My Parents Are to Blame for This

[Note: As short as this post is, I’ve incorporated material from two previously published essays (Tucson Citizen, July 1987; Themestream, January 2001). The revised Themestream essay eventually will be posted in its entirety on another (sorry about that) site. Until then, here is a preview.]

Give me a task, and I’ll do it well, unless, of course, it involves some sort of housework.

And there is a good reason why. As a toddler, I was terrorized by Mom’s vacuum cleaner, a baggy brown behemoth that roared through the house two or three times a week. When Mom wanted to run the vacuum cleaner, she had to conscript a relative to take me somewhere—anywhere.

My parents couldn’t figure out why I was so frightened by the darn thing. Who knows? (I certainly don’t.) Maybe the noise drove me crazy. Then again, one morning the machine came dangerously close to sucking up the cat. Maybe I thought it would get me next.

My histrionics, I mean hysterics, drove Mom and Dad a little crazy. Mom hoped it was just a phase I was going through. Even then, she looked forward to the day when I could start helping out around the house.

That finally happened when I was eight, and it lasted about ten minutes. I was no longer afraid of the vacuum cleaner. However, on my first try, I lost control of the machine, crashed into the china cabinet, demolished two table lamps, and knocked my little brother into a magazine rack.

“For Pete’s sake, Mary Frances,” Dad yelled, “do it yourself before she destroys everything.”

Unfortunately, Dad’s instinct for self-preservation condemned my mother to doing most of her own housework forever.

The Newsletter That Never Was

When I was ten, I got the bright idea to create a newsletter. I never followed through with that idea for several reasons. Reason one: I was ten. Reason two: I didn’t know how to type, which was a requisite for creating a professional looking newsletter.

However, reason three was the one that really shot down the idea. A newsletter has to report news, but I had no idea as to where to find some. Nothing exciting ever happened in our small town. And, at ten, the people I knew didn’t seem at all that interesting.

By the time I was twelve, I suspected that at least a few of those individuals were, or had been, involved in some really interesting stuff. Unfortunately, the adults who knew all the details usually tried their best to stay mum about them in front of the kids. By the time we were teens, though, my friends and I had figured it out for ourselves, thanks to keen observation and a little surreptitious eavesdropping.

At sixteen, I was more interested in dating than I was in writing a newsletter, which was probably just as well. I don’t think a newsletter would have gone over big then. By that time, several of my peers were adding grist to the gossip mill, and a couple of those peers had issues that seemed to appear in the newspapers on a semi-regular basis. Anything I dared to write about them would probably have made some people very unhappy with me, people like their parents, their probation officers, and whoever else was involved in whatever they did.

And even if I had wanted to resurrect the newspaper idea, it wouldn’t have worked. As a high school junior, I had to take a requisite typing class. Two weeks into the class, I discovered that I hated typing.

Hope to Get Back to Blogging Soon

Haven't been blogging much during these last two months. We lost a family member in November.

Hope to get back to blogging and working on other writing projects soon. Also resuming editing services in February.

Just One of Those Things You Always Remember

I was fourteen then and in the ninth grade.

Back in the Mid-Jurassic Period, students were allowed to leave the school grounds for lunch. On that particular day, I was walking to the diner with a friend who was in the eighth grade. I’ll call her Lily, but that wasn’t her real name.

We were halfway there, when Lily stopped in the middle of the street, grabbed my arm, pulled me closer, and whispered in my ear, “See that guy coming toward us.”

How could I not see that guy coming toward us? He looked nasty—scowl on his face, black leather jacket, tight jeans. The word hood popped into my head.

“That’s [Tough Guy],” Lily said. 

Although I hadn’t been formally introduced to Tough Guy, I knew some things about him, and they were not good things. He was a person whose reputation preceded him.

“He had to get married,” Lily whispered as he strutted past us. “Now he has to get divorced because he has to get married again.”

Yikes, I thought. “That’s crazy,” I said. “And anyway, maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

Actually, Lily sort of heard right. The timing was a little off though. Tough Guy did get divorced within a few months. And he did have to get married again, but that happened about five years later.

He married Lily.

Ain't Misbehaving Much

When I was growing up in the Mid-Jurassic Period, my friends and I looked forward to wearing costumes and going from house to house on trick or treat night. We enjoyed doing this every Halloween until the year I was in the ninth grade. That year, we got a lecture instead of treats. A woman at the first house we went to yelled at us, saying we were too old for trick or treat. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she said before telling us to go home.

That woman took all the fun out of trick or treat night. But, even though she turned us away, we never even thought about playing tricks on her. We didn’t go to any other houses. We were afraid that those people would also turn us away. We went home empty handed, figuring that our trick or treat years were over.

They weren't. Sort of.

The next year, my friends and I came up with an idea to have what we considered a little harmless Halloween fun. We decided to do some window waxing, but we wanted to make it easy for people to clean up. We knew that removing wax from windows was a chore; so we “borrowed” bars of soap from home. About 8 p.m., we went to check out the window-waxing possibilities on the main street of a neighboring town. (Yeah, in retrospection, that was sort of dumb.) That town was larger than the one where we lived. We figured we wouldn’t be recognized if we were caught in the act.

While my friends scouted out their territories, I claimed a spot in front of a TV repair shop that had a Closed sign in the window. I could see a light at the back of the shop, behind an open door that led to what was, most likely, office space. Probably left the light on to discourage thieves, I thought.

I started spinning soap circles all over the window. A few minutes later, I glanced up and saw a man standing in the back of the shop. He was laughing, but I freaked out anyway. I dropped the soap and took off. I found my friends, and we got the heck out of there.

From then on, I behaved. Well, at least on Halloween.

Bus Lines: They Can't Arrest You, but They Can Shoot You

I’ve been a bus rider since I was thirteen. Yes, I do have a driver’s license, a brand new one, actually (lousy picture, but thank you, California). However, I’ve found that, for me anyway, using public transportation is more convenient most of the time. I don’t have to worry about finding a parking space or dealing with distracted drivers, meandering pedestrians, and a variety of emergency vehicles. And riding the bus is less expensive than adding a second vehicle to the household.
 
Several times during the week, I’ll take the neighborhood bus to the downtown transit center (DTC). From there, I’ll walk to either the library, Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble. All three are within reasonable walking distance, and I can use the exercise. I don’t know who or what created the bus schedules, but whoever or whatever was responsible for them did a great job. Most of the buses arrive at and later leave the DTC at the same time. If I want to travel to one of the outlying shopping centers or to another city, I generally have a short wait before transferring to another bus.
 
Once in a while, the neighborhood bus runs late, and I miss my connection. That’s when I spend twenty or thirty minutes doing some serious people watching. Hey, it’s a bus station, and bus stations do tend to attract “interesting” people. I try to be inconspicuous when observing fellow bus riders (or the individuals who seem to just hang out there every day). I admit that I sometimes pull a notebook and pen out of my backpack and jot down my observations. Discreetly, of course.
 
Well, no one has asked me why I’m taking notes. Not yet.
 
Several individuals roaming around the area have (unsuccessfully) asked me for money, but people usually mind their manners. So far, I haven’t witnessed anything wilder than a man screaming obscenities at no one in particular. (I moved away from that one pretty darn fast.)
 
Last week, I overheard a driver and a passenger discussing a fellow who has been permanently banned from the DTC. Among other things, he made inappropriate suggestions to a female bus driver. “It takes a lot to get you banned from the transit center,” the driver said. “Whenever that guy shows up, we call security.”
 
Security, in this case, is the transit police. The transit police can enforce rules, resolve conflicts, and order people off the property. Sounds like they mean business, and they do. However the business they’re allowed to mean is rather limited. I recently learned that the transit police are not authorized to make arrests. In the event of a serious issue (I don't want to even imagine what that might be), they must send an SOS to the city police. That seems a bit odd because the transit police are armed.

Hmm…. So they can’t arrest you, but they can shoot you.

They're Watching You, Me, and Everyone Else

Recently, I walked into a well-known office supply store, politely declined offers of help from two eager-beaver sales associates, and headed to the ink cartridge display. Right away, something seemed off. Then it dawned on me that there weren’t any ink cartridges on the shelves, just rows of tickets where the cartridges should have been. The tickets read: Take ticket and bring to register.

I didn’t see a ticket for the cartridge I needed, so I convinced myself that the store didn’t sell that type. Or was out of it. Or something. Yes, I could have asked, but I wasn’t that desperate to spend twenty-five dollars. My printer wasn’t in imminent danger of running out of ink. I thought it might be nice to have a spare, but it really wasn’t that important.

So I abandoned my original plan and wandered into the school supplies area, searching for cheap notebooks and other bargains. After telling a third sales associate that I was “just looking,” I decided that I didn’t see anything I wanted to spend my money on. And, anyway, Other Half was waiting impatiently in the vehicle.

On my way out, I stopped to rummage through the sale bins near the front of the store. That’s when I noticed that the cashier was wearing a headset. Hmm, when did that start? I didn’t remember seeing a cashier wearing a headset on my previous visits. I figured she was on the phone with a customer until I heard her say, “Woman in pink flowered shirt and black slacks heading in the direction of the copy and print area.”

Yes, she was describing a customer who had just entered the store. And she wasn’t being quiet about it either. I wasn’t that close to the register. However, I had no trouble hearing the cashier as she alerted the troops. I thought it was more than likely that the woman in the pink flowered shirt and black slacks had heard her too.

Looking around, I spotted several other associates who were also wearing headsets. Oh, I had noticed employees wearing headsets in other stores. But I had never heard of store personnel using them to track each customer the minute he or she stepped into the store. Although I suspected that this was some new security measure, I thought it was a bit annoying.

I was even more annoyed when I realized that the employees must have tracked every move I made. Now I knew why an associate seemed to pop up every time I turned sideways. Silly me. I had thought they were simply being overzealous because, at that time, there seemed to be more employees than customers in the store. I wondered if my very laid-back outfit, an oversized white T-shirt and well worn faded jeans, tagged me as a potential shoplifter.

As I headed to the door, the cashier noticed me and asked if I had found everything I was looking for. My first instinct was to suggest that she should be more discreet when describing customers and their likely destinations. But I was brought up to be nice. So I told her what I wanted, adding that the store apparently didn’t carry that type of ink cartridge.

“Oh,” she said, pointing at the wall behind the registers, “we have those.”

Okaaaay. I’m in that store at least once a week. How could I have not noticed all those shelves stacked with what seemed like a half-zillion ink cartridges? “Have people stolen a lot of those?” I asked.

The cashier nodded.

As she handed me the receipt for my purchase, another customer walked into the store. “Man wearing plaid shirt and carrying messenger bag, heading toward computers,” she announced to the outlying associates.

“Wow,” I said, “you really must have a lot of shrinkage in this store.”

“Yes,” she said, “we do.”

Sadly, I understood why. Although I like certain stores in that area, it’s not the greatest neighborhood. I realize that it’s in the store’s best interest to maximize security in order to minimize losses. However, tracking every customer who walks in the door just seems too tacky and a tad disrespectful. And that policy probably will not encourage people to shop there.

On the way home, I imagined how the cashier might have described me: Woman wearing jeans, a tan bucket hat, and a white T-shirt that reads Saguaro Romance Writers. She’s dragging a blue rolling back pack. Stopped at the ink cartridge tickets. Hmm … looks confused.

Must Rescue Newspaper---Again

When we moved from Arizona, I thought my days of “rescuing” the newspaper were over. So not true. I still have to take in the newspaper first thing in the morning, which currently means around 5 a.m. These days, however, all I have to do is open the door and pick it up—providing that it’s there, of course.

Arizona was a different story. Prior to escaping from the desert heat, we spent almost fourteen years living in a small apartment complex. Hoping to discourage door-to-door solicitors and other perceived undesirables, The Powers That Be fenced in the property around 2006. Until then, the newspaper delivery guy (NDG) dropped the newspaper at our back door. After the fence went up, NDG was literally on the outside looking in.

Other Half (OH) was most unhappy. He just couldn’t do without his morning newspaper. So I called the circulation office and told the customer service representative what NDG would have to do in order to keep OH from cancelling his subscription. I wasn’t too hopeful, but the CSR went for it, probably after considering the decline in newspaper sales.

For the next four or five years, each weekday morning around 6 a.m., NDG wheeled into the unfenced part of the driveway, leaped out of his SUV, and lobbed the newspaper over the exit gate where, I suspect, it ricocheted off the neighbor’s bedroom window.

Each weekday morning around 6:15 a.m., I trudged out to the parking lot and picked up the newspaper. On weekends, NDG had the courtesy to show up at 7 a.m., which was great, because I had no intention of getting up early on those days to rescue a newspaper that I suspected wasn’t worth the price of the subscription.

The newspaper usually was right where it should be. But maybe ten or twelve times a year, it went AWOL. Most of those times, I’m sure it wasn’t delivered for some legitimate reason. Maybe NDG got sick halfway through the route, maybe he ran out of newspapers, or maybe he was on vacation and the substitute NDG didn’t have a clue as to who got a newspaper.

At other times, I’m fairly certain that another tenant grabbed the newspaper. Why? Well, some days I’d hear someone walking through the parking lot, or I’d hear a car stop and a door slam before the car drove out of the yard. And then, when I went out to pick up the newspaper, it wasn’t there.

When the newspaper goes AWOL here, in the land of better weather, I figure it’s just an oversight on the part of the current NDG. Maybe he’s on vacation. (I’m fairly sure it’s a he because the newspaper is delivered around 4 a.m.) Or maybe he’s sick. Or something.

And, anyway, this is a 55-plus apartment complex. I’d really like to believe that 55-plus persons ceased pilfering newspapers years ago.

But then again, who knows?

Bus Lines: Viewer Discretion Advised

People should use discretion when posting on Facebook and other social media sites. Everyone knows that, or everyone should. And everyone also should know how to exercise a little discretion and a lot of common sense when sharing personal information in public places.

For example, take this little scenario that happened recently.

A woman got on the bus, plopped into the seat in front of me, and called a friend. I'll call the woman Loud Lady, because she was. “You'll never guess who I slept with last night,” Loud Lady said.

Ears perked up at the front of the bus; a couple of heads swiveled around.

I wondered if the friend guessed right.

“No,” Loud Lady said, giggling, “not the one I’ve been going out with. The other one.”

Oops. After that news flash, the woman realized she had a captive audience. She probably figured it out when she noticed several passengers glaring at her, including the woman accompanied by three small children.

“Well, I guess everyone on the bus heard that,” Loud Lady told her friend.

“Yep, we sure did,” the fellow sitting across from her piped up.

I thought about advising her to try texting the next time she has a news flash.

I thought about it, but I didn’t.

How Did This Happen?

Last week, I received a catalog from a jewelry making supply company. I’ve ordered items from this company six or seven times during the last twenty years. Although I haven’t ordered anything from it in at least two years, I find a sale catalog from the company in the mailbox three or four times a year.

So I wasn’t surprised to get the catalog. What surprised me was that it was addressed to me at my new location. No, there wasn’t a yellow sticker from the USPS attached to it with my forwarding address. And anyway, I don’t think the post office forwards catalogs.

My current address was printed on the back of the catalog? I haven’t notified the company regarding my change of address, and I don’t plan to do so unless I order something from it online.

So now I’m wondering: How did that company get my new address? And who or what else has it?

My Date Did NOT Set My Best Friend on Fire

One February, way back when we were teens, my best friend, Kate, talked me into yet another blind date. The guy she liked lived ten miles away. He didn’t have a car, but his friend did. We met the guys at a nearby restaurant where we sat and talked for a couple hours.

Well, Kate and “Donnie” talked for a couple hours.

As for me, I wished that I had stayed home and read a good book. My date, I’ll call him “Joe,” was not someone my parents would have approved of. I won’t go into details, but I did notice that he had a lot of gray in his hair. I suspected that he had probably graduated from high school shortly after the end of World War II. Fortunately, Joe dozed off about twenty minutes after we were introduced.

Hey, I wasn’t that boring.

Thirty-plus years later, I wrote an anecdote about that bizarre double date and entered it in a Worst Date contest sponsored by a newspaper that no longer exists. Of course, being a writer, I, um, embellished the story a bit.

On Valentine’s Day, the newspaper published an article written by one of its reporters. The article included several worst date anecdotes submitted by readers (with no last names mentioned). Mine was the lead in. I knew it couldn’t miss. It began with, “My date set my best friend on fire.”

My entry related how Donnie had lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the ashtray. The hot match scored a direct hit on the cellophane cigarette wrapper, which burst into flames. I wrote that my dozing date woke up, assessed the situation, and started huffing and puffing. Thanks to Joe’s lung capacity, the mini torch went airborne and landed on Kate’s fuzzy black sweater.

Well, that was my story then, but I’m no longer sticking to it.

The reality: My date did not set my best friend on fire. I confess that I combined the blind date story with another “incident” that happened when Kate and I were at the restaurant a few months earlier. Yes, the ashtray fire really happened the way I wrote it, but Donnie and Joe were nowhere in sight.

Today, when friends read the tear sheet of that article, I tell them the truth: “Actually,” I say, “I’m the one who set Kate on fire.” But not to worry, Kate wasn’t hurt. Her sweater was only slightly singed, and the Pepsi stains came out in the wash.

Cinderella, Snow White, and the Elves (Yes, Elves)

Way back when I worked full time, a coworker told me about a research paper she had written for a college class. I don’t remember the name of the class—something to do with child psychology, most likely. Her subject was fairy tales.

I’ll call my coworker “Susan,” although that wasn’t her real name. Susan interviewed several women while researching her project. She asked each woman what her favorite fairy tale was when she was five years old.

According to Susan, whatever your favorite childhood fairy tale was, that’s how you thought your life was going to turn out. In other words, if your favorite fairy tale was Cinderella or Snow White, your five-year-old self figured you’d grow up, meet a handsome prince, and live happily ever after.

Right.

Unlike my friends in kindergarten, I wasn’t impressed by Cinderella or Snow White. I liked the story about the elves and the shoemaker. I thought it was really neat that the elves helped out the tired shoemaker and his wife by making shoes while the couple got a decent night’s sleep.

I guess my preference meant that, when I grew up, I thought I would find someone to do my chores for me. Chores like cooking and cleaning for example.

As it turned out, that did happen. Sort of. Other Half retired many years before I did. So, while I worked full time, he did most of the housework.

But no longer. Now that I’m retired from full-time work, Other Half figures that he’s retired from doing just about anything around the house.

So I do it all now. And I’ve accepted that. But I’m also beginning to suspect that the shoemaker took advantage of the elves.

On Hiatus Until January

I am on hiatus for a while. We are moving from Arizona, and I will be offline until I have Internet service at our new location in North San Diego County.

I will return in January and will try my best to reach my goal of posting at least once a week.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you continue to do so in 2012.

Not Gonna Get into That Debate, But...

On December 24, I am going to post this greeting on Facebook: Merry Christmas to my Facebook friends and family members in the states and abroad who are celebrating Christmas.

I don’t want to get into the Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays debate, but I’m fairly certain that I have some FB friends who don’t celebrate Christmas.

This annual controversy reminds me of a faux pas I made several years ago. But it wasn’t during the Christmas season.

A very nice lady, who was one of my college professors, wished me a Happy Easter before ending our phone conversation. I automatically replied, "Happy Easter to you, too." After I hung up, I thought, Oh, no! My former professor is a Hindu and doesn't celebrate Easter. I don't think she was offended though. If she was, it wasn't reflected in my grade.

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.