Got off to a Bad Start, But Things Turned Out Okay

On another site (www.westwordarizona.com), I blogged about how I bailed out of a community college creative writing class without officially withdrawing. Yeah, I know, dumb move. Unfortunately, ignoring that formality didn’t bother me—until the last minute.

The evening before my short story project was due, I decided I didn’t want to flunk the class. Why did I change my mind? Well, according to my blog post, I thought an F would look bad on my academic record if I ever decided to take other classes at that particular college.

Actually, I fibbed a little in writing that particular post. I confess that I had previously attended that particular college for two years. I wasn’t afraid that an F would look bad on my record. I was afraid that my record would look worse. It already looked bad, with two F’s, one in French IV and another in World Literature 102.

At the end of my second year there, I flunked out due to my low GPA. My fault entirely. I just wasn’t motivated to do well in school back then. For one thing, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I also spent too much time skipping classes and hanging out elsewhere, mostly at Friendly’s restaurant. Then I skipped the world literature final because I was running late and didn’t want to throw myself on the mercy of the teacher.

I decided to take the writing class a year after I flunked out of college. I thought the class would be fun. It wasn’t. But there is a happy ending. I turned in my creative writing project and ended up with a C for the semester.

But wait, there’s more.

Two years later, I went back to the community college and made up the F in World Literature, replacing that grade with a B. Later, while working full time, I took evening classes in history, anthropology, and children’s literature at another college. I enjoyed those classes, but it soon dawned on me that they weren’t marketable.

Although I still lived with my parents, I had bills to pay. I was glad to be working. But I wanted to find a better, more interesting job than the ones I could already list on my resume. I was bored silly by jobs that involved butchering window shades, filing stacks of invoices, and setting trashcans on fire (yes, that actually happened). So I went back to the community college and enrolled in business and accounting classes. Although I had never been much interested in math, I discovered that I really liked accounting. I found a bookkeeping position with a CPA several months before I graduated with an A.S. in liberal studies.

I worked in the bookkeeping/ accounting field for more than fifteen years.

And then I went back to school. Yes, again.

Another story for another blog post.

Roller Skates and Ice Cream

Several weeks ago, I joined a Facebook group called Your (yes, your) Probably From Pittsfield MA If…. It’s a site where participants share memories about a specific area. Broyles Arena, a skating rink, and Friendly’s restaurant are two places that have generated a lot of comments from group members.

When I was in high school, those were two of my favorite hang-out spots. Sadly, Broyles Arena closed many years ago. And Friendly’s parent company, Friendly Ice Cream Corporation, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Friends and I looked forward to skating at Broyles Arena on Saturday nights. Back then, the roller rink was a good, safe place for us to hang out. We had a lot of fun, even though we sometimes messed up and tripped over our own (or someone else’s) feet and ended up sprawled on the hard floor.

We met new friends there, including some cute guys. None of those rink-side crushes turned into to more serious relationships. It was probably just as well. We were teenagers, after all. However, several couples who met there ended up getting married.

After the rink closed for the evening, we went down the road to Friendly’s for a sundae or an ice cream soda. While we sat at the counter enjoying our ice cream, we chatted about “stuff” we had seen, heard, or experienced that night. We were usually quiet about it, but sometimes we weren’t.

One evening, we lingered long after we’d finished our treats. I’m sure the employees wished the customers would go home so that they could too. We weren’t the only ones there, but we were, um, actually really loud that night. I don’t remember what was so funny, but we all had major giggle fits.

The manager, who was scrubbing the grill, had his back to us. He turned and frowned at us a couple times. I was surprised that he hadn’t told us to pipe down. “Wow,” I said, “Friendly’s is really friendly. Any other place would have thrown us out by now.”

The manager turned around and grinned, “I’m on the verge of it,” he said.

Please Proofread Before Posting

I retired from my brick and mortar editing job last year. Six months later, I decided to look for either a part-time job or temporary contract work. I figured that getting out of the house for a few hours a day would be a good idea. And the extra money would be a plus.

Curious to see what type of responses I would get, I posted a “résumé” on Craigslist. The majority of résumés posted there are short job-wanted ads comprising one or two paragraphs. I posted a modified version of my résumé, with identifying information omitted. In two days I got three responses—all suspected scams. I decided to enjoy retirement for a little while longer.

However, before I submitted my own job-wanted ad, I read a lot of résumés posted on Craigslist. I was surprised at what I found. Way too many of those posts included bad grammar and sentence structure and/or were peppered with typos. For example, one job seeker wrote, “I am very throw [thorough?] and good at what I do.” An individual looking for carpentry work offered “free estamets.” Another person declared, “I am not afraid to talk to the pubic.” Yikes!

A little proofreading would be a good thing to do before posting job-wanted ads. After all, the goal is to get hired. Yes, a couple mistakes are okay in an on-the-fly Facebook post or in an informal text message. But people should take a little care when posting something that a prospective employer might see.

And legitimate companies do check the job-wanted ads/résumés on various sites. HR personnel are, most likely, unimpressed by those badly written résumés on Craigslist. My post wasn’t earthshaking prose. But at least it was literate.

We Suspected He Lied About His Age

A few days ago, while sorting through still more stuff to throw out or give away, I found some old newspaper clippings I’ve kept since the 70s. One of them reported an adventure involving my former employer, the late CPA. For a short time, Mr. CPA was sort of a local hero. My co-worker, Esther, and I weren’t terribly impressed by the newspaper article. Nothing that man did surprised us.

Mr. CPA was, most likely, past retirement age when I worked for him. He earned his brief claim to fame by chasing down two teen-aged purse-snatchers. He might have been old, but he was feisty. Mr. CPA rarely discussed his personal life with Esther and me. However, he did mention that he had grown up in New York City. We figured that he probably had some previous experience with muggers.

Although he was our boss, Mr. CPA seldom commu-nicated directly with us about anything. (He left lots of notes; the man would have loved e-mail.) He never told us what happened at the shopping center that November evening. Esther and I read about it in the newspaper, like everyone else did.

Mr. CPA and his wife had finished shopping and were walking to their car. That’s when one of the teens yanked Mrs. CPA’s purse from her shoulder and took off across the parking lot, followed by his accomplice.

Mr. CPA took off after them. He chased the thieves through the parking lot, across the street, and into another parking lot. By the time he got to the second parking lot, another man had joined the chase. Mr. CPA and Good Samaritan cornered the teens against a fence, and someone called the police.|

Mr. CPA testified as the star witness at the teens’ trial. The newspaper article stated that he had refused to reveal his age in court. A court official told the reporter that Mr. CPA was “in his 60s.” Esther and I snickered when we read that. We suspected that our boss had lied to the court official. We were pretty sure that he would never see 70 again.

Apparently, Mr. CPA swore to tell the truth about everything except his age.

Hooky, Horses, and a Hurricane

Other Half was a teenager when the Great New England Hurricane slammed into Hampden County, Massachusetts, in late September 1938. He had ditched school in favor of working at the fairgrounds in West Springfield during the Eastern States Exposition.


He was only fourteen then; however, he had worked on farms during the summer for several years. That experience helped get him hired for a short-term, 24/7 job at the horse barn. He looked forward to feeding and watering horses much more than he looked forward to sitting in a classroom. And dealing with horses was a whole lot better than dealing with school authorities. Horses didn’t yell at you because you weren’t paying attention in class. Or because you had failed to show up for school again.

“I stayed in the barn most of the time,” he said. And it wasn’t only the bad weather that kept him there. “I didn’t want to go outside a lot because the truant officer might be walking around.” Other Half had more than a nodding acquaintance with that guy. If the technology had been available then, the truant officer most likely would have had Other Half’s mom on speed dial.

Despite the wind and heavy rain, The Powers That Be initially expected to keep the agricultural fair open. However, the Exposition’s organizers revised that expectation when: (a) the roof of one of the buildings went airborne, (b) The Westfield River overflowed and began flooding the fairgrounds, and (c) the police “strongly suggested” that people get the heck out of there and take the animals with them.

Exhibitors with livestock trailers loaded up their animals and headed to safer areas. People without transportation rounded up the remaining horses and cattle and slogged through the storm to higher ground. Other Half was drenched by windswept rain as he led a horse named Scarlett O’Hara across an iron bridge and up to the old Agawam racetrack.

That was an experience he would never forget. And, of course, Other Half never imagined then that his job providing fodder for the horses in 1938 would one day provide a different kind of fodder for this blog post, written in between reading online reports about a hurricane named Irene in 2011.

Serial Faxer Gets a Surprise

Are you ready for another example of fighting fire with fire, aka retaliatory rudeness? Actually, this example isn’t mine.

But first, the back story. (You knew there would be one, didn’t you?)

Nine years ago, the company I worked for closed up shop in My City and moved to the Midwest. I was out on the street, job wise, along with the thirty or so other employees who also had stuck with that place for way too long. We gambled that things would get better, and we lost.

At least we were eligible for unemployment benefits. I hated being out of work. I applied for every job I thought I might be even remotely qualified for. I figured I eventually would get hired somewhere, and it kept the people at the Department of Employment Security happy.

I also registered at a temporary agency, hoping to land a temporary to permanent position. I’ll call the woman who interviewed me “Millie.” Five minutes into the interview, I realized Millie wasn’t interested in my qualifications and work experience. Millie was interested mainly in Millie. After I explained why I was currently unemployed, she told me that she was tired of working and would like to retire. Millie then spent the next twenty minutes talking about her grandchildren and her trips to Europe and Asia.

I was so tempted to say: Well that’s all very nice; however, I’m here to discuss my qualifications and work experience and opportunities with your agency. But I didn’t because I suspected Millie had no intention of placing me in a job. When I left her office, I was sure I would never hear from her.

I was wrong. Millie called me a few days later and tried to talk me into accepting a four-week assignment at the university. I turned it down, reminding her I was interested only in a temporary position that had the potential to turn into permanent employment. I felt a little guilty about declining Millie's offer because, at that point, I had been out of work for three months. However, three weeks later, a non-profit organization hired me for a temporary position that turned into a permanent job.

End of back story.

Recently, I bumped into to an acquaintance at Barnes and Noble. I’ll call her “Helen.” Before retiring, Helen was the human resources coordinator for a small company. We got into a discussion about good and bad interview experiences from the perspectives of both the interviewer and the applicant. I told her about the strange interviews I’d suffered through over the years. I mentioned Millie.

Oh yes, Helen knew Millie.

Years ago, Millie had attempted to interest Helen in hiring Millie’s temps by faxing unsolicited résumés   to Helen’s office several times a week. Millie continued this approach for several weeks. It annoyed Helen, but she figured Millie would stop faxing résumés as soon as it dawned on her that Helen was ignoring her efforts to drum up business. Helen’s company rarely used temps, and if and when it did, she had decided that they would not be Millie’s temps.

Millie either didn’t take the hint or she decided to try harder. At any rate, she kept faxing résumés. Her serial faxing often tied up Helen’s fax machine and, even worse, it wasted paper. Helen got tired of pitching résumés into the trash can. She called Millie and asked her to please stop doing it.

Millie didn’t stop doing it.

In desperation, Helen had her assistant fax a ream of paper (yes, 500 sheets) to Millie’s office. That tied up Millie’s fax machine for a while. However, no paper was wasted because Helen's assistant faxed blank paper, and blank paper popped out of the fax machine at Millie’s office.

And the tactic worked. Millie never faxed another résumé to Helen’s office.

For Gosh Sakes, She's a Cat

I have a friend named Mary Doe. Yes, you’re right, that’s not her real name, but that’s who she’s going to be here. Anyhoo, Mary has several older cats, including a cat named Daisy.

One morning Mary noticed that Daisy wasn’t acting like her usual feisty self. So she wrestled the cat into a pet carrier and hauled her off to the veterinarian. I don’t remember exactly what was wrong with Daisy. She didn’t have anything life threatening, but the veterinarian wrote out a prescription for his patient—Daisy Doe.

Mary dropped off the prescription at Big Box Drugstore. She took Daisy home and went back to pick up the cat’s medication. Figuratively speaking, Mary hit a brick wall at the drive-through window. The pharmacy clerk looked at the patient’s name on the packet and asked, “Are you Daisy?”

“No, Daisy’s a cat.”

“Well, this prescription is in Daisy’s name. So Daisy will have to pick up the medication herself.”

“Daisy can’t pick it up herself,” Mary said. “She’s a cat. I just told you that.” The clerk still didn’t get it and insisted that Daisy had to pick up her own medication. Mary decided that the woman had probably misunderstood company policy. She had been picking up medications for her cats there for years without a problem. Mary asked to speak to the pharmacist; the clerk told her he was out to lunch.

Realizing that she was holding up the drive-through line, Mary parked her car and went into the store. She found another clerk who, sadly, turned out to be a clone of the first one. “Daisy really needs to come in and pick up her own medication,” Clerk Two told her.

“For gosh sakes, she’s a cat,” Mary said for the third time, stifling an urge to spell out the word cat. “And anyway, I don’t think Daisy’s in a good mood right now.” Mary wondered why the clerks couldn’t understand that Daisy was an animal and, therefore, shouldn’t be required to pick up her own medication. Were they both new employees? Didn’t the company train pharmacy employees to recognize prescriptions written by veterinarians? Did the women think Mary was planning to get high on the medication or market it to her friends?

Fortunately for Mary, The pharmacist returned just as she was about to give up and go home without the medication. Apparently, the pharmacist was the only one in the department who recognized that the prescription had been signed by a veterinarian. And no, he told Mary—and the clerks, Daisy did not have to pick up her own medication.

Now, if I had been Mary, I wouldn’t have gone into the store. I would have gone home, wrestled Daisy into a pet carrier, driven back to the store, hauled cat and carrier over to the pharmacy, and announced:

Here’s Daisy, come to pick up her own medication.

Meeeowwwrrr!

I Was Guilty of Retaliatory Rudeness

According to etiquette mavens, one should not fight fire with fire. In other words, if someone is rude to you, you should not respond in kind. Doing so would be engaging in retaliatory rudeness.

I confess that I have engaged in retaliatory rudeness. However, I haven’t done it recently.

Way back during the Late Jurassic Period, I lived in a studio apartment in a singles complex, aka the party place. (Trust me; I did not know it was a party place before I moved in. I moved there only because the complex was within walking distance of my new job.) The apartments were not soundproof. One Sunday morning, a thumping noise woke me at 2 a.m. It sounded like someone was bouncing off the corridor walls.

A minute later, I heard the next door neighbor’s door slam. Either Neighbor or the friend he dragged home must have been partially deaf. I could hear their conversation without even attempting to eavesdrop; they might as well have been sitting next to me.

A few minutes later, Neighbor ramped up the noise level by turning on his stereo and cranking up the volume. My ears throbbed, and the lamp on the end table shimmied to the edge of the table and toppled onto the carpet. I stumbled out of bed, over the lamp, and into the bathroom to look for my earplugs.

I stuffed a wax blob into each ear and sat down on the sofa sleeper to consider my options. I could bang on the common wall with a shoe or book or maybe a frying pan. But I doubted that Neighbor would pay any attention to my effort to get his attention—even if he heard me.

Or I could call the cops. Letting them handle things would be an effective way to shut down the nonsense next door. However, that idea probably was not a wise one in a place where some tenants were rumored to be drug users and others were rumored to be armed. (Honest, I did not know this before I moved into the complex. I had moved from a small town to a city fifty miles away.)

And anyway, at that time, I didn’t have a land line, and cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. So, in order to call in a complaint, I would have to scrounge up a quarter and walk downstairs to the pay phone.

Not a good move in that place during the very wee hours of the morning, especially for a woman.

I never considered doing the most logical thing; i.e., going next door and asking him to please knock it off. I was just too chicken. (See preceding paragraph.) Mostly, I didn’t want to mess with a couple guys I didn’t know and strongly suspected were either drunk or high.

As it turned out, someone was braver than I was. About forty minutes after the racket started, I heard someone banging on Neighbor’s door. A few seconds later a door slammed somewhere across the hall. I guess Neighbor got the message because he turned  the volume way down on both the stereo and the chatter. I ditched the ear plugs and went back to sleep.

When I woke up, I couldn’t hear anything next door. I figured Neighbor was either sleeping in or passed out. I plugged my radio into an outlet on the common wall, turned it to a country-western station, and cranked up the volume as loud as it would go.

Then I went downstairs to the management office and complained about Neighbor and also confessed to my retaliatory rudeness. The managers were okay with that. They liked me better than they liked Neighbor.

“That wasn’t very Christian of you,” my brother commented when I told him what I’d done.

“Wasn’t very Christian of my neighbor either,” I said.

My Really Cheap Retirement Wardrobe

When I retired from the NonProf, my “business” wardrobe retired with me. Both the NonProf and the company I previously worked for have casual dress codes. Think shorts, T-shirts, jeans, and sweat shirts. I wore jeans to work a lot, but I also wore slacks and knit tops—tops that were a little dressier than T-shirts.

I decided that I needed to keep those slacks and knit tops in good shape, just in case I got bored with retirement and started looking for a part-time job. So I hung them in the closet and started hanging out in more casual clothing.

For the better part of the last year, I’ve lived in jeans and inexpensive T-shirts. Thanks to last summer’s sales, I have an extensive wardrobe of these T-shirts in just about every color imaginable. I bought most of them on sale at JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts for about two or three dollars each. I also found T-shirts on sale at Target, Wal-Mart, and Walgreens.

And a few months ago, I snagged a T-shirt at the Grocery Outlet for a buck fifty. This one is an odd color, sort of in between beige and banana yellow. Not one of my favorite colors. Probably not one of anyone else’s either; that’s why it was so cheap. However, upon inspection, I couldn’t find any flaws in the material, and the seams were intact. So, for that price, I figured I why not?

On laundry days, Other Half frequently complains that I have too many T-shirts. I suspect that he might be right. I recently bought a four-drawer plastic rolling cart to store a bunch of them.

I haven’t counted how many I own, but I don’t think I’ll be buying more T-shirts for a long, long time.

Newspaper Isn't Worth Stealing These Days

The Powers That Be fenced in our apartment complex several years ago. Since then, the newspaper person has had to pitch the newspaper over the vehicle exit gate. Most of the time, it’s there when I get up in the morning. Sometimes it isn’t.

On the days that the newspaper is AWOL, I can’t decide whether another resident confiscated it or the newspaper person just decided to skip us that morning. I’m inclined to go with the second explanation. I don’t know why anyone would bother to steal it.

There’s not much in the newspaper these days, but Other Half can’t do without it. I could, and that’s sort of sad.

I began reading newspapers when I was six or seven, and I read “real” news items as well as the comics. I doubt that I paid much attention to the world and national news. However, at that age, I had an almost nonexistent social life, so I always looked forward to reading what would probably be described today as the “society page.”

In a small way, that page was the Facebook of its day.

I grew up in a mostly rural area, during a time when stories about residents’ activities and events routinely appeared in the newspaper. I remember reading about birthday and anniversary parties, family vacations, family reunions, and all sorts of other things that the locals, their families, and their guests participated in. My favorites were the wedding write-ups. I was especially impressed by descriptions of wedding attire that included every detail right down to the last bead on the bodice of the wedding gown.

Although I never saw the account of their wedding, my parents made the news when they got married. Other than that, Mom and Dad kept a low profile. However, when I turned seven, they submitted an account of my birthday party to the newspaper. The very short article noted that sixteen guests (and me, of course) enjoyed a lunch that included a variety of finger sandwiches as well as the traditional ice cream and cake. It concluded with the then-standard line that appeared in all blurbs about birthday parties: games were played and prizes were won.


I suspect that newspaper circulation numbers began declining on the day John Cameron Swayze first anchored the NBC Camel News Caravan way back in 1949. In addition to television, newspapers now compete with the Internet, which also never fails to report the latest crisis or scandal live and in color.

I confess that I don’t read the newspaper very often. I read the local, regional, and national news reports on the Internet. I figure if there’s something I really ought to know, Yahoo will tell me.

Temp Job Trumped the Permanent One

Way back in the last century, I worked at a bookkeeping service that no longer exists. (Come to think of it, a lot of places where I formerly worked no longer exist. But I digress.) Among other things, I processed payrolls, payroll tax returns, and monthly profit and loss write-ups for small businesses.

 I liked the work, and I liked my co-workers. I also liked the majority of our clients. Most of them were sole proprietors who provided some type of service. The clients generally were pleasant, unpretentious individuals.


However, there were a couple things I did not like. To begin with, the owner’s good friend had developed the bookkeeping program we used. QuickBooks it wasn’t—not even close. As far as I could determine, no other business in the universe used the John Doe bookkeeping software. There was no point in listing it on a resume. It was not a transferrable skill.


Fortunately, the single-entry software was fairly easy to learn. I understood it by the third day on the job. Unfortunately, I never understood some of the clients. As nice as they were, too many of them were often frustrating to work with. Why? Well, I really, really would have liked to complete their write-ups in one day, but I generally couldn’t. Why not? They consistently failed to send us Something Very Important at the beginning of the month.


All too often, the other bookkeeper and I would start processing an account only to discover that the client had forgotten to include his or her sales figures, bank statement, or payroll information. We would do what we could using the available records; then that account would be exiled to the Missing Records Table where it generally vegetated for days. Or sometimes weeks.


If we were lucky, the client would bring us whatever we needed within a reasonable length of time, say five or six days. If the item was about three weeks overdue, the office manager would go out and attempt to snag it for us. That usually worked. However, there were a few times when the client surrendered the missing record just before we were due to get next month’s work.


I suspected that few, if any, of our clients had ever taken a class in bookkeeping or accounting. I often wondered how some of them stayed in business. I decided that they were probably great at providing services to their customers. However, I was fairly certain that, in the long run, their great customer service skills wouldn’t compensate for their lack of knowledge about good accounting practices.


After eighteen months, I decided it was time to move on. I wanted to find a job where I could finish the majority of my projects on the day I started them. And I needed to get experience in using software applications that I could list on a resume.


So I left the bookkeeping service and registered with several temp agencies. Within a week, I landed my first assignment: a short-term job at a company that published craft books and craft instruction pamphlets.


The woman at the temp agency seemed rather vague about what I would be doing. When I pleasantly demanded details, she mumbled that she thought I would be “doing something with accounts receivable invoices.” That seemed like a good opportunity. I had over ten years experience in the accounts payable area, but my experience with receivables was next to nothing.


As it turned out, the job had nothing to do with accounts receivable or any other form of accounting. Upon checking in with the supervisor, I was escorted to the warehouse, handed a pile of packing slips, and directed toward what seemed like an endless number of shelves stuffed with craft publications.


Well, that was a surprise and not exactly a pleasant one. But I decided to be a good sport. After all, I wanted more assignments, hopefully ones that involved an office environment.


I worked at the publishing company for a week and a half. Assembling orders was physical work, and I was tired by 5 p.m. But I also felt really good at the end of the day. Why? Well, because I could complete the projects I started that day, and I could start fresh with new projects the next morning.

Mornings at Starbucks

This morning at Barnes and Noble, I overheard a woman complaining about the cost of her Starbucks habit. I doubt if anyone is forcing her to buy a nonfat, venti latte with a splash of syrup and three shots of espresso five days a week. I suspect that millions of people all over the world drop a small fortune at Starbucks during the work week. I think I used to be one of those people. I’m not anymore.


For over five years, I stopped at my friendly neighborhood Starbucks every morning on my way to work. With rare exceptions, I always ordered a tall, decaf, nonfat, vanilla latte. Once or twice a week, I also bought something to eat, usually a muffin or croissant.


Ordering the same drink every day made it easier for me, the cashier, and the people in line behind me. To expedite matters further, I paid with my personalized, yes personalized, Starbucks Gold card. I didn’t get a discount on my purchases, but there were perks associated with my Gold card membership. The vanilla syrup was free, and after I purchased fifteen drinks (which took about three weeks), Starbucks snail mailed me a coupon for a free drink.


My Starbucks habit probably cost me between fifteen and twenty dollars a week. Well , there goes my reputation for being, um, a bit frugal.


Why did I spend the money? Quite frankly, hanging out at Starbucks was a ritual I needed before going to work. For fifteen or twenty minutes every morning, I could relax, sip my latte, and make notes about writing projects or chat with other customers. During that last year, my mornings at Starbucks were the calm before facing the storm of what was all too often a very stressful work day.


These days I don’t go to Starbucks very often. I’m retired from that stressful job, so the necessity of psyching myself to go to work is gone. Since I bought my Nook e-reader, I usually hang out at the Barnes and Noble café two or three times a week. I don’t miss Starbucks all that much. I don’t miss my vanilla lattes at all. I can still get them at the Barnes and Noble café.

Ice Skating Fail

Bummer about the cold weather in Northern California on the first day of spring.

I hate cold weather. I don’t do winter well. You wouldn’t think so though. I grew up in one of the New England states.

I preferred indoor activities, especially during the winter. I was the kid who sat in the corner with her nose stuck in a book or magazine. However, when I was eleven, I really liked ice skating. Trouble was I wasn’t able to like it enough.

My participation in that activity was usually limited to thirty minutes or less. And, yes, I did dress in layers. For starters, I pulled on every sweater I owned. The rest of my outfit included three pairs of knee socks, slacks, a snowsuit, boots, a scarf, a hat, and gloves and mittens.

Dressing in layers didn’t help a whole lot. Actually, wearing all that clothing made it harder to navigate the bumpy neighborhood ice rink (aka the frozen swamp). After enduring single digit temperatures for fifteen or twenty minutes, I shivered so much that I had trouble staying upright. I usually stumbled around for another five or ten minutes. By that time, I felt like I was turning into a Popsicle and gave up, but only for the day. I peeled off my skates, pulled on my boots, and plodded home, determined to stay longer next time.

Post from the Past

[Note: St. Patrick's Day will soon be here, so this week I’m recycling an entry that was originally posted in March 2006.]

Every year around St. Patrick’s Day, I think about a fellow I met when I was a junior in high school. He had an Irish last name, an Elvis haircut, and a whole lot of freckles. We dated for approximately four months when he was on the outs with the girl he had gone steady with since he was about thirteen.

“Jeremy” liked cars. He liked to see how fast they could go. He also liked to see how fast he they could stop. (Hey, former neighbors, now you know how all those skid marks got on the road in front of your houses.)

During one of the several times that he was stopped for speeding, he told the policeman that he was “just burning out the carbon.” That excuse failed to impress the policeman, and Jeremy ended up in court the next day.

The judge he appeared before had a reputation for being unsympathetic to teenage boys with a hot foot on the gas pedal. When Jeremy’s case was called, the judge told him, “Son, there are three rates of speed in this town, slow, medium, and good morning, Judge.”

I Went Berserk in a Department Store

Last week at the mall, I noticed several new, life-sized, white fiberglass mannequins in a store window. The mannequins had both arms and legs. At the same time, I noticed that the mannequins in the window of a neighboring teen-oriented store had no arms. (Maybe armless mannequins are cheaper.) However, the mannequins in the teen store had heads and faces, and they looked like “real” people. The white fiberglass mannequins in the other store had only half heads. Yes, that’s right—half heads. They looked, well, sort of like aliens that had missed the turnoff to their own planet and ended up on Earth.

I wondered if the half-headed mannequins had freaked out any little kids.

They would have freaked out the two-year-old me.

When I was a toddler, my aunt worked as a combination salesclerk/bookkeeper at a department store. My mother shopped there frequently, and she preferred to shop alone. She took me with her only when she had no other choice.

On those days, Mom crossed her fingers and told me to stay close to her. She knew what would happen if the sales clerks were in the middle of changing the clothing displays. As soon as I spotted a mannequin with an arm or a leg, or better yet, a head, missing, I’d throw myself on the floor and scream like crazy.

Outside, pedestrians would forget where they were going and peek in the windows to see what all the fuss was about. If my aunt happened to be working on the floor, she would flee to the back office. That left my red-faced mother to explain my fear of dismembered dummies to anyone who seemed alarmed by my behavior.

As soon as the store owner thought he could keep a straight face, he’d emerge from his office, walk over to my mother, point a finger at me, and say, “Get her out of here. She’s ruining my business.”

Did I Sound Snarky?

The following sentences are from the bio that I posted on this site.

 In between office jobs, I worked in the retail field; that's always been my choice of interim job. Sad to say, I'm domestically dysfunctional, and, probably because of this, I have no aptitude for restaurant work.


Golly, I hope that last sentence doesn’t sound snarky. I have a lot of respect for people who work in restaurants. Those jobs are not easy ones, and sometimes they don’t pay well, even with tips included.


And I really don’t have the aptitude for restaurant work. I found that out one afternoon, way too many years ago, when I was shanghaied to impersonate a waitress at a friend’s restaurant.


It was mid afternoon on Saturday. I had been some-where, I forget where, and was on my way home. I didn’t think the restaurant would be too busy, so I decided to stop for coffee and conversation. When I walked through the door, I noticed that several customers seemed to be waiting for their food or waiting to order. They did not look happy.


As it turned out, Sam was working alone. He did not look happy either. Sam called me into the kitchen. He told me that the waitress who was supposed to be there hadn’t showed up. He had called another waitress. She was coming in—eventually. She couldn’t leave the house until her baby sitter arrived. In the meantime he needed my help again. Before I could escape, he stuck an order pad in my hands and gave me a shove. “Go get the orders,” he said.


I didn’t want to do it, but I sort of felt sorry for him. I knew he was having trouble hiring good employees. One evening, not too long ago, a kitchen helper hadn’t shown up. Sam had drafted me to wash dishes. Every time he popped into the kitchen he had complained that I wasn’t doing the job right. He had been especially annoyed when I tossed the pots and pans in with the glassware.


That afternoon, my first customers were two twenty-something men, probably college students, who ordered sandwiches and sodas. After they left, I found $1.40 in change on their table. I scooped up the money and headed to the kitchen, “Sam,” I said, showing him the coins, “those guys forgot their change.”


“That’s your tip,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.


During the next twenty-five minutes, I took orders, delivered food, and got more tips. And then a woman asked for a cup of coffee. “Put an ice cube in it,” she said.


Well, I’d never heard of anyone doing that before. I stared at her for several seconds; then I retreated into the kitchen. “Sam,” I said, “there’s a woman sitting at the counter who wants me to put an ice cube in her coffee.”


Sam shrugged and rolled his eyes again. “Well, PUT. AN. ICE CUBE. IN. IT.”


So I did and made both Sam and the customer happy.


By the time my replacement showed up, I knew that working in a restaurant was something I didn’t want to do ever again, even for forty-five minutes.


Postscript: Many years later I lived on a ranch in the Santa Catalina Mountains, several miles from a very small town. My job opportunities were so limited that they were almost nonexistent. I was offered a job as a bartender, and I accepted the offer. That job lasted all of two weeks.

Water Woes

Wednesday evening, a city employee (CE) came to the door at 6:08 p.m. and announced that a water main had broken across the street. He told us the repair crew would be shutting off our water soon. I said, “Yes, I know about the break. I noticed it at nine-twenty this morning.” (Did I sound snarky?)

And, yes, the City knew about the break earlier, too. When I left to go to Barnes and Noble (at nine-twenty), I saw a city truck parked on the side of the property.

CE said he thought the repairs would be completed in “about three hours.” Having been inconvenienced by several water main breaks in our area during the last three years or so, I didn’t share his optimism.

Somewhere between 11 p.m. and 3:30 a.m., the repair crew restored our water service. How can I be so sure of the time frame? I went to bed at 11 p.m., and the sound of the rain on the roof woke me at 3:30 a.m.

On Hiatus From Blogging Until 2011

I won’t be updating my blogs again until sometime in 2011. Currently, I'm working on several writing projects, including two short stories, a Craigslist blurb, and my resume (got to get that right, even when looking for only a part-time job).

I’m also in the process of creating several WordPress pages. I found it easy to create blogs on Blogger and MySpace. I think WordPress is less user-friendly—at least to me.

My writing goals for 2011 include posting more often and finally completing my first novel. Now that I’m not working full time, I feel that I have a good chance to meet my writing goals and some other goals, too.

My other goals include getting rid of all the “stuff” that we absolutely do not need or will never use again.
Happy holidays to everyone out there in cyberspace. See you in 2011.

(Well, I did post a short entry on December 23.)

Christmas Season on the Bus

I rode the bus home from Barnes and Noble yesterday. The man sitting across from me looked really sad.His uncombed hair probably hadn’t seen a bottle of shampoo in several weeks, and his clothes were badly stained. He looked between 75 and 80 years old. I had never seen him before; I had no idea as to what his circumstances were.

Even though he was a stranger, I felt bad thinking that perhaps he had no one who cared about him or who checked to see if he was okay.


Everyone (well, maybe except for someone who’s really, really evil) should have someone who cares about him or her, especially at this time of year.

Hello There in Tucson: Part IV

(continued from previous post)


Oops, my error. Hanging up on Ms. Hello Hello was a really dumb move. Why, oh why, did I do that? I guess it was the shock of recognition. I don’t know what I expected, but I never expected her to answer the phone.

Ms. Hello Hello always called during the day, when no one was around. Well, Other Household Member suspected there was a party in progress. Maybe Ms. Hello Hello chugged down a couple margaritas and got up the courage to call us from a friend’s phone. Maybe she figured she could finally speak to a real person. On the other hand, maybe she figured that 9:30 p.m. was a good time to play phone games and annoy the heck out of us.

By Sunday morning, I figured that I didn’t have anything to lose, so I called Bina. On the first try, I got a busy signal. On the second try, I got Bina. I expected her to deny any knowledge of the calls or to hang up on me. However, she seemed willing to hear me out.

I explained that someone apparently had called my house several times from her phone on Saturday night. She hesitated and then asked if I was in Arizona. When I told her I was, she said she had been trying to call her boyfriend in Arizona and guessed that she had dialed a wrong number.

“Three times?” I asked. She hesitated again, so I took the direct approach and said, “When I called your number last night, the woman who has been leaving hello, hello messages on my phone for the last few months answered your phone.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” she said. I asked if she had been at a party. “I was at a nightclub.” Okay, so Bina had a cell phone. Some people are a little careless about leaving their cell phones lying around. Maybe Ms. Hello Hello had grabbed the phone and made the calls when Bina was occupied elsewhere.

However, Bina knew that the calls had been made to Arizona. So I was sure she had at least a nodding acquaintance with Ms. Hello Hello. “If you think you might know this person,” I said, “please give her a message from me. Tell her to tell us what she wants or stop calling.”

For a while, there were no more messages from Ms. Hello Hello. However, several months later, there was another, barely audible, “Hello” message from someone who sounded a lot like her. Over the next four or five months, that woman left two or three also barely audible messages. At those times, I did not access *69 in an attempt to trace her phone number. I would have succeeded only in adding more extra charges to my phone bill. I also decided that, if she didn’t have the courtesy to talk to us, I couldn’t be bothered with her. If Ms. Hello Hello wanted something from us, she couldn’t have wanted it that badly.

Over ten years later, her identity and the purpose of those calls remain an unsolved mini-mystery. I never got to talk to Ms. Hello Hello, nor, to my knowledge, did anyone else in the household. Did she want a favor from us, or was she only trying to annoy us—and why? If she wanted something from us, if she had a valid request for help with something, I would have tried to help her.

 And would I recognize her voice if I heard it today? You betcha!

Hello There in Tucson: Part III

(continued from previous post)

We’ve always asked friends and family members not to call us after 9 p.m. unless it’s an emergency. So we were a bit apprehensive when the phone rang shortly after 9:30 p.m. one Saturday in May.

OHM picked up, barked “Hello,” and slammed down the phone. “Sounds like someone is having a party,” he growled. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. He picked up again. No one on the line again, same background noise. The third time the phone rang, I bounced off the couch, picked up the phone, hung up, and punched *69.

I guess miracles do happen—I got a phone number. I did a quick area code search and discovered that the phone number was located in Los Angeles. That was another surprise. We didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles.

I called the number and a woman answered the phone. I should have demanded “Okay, Ms. Hello Hello, who are you, and what do you want from us?” But I was so stunned that I hung up. A few minutes later, after I stopped freaking out, I called the number again. This time, the call went to a voice mail message from a woman with an accent who identified herself as Bina. Bina wasn’t the woman I had just hung up on.

Ms. Hello Hello didn’t have an accent.

(to be concluded)

Hello There in Tucson: Part II

(continued from previous post)


In 2000, Tucson probably was the call center capital of the United States, if not the world. Many of those companies had set up shop in the airport area. During the week, I rode the bus surrounded by legions of call center employees. Out of curiosity, I asked a few of them if telemarketers ever left messages on answering machines. No, they did not. “Telemarketers can’t sell anything to answering machines,” one woman explained.

Our second caller, the woman with the giggles, called once for sure—possibly twice. I know she didn’t dial a wrong number because she asked for Other Household Member by name. Well, maybe she was a volunteer calling from her home on behalf of a local charity. That could explain the children chattering in the background.

The first caller was more persistent. Every couple of weeks, for over two months, she left the same repeated one-word message on the answering machine during the day. I nicknamed her Ms. Hello Hello.

If she wasn’t a shy or nervous newbie telemarketer, then who was this person with the soft, almost musical voice and very limited vocabulary? More important, how did she get my unlisted phone number? Every time I found a message from her, I punched *69, hoping to get her phone number. All I got were extra charges on my phone bills and a recorded message that announced: “The last number called cannot be reached.”

One friend suggested that I change my phone number. A coworker thought I should complain to the phone company. Complain about what? The phone company’s CSR would have laughed at me. The greeting “Hello, hello” wasn’t threatening by any stretch of the imagination. However, by the end of April, I was sure that this woman thought she was playing games with someone. I just didn’t know if it was with us.

I couldn’t think of anyone we’d offended recently. Maybe someone purposely gave Ms. Hello Hello a wrong number. Maybe she wrote the right number down wrong. Or maybe she thought she was calling the person who had phone number before I did.

The calls were annoying, but they didn’t freak me out. I didn’t want to change my phone number, but I wasn’t looking forward to listening to her messages forever. I figured if I kept punching *69 after I heard her voice, I would eventually get a phone number.

And I did.

Hello, Good Morning, Hello There in Tucson

That was the message the young woman left on my answering machine in February 2000. I’m sure about the date for two reasons. 1) She left the message shortly after the company I worked for moved to the airport area, thereby inconveniencing most of its employees, including me. 2) Even better: I’m a writer; I tend to document stuff, stuff like odd phone calls. I documented that first message and many subsequent “Hello, hello” messages from the same woman. I still have those notes in my files.


Oddly enough, a second woman also called one afternoon in February and asked to speak to Other Household Member (OHM). OHM told the woman she was speaking to him. The woman giggled and hung up. OHM said he could hear children in the background. Another time, we got a garbled message that sounded like the second woman’s voice saying “It would be at night.” What would be at night?


I was annoyed and with good reason. I had been the recipient of some bizarre phone calls when I first moved to Tucson. I ended up changing my phone number, and I didn’t want to feel forced into doing it again. If the women had something to say to us, I figured they should just say it and stop playing games.

I was certain that the calls were not coming from some zany, disorganized telemarketing company.


And, as it turned out, they weren't.

(to be continued)

Mystery Shopping and Name Badges

Some retirees earn extra cash as mystery shoppers. Not me. I’ve been there, done that, and don’t think I’ll do it again.

In the late 90s, I shopped a restaurant chain in Current City for about a year. I felt like a spy, which, in a way, I was. Taking notes was difficult with servers hovering around, asking if everything was okay. If a server seemed suspicious, I pretended to be editing a writing project.

Most of the time I was able to write positive comments about the food and service. However, I usually wrote up at least one employee for not wearing his or her name badge. Maybe it seems nitpicky, but I would not give an employee a pass on that item.

Once upon a time I worked for Major Big Box Store. Management constantly wrote up employees who weren’t wearing their name badges. Before leaving home, I always made sure that I had my name badge—well, except one time. That evening I borrowed a name badge from an associate who had clocked out for the day. Nobody noticed that it wasn’t mine.

I Wasn't Laughing

Got a certified letter Tuesday. Good news.

Got a certified letter from Texas sent to my address at The Apartment Complex in December 2004. Bizarre!

I think the December letter must have been someone’s idea of a joke. The envelope was “sort of” addressed correctly; i.e., the address did include the name of a household member. First red flag: The envelope was handwritten, with a stamped, not printed, return address.
Second red flag: The letter was typed on an obvious copy of the (legitimate) company’s letterhead, with the address blocked out. The body of the letter comprised three semi-literate sentences. The assistant manager's signature did not match the handwriting on the envelope.

The salutation did not include household member's name. It referenced a Mr. Harmony. No first name, just Mr. Harmony. I had no idea as to who this person was. Mr. Harmony, it seems, was three months behind in rent payments for his office space—in Texas. The assistant manager, Ms. AC, requested that he pay the past due amount of $628.30 by December 10.

What???

A quick check with the property management company confirmed that no one named Harmony lived in the The Apartment Complex. (However, I believe Harmony actually is the name of a town/city in Texas.) I had never been to The Woodlands, the Texas city referenced in the return address on the envelope. Furthermore, in 2004, I hadn’t been anywhere near Texas in three years.

Fortunately for me, in an effort to appear professional, the assistant manager copied the company’s regional director and collections manager on the letter. Thank you, Ms. AC. You made my research efforts a lot easier.I wrote a complaint letter to the regional director and sent copies to the collections manager AND the company's CEO. The regional director responded with an apology that was fairly literate, but more confusing than the original letter.

Someday, somewhere in cyberspace, I will post an article about how I researched and “resolved” this fiasco. (There was some screaming involved on my part.) Maybe I’ll even post a photo of the letter and the envelope—with the names of the company and letter writer blocked out.

Housework and Me

I might as well face it: I’m not going to get any major house cleaning chores done until I “retire.” Cleaning out closets and washing walls will just have to wait.

Working full time, I often have little energy/motivation left to work on my writing projects during the evening, let alone dust, vacuum, or mop floors. By the time the weekend rolls around, I feel that, after working all week, I deserve some time for myself. So, I dust, vacuum, or mop whatever really needs it and spend the rest of the weekend writing, reading, or just trolling the ‘Net. It’s worked well so far.

And, no, I don’t live in a pig sty.

Actually, I have found that a lot of other people feel the same way. Makes me feel less guilty about the whole thing.

Fun at the Bank

One day, not too long ago, I went to the bank to visit my money. Waiting in line, I noticed a thirty- something man standing off to one side. He was wearing a baseball cap. The baby in his arms was also wearing a hat. Well, that was sensible. We’re in the Southwest, after all, and it probably was 106 degrees outside.

A bank employee was standing next to the customer, but neither man was talking. The bank employee looked nervous; the customer looked angry.

They were joined by another employee. She said something to the customer that I couldn’t hear. But I did hear his response. Was the man overdrawn? Behind in car payments? Complaining about a bank error? No. As it turned out, he didn’t want to remove his hat.

That’s when I remembered the sign on the door. Please remove hat and sunglasses for security reasons. Sounds reasonable to me. Banks in this city seem to get robbed on a daily basis. I’d seen too many news reports with videos that featured bank robbers wearing hats and sunglasses.

But this guy insisted on keeping his hat on his head. I guess he thought it was un-American to ask him to remove his hat in a bank, even for security reasons. At one point, he lifted the hat off his daughter’s head, pointed toward the spot where he thought the security camera was located, and remarked, “Suspected bank robber.”

The male employee said, “That isn’t funny, Sir.”

In the end, they compromised. The man pulled the hat off his forehead so that the camera could get a clear view of his face.

I thought his attitude was really weird. I’m not insulted because I have to remove my hat and sunglasses. After all, that rule was made for everyone’s protection including his—and for the protection of that baby he held in his arms.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up About the Job

Waiting in the check-out line at the library, I couldn’t help but hear a twenty-something man talking on his cell phone. He was discussing his job application with a prospective employer.

My ears perked up as he listed a number of “concessions” that he needed from any employer.
“And I’ll need at least one Sunday off a month,” he said. “And probably a couple of Saturdays too. I put that on my application.”

Well, okay, it’s a drag to work weekends. But I did it. Several times, in fact. And a lot of other people do, too. You tend to agree to that if being available to work weekends is one of the requirements for the job—and you really want/need the job. Had I not been willing to work weekends, I wouldn’t have had a job at SmartMart for over three years.

Given today’s economy, that fellow probably isn’t going to have a job either. Too bad, because he left with a woman and a couple of small children who called him “Daddy.”

Yes, some companies offer flexible work schedules, but generally the employer, not the employee, decides the definition of flexible. With all the people in this country who are out of work, that man’s prospective employer will, no doubt, find someone willing to work the hours required for the job.

Don't Run Me Down

HELLO Mr. SUV driver.

Yes, that is a pedestrian—me—in your path as you try to sneak in a left turn before the north-bound traffic slams into your gas guzzling, over-priced hunk of steel. I realize that you didn’t notice me, but, according to the walk sign, I have the right of way. So stay right where you are until I finish crossing the street.

I apologize for having to walk to work in the dark. Believe me, I like it even less that I have to get up at 4:15 a.m.

And I don’t understand how you could not have seen me. Yes, it is dark out here, and, yes, I am wearing a black coat, but the intersection is well lit. And the flashlight I’m waving all over the place should give you a clue that someone is attempting to cross the street. What do you think the beam of light is? A signal from an alien spaceship?

I Am Not a Stalker

I view certain individuals’ MySpace pages (and sometimes their Classmates pages), but that’s because I miss them, think of them often, and hope life is going well for them.

My Computer Crashed

My laptop crashed on October 4, just before I had to leave for a writing workshop. I have no idea what happened. I will admit that there was a lot of “stuff” on that computer. Maybe the hard drive was so bloated that it just gave up.

I have a new computer now, and I’m slowly but surely getting used to the Vista operating system and Office 2007. Vista is very different from the XP operating system, but I think I’m going to like it—once I figure it out.

Good thing I budgeted for a new computer back in June. That’s where my stimulus check went. I put the check in the bank, intending to buy the computer in November or December. Instead, out of necessity, I bought it in October, just in time for NanoWriMo.

Web Page Advice

I’m thinking about creating a MySpace page. So, I have been doing some online research. After looking at many individuals’ personal web pages, I’m going to offer an opinion that probably won’t go over well with most readers.

Are you a teacher, preacher, lawyer, or member of any other profession whose members are—even in this day and age—generally described by the term conservative? If the answer is yes, then maybe you shouldn’t post text and pictures that could be construed as even a teensy bit, um, suggestive.

Your posts could come back to haunt you because you never know who’s out there.

Hey,Where's the Hard Drive?

After using a desktop computer for five years, I bought my first laptop four years ago.

However, I still have the desktop. It’s been sitting on a desk (where else?), ignored and unplugged, for three and a half years. I think I should get rid of the darn thing, especially since I intend to buy another desktop in the near future.

Four years ago, I also I bought an external Zip drive and saved a lot of information from the desktop to Zip disks. I probably don’t need to transfer any more files; I’ve done without the information for the better part of four years. So, I will destroy the hard drive.

Just as soon as I figure out which thingie it is.

South Dakota is Where?

While thumbing through a style book for writers recently, I learned that Popsicle is a trademarked word. The generic term is ice on a stick. As a child, I would have defined it as ice that falls off a stick.

I also learned the meaning of the words starboard and port, which I knew were nautical terms, but could never figure out which was which. Good thing to know if I’m ever facing forward on a ship. Starboard is right, port is left. At least I think that’s right.

Unfortunately, I found quite a few typos in this edition. And, looking at a time-zone map of the United States, I discovered that South Dakota apparently is north of North Dakota.

Where have all the proofreaders gone? Probably to the unemployment office.

I'm Back and Maybe I'll Stay

I really, really intend to update my blog at least once a month during 2008. Hmm…that’s what I said last year. It didn’t turn out that way, did it?

I stopped posting last July because I got busy at work and with other distractions. I’m still busy at work, but I don’t have quite as many distractions. This year I’m determined to make the time to do better blog wise.

I think I’ll start by cutting back on the time I lurk on the Etiquette Hell website. For some reason, the posts there don’t seem that interesting lately.

See you next month, I hope.

Geography Lesson: Part II

Overheard recently in a fast-food restaurant:

Ms. A: We got a toy order today from GB. What’s GB?

Mr. B: Great Britain.

Ms. A: But isn’t that the same as the UK?

Mr. B: Yeah, I think so.

Um…no. The United Kingdom comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is composed of England, Scotland, and Wales. Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain.

Got that?

Oh, You Already Get a Newspaper

Yes, Ms. Telephone Solicitor, we do. We are, after all, semi-intelligent and want to know what is going on in the state, country, and the world. But most of all, we want to read about all the nonsense that goes on in this city, if only to be forewarned and to know which areas to avoid.

Sometimes the stories are scary. Sometimes they’re entertaining. Sometimes we wonder why the newspaper even bothered to print them.

Smart-Mart Surprise

In the not-too-distant past, a customer walked into a Smart-Mart in southeastern Arizona. The man was looking for lava rocks (whatever they are). The newspaper article didn’t say whether he found the lava rocks. Getting bit by a rattlesnake probably made him forget about shopping.

Odd place for a snake, you think. Not really. Man and snake were in the garden center.

And not too many years ago, the area where the shopping center is now located was nothing but desert. Apparently, some of the wildlife didn’t get the notice to vacate.

Geography Lesson

According to an article in USA Today, a great many teenagers haven’t a clue about religions, their own and others.

The article claimed that 50 percent of the high school seniors interviewed thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Um…no, Sodom and Gomorrah weren’t married; they weren’t even people. They were towns.

Okay, so some people know very little about biblical geography. Is that a big deal? Maybe not, but some people also seem to know very little about geography in general.

Years ago another publication polled high school students and discovered that many of them thought Delaware was a foreign country. And in case no one’s noticed, New Mexico has a license plate that reads: New Mexico USA.

I confess that I, too, was once geographically impaired. Until I was about ten years old, I thought Puerto Rico was an island off the coast of New York City.

Yikes!

This is just another example of someone not proofreading his or her work.

We recently received our latest rental agreement. As of April 1, we’re on a month to month basis—again.

By some miracle, the first rental agreement we received from the new owners did not raise the rent. The second one, a few months later, was for a five-month lease that raised the rent by sixty dollars a month. It seemed like a big increase; however, during the past six or seven years, our rent had been raised by only five dollars a month each year. Not a bad deal for a decent place to live in a city of this size.

The latest agreement raised the rent by another fifty dollars.

Well, at least that was the intention. The agreement didn't read quite like that. Instead of typing in the right amount, some distracted office clerk typed in the rate as $6275.00 a month.

Eavesdropping at IHOP

Three women and a man, all in their early twenties, sat in the booth behind us. They were wearing dark blue scrubs. From their conversation, we concluded that they were, or had recently been, students in a healthcare class.

One woman said, “I cheated on the test.”

Another said, “I cheated too.”

The third said, “I cheated on the test, but I didn’t cheat on the final.”

The man said, “I cheated.”

I don’t know what type of class it was, but I do feel sorry for the patients when these individuals attempt to put their knowledge—or lack of it—into practice.

I Was a Twelve-Year-Old Plagiarist

According to articles I’ve been reading in newspapers and online, some people have no compunction about passing off other writers’ words as their own.

I haven’t plagiarized anyone else’s words since seventh grade. That’s when I copied an article from the World Book Encyclopedia. The students in my science class were assigned reports on types of trees. I don’t remember if we could choose the tree we were expected to research or if the teacher chose them. Either way, I just couldn’t get excited about oak trees. As I recall, most of my classmates felt the same way about the assignment and also copied their reports from encyclopedias. Yes, I know that “everybody does it” is no excuse. But my 200 plagiarized words about oak trees did not get a six-figure contract from a major publishing house.

The teacher must have suspected that we were copying our reports from encyclopedias, but he never mentioned it or told us that we should be writing the reports in our own words.

Since then, however, everything I’ve written has been in my own words. My work is strictly mine. So, if you don’t like what I’ve written, you can’t blame anyone else.

A Belated Happy New Year

Best wishes for the new year to my family, stepfamily, friends, coworkers, and former coworkers in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Washington State, and any other place you currently call home.

L, A, and R (PNW), I have NOT forgotten you. I miss you.

K, take care of yourself, and me know how you are doing.

M, aka “Jeremy,” remember the street I called “Thunder Road?” Part of it is a Wal-Mart shopping center now. I hope life has been good to you and your family.

It’s Almost Over

The year, that is.

NanoWriMo ended almost a month ago. I wrote over 50,000 words in 29 days, and I didn’t have to get up half an hour early every weekday morning to do it. Last year, I was taking work home and had to edit that first, so writing those 50,000 words was more stressful than it was this year. Last year, in order to reach my goal, I got up at 4 a.m., instead of at 4:30 a.m.
And, I am happy to report, this year I finished the project without destroying my computer.

Will I do NanoWriMo in 2007? I’m thinking: No. But that’s what I thought this year— right up until the middle of October.

It’s Me Again—Finally

I am writing, but I’m not posting much of anything these days.

I'm busy planning and preparing for National Novel Writing Month. I'm planning my entry and preparing an outline. I hope I can write 50,000 words again this year. And I hope my computer doesn’t try to electrocute me this time.

As you might guess, I will not be around much, if at all, during November.

Happy Halloween, Election Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving. See you in December.

Maybe.

My Computer Is at It Again, but I’m Not

My computer is being a pest again. I’m getting pop-up messages about the proximity of wireless networks and the updates available for my computer, along with more warnings about those nasty unused icons that are littering my desktop.

Several weeks ago, a pop-up message informed me that electrical storms had been detected in the area. The computer suggested that I shut down the system. Having been zapped by my last computer, I took its advice. We are in the middle of the monsoon season here. I have detected dozens of electrical storms in the area since then, but I haven’t had that message pop up again.

(Oops, I missed posting something semi-interesting for July. I confess that I’ve neglected my blog, but I’ve been very busy for the past six weeks. Now that I’m not going to be so busy for a while, maybe I’ll do better next month. Then again....)

Yes, I'm Still Here

Busy at work and busy at home. Took a day off and toured a cat house last Friday. Will write more later.

Blog Blahs and the Bizarre

I’ve decided to launch an advertising campaign to promote my blog. After all, what good is a blog if no one ever visits it?

As a first step in this project, I analyzed my posts. After critiquing them, I’ve concluded that WestWord Arizona has a chronic case of the blahs. This blog needs more relevant and more interesting stuff…er, content. It needs content with universal appeal.

I’m fairly certain that no one out there in cyberspace cares about the score I received on an exam in PowerPoint, Excel, or any other subject. A relative thought that the entry recollecting my dream about doing taxes for a serial killer was a little wild. And how many non-writers understand what a storyboard is?

An acquaintance remarked that the post about my purple finger was a bit bizarre. I agree—now. But, hey, the darn thing hurt like heck at the time. For those of you who haven’t read the entry, that disaster happened one morning on the way to work. I was paying too much attention to what was happening at a house across the street and not enough attention to where I was walking. I tripped over an uneven spot on the sidewalk and ended up on the ground.

I considered deleting the “purple” post, but I decided not to. Every time I read it, it will remind me to mind my own business (at least on the way to work).

My Icons are None of Your Business!

That’s what I felt like screaming at my computer last week.

When I turned on the darn thing one morning, a message popped up informing me that I had unused icons on my desktop. Hey, what am I supposed to do about it? It’s 5:30 a.m. I can barely deal with making coffee this early, let alone deal with unused whatsits.

Compared to the desktops of some people I know (and you know who you are), my desktop décor is a bit on the sparse side.

Anyway, I’m not responsible for the icons on my desktop. Dell is. The icons came with the computer. Among others, I have icons urging me to take advantage of a free six- month subscription to AOL, a trial version of QuickBooks Simple Edition, and a trial version of Word Perfect. I have no intention of using these trial versions because I know that I will not be buying the Internet service or the software at the end of the trial runs. Thank you, but I’m happy with NetZero and Word. As for a fancy accounting program, I don’t need one—yet.

Maybe I should delete the unused icons. Then the computer wouldn’t have to nag me about them. And maybe, while I’m at it, I should also uninstall the actual trial versions of this stuff.

On Hiatus This Weekend

I’m really trying my best to post something semi-interesting every other weekend. However, as April 15—make that April 17 this year—will soon be here, I’m doing the annual tax return thing this weekend. I don’t outsource them because, a couple of years ago, I paid H&R Block good money to teach me how to do them.

Unfortunately, I’m still doing them the old-fashioned way and mailing them. Maybe I’ll e-file next year.