nature. A friend of mine was complaining about the manhole covers. Some of them have sunk a little too far to be called covers. Maybe liners. He said, “You know they make rings that they can put on the edges of the casings to raise up the covers. How hard could it be to get some of those?”
So I was reading in another paper about manhole covers. I don’t want to make any suggestions, but apparently in other parts of the country thieves steal the covers and sell them for scrap metal. How do you think it feels to hit an open manhole with your passenger side front wheel? We should be happy.
I have to quote the story though. “According to a report in USA Today, hundreds of covers have been ripped off in several states the last three months—another sign of the sluggish economy.” Is that a pun?
Pun or not, it is a stretch to get my mind around the sluggish part since I thought the manhole covers had disappeared because the price of steel has soared.
My brother, who lives in New Jersey, blamed the weather for his manhole-cover anecdote. You may think it only happens in the movies, but one day it was raining so hard in Hoboken that the manhole covers began to pop. I think those things weigh more than I do. He just tried not to be on top of one when it blew. For your information, black, sticky, gooey material describes the stuff they put in potholes, as well as what comes out of manholes. His advice: When it rains, don’t ever run out of gas on top of a manhole.
Speaking of running out of gas, I told him that I hadn’t ever run out of gas since I got the kind of car that displays the number of miles you have left on your tank. Well, my brother the scientist says, “I don’t know how accurate those devices are though.”
I replied, “What? You’re in research. Do you need me to tell you how to test that? I know how to figure that out. I have let the little gauge get down to ‘0 miles left’ at least three times, and I haven’t run out of gas yet. So I know mine works.”
He said, “Great, but I can’t be conducting those kinds of experiments. I wouldn’t want to run out of gas on the New Jersey Turnpike or anywhere near it.”
We could all use a little device that says “pothole dead ahead,” though, providing it was accurate. Some of those holes are surely big enough to show up on satellite views and be entered into a GPS system.
Bmw or Batmobile
I used to drive a enormous, low-slung 1969 Pontiac. Just so you know, I didn’t drive it in 1969, nor in 1970. In fact, we didn’t own it until about 1985, and I was still driving it in 1990. To be fair about it, underneath the hood was a well-muscled machine with an engine-size of 428 somethings which is impressive I think. I also think that my boys raced it more than once and usually won.
Whether they won any money or not, I don’t know, but it would not have been hard to hustle up some unsuspecting competition, because judging the car by the part outside the hood, you would think that it could do no more than limp.
One Halloween, even my shiny, clean, brand-new red 1990 BMW convertible (with only 300 and something under the hood) went out in costume. It was disguised as a paint-chipped, crunch-fendered, khaki-colored 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix. We called it the Batmobile—not because it was smart enough to catch penguins, but because it was so scary.
And sound effects! The Batmobile could furnish backgrounds for the House of Usher. The passenger door sounded like the most Gothic of iron gates when it swung on its hinges.
The mufflers thumped like Sasquatch running through the swamp. When the speedometer cable squealed and the hood-liner flapped, we had giant man-eating bats fleeing some underground cavern.
In more ways than one, bats have become an important part of the spoken and written lore of the Butterbean family. And I’m not referring to bats in the belfry this time.
Most of the bat incidents involve the person in the family who lives in mortal fear of bats. Some people probably go through life and never see one. Not this family member. Of course bats are nocturnal animals, and so is she, which accounts for her running into them more often than the rest of us.
When she worked as a maid cleaning cabins at a mountain resort, hers was always the cabin with bats in it. When she went out to meditate under the stars, bats flew around her head.
I told the following story already, but I should have saved it for Halloween. In case you missed it, here it is again. If you didn’t miss it, skip down a couple of paragraphs.
One summer night our phobic daughter wrapped up in a blanket and went outside to take a breath of fresh air (check on the movements of the neighborhood). While sitting on the front porch, she chanced to look upward. There among the rafters, a few feet above her head and hanging upside down, was a good-sized bat blinking at her.
She jumped up with a prolonged shriek, ran for the door, wrenched it open and immediately went into a skid on the waxed parquet flooring. Running in a blanket is a bit clumsy at best. With her racing slicks on, she lost traction, and her body rapidly got ahead of her feet. She didn’t quit bodysurfing until she hit carpet. I am happy to say that she was called “safe” at home plate.
My daughter had one other fear besides bats. That was of the Batmobile. It had nothing to do with it’s name. That part was coincidental, but the thought of driving it horrified her. I don’t think she would have driven herself to the hospital in it. That would have been a little too much like being caught dead in it. (She didn’t believe that it was a Beamer in disguise like I did.)
For one last Halloween (this one), the Batmobile is still sitting in the backyard. It still has a crumpled fender. It’s paint is far beyond chipped and is more like crumbled. It’s hood-liner is dragging down onto the seats. Every square inch of its interior has become a mouse metropolis. It’s like something out of Frankenstein the Car.
I suspect that under its hood, though, is an engine that has withstood the ravages of time and can still take on the competition—if not scare it, at least worry it a bit.
After this Halloween, I have to say good-bye to the Beamer in disguise. Someone is buying it. At least part of it. “Of course,” you are thinking. “some speed-freak wants to put that 420-something engine into a drag racer.”
Wrong. I’m not kidding; someone wants the body.
Whether they won any money or not, I don’t know, but it would not have been hard to hustle up some unsuspecting competition, because judging the car by the part outside the hood, you would think that it could do no more than limp.
One Halloween, even my shiny, clean, brand-new red 1990 BMW convertible (with only 300 and something under the hood) went out in costume. It was disguised as a paint-chipped, crunch-fendered, khaki-colored 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix. We called it the Batmobile—not because it was smart enough to catch penguins, but because it was so scary.
And sound effects! The Batmobile could furnish backgrounds for the House of Usher. The passenger door sounded like the most Gothic of iron gates when it swung on its hinges.
The mufflers thumped like Sasquatch running through the swamp. When the speedometer cable squealed and the hood-liner flapped, we had giant man-eating bats fleeing some underground cavern.
In more ways than one, bats have become an important part of the spoken and written lore of the Butterbean family. And I’m not referring to bats in the belfry this time.
Most of the bat incidents involve the person in the family who lives in mortal fear of bats. Some people probably go through life and never see one. Not this family member. Of course bats are nocturnal animals, and so is she, which accounts for her running into them more often than the rest of us.
When she worked as a maid cleaning cabins at a mountain resort, hers was always the cabin with bats in it. When she went out to meditate under the stars, bats flew around her head.
I told the following story already, but I should have saved it for Halloween. In case you missed it, here it is again. If you didn’t miss it, skip down a couple of paragraphs.
One summer night our phobic daughter wrapped up in a blanket and went outside to take a breath of fresh air (check on the movements of the neighborhood). While sitting on the front porch, she chanced to look upward. There among the rafters, a few feet above her head and hanging upside down, was a good-sized bat blinking at her.
She jumped up with a prolonged shriek, ran for the door, wrenched it open and immediately went into a skid on the waxed parquet flooring. Running in a blanket is a bit clumsy at best. With her racing slicks on, she lost traction, and her body rapidly got ahead of her feet. She didn’t quit bodysurfing until she hit carpet. I am happy to say that she was called “safe” at home plate.
My daughter had one other fear besides bats. That was of the Batmobile. It had nothing to do with it’s name. That part was coincidental, but the thought of driving it horrified her. I don’t think she would have driven herself to the hospital in it. That would have been a little too much like being caught dead in it. (She didn’t believe that it was a Beamer in disguise like I did.)
For one last Halloween (this one), the Batmobile is still sitting in the backyard. It still has a crumpled fender. It’s paint is far beyond chipped and is more like crumbled. It’s hood-liner is dragging down onto the seats. Every square inch of its interior has become a mouse metropolis. It’s like something out of Frankenstein the Car.
I suspect that under its hood, though, is an engine that has withstood the ravages of time and can still take on the competition—if not scare it, at least worry it a bit.
After this Halloween, I have to say good-bye to the Beamer in disguise. Someone is buying it. At least part of it. “Of course,” you are thinking. “some speed-freak wants to put that 420-something engine into a drag racer.”
Wrong. I’m not kidding; someone wants the body.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Bertha's Byword explains things
Murphy’s Law is most often stated this way: “If something can go wrong, it will.” Some people take their Murphy’s seriously. There are studies which have tried to prove whether Murphy’s has basis in fact. Well, duh. This is the way Bertha states Murphy’s. There are at least 50 ways to get something wrong and only one way to get it right. So mathematically it’s a wonder anything ever comes out right. Maybe it doesn’t, and we just don’t know it.
When you stop to think about it, Murphy has just about got life explained. Every law governing or trying to unravel life as we know it pretty much falls into a sub-category of Murphy’s.
I want to propose a variation on Murphy’s. We can call it Bertha’s Byword. If someone already has a patent on it, I didn’t know, okay?
It goes like this: If you had two choices, you will invariably wish you had made the other one.
For example—say you have a Saturday afternoon in the late fall when the chores are done and you have some money. (That in and of itself is a set of circumstances that ought to make you extremely wary.)
You also have some friends going skiing and some more friends going to catch the college football game. Don’t mess it up now. These are two pretty good choices.
So if you choose skiing, the chair lift will be broken (best-case scenario,) and additionally, your team will pass for 300 yards and win by 35 points.
Conversely, if you choose football…the scenario could get really bad here. Just how many ways are there for a football game to go wrong?
Turning to the business arena, I was one of those investors who put money into Putnam Group instead of Wal-Mart. You can already guess how that turned out. If I had done it the other way around, I probably could have averted the global economic crisis.
Which brings me to my other real-life story. My daughter and her husband own a reception center in Logan. It has a really nice audio system which sounds great, but it doesn’t have a piano. After three brides in a row had asked about a piano and someone else had wanted to book the facilities for an upscale piano recital, they started looking for a piano. A friend helped them find just the right instrument. It was a gloss black Steinway baby grand which was going for a good price. The good price was $26,000.
So they thought long and hard about that purchase. (My son-in-law as well lives by Bertha’s Byword. He didn’t patent it though.) Would they really book that many more receptions with the piano in the big room? Their friend assured them that they could rent it out for rehearsals at $150 an hour to piano students from the university. So that helped tip the scale. They bought the piano last week. The piano dealer would arrange the financing.
And so the Baby was delivered. They couldn’t wait for the next walk-through. The bride would probably book on the spot.
The next three brides to walk through the facility glowered when they saw the piano.
“Is that piano going to be there? It takes up too much room. I have 18 people in my line. Is there a place to move it to?” From then on, my daughter who weighs 121 pounds, began trying to stand in front of the piano in an effort to hide it.
Well, just like the masked rider on the white horse, the global economic crisis (which I was a little bit glad I didn’t avert) comes to the rescue. Who would have thought? The piano dealer called this week to say that he would have to come and get the piano because he couldn’t get financing for it.
On a Saturday afternoon when I have a choice, I sometimes have a seat to watch a few downs of football on TV (which is about as close to a college game as I ever get) instead of doing the other thing which probably involves some kind of housework. Every time I sit down, my team fumbles the ball. I never get to watch them win until the reruns, and even then I worry.
When you stop to think about it, Murphy has just about got life explained. Every law governing or trying to unravel life as we know it pretty much falls into a sub-category of Murphy’s.
I want to propose a variation on Murphy’s. We can call it Bertha’s Byword. If someone already has a patent on it, I didn’t know, okay?
It goes like this: If you had two choices, you will invariably wish you had made the other one.
For example—say you have a Saturday afternoon in the late fall when the chores are done and you have some money. (That in and of itself is a set of circumstances that ought to make you extremely wary.)
You also have some friends going skiing and some more friends going to catch the college football game. Don’t mess it up now. These are two pretty good choices.
So if you choose skiing, the chair lift will be broken (best-case scenario,) and additionally, your team will pass for 300 yards and win by 35 points.
Conversely, if you choose football…the scenario could get really bad here. Just how many ways are there for a football game to go wrong?
Turning to the business arena, I was one of those investors who put money into Putnam Group instead of Wal-Mart. You can already guess how that turned out. If I had done it the other way around, I probably could have averted the global economic crisis.
Which brings me to my other real-life story. My daughter and her husband own a reception center in Logan. It has a really nice audio system which sounds great, but it doesn’t have a piano. After three brides in a row had asked about a piano and someone else had wanted to book the facilities for an upscale piano recital, they started looking for a piano. A friend helped them find just the right instrument. It was a gloss black Steinway baby grand which was going for a good price. The good price was $26,000.
So they thought long and hard about that purchase. (My son-in-law as well lives by Bertha’s Byword. He didn’t patent it though.) Would they really book that many more receptions with the piano in the big room? Their friend assured them that they could rent it out for rehearsals at $150 an hour to piano students from the university. So that helped tip the scale. They bought the piano last week. The piano dealer would arrange the financing.
And so the Baby was delivered. They couldn’t wait for the next walk-through. The bride would probably book on the spot.
The next three brides to walk through the facility glowered when they saw the piano.
“Is that piano going to be there? It takes up too much room. I have 18 people in my line. Is there a place to move it to?” From then on, my daughter who weighs 121 pounds, began trying to stand in front of the piano in an effort to hide it.
Well, just like the masked rider on the white horse, the global economic crisis (which I was a little bit glad I didn’t avert) comes to the rescue. Who would have thought? The piano dealer called this week to say that he would have to come and get the piano because he couldn’t get financing for it.
On a Saturday afternoon when I have a choice, I sometimes have a seat to watch a few downs of football on TV (which is about as close to a college game as I ever get) instead of doing the other thing which probably involves some kind of housework. Every time I sit down, my team fumbles the ball. I never get to watch them win until the reruns, and even then I worry.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Double Bubble in the money bin
I guess if I don’t write something about the economic crisis the country is going through I will be the only person anywhere to remain silent on the subject. However, I doubt this will be my only chance. The subject might be relevant for quite a while.
The stock market is “roller-coastering” and who knows when it will settle. Credit has gone somewhere, don’t ask me where. Congress is too busy passing bucks to be passing bills. And the “00s will likely be remembered most for the “great government bail-out.”
All in all, the horizon looks a little bleak. To lighten the mood, and since the whole crisis is about the “flow of cash,” I want to tell you about how my kids learned their first lessons in economics.
The legal tender among our children was chewing gum. If you had it you were rich. If you didn’t you were always trying to get “the government” you give you some.
In our house, the war-to-end-all-wars was fought over chewing gum. We had staff meetings to legislate rules for the proper use and control of the substance.
The components of the modern-day tragedy were two children and one stick of gum. Taking a piece without asking carried penalties usually reserved for horse thieves.
Each child had a well-secured money bin, not for money, but for chewing gum which was traded on the market something like this:
“Will you go upstairs and get my book bag?”
“How much will you pay me?”
“I’ll give you a stick of gum.”
“Only one piece? No way.” (Don’t try to get something for nothing.)
“Then I’ll give you a whole pack on Friday.” (Paying later makes things cost more.)
“Okay, then, I want a ten-pack of strawberry bubble gum.” (Everything has it’s price.)
The traditional form of lending with interest was practiced too.
“Do you have a piece of gum?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have one?”
“Only if you pay me two back, or three if it takes too long.” (Interest never sleeps.)
Just to show you the regard our kids had for gum, I’ll tell you a story my daughter told me. She said that her best friend had walked all the way to town—about 12 blocks—to buy a pack of gum.
“Ha, ha, ha; she could have walked to the convenience store, but she walked all the way to town. She could have saved four blocks.” (If you work hard enough, you’ll get rich.)
“Yuk, yuk, yuk. That was so dumb.”
I’ll tell you about dumb. Only a gum-greedy capitalist would walk beyond the next room for a stick of the stuff. My daughter didn’t think that it was strange to walk a long way for a pack of gum. She only thought it was strange to walk farther than necessary.
Like the medium of exchange that most people use, gum tends to be unpredictable, and it has a destructive side. (Keep your legal tender in a safe place.)
The similarities end there because it doesn’t slip through your fingers. In fact, once used, it is non-biodegradable and indestructible, and you can’t get rid of it.
If gum gets where it doesn’t belong, you will have to live with it. And so will your children and your children’s children. (Be careful what you want, you may get it.)
Your children will inherit the piece that is stuck to the brass bedpost. Your nephew might end up with the gob that’s under the dining room table, which by the way will be free.
Real money, once you use it just sort of moves around the marketplace and isn’t really used up. This past week would be the exception. But no matter which kind of green you value—neither the most conscientious environmentalist nor the greediest capitalist wants to recycle chewing gum.
The stock market is “roller-coastering” and who knows when it will settle. Credit has gone somewhere, don’t ask me where. Congress is too busy passing bucks to be passing bills. And the “00s will likely be remembered most for the “great government bail-out.”
All in all, the horizon looks a little bleak. To lighten the mood, and since the whole crisis is about the “flow of cash,” I want to tell you about how my kids learned their first lessons in economics.
The legal tender among our children was chewing gum. If you had it you were rich. If you didn’t you were always trying to get “the government” you give you some.
In our house, the war-to-end-all-wars was fought over chewing gum. We had staff meetings to legislate rules for the proper use and control of the substance.
The components of the modern-day tragedy were two children and one stick of gum. Taking a piece without asking carried penalties usually reserved for horse thieves.
Each child had a well-secured money bin, not for money, but for chewing gum which was traded on the market something like this:
“Will you go upstairs and get my book bag?”
“How much will you pay me?”
“I’ll give you a stick of gum.”
“Only one piece? No way.” (Don’t try to get something for nothing.)
“Then I’ll give you a whole pack on Friday.” (Paying later makes things cost more.)
“Okay, then, I want a ten-pack of strawberry bubble gum.” (Everything has it’s price.)
The traditional form of lending with interest was practiced too.
“Do you have a piece of gum?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have one?”
“Only if you pay me two back, or three if it takes too long.” (Interest never sleeps.)
Just to show you the regard our kids had for gum, I’ll tell you a story my daughter told me. She said that her best friend had walked all the way to town—about 12 blocks—to buy a pack of gum.
“Ha, ha, ha; she could have walked to the convenience store, but she walked all the way to town. She could have saved four blocks.” (If you work hard enough, you’ll get rich.)
“Yuk, yuk, yuk. That was so dumb.”
I’ll tell you about dumb. Only a gum-greedy capitalist would walk beyond the next room for a stick of the stuff. My daughter didn’t think that it was strange to walk a long way for a pack of gum. She only thought it was strange to walk farther than necessary.
Like the medium of exchange that most people use, gum tends to be unpredictable, and it has a destructive side. (Keep your legal tender in a safe place.)
The similarities end there because it doesn’t slip through your fingers. In fact, once used, it is non-biodegradable and indestructible, and you can’t get rid of it.
If gum gets where it doesn’t belong, you will have to live with it. And so will your children and your children’s children. (Be careful what you want, you may get it.)
Your children will inherit the piece that is stuck to the brass bedpost. Your nephew might end up with the gob that’s under the dining room table, which by the way will be free.
Real money, once you use it just sort of moves around the marketplace and isn’t really used up. This past week would be the exception. But no matter which kind of green you value—neither the most conscientious environmentalist nor the greediest capitalist wants to recycle chewing gum.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Think before you ground
Whoever invented “grounding” as a form of behavior modification for children was probably not the mother, the nanny or the primary caregiver, whichever the case may be. In the case of my family, it was me, the mother.
The errant inventor was probably a behaviorist who had no kids and who sat in a soundproof, air-conditioned, child-free, dust-free environment and postulated that if a kid were cooped up in the house with his mother for a week, it would certainly change someone’s behavior. He was right.
I began to change into a really irrational person. After only a day or two I started wondering just who was being punished and tried thinking of ways to get out of the grounding.
After all, I was not the one who messed up. In one instance, short of grounding, I threatened to change the kid’s last name and let him move in with the neighbors. When that didn’t work, I threatened to change mine. It would be easier than changing the kid’s behavior.
When I ran out of threats, I grounded him. A little alarm went off somewhere in the back of my mind. But it didn’t ring soon enough or loud enough.
This kid should have grown up to be an arbitrator. When it came to dealing and compromising, he made Benjamin Franklin look like a rookie.
This is how it goes on Day One:
He shows up after school with a couple of friends in tow and says, “Mom, we are going outside and ride bikes, okay? I made my bed this morning.”
His reference to his voluntary act of pulling up the covers by yanking on one corner and then foul-shooting the pillow towards the head of the bed was all it took for me to temporarily forget that it is Day One. So I say something useful like, “Okay, be careful.”
An hour later I remember what day it is, but by then the kid is riding in the next county.
If I want to maintain a sense of control and an absence of guilt, I have to go find him which takes a while.
Then the arbitration procedures begin.
“I don’t have anything to do. I can’t play games because it is boring to play by myself, and I can’t watch TV because no good shows are on.”
“Go read your book.”
“I can’t. I left it at school”
“Go play with your trucks.”
“That’s no fun.”
“You go find something to do. Being grounded is not supposed to be fun.”
(Time passes—two whole minutes.)
“I’ll just go sit on the back porch and play with the dog.”
“Okay, but you can’t play with any friends.”
He won that point, so he assumes a new stance:
“Mom this isn’t any fun. I’m going to play in the back yard.” (The back yard is full of kids.)
“Do you know what it means to be grounded?”
“It means I can’t play with my friends.”
“Right.”
“I’m not going to play with my friends; I’m going to play with someone else’s friends.”
“What? No.”
“Well, if I can be ungrounded today, I will be grounded for two more days next week.”
“No.”
“Three more days?”
“Absolutely not.”
Now I can’t fit the rest of Day One’s dialogue into a single column, but you get the point. I do remember saying that grounding wasn’t supposed to be any fun. Believe me, it was not. But I never learned.
The errant inventor was probably a behaviorist who had no kids and who sat in a soundproof, air-conditioned, child-free, dust-free environment and postulated that if a kid were cooped up in the house with his mother for a week, it would certainly change someone’s behavior. He was right.
I began to change into a really irrational person. After only a day or two I started wondering just who was being punished and tried thinking of ways to get out of the grounding.
After all, I was not the one who messed up. In one instance, short of grounding, I threatened to change the kid’s last name and let him move in with the neighbors. When that didn’t work, I threatened to change mine. It would be easier than changing the kid’s behavior.
When I ran out of threats, I grounded him. A little alarm went off somewhere in the back of my mind. But it didn’t ring soon enough or loud enough.
This kid should have grown up to be an arbitrator. When it came to dealing and compromising, he made Benjamin Franklin look like a rookie.
This is how it goes on Day One:
He shows up after school with a couple of friends in tow and says, “Mom, we are going outside and ride bikes, okay? I made my bed this morning.”
His reference to his voluntary act of pulling up the covers by yanking on one corner and then foul-shooting the pillow towards the head of the bed was all it took for me to temporarily forget that it is Day One. So I say something useful like, “Okay, be careful.”
An hour later I remember what day it is, but by then the kid is riding in the next county.
If I want to maintain a sense of control and an absence of guilt, I have to go find him which takes a while.
Then the arbitration procedures begin.
“I don’t have anything to do. I can’t play games because it is boring to play by myself, and I can’t watch TV because no good shows are on.”
“Go read your book.”
“I can’t. I left it at school”
“Go play with your trucks.”
“That’s no fun.”
“You go find something to do. Being grounded is not supposed to be fun.”
(Time passes—two whole minutes.)
“I’ll just go sit on the back porch and play with the dog.”
“Okay, but you can’t play with any friends.”
He won that point, so he assumes a new stance:
“Mom this isn’t any fun. I’m going to play in the back yard.” (The back yard is full of kids.)
“Do you know what it means to be grounded?”
“It means I can’t play with my friends.”
“Right.”
“I’m not going to play with my friends; I’m going to play with someone else’s friends.”
“What? No.”
“Well, if I can be ungrounded today, I will be grounded for two more days next week.”
“No.”
“Three more days?”
“Absolutely not.”
Now I can’t fit the rest of Day One’s dialogue into a single column, but you get the point. I do remember saying that grounding wasn’t supposed to be any fun. Believe me, it was not. But I never learned.
Smart old wives' tales
As I was wondering about some of the good old superstitious notions (sometimes called old wives’ tales) that have prevailed through the centuries, and pondering how anyone could ever really believe them, I hit upon this breakthrough:
I don’t know about the rest of the population, but the old wives didn’t really believe such things. It was merely advantageous to promote them.
So here are some old wives’ tales, invented, quoted or perpetuated by “smart” old wives.
Just so you know, I have recited the occasional O.W.T. myself and at this point in my life I have enough years on me to have earned the privilege.
1. It’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. What the old wife really had in mind: put that umbrella away unless or until it rains.
2. Handling toads will give you warts. What she means: don’t you bring that creepy thing anywhere near me.
3. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck: quit dragging that thing around and put it where it belongs.
4. Never walk under a ladder: let’s put that thing away and not leave it out where the neighbors can see it or I can trip on it.
5. Find a penny, pick it up; all the day you’ll have good luck: maybe someone will gather up all the pennies lying around the house.
6. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (I am sure that the really smart old wives change the indirect object from “man” to “kid” and leave out the part about early to rise.): you kids go to bed and give me some peace.
7. Children should be seen and not heard: you kids pipe down; I’m getting a headache.
8. An apple a day keeps the doctor away: somebody eat these things up so I won’t have to make something out of them.
9. Eating dough makes you sick to your stomach: I made this dough and either I am going to eat it, or I am going to bake it.
10. Putting shoes on a table brings bad luck: I really don’t want to eat on this table after your shoes have been there.
Hang in there, wives. I know kids are pretty sophisticated and probably not very superstitious these days, but don’t give up control because of it.
If kids are rejecting these old wives’ tales, you just have to be a step ahead of them. You can probably think of something on the spot. How about “toads could carry West Nile virus” or “these sharp things on umbrellas could poke your eye out”? (Now that’s a new one.)
I actually did a little bit of research while writing this. I hadn’t hit my usual 500 words yet and thought I needed a little more material. So I came across this dandy old wives’ tale (maybe someone can explain it to me.)
“If you have chills up and down your back, it means someone is walking on your grave.” Last time I checked I didn’t have a grave for anyone to walk upon, and if I did, I wouldn’t be having chills; however the person doing the walking might.
It reminds me of the quote by the great baseball player and philosopher, Yogi Berra, who is neither an old wife nor dead, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours,” and smart old wife that I am, I’m not sure what he meant.
I don’t know about the rest of the population, but the old wives didn’t really believe such things. It was merely advantageous to promote them.
So here are some old wives’ tales, invented, quoted or perpetuated by “smart” old wives.
Just so you know, I have recited the occasional O.W.T. myself and at this point in my life I have enough years on me to have earned the privilege.
1. It’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. What the old wife really had in mind: put that umbrella away unless or until it rains.
2. Handling toads will give you warts. What she means: don’t you bring that creepy thing anywhere near me.
3. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck: quit dragging that thing around and put it where it belongs.
4. Never walk under a ladder: let’s put that thing away and not leave it out where the neighbors can see it or I can trip on it.
5. Find a penny, pick it up; all the day you’ll have good luck: maybe someone will gather up all the pennies lying around the house.
6. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (I am sure that the really smart old wives change the indirect object from “man” to “kid” and leave out the part about early to rise.): you kids go to bed and give me some peace.
7. Children should be seen and not heard: you kids pipe down; I’m getting a headache.
8. An apple a day keeps the doctor away: somebody eat these things up so I won’t have to make something out of them.
9. Eating dough makes you sick to your stomach: I made this dough and either I am going to eat it, or I am going to bake it.
10. Putting shoes on a table brings bad luck: I really don’t want to eat on this table after your shoes have been there.
Hang in there, wives. I know kids are pretty sophisticated and probably not very superstitious these days, but don’t give up control because of it.
If kids are rejecting these old wives’ tales, you just have to be a step ahead of them. You can probably think of something on the spot. How about “toads could carry West Nile virus” or “these sharp things on umbrellas could poke your eye out”? (Now that’s a new one.)
I actually did a little bit of research while writing this. I hadn’t hit my usual 500 words yet and thought I needed a little more material. So I came across this dandy old wives’ tale (maybe someone can explain it to me.)
“If you have chills up and down your back, it means someone is walking on your grave.” Last time I checked I didn’t have a grave for anyone to walk upon, and if I did, I wouldn’t be having chills; however the person doing the walking might.
It reminds me of the quote by the great baseball player and philosopher, Yogi Berra, who is neither an old wife nor dead, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours,” and smart old wife that I am, I’m not sure what he meant.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
I was conned by the best
At the risk of sounding dusty and nostalgic by writing about the old days, I am going to reach back into the dim past to the years when all of my kids were still at home and I was trying to keep the family functioning and the household solvent.
But with my kids, I didn’t have a chance. They were con artists. I don’t know how they got to be con persons. (Back then it was okay to call all of them “con men” regardless of their gender.) They didn’t learn it from me. I can’t even spin about what time we are having dinner. But they could talk a golf pro out of his clubs.
This is how they ran the trip-to-the-water-slide scam:
“Mom, can we go to the water slide today? Okay, hey you guys (loud enough for the neighbors to hear), we’re going to the water slide! Everybody get ready. I get the blue beach towel. We’re leaving at one o’clock. Mom, I’m inviting three friends.”
In case you didn’t notice, this was a one-sided conversation. It took only one set of quotation marks to repeat it. There aren’t any other sets because I wasn’t allowed to participate. I barely collected my senses in time to grab the phone out of the kid’s hand and say, “No you’re not. You’re only inviting two friends.”
Here is how I remember that the get-a-new-toy swindle worked:
“Mom, if I get all of my work done can we go to the store and look at baseball cards? I have my own money.”
“All right then, get your work done, and I’m going to check it.”
The mistake I made was in picking up on the “work” part of the proposal. I felt pretty safe because there was a ninety-to-one chance that he wouldn’t get his work done until after the stores were closed three days later. And the part about his having his own money didn’t escape me either.
But about an hour later I was confronted with a clean room and a deal I made. So we went to the card store, and the kid looked at the cards and picked out a few packs, all the while reminding me that he had brushed his teeth three times the day before, didn’t get any Legos for his birthday the year before, and that he got a couple of “As” on his first-grade report card.
When we got to the checkout counter, after the cards were rung up, the trap was sprung. “That will be $6.79, please.”
“Okay, where’s your money?”
“All my money’s in the bank. You know that, Mom; you made me put it there. Remember?”
(I don’t think, to this day, that I have been paid back.)
Then there was the get-a-ride-home-from-anywhere hijack which went like this:
I got a phone call, usually after my bedtime.
“Mom, can you come and get us?’
“I thought you were getting a ride home with your cousin.”
“He had to go to work.”
“Well, you will have to walk home then.” (We didn’t live twenty miles from town then.)
“Mom, we can’t walk home in the dark. Somebody might kidnap us. What are you going to tell Suzie’s mom if we get kidnapped?”
I know—it was tempting.)
At least I didn’t say that those were the good old days.
Okay, I know what you are thinking—that I deserved what I got. I should have been smarter or at least tougher than the kids. In my own defense, I can say none of them grew up to be actual con men. I think that they are all dumber than their own kids though.
But with my kids, I didn’t have a chance. They were con artists. I don’t know how they got to be con persons. (Back then it was okay to call all of them “con men” regardless of their gender.) They didn’t learn it from me. I can’t even spin about what time we are having dinner. But they could talk a golf pro out of his clubs.
This is how they ran the trip-to-the-water-slide scam:
“Mom, can we go to the water slide today? Okay, hey you guys (loud enough for the neighbors to hear), we’re going to the water slide! Everybody get ready. I get the blue beach towel. We’re leaving at one o’clock. Mom, I’m inviting three friends.”
In case you didn’t notice, this was a one-sided conversation. It took only one set of quotation marks to repeat it. There aren’t any other sets because I wasn’t allowed to participate. I barely collected my senses in time to grab the phone out of the kid’s hand and say, “No you’re not. You’re only inviting two friends.”
Here is how I remember that the get-a-new-toy swindle worked:
“Mom, if I get all of my work done can we go to the store and look at baseball cards? I have my own money.”
“All right then, get your work done, and I’m going to check it.”
The mistake I made was in picking up on the “work” part of the proposal. I felt pretty safe because there was a ninety-to-one chance that he wouldn’t get his work done until after the stores were closed three days later. And the part about his having his own money didn’t escape me either.
But about an hour later I was confronted with a clean room and a deal I made. So we went to the card store, and the kid looked at the cards and picked out a few packs, all the while reminding me that he had brushed his teeth three times the day before, didn’t get any Legos for his birthday the year before, and that he got a couple of “As” on his first-grade report card.
When we got to the checkout counter, after the cards were rung up, the trap was sprung. “That will be $6.79, please.”
“Okay, where’s your money?”
“All my money’s in the bank. You know that, Mom; you made me put it there. Remember?”
(I don’t think, to this day, that I have been paid back.)
Then there was the get-a-ride-home-from-anywhere hijack which went like this:
I got a phone call, usually after my bedtime.
“Mom, can you come and get us?’
“I thought you were getting a ride home with your cousin.”
“He had to go to work.”
“Well, you will have to walk home then.” (We didn’t live twenty miles from town then.)
“Mom, we can’t walk home in the dark. Somebody might kidnap us. What are you going to tell Suzie’s mom if we get kidnapped?”
I know—it was tempting.)
At least I didn’t say that those were the good old days.
Okay, I know what you are thinking—that I deserved what I got. I should have been smarter or at least tougher than the kids. In my own defense, I can say none of them grew up to be actual con men. I think that they are all dumber than their own kids though.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Olympic gold--is it worth it?
I guess that having the Olympic Games is good for world unity. And I guess it’s good that the athletes have a chance to be on the “world’s stage” and make history. You don’t have to be in Beijing to see them do it either.
With television coverage, the internet, and a few other media formats, you can “be there” while all of this Olympic history happens, live or delayed by only a little bit.
There’s a problem with all of this up-close-and-personal participation, though. It’s the kids. I now have about ten Olympic hopefuls—grandchildren who have picked their sports, set their goals and begun practicing the duly required number of hours per day. It’s driving everyone crazy though.
Some of their sports require complicated and expensive equipment, the kind that is only to be found in Olympic training centers. But that doesn’t stop them. They improvise. And they help each other.
For instance, the two-year old thinks that he is now a springboard diver. Yes, he got to practice his skills at the pool. It was great. Mom was there to catch him and of course he didn’t drown. He is getting the “double-lean, two-and-a-half hesitation crouch” down pretty well. He could stand to work on his entry, though. It’s not too clean yet.
Okay and all, but his parents aren’t yet ready to make the commitment that can take him to the next level. They need some more time to decide whether they want to change their place of residence to the rec center swimming pool.
So, during the interim, he has to practice at home. His improvised diving board is the couch which has plenty of spring, and he works out on it every chance he gets.
During one session, he watched the TV closely while a diver took a flying leap. and then he “copied” the dive. He showed good elevation and nice form for the first try. But it’s the entry; he still needs to work on the entry.
He suffered his first sports-related injury, and took a trip to the doctor, during which visit his form and sportsmanship were terrible, but I am sure he will be back in training in a couple of weeks, after the brace comes off the ankle.
Another grandchild caught the first-ever BMX bike racing Olympic event. “Now that looks like a sport!” She and her friend became the dynamic duo of the neighborhood. (They are eight now. By 2012 they should look old enough to compete.)
So they improvised with the gear for that, too. They used boards on the curbs for jumps. For their protective clothing, they dug helmets out of the closet and found their winter coats, snow boots, snow pants and mittens. Their mothers’ volleyball kneepads and some swimming goggles completed the cover-up.
Now I don’t know whether real bmx clothing has its own built-in cooling system, but the ninety-degree temperatures last week made it pretty difficult for the two of them to get in much training before they had to stop for water and a cool-down. In fact, a couple of times around the track like that and they were done with the gear.
About that time a third Olympic trainee needed a board to hold down his soccer net. So the BMXers, sans gear, crash and burn when they next shoot the curb. I could understand that accident if they still had their goggles on. The last I heard were these words: “Waaaaaaaaah. No, don’t clean it.”
Not long after that, the soccer hopeful slide tackles the board behind his net and thereafter needs medical assistance in the form of a few stitches to hold his knee together.
The “Olympic phenomena,” which is Butterbean for the increased incidence of visits to the ER during the month of August on leap years, sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term “Olympic Gold.” Dad may have to pawn his watch to pay the medical bills.
With television coverage, the internet, and a few other media formats, you can “be there” while all of this Olympic history happens, live or delayed by only a little bit.
There’s a problem with all of this up-close-and-personal participation, though. It’s the kids. I now have about ten Olympic hopefuls—grandchildren who have picked their sports, set their goals and begun practicing the duly required number of hours per day. It’s driving everyone crazy though.
Some of their sports require complicated and expensive equipment, the kind that is only to be found in Olympic training centers. But that doesn’t stop them. They improvise. And they help each other.
For instance, the two-year old thinks that he is now a springboard diver. Yes, he got to practice his skills at the pool. It was great. Mom was there to catch him and of course he didn’t drown. He is getting the “double-lean, two-and-a-half hesitation crouch” down pretty well. He could stand to work on his entry, though. It’s not too clean yet.
Okay and all, but his parents aren’t yet ready to make the commitment that can take him to the next level. They need some more time to decide whether they want to change their place of residence to the rec center swimming pool.
So, during the interim, he has to practice at home. His improvised diving board is the couch which has plenty of spring, and he works out on it every chance he gets.
During one session, he watched the TV closely while a diver took a flying leap. and then he “copied” the dive. He showed good elevation and nice form for the first try. But it’s the entry; he still needs to work on the entry.
He suffered his first sports-related injury, and took a trip to the doctor, during which visit his form and sportsmanship were terrible, but I am sure he will be back in training in a couple of weeks, after the brace comes off the ankle.
Another grandchild caught the first-ever BMX bike racing Olympic event. “Now that looks like a sport!” She and her friend became the dynamic duo of the neighborhood. (They are eight now. By 2012 they should look old enough to compete.)
So they improvised with the gear for that, too. They used boards on the curbs for jumps. For their protective clothing, they dug helmets out of the closet and found their winter coats, snow boots, snow pants and mittens. Their mothers’ volleyball kneepads and some swimming goggles completed the cover-up.
Now I don’t know whether real bmx clothing has its own built-in cooling system, but the ninety-degree temperatures last week made it pretty difficult for the two of them to get in much training before they had to stop for water and a cool-down. In fact, a couple of times around the track like that and they were done with the gear.
About that time a third Olympic trainee needed a board to hold down his soccer net. So the BMXers, sans gear, crash and burn when they next shoot the curb. I could understand that accident if they still had their goggles on. The last I heard were these words: “Waaaaaaaaah. No, don’t clean it.”
Not long after that, the soccer hopeful slide tackles the board behind his net and thereafter needs medical assistance in the form of a few stitches to hold his knee together.
The “Olympic phenomena,” which is Butterbean for the increased incidence of visits to the ER during the month of August on leap years, sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term “Olympic Gold.” Dad may have to pawn his watch to pay the medical bills.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Paper Chased
You have probably heard of the movie, “Paper Chase.” It’s about a college law student and the quest for that all-important piece of paper—the diploma.
Well, I am here to tell you that whoever turned that phrase, “paper chase,” only needed to add a couple of letters to come up with a phrase which is more to the point—paper chased. Ask anyone. The trick these days is not working for four years to acquire paper but to keep from being eaten alive by it ever after.
I’ll bet the character in the story, after he earned his diploma, settled down and bought a three-bedroom house in suburbia which gives him mortgage companies, banks and insurance companies to deal with. They will each give him a pack of paper an inch thick and tell him not to lose it.
Yes, I know. You were thinking that Bertha needs to learn to use online banking, Ebay, and e-mail. Well, I have. All it means is that there is now more than one way for computers to talk to me, which is another article for another day.
I remember when computers first came on the market, they were going to single-handedly save the forests and free up rooms full of storage space because we wouldn’t need to keep hard copies of all the world’s data. Well, there is as much paper as ever.
Computers have just made it easier to “make” more paper. Now everyone can make papers.
In order to try to solve the paper overload problem, inventors have done their best to help us sort and organize all of this paper. You can use any of the following tools to try to dispatch all of your paper: besides electronic filing there are paper weights, files, folders, staplers, round files, paper airplanes, trays, boxes, crates, scrapbooks, attics, day planners, fireplaces, cedar chests, recycling bins, cupboards, drawers, jockey boxes, shredders, binders, etc., but it is never enough. There are always papers left over.
There really is a paper tiger and if he isn’t growling at my heels, he is at least always right behind me breathing down my neck. What to do with all of the papers is the nail-biter. What will happen if I don’t keep this receipt? What if the IRS wants to see my medical expense records? Will I need to keep the fortune from my cookie? Where should I put it? What if someone comes to repossess my groceries? Am I covered? Well, the desk is, and so is the counter, and the nightstand, and…
The newspaper—not this one of course, but the daily—gives me a daily headache. I feel guilty if I subscribe to it and then don’t read it—which would be a big waste of paper, so I save it, hoping that I will get a chance to read it the next day. By then I have two to read. Try doing that for a week. I did finally unsubscribe and cut that much stress out of my life, but it is never enough.
On the days that I did read the paper though, I read, more than once about how many pounds of sugar Americans consume in a year. It’s up 26 pounds in the last 20 years to a whopping 135 lbs. per person per year. I am sorry to say that I probably eat and carry my per-capita share of that sugar.
Well, it can’t be more than the per-capita consumption of paper. Maybe someone has already figured it out. I might be able to find it here in one of these piles…oh yes, I printed it on paper from the internet.
“The per capita consumption of paper in the US is currently over 748 lbs.”
It’s a good thing I don’t have to carry all that around my waist.
Well, I am here to tell you that whoever turned that phrase, “paper chase,” only needed to add a couple of letters to come up with a phrase which is more to the point—paper chased. Ask anyone. The trick these days is not working for four years to acquire paper but to keep from being eaten alive by it ever after.
I’ll bet the character in the story, after he earned his diploma, settled down and bought a three-bedroom house in suburbia which gives him mortgage companies, banks and insurance companies to deal with. They will each give him a pack of paper an inch thick and tell him not to lose it.
Yes, I know. You were thinking that Bertha needs to learn to use online banking, Ebay, and e-mail. Well, I have. All it means is that there is now more than one way for computers to talk to me, which is another article for another day.
I remember when computers first came on the market, they were going to single-handedly save the forests and free up rooms full of storage space because we wouldn’t need to keep hard copies of all the world’s data. Well, there is as much paper as ever.
Computers have just made it easier to “make” more paper. Now everyone can make papers.
In order to try to solve the paper overload problem, inventors have done their best to help us sort and organize all of this paper. You can use any of the following tools to try to dispatch all of your paper: besides electronic filing there are paper weights, files, folders, staplers, round files, paper airplanes, trays, boxes, crates, scrapbooks, attics, day planners, fireplaces, cedar chests, recycling bins, cupboards, drawers, jockey boxes, shredders, binders, etc., but it is never enough. There are always papers left over.
There really is a paper tiger and if he isn’t growling at my heels, he is at least always right behind me breathing down my neck. What to do with all of the papers is the nail-biter. What will happen if I don’t keep this receipt? What if the IRS wants to see my medical expense records? Will I need to keep the fortune from my cookie? Where should I put it? What if someone comes to repossess my groceries? Am I covered? Well, the desk is, and so is the counter, and the nightstand, and…
The newspaper—not this one of course, but the daily—gives me a daily headache. I feel guilty if I subscribe to it and then don’t read it—which would be a big waste of paper, so I save it, hoping that I will get a chance to read it the next day. By then I have two to read. Try doing that for a week. I did finally unsubscribe and cut that much stress out of my life, but it is never enough.
On the days that I did read the paper though, I read, more than once about how many pounds of sugar Americans consume in a year. It’s up 26 pounds in the last 20 years to a whopping 135 lbs. per person per year. I am sorry to say that I probably eat and carry my per-capita share of that sugar.
Well, it can’t be more than the per-capita consumption of paper. Maybe someone has already figured it out. I might be able to find it here in one of these piles…oh yes, I printed it on paper from the internet.
“The per capita consumption of paper in the US is currently over 748 lbs.”
It’s a good thing I don’t have to carry all that around my waist.
How to get out of school shopping
When I was a kid, there was no such thing as school shopping. Instead there was a brief (about twenty minutes) and mild concern over whether a kid had a paid of shoes that were suitable for school (broadly speaking).
But things have changed since then and there seems to be a prevailing notion that stores close on the first day of school and will not open again until it is time for that other buying institution, Christmas shopping.
And so there is the ceremonious and stress-ridden rush to buy everything a pupil may need for the whole school year and put it away for the first day of school, which incidentally is probably the only day of school said pupil will be excited about it anyway.
But you don’t have to fall for it. I have been out to the stores on the first day of school more than once, and they were all open.
School shopping as an institution and the myth about the stores closing
forever is perpetuated by kids who are just trying to get more goods out of you, and the marketing industry which is trying to get more money out of you.
So don’t get excited—at least not about buying clothing and supplies. (Save that excitement for the really good things about the first day of school like the few hours of quiet that you will be able to enjoy.)
If you think the school shopping system is an institution you will have a hard time bucking, never fear, Bertha Butterbean is here, and she was a pro at finagling her way out of new wardrobes and such. Here is how you hold out against all the pressure:
1. Remember that on the first day of school the sun comes up and goes down as usual, in fact is it just another day, not even printed in red on the calendar.
2. Remember that your kid can only wear ONE outfit on the first day of
school He doesn’t need five new outfits for the first day.
3. Remember that the stores will be open on the first day of school, and the day after that and the day after that.
4. Remember that it is still summer weather when your kids become pupils. Remind them that only government offices, and not schools, are air conditioned. Stress the parts about turning red-faced and sweating which no self-respecting student ever wants to do. The point is that they can wear their summer clothes for a few more weeks, and their classmates will wish they were cool and comfortable like your kids will be.
5. Remind your children that is isn’t cool to show up on the first day looking like they never got any new clothes during the whole summer. It is better to wear something not quite new than to go looking like their social calendars had nothing on them during vacation.
6. You might also be able to convince the kids that they don’t want to go looking like they live for school.
7. A little persuasion may convince them further to hold off on the shopping until they see what everyone else is wearing. They, especially the girls, wouldn’t want to get caught in an outfit just like someone else has.
And now we come to the objective of the whole exercise. If you can contrive to get your students through the first week of school without actually buying new clothes for them, you’ve got it made. After that, everyone’s clothes are old anyway, and no one will know the difference.
But things have changed since then and there seems to be a prevailing notion that stores close on the first day of school and will not open again until it is time for that other buying institution, Christmas shopping.
And so there is the ceremonious and stress-ridden rush to buy everything a pupil may need for the whole school year and put it away for the first day of school, which incidentally is probably the only day of school said pupil will be excited about it anyway.
But you don’t have to fall for it. I have been out to the stores on the first day of school more than once, and they were all open.
School shopping as an institution and the myth about the stores closing
forever is perpetuated by kids who are just trying to get more goods out of you, and the marketing industry which is trying to get more money out of you.
So don’t get excited—at least not about buying clothing and supplies. (Save that excitement for the really good things about the first day of school like the few hours of quiet that you will be able to enjoy.)
If you think the school shopping system is an institution you will have a hard time bucking, never fear, Bertha Butterbean is here, and she was a pro at finagling her way out of new wardrobes and such. Here is how you hold out against all the pressure:
1. Remember that on the first day of school the sun comes up and goes down as usual, in fact is it just another day, not even printed in red on the calendar.
2. Remember that your kid can only wear ONE outfit on the first day of
school He doesn’t need five new outfits for the first day.
3. Remember that the stores will be open on the first day of school, and the day after that and the day after that.
4. Remember that it is still summer weather when your kids become pupils. Remind them that only government offices, and not schools, are air conditioned. Stress the parts about turning red-faced and sweating which no self-respecting student ever wants to do. The point is that they can wear their summer clothes for a few more weeks, and their classmates will wish they were cool and comfortable like your kids will be.
5. Remind your children that is isn’t cool to show up on the first day looking like they never got any new clothes during the whole summer. It is better to wear something not quite new than to go looking like their social calendars had nothing on them during vacation.
6. You might also be able to convince the kids that they don’t want to go looking like they live for school.
7. A little persuasion may convince them further to hold off on the shopping until they see what everyone else is wearing. They, especially the girls, wouldn’t want to get caught in an outfit just like someone else has.
And now we come to the objective of the whole exercise. If you can contrive to get your students through the first week of school without actually buying new clothes for them, you’ve got it made. After that, everyone’s clothes are old anyway, and no one will know the difference.
Monday, August 4, 2008
That might be overkill
Hey, I have lived through the feminist era. I believe that feminist rhetoric has been around for over forty years now, but that’s not long enough to change my mind.
You can’t tell me that men and women are the same. I’m sorry, maybe on some other planet—not Venus or Mars though.
It’s the way they tackle problems that is so different. And I’m not talking about emotional ones where opposite ends of the galaxy might describe the gulf.
I’m referring to just plain old tasks like putting a letter in an envelope, for instance. When women have a big letter and a small envelope, they carefully fold the letter until it fits just right. Men, well they start jamming the letter into the envelope. If it doesn’t slide right in, they use a little more muscle, and then a little more. Soon they need a new envelope.
I’m sure it has something to do with their being the stronger of the species: “Yes, I am stronger than this piece of paper and I can put it inside this envelope.” It’s like they approach everything with a “muscle mentality.” Now there’s an oxymoron.
My daughters and I have code words for the phenomenon. We can comment without the men in our lives even getting it.
It goes like this:
“Dad, will you empty my kitchen garbage can while I answer the phone?”
“Okay, hang in there. The weather is almost over. I have to see if it is going to rain.”
Dad rattles around in the kitchen and finally sits back down to watch the news.
Later, the women are cleaning the kitchen.
“Mom, remind me never to ask Dad to empty the garbage again, especially when I have a brand new $90 commercial can.”
“Was it ‘pull a little harder’?”
“No not this time.”
“It must have been ‘push a little harder.’”
“Well, actually—this might be a new one—it was ‘stomp a little harder.” Since the lid didn’t fly up to a ninety-degree angle and the garbage bag jump right out into his hand when he stepped on the “foot-pedal,”
he stepped a little harder. Now I need a new garbage can.”
“I get it. But what happened to the wall in the dining room? Someone is going to have to spackle that mess now.”
“Well, ‘my man’ was hanging that calendar you gave me, and it was a case of ‘square peg, round hole,’ if you know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah, I believe I do. And what about those chips in the front sidewalk? Was someone smashing ants?”
“That’s right.”
“Let me guess. He couldn’t kill them fast enough, so he had to ‘get a bigger hammer?’”
“How did you guess?”
“He got that from his dad.”
Me again: “Okay, but I still don’t understand why is his brother is limping.”
“Well, you know how those firebugs keep swarming on the driveway? So he was squashing bugs as well, only he wasn’t using anything but his feet. He could kill them fast enough alright since there were hundreds in a clump, but he simply thought that dead wasn’t good enough. So he…”
“He got that from his grandpa.”
You can’t tell me that men and women are the same. I’m sorry, maybe on some other planet—not Venus or Mars though.
It’s the way they tackle problems that is so different. And I’m not talking about emotional ones where opposite ends of the galaxy might describe the gulf.
I’m referring to just plain old tasks like putting a letter in an envelope, for instance. When women have a big letter and a small envelope, they carefully fold the letter until it fits just right. Men, well they start jamming the letter into the envelope. If it doesn’t slide right in, they use a little more muscle, and then a little more. Soon they need a new envelope.
I’m sure it has something to do with their being the stronger of the species: “Yes, I am stronger than this piece of paper and I can put it inside this envelope.” It’s like they approach everything with a “muscle mentality.” Now there’s an oxymoron.
My daughters and I have code words for the phenomenon. We can comment without the men in our lives even getting it.
It goes like this:
“Dad, will you empty my kitchen garbage can while I answer the phone?”
“Okay, hang in there. The weather is almost over. I have to see if it is going to rain.”
Dad rattles around in the kitchen and finally sits back down to watch the news.
Later, the women are cleaning the kitchen.
“Mom, remind me never to ask Dad to empty the garbage again, especially when I have a brand new $90 commercial can.”
“Was it ‘pull a little harder’?”
“No not this time.”
“It must have been ‘push a little harder.’”
“Well, actually—this might be a new one—it was ‘stomp a little harder.” Since the lid didn’t fly up to a ninety-degree angle and the garbage bag jump right out into his hand when he stepped on the “foot-pedal,”
he stepped a little harder. Now I need a new garbage can.”
“I get it. But what happened to the wall in the dining room? Someone is going to have to spackle that mess now.”
“Well, ‘my man’ was hanging that calendar you gave me, and it was a case of ‘square peg, round hole,’ if you know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah, I believe I do. And what about those chips in the front sidewalk? Was someone smashing ants?”
“That’s right.”
“Let me guess. He couldn’t kill them fast enough, so he had to ‘get a bigger hammer?’”
“How did you guess?”
“He got that from his dad.”
Me again: “Okay, but I still don’t understand why is his brother is limping.”
“Well, you know how those firebugs keep swarming on the driveway? So he was squashing bugs as well, only he wasn’t using anything but his feet. He could kill them fast enough alright since there were hundreds in a clump, but he simply thought that dead wasn’t good enough. So he…”
“He got that from his grandpa.”
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Nature's alarm clock
I live in the country because I like to be gently awakened in the mornings by the dim light, followed by the sight of the yellow sunshine grazing the high spots on the hills, and the sounds of birds chirping outside my windows.
I abhor alarm clocks, and prefer not to be jolted out of sleep. I am jumpy enough without starting off the day that way. In fact, I am apt to be late for work in the winter when the sun doesn’t rise early enough to keep me on schedule.
Lately though, my peaceful mornings have been disrupted by the arrival of a crazy feathered enemy who seems to have taken up residence somewhere near the eaves of my house.
Before you get alarmed and call PETA to report that I hate birds, let me disclose that robins nest every spring in the white fir next to the front deck and it is enjoyable to watch them hatching two or three birdlets, even though they make a mess on the railing. We feed a mega-flock of hummingbirds that flit back and forth among the spruces and quakies. We tolerate a yellow bird that thinks his reflection in the window is trying to cut in on his territory. Actually we should put that one out of his misery because he attacks his own image over and over again.
But the pellet gun is sitting right by the bedside, and Mr. B., after he is shocked awake, hits the ground running on tiptoe while pumping the air rifle. It is quite the sight so see him crouching behind the front door in his underwear, the barrel waggling out of the opening as he tries to take aim on the critter who scatters every time he hears the click of the pump.
Our squatter is a wily woodpecker.
Okay, there is not a shortage of wood at my house. The roof is shingled with cedar shakes, the decks are redwood, there is some kind of wood siding, and there are trees of all kinds way too close by to please the fire department, but does the woodpecker choose to drill any of those wooden materials where there might actually be bugs hiding?
No, he disdains the name that bird lovers gave him and he hammers each morning on the aluminum downspout!
With its hollow round shape, the downspout is rather like the C-sharp-below-middle-C pipe of the Tabernacle organ. The pounding sound resonates up and down the pipe as it amplifies, echoes and pours right into the bedroom window which has to be open to catch the cool night breezes.
I read that woodpeckers hammer for two reasons. One is to find, secure and eat any bugs that it locates in the materials it pecks. The other is to communicate. He signals the possession of his territory to would-be rivals. Well, if that is what he is doing (I assume it is since there aren’t many bugs in the downspout) and just in case he didn’t notice, I was here first. There wasn’t a woodpecker to be heard when I moved here.
Mr. B.’s shoot-at-him concept of relocation is ineffectual since this bird is faster than a speeding bullet. If any of you bird-whisperers know how to get rid of an impudent woodpecker who is not playing by the rules, I would like to hear from you.
I also read that you can adopt a woodpecker at the Wildlife Action Center (“Take action to help wildlife.”) If you want to take action, my bird comes free and without paperwork.
In the event that there are no takers, my other idea is to apply Bertha logic which suggests that I go down to Basin Rental and borrow a jackhammer which I set up under the rain gutter and use to send the more aggressive territorial signal. Do I have to do that every morning, or is once enough?
I guess if I think about it, “Hammerhead” is winning this argument. Every morning when he signals “Hey you, this is my district, you can leave now,” I get right up, and soon I get in the car and leave.
I abhor alarm clocks, and prefer not to be jolted out of sleep. I am jumpy enough without starting off the day that way. In fact, I am apt to be late for work in the winter when the sun doesn’t rise early enough to keep me on schedule.
Lately though, my peaceful mornings have been disrupted by the arrival of a crazy feathered enemy who seems to have taken up residence somewhere near the eaves of my house.
Before you get alarmed and call PETA to report that I hate birds, let me disclose that robins nest every spring in the white fir next to the front deck and it is enjoyable to watch them hatching two or three birdlets, even though they make a mess on the railing. We feed a mega-flock of hummingbirds that flit back and forth among the spruces and quakies. We tolerate a yellow bird that thinks his reflection in the window is trying to cut in on his territory. Actually we should put that one out of his misery because he attacks his own image over and over again.
But the pellet gun is sitting right by the bedside, and Mr. B., after he is shocked awake, hits the ground running on tiptoe while pumping the air rifle. It is quite the sight so see him crouching behind the front door in his underwear, the barrel waggling out of the opening as he tries to take aim on the critter who scatters every time he hears the click of the pump.
Our squatter is a wily woodpecker.
Okay, there is not a shortage of wood at my house. The roof is shingled with cedar shakes, the decks are redwood, there is some kind of wood siding, and there are trees of all kinds way too close by to please the fire department, but does the woodpecker choose to drill any of those wooden materials where there might actually be bugs hiding?
No, he disdains the name that bird lovers gave him and he hammers each morning on the aluminum downspout!
With its hollow round shape, the downspout is rather like the C-sharp-below-middle-C pipe of the Tabernacle organ. The pounding sound resonates up and down the pipe as it amplifies, echoes and pours right into the bedroom window which has to be open to catch the cool night breezes.
I read that woodpeckers hammer for two reasons. One is to find, secure and eat any bugs that it locates in the materials it pecks. The other is to communicate. He signals the possession of his territory to would-be rivals. Well, if that is what he is doing (I assume it is since there aren’t many bugs in the downspout) and just in case he didn’t notice, I was here first. There wasn’t a woodpecker to be heard when I moved here.
Mr. B.’s shoot-at-him concept of relocation is ineffectual since this bird is faster than a speeding bullet. If any of you bird-whisperers know how to get rid of an impudent woodpecker who is not playing by the rules, I would like to hear from you.
I also read that you can adopt a woodpecker at the Wildlife Action Center (“Take action to help wildlife.”) If you want to take action, my bird comes free and without paperwork.
In the event that there are no takers, my other idea is to apply Bertha logic which suggests that I go down to Basin Rental and borrow a jackhammer which I set up under the rain gutter and use to send the more aggressive territorial signal. Do I have to do that every morning, or is once enough?
I guess if I think about it, “Hammerhead” is winning this argument. Every morning when he signals “Hey you, this is my district, you can leave now,” I get right up, and soon I get in the car and leave.
Monday, July 21, 2008
How to waste not your zucchini
Well, we picked our first zucchini of the summer today—just the beginning of many more zucchinis to come, I am sure. I know there is a zucchini tradition—zucchini in summer is the counterpart of fruitcake at Christmas. And I will probably write about fruitcake in December if I haven’t already. But I am herewith climbing on the annual zucchini jokewagon in an effort to outdo all of the other zukesters.
Just so you know, my Mother tried to teach me not to waste anything. Along with a houseful of kids, she was the mother of recycling. My Mom was waste-free when waste-free wasn’t cool. And speaking of zucchini, we ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole month of August when I was growing up. Granted, there are a lot of ways to disguise zucchini. That is because they don’t really have any taste and can therefore be made to taste like anything—apple pie, spice cake, chicken casserole. If someone has a zucchini chocolate recipe, I would like to have it please.
I say that the most serious waste of all is unused zucchini. Having a seven-year supply of them squirreled away is no excuse for wasting the rabbit of the vegetable kingdom. Did I mix my metaphors again?
I looked it up—the word “zucchini” is diminutive of zucca squash. In other words, around here we grow the small variety. Aren’t you glad we don’t grow the large one?
So to help you be more green, (no pun intended), here is the Butterbean suggestion list of ways to use all that superfluous zucchini. Warning: this list is not mother-approved.
1. These are dog days. Use one for a doorstop.
2. Give them to your kids to make canoes to float in the bathtub. With a little imagination, they may be able to make other toys out of them.
3. Dry them and make kitchen witches. The color is perfect.
4. Use them for shoe trees. This will use up two at a time.
5. Let the kids play war with them. They make great grenades. My kids used to play a game called “bazoocchini.”
6. Slice the overgrown ones 3/4” thick and load them into your clay pigeon thrower.
7. Collect a representative sampling of them and take them to the county fair. You could “stuff the ballot box” by submitting courtesy entries for your friends and relatives. That one that tripled in size overnight could be entered into the largest vegetable contest. If it is a pumpkin contest, play dumb.
8. Box some up and send them to the IRS.
9. Try juggling some. They should substitute well for bowling pins. This method is most effective if you are a novice juggler. But novice or not, start out with several.
10. I think they might make good fish bait. Try a small one whole when fishing for bass.
11. Leave them lying around in the back yard. Maybe the dog will bury them.
12. Conduct scientific experiments with them. I should think that zucchini could be used to make something really useful like bio-fuel and with a little encouragement, which no one has been willing to give them before now, (no one fertilizes zucchini plants) could be made to out-produce corn as a crop. And unlike corn, if they disappeared from the food chain, no one would ever notice.
Whatever use you find for your extra zucchinis, remember two things: keep your car locked from now until first frost and never, never throw zucchini in the garbage, no matter what.
Just so you know, my Mother tried to teach me not to waste anything. Along with a houseful of kids, she was the mother of recycling. My Mom was waste-free when waste-free wasn’t cool. And speaking of zucchini, we ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole month of August when I was growing up. Granted, there are a lot of ways to disguise zucchini. That is because they don’t really have any taste and can therefore be made to taste like anything—apple pie, spice cake, chicken casserole. If someone has a zucchini chocolate recipe, I would like to have it please.
I say that the most serious waste of all is unused zucchini. Having a seven-year supply of them squirreled away is no excuse for wasting the rabbit of the vegetable kingdom. Did I mix my metaphors again?
I looked it up—the word “zucchini” is diminutive of zucca squash. In other words, around here we grow the small variety. Aren’t you glad we don’t grow the large one?
So to help you be more green, (no pun intended), here is the Butterbean suggestion list of ways to use all that superfluous zucchini. Warning: this list is not mother-approved.
1. These are dog days. Use one for a doorstop.
2. Give them to your kids to make canoes to float in the bathtub. With a little imagination, they may be able to make other toys out of them.
3. Dry them and make kitchen witches. The color is perfect.
4. Use them for shoe trees. This will use up two at a time.
5. Let the kids play war with them. They make great grenades. My kids used to play a game called “bazoocchini.”
6. Slice the overgrown ones 3/4” thick and load them into your clay pigeon thrower.
7. Collect a representative sampling of them and take them to the county fair. You could “stuff the ballot box” by submitting courtesy entries for your friends and relatives. That one that tripled in size overnight could be entered into the largest vegetable contest. If it is a pumpkin contest, play dumb.
8. Box some up and send them to the IRS.
9. Try juggling some. They should substitute well for bowling pins. This method is most effective if you are a novice juggler. But novice or not, start out with several.
10. I think they might make good fish bait. Try a small one whole when fishing for bass.
11. Leave them lying around in the back yard. Maybe the dog will bury them.
12. Conduct scientific experiments with them. I should think that zucchini could be used to make something really useful like bio-fuel and with a little encouragement, which no one has been willing to give them before now, (no one fertilizes zucchini plants) could be made to out-produce corn as a crop. And unlike corn, if they disappeared from the food chain, no one would ever notice.
Whatever use you find for your extra zucchinis, remember two things: keep your car locked from now until first frost and never, never throw zucchini in the garbage, no matter what.
You could starve here
Don’t you just hate it when you are hungry and you try to open one of those cardboard packages of something that have the little perforated half-circle spot that says “press here”?
You do press here and nothing happens so you press a little harder, but the box stays closed. You increase the pressure, which is a step in the wrong direction, and the box stays closed.
“Try again.” This time you carefully line up the curve in your thumbnail, to the little “perforation” line. Again you press here and and tho whole box begins to twist.
“Okay, I am smarter than this box of junk, and I am not exactly a hundred pound weakling either. Get a tool. A spoon. Push on the little curved line with the front edge of the spoon.”
You do, and the box collapses completely so that now the curved dotted line is lying flat against the adjacent side of the box and you now have a hyperextended thumbnail and a bruised ego.
“Okay, a different tool.” You look around for a something like an industrial box ripper, or a jackhammer, but unless you are a construction worker, you will be stuck with ordinary hand tools.
Against your better judgment, but in desperation, you pick up the butcher knife with which you start to saw, on the mangled box corner. The box slips causing further injury to your poor thumb.
“Okay, I give. This box is stronger and smarter than I am, and I wasn’t hungry anyway.” By now you are jumping up and down with your thumb in your mouth, but on top of the box. You think about getting a band-aid, but, with an injury to one hand, it could be a little bit tricky to get it open.
“All right, I lied— I am too hungry, and I’ll show you. I’ll eat something else.” You find another package of food in the fridge. This one says “cut here.” Let’s see, do I need a pair of tin snips or a band saw?”
“Well, I’ll try the scissors. Hmm, they were right here yesterday. They aren’t today.”
You really give up and decide to eat out. But you realize that you might have to avoid meals that come with those little packages of condiments. They say “tear here” or “lift here.” If they will and you do, you will end up with a rash on your shirt anyway.
I never know how to open those hermetically-sealed-in-space-age-plastic electronic devices either. I think that any package that requires an imported or exotic tool, say a plumber’s helper or a Sawsall to get it open should come with the tool, don’t you?
By now you realize that you need either a tranquilizer or an antacid tablet. But that seems a little discouraging. The antacid comes in a package big enough to hold a fish tank, and the tranquilizer has to be pushed through the plastic film before you can get to it. If you get it pushed through in one piece, it will end up under the fridge anyway.
Well, I could learn from my grandkids. They can open anything. That is probably because they either can’t or won’t read the opening instructions and therefore don’t use them, or they don’t mind what they destroy during the process.
After they open a box of cereal, you have to keep the rest in a sandwich baggie, or throw it away. You may need special tools to repair the kitchen, too.
It’s the same with cookies, crackers, a gallon of milk, a bottle of ketchup, cheese, lunch meat, yogurt, a carton of cream. They can open them all. Can’t you just imagine it?
By the time they get the container open, it is no longer a container, but hey, they are not hungry, and they are happy.
You do press here and nothing happens so you press a little harder, but the box stays closed. You increase the pressure, which is a step in the wrong direction, and the box stays closed.
“Try again.” This time you carefully line up the curve in your thumbnail, to the little “perforation” line. Again you press here and and tho whole box begins to twist.
“Okay, I am smarter than this box of junk, and I am not exactly a hundred pound weakling either. Get a tool. A spoon. Push on the little curved line with the front edge of the spoon.”
You do, and the box collapses completely so that now the curved dotted line is lying flat against the adjacent side of the box and you now have a hyperextended thumbnail and a bruised ego.
“Okay, a different tool.” You look around for a something like an industrial box ripper, or a jackhammer, but unless you are a construction worker, you will be stuck with ordinary hand tools.
Against your better judgment, but in desperation, you pick up the butcher knife with which you start to saw, on the mangled box corner. The box slips causing further injury to your poor thumb.
“Okay, I give. This box is stronger and smarter than I am, and I wasn’t hungry anyway.” By now you are jumping up and down with your thumb in your mouth, but on top of the box. You think about getting a band-aid, but, with an injury to one hand, it could be a little bit tricky to get it open.
“All right, I lied— I am too hungry, and I’ll show you. I’ll eat something else.” You find another package of food in the fridge. This one says “cut here.” Let’s see, do I need a pair of tin snips or a band saw?”
“Well, I’ll try the scissors. Hmm, they were right here yesterday. They aren’t today.”
You really give up and decide to eat out. But you realize that you might have to avoid meals that come with those little packages of condiments. They say “tear here” or “lift here.” If they will and you do, you will end up with a rash on your shirt anyway.
I never know how to open those hermetically-sealed-in-space-age-plastic electronic devices either. I think that any package that requires an imported or exotic tool, say a plumber’s helper or a Sawsall to get it open should come with the tool, don’t you?
By now you realize that you need either a tranquilizer or an antacid tablet. But that seems a little discouraging. The antacid comes in a package big enough to hold a fish tank, and the tranquilizer has to be pushed through the plastic film before you can get to it. If you get it pushed through in one piece, it will end up under the fridge anyway.
Well, I could learn from my grandkids. They can open anything. That is probably because they either can’t or won’t read the opening instructions and therefore don’t use them, or they don’t mind what they destroy during the process.
After they open a box of cereal, you have to keep the rest in a sandwich baggie, or throw it away. You may need special tools to repair the kitchen, too.
It’s the same with cookies, crackers, a gallon of milk, a bottle of ketchup, cheese, lunch meat, yogurt, a carton of cream. They can open them all. Can’t you just imagine it?
By the time they get the container open, it is no longer a container, but hey, they are not hungry, and they are happy.
Monday, June 30, 2008
“There’s a snake in my boot”
Hooray! It’s high summer. Time for festivals, snow cones, ice cream, baseball games the Fourth of July, parades and all of those wonderful activities that call to mind the summers of your childhood. No, I didn’t forget fireworks. I just saved the best for last.
Those small-town summer festivals are terrific. We went to the Pork Rind Heritage Festival in Harrod, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago. It was great! We bought three large bags of fried-on-the-spot pork rinds in three different flavors—crispy, regular and barbecue—for six dollars. They didn’t have fireworks that I know of, but they shot off the Civil War canon every fifteen minutes.
A few years ago, we watched the City of Louisville’s fireworks display from the banks of the Ohio River. They discharge twenty minutes worth of non-stop fireworks from barges in the middle of the river. It was great!
Last Saturday night we caught the fireworks while passing through Myton, Utah, from the car. They were set off on the sidewalk in front of the rest rooms at the city park. We know that only because Mr. B. was looking for the rest rooms, and during the extended lull before the finale we got a little closer to the fireworks than we realized. It was great!
We got in on some pretty good fireworks in Logan, Utah, a few years ago. They are fired from the middle of Aggie Stadium, but we watched them from the cemetery. Before that, though, we had a few fireworks of our own. Figuratively and literally.
Everyone knows that fireworks are dangerous. They must have some redeeming value, however, because even in Logan (the safest city in the United States) you can still buy ten-second Roman candles, snakes, poppers, and of course, sparklers—all without finishing Hazmat training or getting a hot work permit.
One grandson was taking no chances though. He suited up for Butterbean family fireworks by putting on his boots. They looked just like the !4” Ranger Extreme Rubber Firefighting boots except they were smaller and had frog eyes on top. Never mind that he was wearing his shorts instead of Nomex Assault Gear Turnout pants. All the other kids were foolishly wearing flip-flops with their shorts for which indiscretion they were duly warned.
The dads assembled their candles, lighters, and punks, while the moms placed their chairs well away from ground zero which kept relocating and so did the chairs. The kids surged backward as the parents yelled “stand back” and forward as the dads held each piece to the igniter.
In an order that resembled mayhem, each “firework” was finally lit, exploded, and enjoyed with obligatory “oohs and ahs.” The kid in the boots was joining in the festivities with the rest, except that he couldn’t jump up and down so easily. So far, so good.
In any quality pyrotechnic show, the sparklers are saved for last. That is because the dads are more interested in big firepower than in little sparks. The kids love the sparklers because they finally get to do something besides watch.
So the sparklers were passed out like dealing cards and a few of them were finally lit. The kids with their lit sparklers were darting around like overexcited fireflies. The sparks were bouncing off their bare feet and legs, and they didn’t mind the little prickles much.
All was well until the Future Chief of the Fire Department dropped a piece of hot wire from his defective sparkler into his boot where it didn’t bounce unless he did. By the time someone figured out that his yelling was for some reason other than hyperactivity, he had a pretty good burn. Something to forever remember The Fourth and fireworks by. A memory he is sure to cherish.
And when he does fireworks with his kids, he will be able to show them the scar on his foot, next to the strap on his flip-flop, and scare the heck out of them. And if he ever lets them light sparklers, he can say, “My grandma and I think that sparklers belong in the same category as Red Ryder BB Guns.”
Those small-town summer festivals are terrific. We went to the Pork Rind Heritage Festival in Harrod, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago. It was great! We bought three large bags of fried-on-the-spot pork rinds in three different flavors—crispy, regular and barbecue—for six dollars. They didn’t have fireworks that I know of, but they shot off the Civil War canon every fifteen minutes.
A few years ago, we watched the City of Louisville’s fireworks display from the banks of the Ohio River. They discharge twenty minutes worth of non-stop fireworks from barges in the middle of the river. It was great!
Last Saturday night we caught the fireworks while passing through Myton, Utah, from the car. They were set off on the sidewalk in front of the rest rooms at the city park. We know that only because Mr. B. was looking for the rest rooms, and during the extended lull before the finale we got a little closer to the fireworks than we realized. It was great!
We got in on some pretty good fireworks in Logan, Utah, a few years ago. They are fired from the middle of Aggie Stadium, but we watched them from the cemetery. Before that, though, we had a few fireworks of our own. Figuratively and literally.
Everyone knows that fireworks are dangerous. They must have some redeeming value, however, because even in Logan (the safest city in the United States) you can still buy ten-second Roman candles, snakes, poppers, and of course, sparklers—all without finishing Hazmat training or getting a hot work permit.
One grandson was taking no chances though. He suited up for Butterbean family fireworks by putting on his boots. They looked just like the !4” Ranger Extreme Rubber Firefighting boots except they were smaller and had frog eyes on top. Never mind that he was wearing his shorts instead of Nomex Assault Gear Turnout pants. All the other kids were foolishly wearing flip-flops with their shorts for which indiscretion they were duly warned.
The dads assembled their candles, lighters, and punks, while the moms placed their chairs well away from ground zero which kept relocating and so did the chairs. The kids surged backward as the parents yelled “stand back” and forward as the dads held each piece to the igniter.
In an order that resembled mayhem, each “firework” was finally lit, exploded, and enjoyed with obligatory “oohs and ahs.” The kid in the boots was joining in the festivities with the rest, except that he couldn’t jump up and down so easily. So far, so good.
In any quality pyrotechnic show, the sparklers are saved for last. That is because the dads are more interested in big firepower than in little sparks. The kids love the sparklers because they finally get to do something besides watch.
So the sparklers were passed out like dealing cards and a few of them were finally lit. The kids with their lit sparklers were darting around like overexcited fireflies. The sparks were bouncing off their bare feet and legs, and they didn’t mind the little prickles much.
All was well until the Future Chief of the Fire Department dropped a piece of hot wire from his defective sparkler into his boot where it didn’t bounce unless he did. By the time someone figured out that his yelling was for some reason other than hyperactivity, he had a pretty good burn. Something to forever remember The Fourth and fireworks by. A memory he is sure to cherish.
And when he does fireworks with his kids, he will be able to show them the scar on his foot, next to the strap on his flip-flop, and scare the heck out of them. And if he ever lets them light sparklers, he can say, “My grandma and I think that sparklers belong in the same category as Red Ryder BB Guns.”
Really business as usual
So you think you know what the world’s oldest profession is? Well, I am here to challenge that myth. I believe that the oldest and longest-running profession is selling lemonade. I am not talking about soda fountains or juice bars with 60 kinds of fruit drinks, or even general stores that sell everything.
I am talking about the traditional (understatement) lemonade stand, the one where the entrepreneurs are all under the age of eight, and the establishment consists of a fruit box or a chair with a pitcher of lemonade, some cups piled upside down on the “counter” and the poster with scrawled crayon letters that roughly read “lemonade 25 cents,” or denari, or euros, or round stones, or whatever is appropriate.
I expect that lemonade stands have been around at least as long as there have been lemons. And considering that probably no one has ever made any money selling lemonade, that is a long time.
How do kids manage to get the resources and the permission from their parents to set up shop? If the parents aren’t actually complicit, they must at least have noticed when their kids started pillaging the family stores for cups and Kool-aid or started moving the furniture outside.
Well, actually it’s easy for kids to get adults on board with this project. Parents concoct an idea of their own—they will use this opportunity to teach their little budding capitalists about business practices—assets, profit margins, production, etc.
By the time they find out that the kids don’t want to build a business model, it’s too late. Kids are only interested in gross income. They don’t want to learn about production costs or profit margins. So the parents shrug and settle. Maybe by default the kids will learn something about supply and demand.
So like smart little entrepreneurs, they get their production materials donated. Mom would rather raid the cupboards than go to the store with a bunch of overexcited kids who have no investment capital anyway.
With all aspects of the business model except a passion to be lemonade tycoons abandoned, they plunge ahead. They stir up lemonade under conditions for which the health department was invented, and they carry it outside. Here are some business ventures that I remember:
One day this last March, while driving through my daughter’s neighborhood, I was shivering and complaining about the falling snow while wishing that I had a nice drink of hot chocolate to warm me up. We noticed some activity ahead on the sidewalk that did not look like children making snowmen. You guessed it—the children had set up shop. They were probably able to offer lemonade without ice that day, thus cutting overhead costs considerably.
My grandson’s business model calls for running world’s biggest and best lemonade stand. He has gathered the production resources for a high-end stand where he will sell Brazilian Lemonade. He even understands that he needs a hot day on which to sell it. He is still waiting for a hot day though.
My nieces had a good idea for overcoming the problem of selling on a high-speed street. (They employed some sophisticated advertising techniques whether they realized it or not.) In order to get potential buyers to notice their stand and not drive on by before they knew what they were missing, they positioned one little salesperson 50 yards ahead of the stand. Her job was to jump up and down and in exaggerated forms of American Sign Language convey the message “lemonade stand up ahead on the right,” thus giving passersby time to slow down and pull over. I’m a little challenged with ASL myself, but maybe someone got the message. Their idea must at least partially comply with non-discrimination guidelines though.
I remember trying to sell lemonade once when I was a kid. We lived in Dry Fork, or the hinterlands as it was known then. My mom tried to teach me about “location, location, location,” but I must have thought that if I built it, they would come. I had a little table and a chair and I sat on my chair all afternoon. About three cars passed by and none stopped. I had to bring my lemonade back inside and serve it for supper. No one paid me for it either, which may have been a violation of child labor laws.
Actually, I would be very surprised if there aren’t applicable regulations governing the sale of lemonade from roadside stands. Probably kids should just give their lemonade away as they have always done. Otherwise they may find out that the business-model part would be the least of their headaches when operating in today’s business environment.
I am talking about the traditional (understatement) lemonade stand, the one where the entrepreneurs are all under the age of eight, and the establishment consists of a fruit box or a chair with a pitcher of lemonade, some cups piled upside down on the “counter” and the poster with scrawled crayon letters that roughly read “lemonade 25 cents,” or denari, or euros, or round stones, or whatever is appropriate.
I expect that lemonade stands have been around at least as long as there have been lemons. And considering that probably no one has ever made any money selling lemonade, that is a long time.
How do kids manage to get the resources and the permission from their parents to set up shop? If the parents aren’t actually complicit, they must at least have noticed when their kids started pillaging the family stores for cups and Kool-aid or started moving the furniture outside.
Well, actually it’s easy for kids to get adults on board with this project. Parents concoct an idea of their own—they will use this opportunity to teach their little budding capitalists about business practices—assets, profit margins, production, etc.
By the time they find out that the kids don’t want to build a business model, it’s too late. Kids are only interested in gross income. They don’t want to learn about production costs or profit margins. So the parents shrug and settle. Maybe by default the kids will learn something about supply and demand.
So like smart little entrepreneurs, they get their production materials donated. Mom would rather raid the cupboards than go to the store with a bunch of overexcited kids who have no investment capital anyway.
With all aspects of the business model except a passion to be lemonade tycoons abandoned, they plunge ahead. They stir up lemonade under conditions for which the health department was invented, and they carry it outside. Here are some business ventures that I remember:
One day this last March, while driving through my daughter’s neighborhood, I was shivering and complaining about the falling snow while wishing that I had a nice drink of hot chocolate to warm me up. We noticed some activity ahead on the sidewalk that did not look like children making snowmen. You guessed it—the children had set up shop. They were probably able to offer lemonade without ice that day, thus cutting overhead costs considerably.
My grandson’s business model calls for running world’s biggest and best lemonade stand. He has gathered the production resources for a high-end stand where he will sell Brazilian Lemonade. He even understands that he needs a hot day on which to sell it. He is still waiting for a hot day though.
My nieces had a good idea for overcoming the problem of selling on a high-speed street. (They employed some sophisticated advertising techniques whether they realized it or not.) In order to get potential buyers to notice their stand and not drive on by before they knew what they were missing, they positioned one little salesperson 50 yards ahead of the stand. Her job was to jump up and down and in exaggerated forms of American Sign Language convey the message “lemonade stand up ahead on the right,” thus giving passersby time to slow down and pull over. I’m a little challenged with ASL myself, but maybe someone got the message. Their idea must at least partially comply with non-discrimination guidelines though.
I remember trying to sell lemonade once when I was a kid. We lived in Dry Fork, or the hinterlands as it was known then. My mom tried to teach me about “location, location, location,” but I must have thought that if I built it, they would come. I had a little table and a chair and I sat on my chair all afternoon. About three cars passed by and none stopped. I had to bring my lemonade back inside and serve it for supper. No one paid me for it either, which may have been a violation of child labor laws.
Actually, I would be very surprised if there aren’t applicable regulations governing the sale of lemonade from roadside stands. Probably kids should just give their lemonade away as they have always done. Otherwise they may find out that the business-model part would be the least of their headaches when operating in today’s business environment.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Stop for the bend in the road?
All of you who deign to read the Butterbean rantings know by now that I am not necessarily the most logical tool in the shed. (See what I mean?) I have to ask dumb questions all the time. And I get humiliated by the answers all the time.
Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean that everyone else doesn’t. For instance, there are probably people who understand why boys wear their pants so low that they have to hold them up with one hand. I hope they aren’t talking on their cell phones while they are carrying their lunch trays.
So in view of that, (not the pants) can anyone explain to me why there is a stop sign at the corner of 500 South and 3500 West? There needs to be a good reason.
Excuse me, there is not one stop sign, but two of them. One so you will stop before you turn onto 500 South and one to halt you before you turn onto 3500 West.
Did you notice that I said “corner,” not “intersection”? This corner is essentially a bend in the road. There is only one way to proceed and that is around the corner unless you want to get out of your car and walk on the cow trail that continues straight ahead on what would be 500 South if indeed 500 South did continue past 3500 West.
Just in case you are getting a little dizzy, or you are like me, not too facile with your cardinal directions, I have produced in stunning detail, a map of the corner in question:
(Graphic here)
I heard there was a flourishing rabbit den straight ahead, past 3500 West on 500 South, up the hill and around the thistle patch, but I don’t know for sure. Beyond that there may be an anthill and many ant paths, but I don’t think there is an actual road. Some may disagree with me, but I am here to say that 500 South ends at 3500 West and vice versa.
So this is how it goes when I am on my way to Wal-Mart: I am driving south on 3500 West, and I dutifully stop at the stop sign and look both ways. I will be sure to avoid a collision if there is a rabbit careening down the trail from the west. I feel pretty sheepish though, looking off into the sagebrush in search of, I don’t know, a school bus?
And if there is a car approaching the corner on 500 South from the east, the other direction, it will be stopping for I-still-don’t-know-what since any rabbits should be in the other lane and not pose a threat. That other lane is wide enough for a bunny after all. It certainly doesn’t need to stop for me since I am already stopped and busily looking both ways. I probably create more hazards parking there wondering what I am waiting for than if I just made the turn, merged in behind the rabbits and continued on my way.
Well, I still keep thinking someone knows something that I don’t. Maybe this is the intersection from Jumanji, which might be the name of that movie about mad elephants running loose.
Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean that everyone else doesn’t. For instance, there are probably people who understand why boys wear their pants so low that they have to hold them up with one hand. I hope they aren’t talking on their cell phones while they are carrying their lunch trays.
So in view of that, (not the pants) can anyone explain to me why there is a stop sign at the corner of 500 South and 3500 West? There needs to be a good reason.
Excuse me, there is not one stop sign, but two of them. One so you will stop before you turn onto 500 South and one to halt you before you turn onto 3500 West.
Did you notice that I said “corner,” not “intersection”? This corner is essentially a bend in the road. There is only one way to proceed and that is around the corner unless you want to get out of your car and walk on the cow trail that continues straight ahead on what would be 500 South if indeed 500 South did continue past 3500 West.
Just in case you are getting a little dizzy, or you are like me, not too facile with your cardinal directions, I have produced in stunning detail, a map of the corner in question:
(Graphic here)
I heard there was a flourishing rabbit den straight ahead, past 3500 West on 500 South, up the hill and around the thistle patch, but I don’t know for sure. Beyond that there may be an anthill and many ant paths, but I don’t think there is an actual road. Some may disagree with me, but I am here to say that 500 South ends at 3500 West and vice versa.
So this is how it goes when I am on my way to Wal-Mart: I am driving south on 3500 West, and I dutifully stop at the stop sign and look both ways. I will be sure to avoid a collision if there is a rabbit careening down the trail from the west. I feel pretty sheepish though, looking off into the sagebrush in search of, I don’t know, a school bus?
And if there is a car approaching the corner on 500 South from the east, the other direction, it will be stopping for I-still-don’t-know-what since any rabbits should be in the other lane and not pose a threat. That other lane is wide enough for a bunny after all. It certainly doesn’t need to stop for me since I am already stopped and busily looking both ways. I probably create more hazards parking there wondering what I am waiting for than if I just made the turn, merged in behind the rabbits and continued on my way.
Well, I still keep thinking someone knows something that I don’t. Maybe this is the intersection from Jumanji, which might be the name of that movie about mad elephants running loose.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Our one-dogpower machine
I fondly remember the days when we didn’t have a pet. I used to be one of those people who disdained “pet talk;” in fact I thought I would never begin a conversation with a sentence like this: “Guess what our dog did today?” Well, I also remember doing just that. It was back in the days when our first dog was a pup.
The sad part of it is that I didn’t have anything to brag about. Our dog, Steve, had not done one cute thing in his life. He was too big and awkward to be adorable. He was too stubborn to get smart. He was too uninhibited to be dignified. He had no sense and he couldn’t see past the end of his nose, which, I admit, was quite far.
So when I stooped to “pet talking,” you can be sure that I was complaining.
First of all, this dog dug holes. He made craters in Father’s lawn; he dug under the neighbor’s fence to let their dogs out to play, and once he got a friend to play with he was prone to run off with him. (Once we found him a few blocks away from home, and he had to ride home in the truck with Mr. B. after an earnest lecture that ended with, “…and your friend can walk home.”)
And he dug up the flowers in the garden. Now if I could have taught him to dig weeds, I could run bragging to my “smart-pet” friends, but he only dug up valuable things. He didn’t even dig to bury things like nice normal dogs do. Why, my nephew’s dog once buried a whole loaf of bread, wrapper and all. Now that’s remarkable. Something to tell others about.
Secondly, he chewed. He chewed the neighbor’s sprinkler heads to bits. He chewed up baseballs, shoes, socks and big sticks. He could turn an aluminum can into crinkled confetti which he used for scattering around during dog conventions.
He ate those big rawhide bones for dinner—just chewed them up and swallowed them. (Expensive meal.) He methodically removed and chewed up the shingles from the roof of his own dog house. He also chewed up his own doggie rug leaving himself nothing to lie on but cold concrete. That’s what I mean when I said he couldn’t see beyond the end of his nose.
You would think that he would have known that he might want that bedding later, like the next time he needed to rest from his labors. Instead he was diligently working on pushing the limits of a dog’s endurance to new heights—like never resting.
What a waste of horsepower—or dogpower. I used to try to think of ways to harness all of that energy and find something useful that he could do.
I couldn’t send him to take out the garbage. That would have been like leaving the cat to tend the canary. I couldn’t trust him to guard the house. He stole more things than any thief would.
He was big enough to pull a plow, but I didn’t need any more plowing done. He had already turned up most of the back yard.
I wondered if he could push the lawn mower if I got it started, but he was afraid of vacuum cleaners, and they aren’t nearly as vicious as lawn mowers. Let me see…
It just seemed like we ought to have gotten something besides confetti in return for our investments of food, sprinkler heads, shoes, new lawn, shingles, etc.
Well, we were seriously working on getting him to dig in a designated spot. If he got that figured out, he was going to be digging post holes for his own fence. That I could tell the neighbors about.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Steve’s behavior was directly related to his age. Like everyone else he finally grew up and became a nice normal dog with a few behaviors worth mentioning in conversation—he could fetch and hunt birds.
The sad part of it is that I didn’t have anything to brag about. Our dog, Steve, had not done one cute thing in his life. He was too big and awkward to be adorable. He was too stubborn to get smart. He was too uninhibited to be dignified. He had no sense and he couldn’t see past the end of his nose, which, I admit, was quite far.
So when I stooped to “pet talking,” you can be sure that I was complaining.
First of all, this dog dug holes. He made craters in Father’s lawn; he dug under the neighbor’s fence to let their dogs out to play, and once he got a friend to play with he was prone to run off with him. (Once we found him a few blocks away from home, and he had to ride home in the truck with Mr. B. after an earnest lecture that ended with, “…and your friend can walk home.”)
And he dug up the flowers in the garden. Now if I could have taught him to dig weeds, I could run bragging to my “smart-pet” friends, but he only dug up valuable things. He didn’t even dig to bury things like nice normal dogs do. Why, my nephew’s dog once buried a whole loaf of bread, wrapper and all. Now that’s remarkable. Something to tell others about.
Secondly, he chewed. He chewed the neighbor’s sprinkler heads to bits. He chewed up baseballs, shoes, socks and big sticks. He could turn an aluminum can into crinkled confetti which he used for scattering around during dog conventions.
He ate those big rawhide bones for dinner—just chewed them up and swallowed them. (Expensive meal.) He methodically removed and chewed up the shingles from the roof of his own dog house. He also chewed up his own doggie rug leaving himself nothing to lie on but cold concrete. That’s what I mean when I said he couldn’t see beyond the end of his nose.
You would think that he would have known that he might want that bedding later, like the next time he needed to rest from his labors. Instead he was diligently working on pushing the limits of a dog’s endurance to new heights—like never resting.
What a waste of horsepower—or dogpower. I used to try to think of ways to harness all of that energy and find something useful that he could do.
I couldn’t send him to take out the garbage. That would have been like leaving the cat to tend the canary. I couldn’t trust him to guard the house. He stole more things than any thief would.
He was big enough to pull a plow, but I didn’t need any more plowing done. He had already turned up most of the back yard.
I wondered if he could push the lawn mower if I got it started, but he was afraid of vacuum cleaners, and they aren’t nearly as vicious as lawn mowers. Let me see…
It just seemed like we ought to have gotten something besides confetti in return for our investments of food, sprinkler heads, shoes, new lawn, shingles, etc.
Well, we were seriously working on getting him to dig in a designated spot. If he got that figured out, he was going to be digging post holes for his own fence. That I could tell the neighbors about.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Steve’s behavior was directly related to his age. Like everyone else he finally grew up and became a nice normal dog with a few behaviors worth mentioning in conversation—he could fetch and hunt birds.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
How to stay awake without really trying
Boy, am I ever prepared to write this article. I have just spent the worst night of my life.
How Third World peoples ever sleep on floors or woven mats I will never understand, because I can’t sleep in a real bed with a pillow-top mattress, box springs, sheets, down comforters, and pillows.
Excluding a water bed, in one of which I nearly froze to death, I have every kind of sleeping gear that modern industry can produce. But can I sleep? No!
This is how it went last night: I get into bed gingerly so as not to get my heart rate up or mess up the sheets. I fluff up the pillow gently, and I ease into “position number one.” That’s on my side. Two minutes later and my arm is asleep.
So it’s roll over and on to the next most “successful” position—my back. But about three and a half minutes later my feet hurt. The covers have bent my toes back, and they never took gymnastics.
Roll over and try something else…maybe…no, my elbow is poking my ribs. That won’t work. Try another ninety degree rotation. I am flat on my stomach now which feels great, except I need a snorkel to breathe.
I only have so many sides to try. Look at me and count—right, left, front and back. Yup, that’s four sides which is not nearly enough. After twelve and a half minutes I have exhausted all of the possibilities and not one of them could produce enough comfort to induce sleep.
I am back to side number one and the pillow feels like a bag of bones, the wrinkles in the sheets make depressions in my hips and they begin to itch, my nightgown didn’t follow along with the last roll over, and somewhere near the middle of the bed there comes a black hole sucking me up, bed clothes and all.
Then my brain switches into sprint speed. I begin to remember everything I ever forgot to do like take out the garbage in June of 2005. And what is the significance of remembering something so insignificant? Am I in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s?
If not that, then for sure a brain tumor. Maybe that’s why my legs are twitching. And isn’t my heart beating too fast? (If it wasn’t before, the specter of a brain tumor is enough to push up the tempo.) Oh, great, I’m going to die of a stroke right here in my bed and no one will ever know. No one.
Now my back and arms begin to ache. They are probably tired from straining to stay out of the black hole. Maybe if I get up and find something to fill it up… (Now even you are considering the probability of a brain tumor, aren’t you?)
While I’m up, I’ll fix the sheets. What is this lump? Maybe it’s a pea. No, it’s a sock.
What am I going to fix for breakfast in the morning? If morning ever gets here. Oh! I forgot I was out of eggs. What am I going to do now? Maybe it’s starvation that will get me.
What’s that noise? Besides snoring, I mean. Did I leave the space heater on? Did I pay the homeowners’ insurance premium last week?
I’m having a hard time finding a way to end this travail. I wish I could say that I finally fell fast asleep and lived happily the rest of the night. But I didn’t. Once I nearly got comfortable, but then my “bigger half” turned over.
How Third World peoples ever sleep on floors or woven mats I will never understand, because I can’t sleep in a real bed with a pillow-top mattress, box springs, sheets, down comforters, and pillows.
Excluding a water bed, in one of which I nearly froze to death, I have every kind of sleeping gear that modern industry can produce. But can I sleep? No!
This is how it went last night: I get into bed gingerly so as not to get my heart rate up or mess up the sheets. I fluff up the pillow gently, and I ease into “position number one.” That’s on my side. Two minutes later and my arm is asleep.
So it’s roll over and on to the next most “successful” position—my back. But about three and a half minutes later my feet hurt. The covers have bent my toes back, and they never took gymnastics.
Roll over and try something else…maybe…no, my elbow is poking my ribs. That won’t work. Try another ninety degree rotation. I am flat on my stomach now which feels great, except I need a snorkel to breathe.
I only have so many sides to try. Look at me and count—right, left, front and back. Yup, that’s four sides which is not nearly enough. After twelve and a half minutes I have exhausted all of the possibilities and not one of them could produce enough comfort to induce sleep.
I am back to side number one and the pillow feels like a bag of bones, the wrinkles in the sheets make depressions in my hips and they begin to itch, my nightgown didn’t follow along with the last roll over, and somewhere near the middle of the bed there comes a black hole sucking me up, bed clothes and all.
Then my brain switches into sprint speed. I begin to remember everything I ever forgot to do like take out the garbage in June of 2005. And what is the significance of remembering something so insignificant? Am I in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s?
If not that, then for sure a brain tumor. Maybe that’s why my legs are twitching. And isn’t my heart beating too fast? (If it wasn’t before, the specter of a brain tumor is enough to push up the tempo.) Oh, great, I’m going to die of a stroke right here in my bed and no one will ever know. No one.
Now my back and arms begin to ache. They are probably tired from straining to stay out of the black hole. Maybe if I get up and find something to fill it up… (Now even you are considering the probability of a brain tumor, aren’t you?)
While I’m up, I’ll fix the sheets. What is this lump? Maybe it’s a pea. No, it’s a sock.
What am I going to fix for breakfast in the morning? If morning ever gets here. Oh! I forgot I was out of eggs. What am I going to do now? Maybe it’s starvation that will get me.
What’s that noise? Besides snoring, I mean. Did I leave the space heater on? Did I pay the homeowners’ insurance premium last week?
I’m having a hard time finding a way to end this travail. I wish I could say that I finally fell fast asleep and lived happily the rest of the night. But I didn’t. Once I nearly got comfortable, but then my “bigger half” turned over.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)