What’s in a name? I assume that the naming of people, animals, boats, etc. became necessary when there came to be more than one of the same kind in a person’s domain.
If there were two girls in the family, something more specific than Girl was required if you were going to want to refer to just one of them. If a man had two horses, he had to name them if he were going to talk about them or to them.
There came a time in the history of the world, also, when it became expedient for man to name his cars. In the old days you said, “ I am going for a ride in the car,” as opposed to the bicycle, the scooter or the washing machine. There was only one car.
But when households accumulated more than one vehicle, it became necessary to differentiate between them. You could say you were going for a ride in the Ford unless you had two of them. Or you could say you were going for a ride in the white car unless you were partial to white vehicles. Or you could even be more specific and say you were going for a ride in the sports car.
But it is just more personal, creative and practical to give your vehicle an appropriate name. Then you are able to announce precisely, and to no one’s confusion, just exactly in which car you are going to ride.
It prevents annoying problems like running off in the car that someone else wants to use, or running off with someone else’s wallet, planner, lunch or lunch money that have been left in “the car.” (In the Butterbean family, car-hopping has nothing to do with Dairy Queens.)
The best names are clever, descriptive and concise. You can probably pass the naming duties along to the teen-agers in your family if you have been remiss or aren’t quite up to the task. They are clever. Just ask them.
If you are lacking in imagination, I am herewith passing on a list of witty car names along with a basic description so you get the idea. You should be able to take inspiration from this collection:
The Iguana is long and green with scales. The Pickle is also long and green, but with bumps. (Old, long and green is particularly stimulating to teenagers.)
The Gadget Mobile is equipped with every available option. The Rammer is one long, low muscle car. The Green Goose is a nearly-extinct Datsun hatchback. The Gray Ghost is back from the land of the dead.
The Rice Rocket is small and white and made in Japan. Orange Crush is a long-bed, heavy-haul pickup truck which is the perfect color for deer-hunting. The Dumpster has a dump-bed and is usually full of trash. The Twinkie is a yellow VW bus. The Marijuana Mobile is a van that is used to deliver flowers.
The Banana Boat is a yellow maxivan, and The Batmobile is the scariest car in town. The 8-1 refers to the truck with an 8.1 liter engine. You can see the advantage in not having to announce that you are going to drive “the truck with the 8.1 liter engine.”
You should be duly supplied with some inspiration now. Get naming while you have the chance. The spectrum of cars available for naming is rapidly getting narrower. There will be fewer kinds, fewer sizes, and fewer colors. What do you expect from government-issue?
You can forget names like Big Red, Black Beauty and Fast Eddy or anything else reminiscent of power, speed, or a dependence on gasoline.
But wait a minute, there would be greater challenge in naming cars when they are all carbon copies. Actually, I am getting into it already. What about The Sun Chip, or The Two-seater or Bioshock, or Bellybutton…no, I was not thinking of The Green Machine and neither were you.
Monday, June 15, 2009
My socks are one of a kind
Being as I wrote about shoes last week, I thought that I would move on up and report on the subject of socks. You may remember my fairly recent story about battling with the washing machine as well.
Although my washing machine didn’t quite eat one of my children, it does manage to regularly eat my socks. Fortunately, in recent years, it has not had to compete with a whole family of sock destructionists, which means that hanging on to socks is easier than it used to be.
You probably thought that socks were to be worn under shoes to keep feet warm and comfortable, didn’t you? My kids were quite inventive and devised a great number of alternative uses for socks which partly accounted for their disappearance, although they usually blamed the washer.
Socks can be used for grenades, footballs, baseballs, slippers, floor polishers, galoshes, skis, accessories for the backyard, sleeping bags for GI Joes, chewing materials for the dog, flyswatters, shoe trees, truce flags, kite tails and marble bags.
Fortunately some of those uses don’t necessarily require a complete pair of socks. However, when a kid needs a sock for a science experiment, he is not likely to look in the unmated sock basket. He is going to look in his sock drawer, and if he needs one sock, so be it.
Of course socks will come to sad ends that have nothing to do with being worn out under shoes when they are subjected to nuclear testing. And then the ones that aren’t blown up, chewed up, or dissolved, are just simply lost.
Lost! I am conducting my own personal investigation, and what I want to know is whether anyone has ever lost both socks of a pair. If you have I want to know about it.
Whose washer eats socks by the pair? My washer likes to consume one of this and one of that. The Butterbean demolition society operates that way as well. I never did see two GI Joes lying side by side in matching sleeping bags. It was rare that I saw real mates worn side by side on one kid’s two feet. Usually they wore the kind that “no one will notice they don’t match.”
Sometimes they wore the kind you would have to be colorblind not to notice they were mismatched. I used to select my kid’s school teachers based on their inability to distinguish colors. If there was one who was color blind, that was the one I wanted.
One of the dilemmas of life is deciding whether to throw away the remaining sock after the first one is lost, The alternative is to keep it, hoping the other one will turn up when the snow melts. But should you throw it out, its mate will turn up within the week.
By the same token, both socks of a pair do not wear out together. One day you will put your foot in one end and out the other of a sock. Close inspection of its mate, providing you can find it, will reveal a sock without a single blemish or a broken thread.
I fail to see how the “use it up or wear it out” adage applies here since it is kind of hard to use one sock of a pair at all in spite of what my grade schoolers used to do. So I tend to follow my own adage which is “throw it out and buy a new one (or two).” It took me a few years of squirreling away unmated socks to come around to that attitude though. I finally found that by the time I found the lost one I couldn’t find the found one.
One of my kids used to leave a pair of socks in his snow boots every time he took them off. I guess they just slid off more easily that way. One day he wondered why he couldn’t get his foot back in. That was when he pulled five socks out of one boot and four out of the other. He should try that with rabbits sometime.
So you see why there were never neat little rows of mated socks in their drawers—the washer did it.
If there ever were pairs in their drawers, those were the ones they wore outside in the rain or used to polish their shoes, which partly explained their range of color. My kids got to wear white socks once for each new pair. After that they could be any color.
Although my washing machine didn’t quite eat one of my children, it does manage to regularly eat my socks. Fortunately, in recent years, it has not had to compete with a whole family of sock destructionists, which means that hanging on to socks is easier than it used to be.
You probably thought that socks were to be worn under shoes to keep feet warm and comfortable, didn’t you? My kids were quite inventive and devised a great number of alternative uses for socks which partly accounted for their disappearance, although they usually blamed the washer.
Socks can be used for grenades, footballs, baseballs, slippers, floor polishers, galoshes, skis, accessories for the backyard, sleeping bags for GI Joes, chewing materials for the dog, flyswatters, shoe trees, truce flags, kite tails and marble bags.
Fortunately some of those uses don’t necessarily require a complete pair of socks. However, when a kid needs a sock for a science experiment, he is not likely to look in the unmated sock basket. He is going to look in his sock drawer, and if he needs one sock, so be it.
Of course socks will come to sad ends that have nothing to do with being worn out under shoes when they are subjected to nuclear testing. And then the ones that aren’t blown up, chewed up, or dissolved, are just simply lost.
Lost! I am conducting my own personal investigation, and what I want to know is whether anyone has ever lost both socks of a pair. If you have I want to know about it.
Whose washer eats socks by the pair? My washer likes to consume one of this and one of that. The Butterbean demolition society operates that way as well. I never did see two GI Joes lying side by side in matching sleeping bags. It was rare that I saw real mates worn side by side on one kid’s two feet. Usually they wore the kind that “no one will notice they don’t match.”
Sometimes they wore the kind you would have to be colorblind not to notice they were mismatched. I used to select my kid’s school teachers based on their inability to distinguish colors. If there was one who was color blind, that was the one I wanted.
One of the dilemmas of life is deciding whether to throw away the remaining sock after the first one is lost, The alternative is to keep it, hoping the other one will turn up when the snow melts. But should you throw it out, its mate will turn up within the week.
By the same token, both socks of a pair do not wear out together. One day you will put your foot in one end and out the other of a sock. Close inspection of its mate, providing you can find it, will reveal a sock without a single blemish or a broken thread.
I fail to see how the “use it up or wear it out” adage applies here since it is kind of hard to use one sock of a pair at all in spite of what my grade schoolers used to do. So I tend to follow my own adage which is “throw it out and buy a new one (or two).” It took me a few years of squirreling away unmated socks to come around to that attitude though. I finally found that by the time I found the lost one I couldn’t find the found one.
One of my kids used to leave a pair of socks in his snow boots every time he took them off. I guess they just slid off more easily that way. One day he wondered why he couldn’t get his foot back in. That was when he pulled five socks out of one boot and four out of the other. He should try that with rabbits sometime.
So you see why there were never neat little rows of mated socks in their drawers—the washer did it.
If there ever were pairs in their drawers, those were the ones they wore outside in the rain or used to polish their shoes, which partly explained their range of color. My kids got to wear white socks once for each new pair. After that they could be any color.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Need a simple character reference?
My kids think that they can tell all about a person by the shoes he/she wears. I think that someone once said that you have to walk a few miles in some of those shoes in order to understand that much, but I will allow that they are on the right track. Track.
They fully understand the importance of the right shoe to one’s social standing and relative well-being. I know because I have been shopping with them. Well, at the very least, shoes are indicative of one’s taste and style, not to mention one’s preferences in sports and exercise.
The shoe industry has certainly kept pace (pun) with every other segment of the fashion industry in terms of what it has to offer and to whom.
When I was a kid, we had two pair of shoes, one for church and one for everything else. If you had school shoes, they were just borrowed from one of those two categories and renamed.
Not anymore. Name a sport, and they make a shoe for it; which is good, I guess, if you have big closets and wallets. In fact, I challenge you to think of any activity for which they don’t make some kind of footgear. You might have to resort to catalogs or the internet to get them, but they are out there in abundance.
The name of your game is just one factor in choosing a shoe, however. You also have your image to consider. Say you need court shoes so you can sit around and watch TV.
Just what image do you want to adopt for TV watching? Something Kobe Bryant-ish; or maybe something a little more Tiger Woods, off the course that is, because golf shoes really wouldn’t be appropriate for taking in an “American Idol” segment.
Or say you need a pair for walking around in the mall. A comfortable pair of skater hightops would be just the thing. After all, you wouldn’t want to be sending out confusing messages. How my kids think they can tell so much about a person by his shoes is a mystery to me. Of course, I am rather uninformed and image-challenged.
At an outdoor theatrical production a few years ago, my daughters staked out positions right next to the flow of foot traffic so they could play their shoe game.
They lay on blankets on their front sides, and kicked off their own shoes. With their chins in their hands, they watched the feet go by. The object of the game was to see whether they can guess what kind of people have their feet in the shoes on review. Their whispered conversation went something like this:
“Oh look, this guy must be really cool. I saw his shoes in “GQ” (I don’t know why they read “GQ”), and they are so awesome. I wonder where he got them. Not around here for sure.” They all surreptitiously check out the wearer of the shoes.
“See, I told you he was cool.”
“And check these out. This guy must play basketball for U-state. They have their shoes specially-made, and no one has them just like that.” (I don’t know where she read that, maybe in “UQ.”) By craning their necks hard, they are able to take the guy in, clear up to his Adam’s apple.
“Whoa! I have to be right; he has to play for someone.”
“Hey look, this person is pretty cool. She has shoes just like mine” There was a tinge of disappointment registered in that announcement.
“Wait! They are mine!”
In stead of looking up to see who was wearing the shoes in question, she whipped her head around to see whether her own new sandals were still in the pile. They weren’t.
My daughter’s adult chaperone had quietly sneaked around behind the girls, put on her shoes, even though they fit like heck, and got in the line of traffic. All she had to do was keep on walking until she passed the gamers. (By then she was feeling really cool herself.)
My daughter was convinced that she was the first and only one in the Intermountain West to have sandals just like the ones she saw parading in front of her. For one bleak second she thought that someone else had found them too.
But that was only for a second. After she was satisfied that the wearer of the coolest sandals ever was not a usurper or the Intermountain Shoe Burglar in person, she steadied her breathing and was able to resume her position as “the coolest of all,” with her dignity and image mostly intact.
They fully understand the importance of the right shoe to one’s social standing and relative well-being. I know because I have been shopping with them. Well, at the very least, shoes are indicative of one’s taste and style, not to mention one’s preferences in sports and exercise.
The shoe industry has certainly kept pace (pun) with every other segment of the fashion industry in terms of what it has to offer and to whom.
When I was a kid, we had two pair of shoes, one for church and one for everything else. If you had school shoes, they were just borrowed from one of those two categories and renamed.
Not anymore. Name a sport, and they make a shoe for it; which is good, I guess, if you have big closets and wallets. In fact, I challenge you to think of any activity for which they don’t make some kind of footgear. You might have to resort to catalogs or the internet to get them, but they are out there in abundance.
The name of your game is just one factor in choosing a shoe, however. You also have your image to consider. Say you need court shoes so you can sit around and watch TV.
Just what image do you want to adopt for TV watching? Something Kobe Bryant-ish; or maybe something a little more Tiger Woods, off the course that is, because golf shoes really wouldn’t be appropriate for taking in an “American Idol” segment.
Or say you need a pair for walking around in the mall. A comfortable pair of skater hightops would be just the thing. After all, you wouldn’t want to be sending out confusing messages. How my kids think they can tell so much about a person by his shoes is a mystery to me. Of course, I am rather uninformed and image-challenged.
At an outdoor theatrical production a few years ago, my daughters staked out positions right next to the flow of foot traffic so they could play their shoe game.
They lay on blankets on their front sides, and kicked off their own shoes. With their chins in their hands, they watched the feet go by. The object of the game was to see whether they can guess what kind of people have their feet in the shoes on review. Their whispered conversation went something like this:
“Oh look, this guy must be really cool. I saw his shoes in “GQ” (I don’t know why they read “GQ”), and they are so awesome. I wonder where he got them. Not around here for sure.” They all surreptitiously check out the wearer of the shoes.
“See, I told you he was cool.”
“And check these out. This guy must play basketball for U-state. They have their shoes specially-made, and no one has them just like that.” (I don’t know where she read that, maybe in “UQ.”) By craning their necks hard, they are able to take the guy in, clear up to his Adam’s apple.
“Whoa! I have to be right; he has to play for someone.”
“Hey look, this person is pretty cool. She has shoes just like mine” There was a tinge of disappointment registered in that announcement.
“Wait! They are mine!”
In stead of looking up to see who was wearing the shoes in question, she whipped her head around to see whether her own new sandals were still in the pile. They weren’t.
My daughter’s adult chaperone had quietly sneaked around behind the girls, put on her shoes, even though they fit like heck, and got in the line of traffic. All she had to do was keep on walking until she passed the gamers. (By then she was feeling really cool herself.)
My daughter was convinced that she was the first and only one in the Intermountain West to have sandals just like the ones she saw parading in front of her. For one bleak second she thought that someone else had found them too.
But that was only for a second. After she was satisfied that the wearer of the coolest sandals ever was not a usurper or the Intermountain Shoe Burglar in person, she steadied her breathing and was able to resume her position as “the coolest of all,” with her dignity and image mostly intact.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Negotiating the “security” gauntlet
There is no such thing as a non-stop flight anymore. What that does to the flying population is introduce them all to the inside of an ever-increasing number of airport terminals.
I don’t think that they will ever get overly familiar with them though. During our trip last week, the PA announcer requested that if there were anyone in the airport who spoke Spanish, they were needed at the southwest baggage service area. Well, I don’t speak much Spanish, but conjugating the verb “volar” would be easier than telling which direction was southwest.
It also means that whenever they book a destination, they are going to have to take off and land more than once. That part of the experience gives many people ascent/descent disease which is characterized by white knuckles, sweaty palms, and anxiety.
But all that is nothing to compare with the experience of negotiating airline security which causes the onset of hysteria. Thankfully travelers only have to do that once per destination.
I wouldn’t want to discourage you, but in case you haven’t flown in the last ten years, this is how it goes.
First you stand in one of the lines which they try to make you think is short. They do that by guiding you through a narrow maze of ninety degree turns like the ordering line at Wendy’s. By the time you have arrived at checkpoint A, you have already traveled 50 feet in detours which is a good ten feet as the crow flies. At Wendy’s, however, you get a juicy hamburger at the end of the line.
At airport security they tempt you with this delectable treat: you are abandoned barefoot and standing at the tail end of a high-speed conveyor belt with your driver’s license between your teeth, your hat on sideways and your belongings piling up on your unprotected toes.
When you finally gather up all of your clothing and other necessities, it is your job to get dressed while hopping quickly away from the unloading area which is a bleak, uncarpeted, and chairless space where spectators watch you try to dress using no available extremities, with or without opposable thumbs, while hopping around on one foot.
Believe it or not, emerging on the other side of “security” with half of your clothes in your hand means that the worst part of the ordeal is over. If you were still in there somewhere--in the uncharted reaches of “security”--someone would be trying on your underwear, weighing your bag of Barbie toiletries, and confiscating (recycling) your nail clippers and your key chain while the agent at your gate half a mile away is boarding rows ten and higher.
Entering “security” is about the same as leaving, only you are apt to drop your picture ID three times while trying to trap it against your slippery toiletries bag with your opposable thumb while removing everything from the pocket on the opposing side of your body with your opposable thumb stuck on the outside.
Last week when we were obliged to go through airport security, every time I turned around, literally, Mr. B.’s driver’s license was on the floor. Mine, incidentally, was behind my ear.
So the Columbus Airport (CMH) has one of the worst areas that I have ever had the misfortune to emerge from security into. Right out of the X-ray machine and just past the conveyor belt you are faced with an escalator. People ahead of me were in various stages of undress all the way up it and around the corners toward the gates where airport personnel in charge of customer satisfaction had most conveniently placed some chairs. Remember you are shoeless, dragging a bag or two which you have not had time to properly close, and holding your pants up like a hip-hopper.
So naturally I complained to Mr. B. that I was afraid that my sagging socks were going to get caught in the escalator.
“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked.
I checked the availability of his opposable thumbs, rolled my eyes and replied, “Not with the way you drop things.”
I don’t think that they will ever get overly familiar with them though. During our trip last week, the PA announcer requested that if there were anyone in the airport who spoke Spanish, they were needed at the southwest baggage service area. Well, I don’t speak much Spanish, but conjugating the verb “volar” would be easier than telling which direction was southwest.
It also means that whenever they book a destination, they are going to have to take off and land more than once. That part of the experience gives many people ascent/descent disease which is characterized by white knuckles, sweaty palms, and anxiety.
But all that is nothing to compare with the experience of negotiating airline security which causes the onset of hysteria. Thankfully travelers only have to do that once per destination.
I wouldn’t want to discourage you, but in case you haven’t flown in the last ten years, this is how it goes.
First you stand in one of the lines which they try to make you think is short. They do that by guiding you through a narrow maze of ninety degree turns like the ordering line at Wendy’s. By the time you have arrived at checkpoint A, you have already traveled 50 feet in detours which is a good ten feet as the crow flies. At Wendy’s, however, you get a juicy hamburger at the end of the line.
At airport security they tempt you with this delectable treat: you are abandoned barefoot and standing at the tail end of a high-speed conveyor belt with your driver’s license between your teeth, your hat on sideways and your belongings piling up on your unprotected toes.
When you finally gather up all of your clothing and other necessities, it is your job to get dressed while hopping quickly away from the unloading area which is a bleak, uncarpeted, and chairless space where spectators watch you try to dress using no available extremities, with or without opposable thumbs, while hopping around on one foot.
Believe it or not, emerging on the other side of “security” with half of your clothes in your hand means that the worst part of the ordeal is over. If you were still in there somewhere--in the uncharted reaches of “security”--someone would be trying on your underwear, weighing your bag of Barbie toiletries, and confiscating (recycling) your nail clippers and your key chain while the agent at your gate half a mile away is boarding rows ten and higher.
Entering “security” is about the same as leaving, only you are apt to drop your picture ID three times while trying to trap it against your slippery toiletries bag with your opposable thumb while removing everything from the pocket on the opposing side of your body with your opposable thumb stuck on the outside.
Last week when we were obliged to go through airport security, every time I turned around, literally, Mr. B.’s driver’s license was on the floor. Mine, incidentally, was behind my ear.
So the Columbus Airport (CMH) has one of the worst areas that I have ever had the misfortune to emerge from security into. Right out of the X-ray machine and just past the conveyor belt you are faced with an escalator. People ahead of me were in various stages of undress all the way up it and around the corners toward the gates where airport personnel in charge of customer satisfaction had most conveniently placed some chairs. Remember you are shoeless, dragging a bag or two which you have not had time to properly close, and holding your pants up like a hip-hopper.
So naturally I complained to Mr. B. that I was afraid that my sagging socks were going to get caught in the escalator.
“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked.
I checked the availability of his opposable thumbs, rolled my eyes and replied, “Not with the way you drop things.”
Learn safety by accident?
After last week’s article on the perverseness of machinery, I thought it might be helpful to follow up with one on the subject of safety—for my own good.
I did a little research on the topic and found out two things. First, there are lots of people who are approximately at the same level of safety consciousness that I am; and, second, that there is a long list of organizations, agencies, and departments whose job it is no keep us all safe.
Owing to the fact that there is an internet (which itself has some safety issues) there are literally at my fingertips, and yours, thousands of sites to help educate us on the subject of safety. Reading some of them could cause you to fall asleep and hit your face on your keyboard. Others might cause you to fall down due to excessive laughter.
Some of the fall-down-laughing sites are the ones with titles like “Funny Insurance Claims.” Apparently the writing skills of the claimants directly correlate to their proneness to accidents. Ostensibly that factor doesn’t apply in my case.
Here are a few vehicle accident descriptions from the “Swap Meet Dave” website that I simply have to pass on:
1. The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went to rest in a bush with just his rear end showing.
2. As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
3. The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.
4. I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.
5. I left for work this morning at 7 a.m. as usual when I collided straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early.
I once read a consumer safety article which reported that most accidents happen either at work or at home or at play. I assume that this groundbreaking bit of information is available to the realm of human knowledge only because there was a study or two done to confirm it. I look at it this way: there isn’t much else besides the activity of sleeping and not too many people are using knives or machinery while they sleep.
I guess it is the work dimension of our lives that produces some of the most intensive programs for enhancing our safety. Maybe there is no such thing as an accident—only careless, and thoughtless behavior of which there must be plenty even outside of the Butterbean household. Safety engineers try to help us overcome those deficits by thinking and caring. To that end they devise checklists, forms, tips, disclaimers and reminders and slogans to keep us all safe and keep manufacturers out of court. .
These slogans were meant to get you thinking: “Crushed hands or missing fingers may affect your golf swing.”-- and “Protect your hands, you need them to pick up your paycheck.” I am adding “Don’t deserve a ‘break’ today.”
At my other job, I saw a six-page safety checklist for construction workers beginning a job which required a truck. I think the whole ideas of the lengthy form was to keep construction workers in the office filling out forms where injuries could be reduced to the kind for which they might not have to fill out the ten-page worker’s compensation claim form—injuries like paper cuts, writer’s cramp, bruises inflicted by keyboards, and headaches.
I did a little research on the topic and found out two things. First, there are lots of people who are approximately at the same level of safety consciousness that I am; and, second, that there is a long list of organizations, agencies, and departments whose job it is no keep us all safe.
Owing to the fact that there is an internet (which itself has some safety issues) there are literally at my fingertips, and yours, thousands of sites to help educate us on the subject of safety. Reading some of them could cause you to fall asleep and hit your face on your keyboard. Others might cause you to fall down due to excessive laughter.
Some of the fall-down-laughing sites are the ones with titles like “Funny Insurance Claims.” Apparently the writing skills of the claimants directly correlate to their proneness to accidents. Ostensibly that factor doesn’t apply in my case.
Here are a few vehicle accident descriptions from the “Swap Meet Dave” website that I simply have to pass on:
1. The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went to rest in a bush with just his rear end showing.
2. As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
3. The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.
4. I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.
5. I left for work this morning at 7 a.m. as usual when I collided straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early.
I once read a consumer safety article which reported that most accidents happen either at work or at home or at play. I assume that this groundbreaking bit of information is available to the realm of human knowledge only because there was a study or two done to confirm it. I look at it this way: there isn’t much else besides the activity of sleeping and not too many people are using knives or machinery while they sleep.
I guess it is the work dimension of our lives that produces some of the most intensive programs for enhancing our safety. Maybe there is no such thing as an accident—only careless, and thoughtless behavior of which there must be plenty even outside of the Butterbean household. Safety engineers try to help us overcome those deficits by thinking and caring. To that end they devise checklists, forms, tips, disclaimers and reminders and slogans to keep us all safe and keep manufacturers out of court. .
These slogans were meant to get you thinking: “Crushed hands or missing fingers may affect your golf swing.”-- and “Protect your hands, you need them to pick up your paycheck.” I am adding “Don’t deserve a ‘break’ today.”
At my other job, I saw a six-page safety checklist for construction workers beginning a job which required a truck. I think the whole ideas of the lengthy form was to keep construction workers in the office filling out forms where injuries could be reduced to the kind for which they might not have to fill out the ten-page worker’s compensation claim form—injuries like paper cuts, writer’s cramp, bruises inflicted by keyboards, and headaches.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Watch out for mulish machinery
I realize that the effectiveness of any mechanical or electrical tool is largely a function of the operator—that any machine is only a good as the “nut behind the wheel,” but I have come across some dangerous appliances in my life.
Not to worry too much. I don’t touch the really menacing ones like chainsaws or lawnmowers so I haven’t yet been hospitalized by anything from the machine shop; but my calling in life requires me to occasionally use washers, dryers, toasters, and irons, all of which can be spiteful.
And just so you don’t think that I am mechanically disabled and that to keep me safe members of my family have to operate all of the equipment for me, I am going to share a story on one of them as well as one on myself.
Everybody in my family cooks—not necessarily well, but they all get into the act. My teenaged daughter once literally got tangled up with the mixer. (No, this is not a story about mechanically braiding hair.) I believe it began with a rubber scraper in the left hand and a mixer in the right hand, and one too many samplings of the chocolate cake batter while mixing.
When the scraper got a little too close to the beaters, they jumped out and sucked the scraper right into the whirlpool, and the hand in charge got spun right in with it. From the other side of the room, there was little I could do to help. Actually, I was quite mesmerized by the whole chain of events and just stood staring.
I watched as she got the mixer stopped and her hand out of the maelstrom. I don’t usually express any other sentiment than fear, anxiety, or “losing it” when my kids have an accident, but this time I have to admit that my reaction was skewed, but not as much as her hand. When she held it up, there were fingers pointing in every direction and an unnatural backward declination in the middle of it all.
I am sorry to say that I burst out laughing and didn’t stop for quite some time, a blunder for which I have never been forgiven. I should have stuck with losing it. Happily the awry digits all eventually resumed their former positions, except for the index finger which has been pointed at me ever since.
As you can see, when they want to be, mechanical devices are diabolical. The following story is something of a family secret, and I have recounted it only once or twice. I think the seven-year statute of limitation has long since run out, so I can tell it without fear of being hauled off to jail. Only the passage of much time and some distance allow me to tell it now.
You mothers know what kind of schemes you resort to in order to get some work accomplished when you have a baby in tow and his preferred method being towed is on your hip. Entertaining baby becomes a rather desperate occupation sometimes.
Well, this particular baby was spellbound by the water swishing around in the washing machine. (Sort of like television except with the water element added.) So while I filled it, I let him sit on the adjacent mechanical device, the dryer. Mind you, I didn’t walk into the next room, nor was I distracted by the phone or anything else. My two feet were right in front of the dryer the whole time.
I bent down to pick up the next piece of laundry, and when I stood up, baby had vanished! I think it was like that scene in Lord of the Rings when Frodo stares into the water and keeps leaning toward it until he tips into the pool with the grateful dead or whatever they were called.
Well, you guessed it. What I saw of my baby was his two feet periscoped above the wash water, and they were agitating back and forth just like the towels were. At least there were two of something to grab which I quickly did and heaved. A spluttering, drenched, baby was hauled safely away from the depths of the beguiling and voracious washing machine. Luckily, Baby only sustained a few knots on the head and one tiny cut, but on a permanent basis he seems to be none the worse for wash-and-wear.
Nevertheless, this diatribe comes with the following warning:
Given its perversity, never operate mechanical equipment while under the influence of chocolate or while in any quantitative state of mental distraction or loss of mind.
Not to worry too much. I don’t touch the really menacing ones like chainsaws or lawnmowers so I haven’t yet been hospitalized by anything from the machine shop; but my calling in life requires me to occasionally use washers, dryers, toasters, and irons, all of which can be spiteful.
And just so you don’t think that I am mechanically disabled and that to keep me safe members of my family have to operate all of the equipment for me, I am going to share a story on one of them as well as one on myself.
Everybody in my family cooks—not necessarily well, but they all get into the act. My teenaged daughter once literally got tangled up with the mixer. (No, this is not a story about mechanically braiding hair.) I believe it began with a rubber scraper in the left hand and a mixer in the right hand, and one too many samplings of the chocolate cake batter while mixing.
When the scraper got a little too close to the beaters, they jumped out and sucked the scraper right into the whirlpool, and the hand in charge got spun right in with it. From the other side of the room, there was little I could do to help. Actually, I was quite mesmerized by the whole chain of events and just stood staring.
I watched as she got the mixer stopped and her hand out of the maelstrom. I don’t usually express any other sentiment than fear, anxiety, or “losing it” when my kids have an accident, but this time I have to admit that my reaction was skewed, but not as much as her hand. When she held it up, there were fingers pointing in every direction and an unnatural backward declination in the middle of it all.
I am sorry to say that I burst out laughing and didn’t stop for quite some time, a blunder for which I have never been forgiven. I should have stuck with losing it. Happily the awry digits all eventually resumed their former positions, except for the index finger which has been pointed at me ever since.
As you can see, when they want to be, mechanical devices are diabolical. The following story is something of a family secret, and I have recounted it only once or twice. I think the seven-year statute of limitation has long since run out, so I can tell it without fear of being hauled off to jail. Only the passage of much time and some distance allow me to tell it now.
You mothers know what kind of schemes you resort to in order to get some work accomplished when you have a baby in tow and his preferred method being towed is on your hip. Entertaining baby becomes a rather desperate occupation sometimes.
Well, this particular baby was spellbound by the water swishing around in the washing machine. (Sort of like television except with the water element added.) So while I filled it, I let him sit on the adjacent mechanical device, the dryer. Mind you, I didn’t walk into the next room, nor was I distracted by the phone or anything else. My two feet were right in front of the dryer the whole time.
I bent down to pick up the next piece of laundry, and when I stood up, baby had vanished! I think it was like that scene in Lord of the Rings when Frodo stares into the water and keeps leaning toward it until he tips into the pool with the grateful dead or whatever they were called.
Well, you guessed it. What I saw of my baby was his two feet periscoped above the wash water, and they were agitating back and forth just like the towels were. At least there were two of something to grab which I quickly did and heaved. A spluttering, drenched, baby was hauled safely away from the depths of the beguiling and voracious washing machine. Luckily, Baby only sustained a few knots on the head and one tiny cut, but on a permanent basis he seems to be none the worse for wash-and-wear.
Nevertheless, this diatribe comes with the following warning:
Given its perversity, never operate mechanical equipment while under the influence of chocolate or while in any quantitative state of mental distraction or loss of mind.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Bertha's best friend
I would be the first to admit that I am not a social butterfly; in fact a grub may be more like it. I go home at night and stay there. But in case you think I don’t have any friends, I’m here to tell you that I have one who calls me at least once every day. Her first name is Warranty (her mother was probably a movie star) and her last name is Department.
There are a host of adjectives that could be used to describe my good friend--—words like loyal, reliable, constant, persistent…
Warranty doesn’t mind a bit if I forget to hold up my end of the friendship or the conversation; she just keeps calling no matter how neglectful I am. In fact, I have hung up on her more times than I can count, but she is never discouraged.
She is a little featherbrained, though. One evening she calls to tell me this is my third and final call before my warranty expires, and the next night she calls me to alert me about my second and last warning. She has got it wrong in both cases. Actually my warranties have all expired some time ago. (There may be more truth in that statement than a first reading will reveal.)
I have never actually gotten far enough into a conversation with Warranty to find out how her product works and how much these things cost. Surely the cost is not more than the car is worth. Maybe one of these days I’ll let her sell me a warranty on the Butterbean pickup truck which is old enough never to have had a warranty in the first place, a fact that I have been careful not to communicate to Warranty at this point. But if I do, when Warranty calls to say that my warranty is about to expire, I can truthfully say “What warranty? I don’t have a warranty; I never had a warranty.”
Perhaps the pickup ought to have one in its lifetime since it apparently would be committing vehicular suicide to omit it—just ask Warranty. A few spare parts could help it grow ancient gracefully. I read online that most warranty plans detail “a lot of covered parts, but most of the parts on the list are not applicable for the cars on the road today.” It sounds like those parts should be suitable for my truck since it is a miracle that it is on the road today and probably uses most of those non-applicable parts. Buying a warranty on a vehicle like that ought to serve one or the other of us right.
In case you or my brothers think I am not kidding about warranting our pickup, I will herewith put all minds at ease. I watched a lady photocopy one of those extended warranty contracts the other day. The document itself was twenty-one pages long, and the collection included three exclusion pages.
I was tempted to read over her shoulder, but she would have had to stand still for an awful long time. Besides I would really rather park the old truck than read twenty-one pages of legalese covering non-applicable parts. But here are a few of the provisions as I imagined them:
1. This warranty not valid unless vehicle is currently warranted by vehicle’s manufacturer.
2. Exclusions include: all parts deemed not to be stationary or unneedful.
3. Warranty does cover: cracked steering wheel; radio antenna providing such is not embedded in vehicle’s windshield; seatbelt anchor bolts; oil-testing tube cap but does not cover loss of such, directional turn signal fluid/windshield wiper fluid, exhaust muffler bearings, and Johnson maniform rods.
4. Warranty will be rendered null and void upon installation of non-proprietary after-market parts including but not limited to additional cup holders, CD storage systems, or facial tissue dispensers.
Excuse me now—the phone is ringing. It’s probably my friend Warranty..
There are a host of adjectives that could be used to describe my good friend--—words like loyal, reliable, constant, persistent…
Warranty doesn’t mind a bit if I forget to hold up my end of the friendship or the conversation; she just keeps calling no matter how neglectful I am. In fact, I have hung up on her more times than I can count, but she is never discouraged.
She is a little featherbrained, though. One evening she calls to tell me this is my third and final call before my warranty expires, and the next night she calls me to alert me about my second and last warning. She has got it wrong in both cases. Actually my warranties have all expired some time ago. (There may be more truth in that statement than a first reading will reveal.)
I have never actually gotten far enough into a conversation with Warranty to find out how her product works and how much these things cost. Surely the cost is not more than the car is worth. Maybe one of these days I’ll let her sell me a warranty on the Butterbean pickup truck which is old enough never to have had a warranty in the first place, a fact that I have been careful not to communicate to Warranty at this point. But if I do, when Warranty calls to say that my warranty is about to expire, I can truthfully say “What warranty? I don’t have a warranty; I never had a warranty.”
Perhaps the pickup ought to have one in its lifetime since it apparently would be committing vehicular suicide to omit it—just ask Warranty. A few spare parts could help it grow ancient gracefully. I read online that most warranty plans detail “a lot of covered parts, but most of the parts on the list are not applicable for the cars on the road today.” It sounds like those parts should be suitable for my truck since it is a miracle that it is on the road today and probably uses most of those non-applicable parts. Buying a warranty on a vehicle like that ought to serve one or the other of us right.
In case you or my brothers think I am not kidding about warranting our pickup, I will herewith put all minds at ease. I watched a lady photocopy one of those extended warranty contracts the other day. The document itself was twenty-one pages long, and the collection included three exclusion pages.
I was tempted to read over her shoulder, but she would have had to stand still for an awful long time. Besides I would really rather park the old truck than read twenty-one pages of legalese covering non-applicable parts. But here are a few of the provisions as I imagined them:
1. This warranty not valid unless vehicle is currently warranted by vehicle’s manufacturer.
2. Exclusions include: all parts deemed not to be stationary or unneedful.
3. Warranty does cover: cracked steering wheel; radio antenna providing such is not embedded in vehicle’s windshield; seatbelt anchor bolts; oil-testing tube cap but does not cover loss of such, directional turn signal fluid/windshield wiper fluid, exhaust muffler bearings, and Johnson maniform rods.
4. Warranty will be rendered null and void upon installation of non-proprietary after-market parts including but not limited to additional cup holders, CD storage systems, or facial tissue dispensers.
Excuse me now—the phone is ringing. It’s probably my friend Warranty..
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