Not Exactly a Domestic Goddess

I’m decluttering my apartment. I’m plugging away at it in between doing my taxes and beta reading, both of which I’d rather be doing.

Doing housework has never been one of my favorite activities. But I’ve learned to do it and do it well. I just tend to put it off. These days, I’m seriously considering hiring someone to clean my apartment every few weeks. Only thing is, I’d feel obligated to clean the place before the cleaner arrived.

As a child, I admit I was a bit spoiled when it came to helping around the house, but there’s a reason for that. When I was two years old, I was terrified of the vacuum cleaner. If Mom wanted to vacuum the living room rug in peace, she had to draft someone to take me for a walk.

By the time I was eight, my parents were fairly certain I had gotten over that nonsense. So, early one Saturday morning, Mom flipped the switch on the vacuum cleaner, turned it over to me, and pointed me in the direction of the living room. Within minutes, I had toppled a couple of lamps, knocked my little brother into the magazine rack, and scared the cat out of three or four of her nine lives.

“Do it yourself before she kills us all,” Dad hollered, extracting Mopsy from his shredded trouser leg.

Unfortunately, my father’s instinct for self-preservation condemned my mother to doing most of the housework forever.

When I was thirteen, my parents decided I was old enough to start helping out around the house on a regular basis. But, by that time, I was beyond rehabilitation. I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of housework. Mom complained that I dusted around knickknacks and doilies and failed to vacuum the corners of the living room—or any room.

My incompetence annoyed Mom even more when it came to keeping my bedroom picked up. She claimed the place looked like an explosion at a rummage sale. “How can you tell the clean clothes from the dirty ones?” she frequently asked. Sometimes I couldn’t. I also suspected that I held the town record for having the most overdue library books. I had a habit of shoving them under my bed. They stayed there until the librarian reminded me that the books were due back weeks ago.

When Mom couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore, she cleaned my bedroom. Coincidentally, she usually did this right before we were expecting guests. Throughout my adolescence, Mom had a recurring nightmare in which a guest took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom, stumbled into my bedroom, and disappeared forever.

[Note: A slightly different version of this mini-essay was posted on Blogger in May 2005.]

Interview Didn't Go Well, but the Job Did

Were you ever belittled during a job interview? I was.

In December 1970, I was on a layoff from the Second Best Electric Company (SBEC), and collecting unemployment benefits, aka a weekly check. I had just completed my first accounting class at the local community college and had registered for another evening accounting class during the spring semester.

On Thursday, December 31, I went to the Department of Employment Security (DES) to discuss employment opportunities with a counselor. After he reviewed my work history and education background, he thumbed through a stack of index cards to determine if I was qualified for any of the available jobs. “How would you like to work for a CPA?” he asked, flashing a Cheshire cat grin. “Mr. C is looking for a receptionist who can help with the bookkeeping.”

That sounded like a good opportunity. I liked accounting, and I had done very well in the class. I also had worked temporarily in the accounts receivable area at the SBEC, so I did have some experience in basic bookkeeping procedures, well, mostly in auditing accounts receivable balances. Getting experience in small business bookkeeping seemed like something that eventually might get me a better job, preferably in a larger city that had more opportunities.

The counselor wrote out a card introducing me to Mr. C, gave me directions on how to get there, and wished me good luck.

At first, I thought I had walked into an empty office. Then I heard voices coming from somewhere. I ventured farther into the front office, peeked into another room, and discovered two more offices. An older woman was sitting in the back office, talking to someone I couldn’t see. When she noticed me, she came out and asked me what I was doing there. I explained that a DES counselor had sent me for a job interview with Mr. C. She frowned, rolled her eyes, and went back into the office, where she muttered something I didn’t catch. A few minutes later, Mr. C. shuffled out.

Mr. C looked past retirement age, way past retirement age. He also looked as if he had slept in his suit that seemed to be a size too big. After greeting me with a scowl and a growl, he parked me at the shabby not-so-chic receptionist’s desk and told me he would be back in a few minutes. He then proceeded to keep me waiting for what seemed like forever while he chatted with the woman.

I gave up trying to eavesdrop on their conversation and picked up a coffee-stained document I found on the desk. I spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to make sense of a convoluted list of office rules that referenced Mr. C’s wife and his brother who apparently were partners in the business. I wondered where the brother was and how old he was. I assumed the woman talking with Mr. C was Mrs. C.

I put the list aside and checked out my potential office. A couple of metal file cabinets sat against one wall. Additional standard equipment included a telephone, a manual typewriter of undetermined age, and a bulky machine studded with what looked like a half-zillion numbered keys. It had no electrical cord attached; instead, the machine had a lever on one side.

I really don’t want to do this, I thought. A few minutes later, I made up my mind to go back to the DES office and ask for another referral. Before I could sneak out, the woman came and told me that Mr. C would deign to speak with me. She ushered me through the second office that had cardboard boxes piled several feet high against one wall. A tin box about the size of an apartment refrigerator sat on the other side of the room, along with more cardboard boxes and a few metal storage cabinets.

Mr. C’s cluttered office looked as if it hadn’t been updated — or dusted — since the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration. In addition to the outdated furniture and office equipment, packages of snack food and jars of Planter’s peanuts were strewn over a second desk. Mr. C pointed at the chair the woman had recently vacated. Against my better judgement, I handed him the introductory card and sat down.

I don’t remember most of the things we discussed. But I did mention that I had used an electric typewriter and an adding machine at my previous job. Mr. C sneered and said, “Electric typewriters and adding machines are no good for this type of work.” In answer to one of my questions, he told me the machine with the half-zillion keys was a comptometer, which, apparently, was good for this type of work. He then belittled the accounting class I had just completed and informed me that I knew absolutely nothing about accounting.

I guess he wasn’t impressed by my A in the accounting class.

Mr. C’s patronizing attitude made me feel like the dumbest thing on two feet. I wanted to get up and walk out. But what would he tell the DES counselor?

Despite my perceived shortcomings, he offered me the receptionist/bookkeeper position. I wanted a job, but not that one. Working there wouldn’t be a good fit for me — mainly because of Mr. C’s crummy attitude and the prehistoric office equipment I would be required to use. And then there was his wife. I probably would have to work under her supervision. If she was anything like him, would I be able to get along with her?

My first instinct was to tell him thank you, but no thank you.

However, I knew the DES counselor would follow up with Mr. C. So I felt I had no choice; it was either accept the job or lose my unemployment benefits. I accepted the job and went home and spent the long weekend sobbing intermittently.

I showed up for work on Monday, resigned to making the best of it until I could find a more suitable job. I arrived before Mr. C did and was greeted by my new co-worker who was sweeping the front office. I thought it odd that his wife had arrived before he did. And she seemed surprised to see me. She was horrified when I addressed her as Mrs. C. Oh, wonderful, she wasn’t his wife. Her name was Esther, and she was his secretary/ bookkeeper.

Mr. C strolled into the office about twenty minutes later. He also seemed surprised to see me. I figured that, for some unknown reason, they never expected me to show up. After Mr. C left the office, presumably to visit a client, Esther confided that I was a replacement for a previous DES referral who had turned out to be an unreliable slacker. When I asked about the list of rules, she told me to disregard it. Mr. C’s brother and his wife no longer worked there. So far, that news was the most positive thing about the job.

After I got to know Esther, she admitted she didn’t like working for Mr. C. She planned to stick it out because she wanted to retire in a few years. I later learned she had walked out on her long-term former employer about ten months before because of a conflict of interest with his wife. Although she had interviewed at other companies, Mr. C was the only one who had offered her a job.

I suspected that Esther also was a DES referral.

Esther and I were a great team. We worked with minimal supervision. We knew what had to be done, and we did it well and on time. If there was a chore one of us didn’t particularly like to do, we compromised. For example, Esther agreed to keep on sweeping and dusting the front office on Monday. And I agreed to maintain and operate the tin behemoth in Esther’s office, which turned out to be an ancient copier, aka the glorified ditto machine.

Mr. C usually was out of the office for part of the day. And when he was there, he seldom discussed anything with us. Most of the time, he didn’t even say good morning when he arrived. And if he did, he just sort of growled it at us on the way to his office. When there was something special that had to be done, he left us hand-scribbled instructions that often were confusing. He always wrote them in one paragraph, no matter how long they were. In hindsight, I think Mr. C would have loved e-mail. E-mail would have saved him from spending money on yellow legal pads and generic sticky notes. And the e-mail messages would have at least been legible.

My starting wage was $2.00 an hour, which was more than the current minimum wage; however, I received only a five-cent an hour raise each year during the next two years. To keep us around, Mr. C paid us a small annual bonus in May. The promise of that money was like a carrot on a stick, so to speak. The bonus was our reward for not bailing during tax time.

Our workload could get super crazy during tax time, which lasted from the middle of January to the April deadline. One year, Mr. C took pity on us and hired a part-time employee to help out. Lillian was a previous DES referral who had worked in our office for a short time a few years before. She needed a temporary second job and had contacted Mr. C. I was put in charge of training Lillian. As it turned out, I also was in charge of correcting most of her work.

Although clients appreciated our efforts, Mr. C never praised us for doing a good job in keeping the office running smoothly. On the other hand, he never complained about our work. I assumed I was doing a good job, but it would have been nice to have received some positive feedback.

One morning, about three months after I had started working for Mr. C, a personnel specialist from the SBEC called my parents’ house and told my mother she had a job for me. When I got the message, I considered the offer for five minutes. Then I told Mom, “Call the SBEC and tell them I’m not coming back. And ask them to please send me the money I contributed to the pension fund.”

The way things were going at the SBEC, I eventually would have been laid off again. I didn’t want to work for Mr. C forever. However, I realized that experience working in a CPA office would look better on a resume than experience auditing accounts receivable balances or doing whatever busy work the SBEC personnel specialist had in mind for me.

I worked for Mr. C for two and a half years. I prepared monthly write-ups and all types of tax-related forms, including quarterly payroll tax reports, sales tax reports, and individual and small business income tax returns. I prepared a weekly payroll and wrote payroll checks for a popular restaurant. I also typed annual financial statements on translucent master copies and made duplicate copies on the glorified ditto machine.

Among my “other duties as required,” I deciphered many of Mr. C’s hand-scribbled hieroglyphics and edited them into intelligible documents, including letters to clients and the IRS. I searched through old client records stored in the cardboard boxes and located documents needed for IRS audits. And I learned how to fib to clients, IRS agents, and a process server.

I left when felt I had learned everything I could learn there, along with a few things I didn’t necessarily want to learn. It was time for me to move on. After I gave my notice to Mr. C, Esther told me how pleased he had been when I accepted the job.

[Note: For another story about Mr. C, please see the blog post following this essay: “We Suspected He Lied About His Age.”]

Excerpt from Adventures in Working
copyright 2019

We Suspected He Lied About His Age

I recently found some old newspaper clippings I’ve kept since the 1970s. One of them reported an adventure involving my former employer, the late CPA. For a short time, Mr. C was sort of a local hero. My co-worker, Esther, and I weren’t impressed by the newspaper article. Nothing that man did surprised us.

Mr. C most likely was past retirement age when I went to work for him. At the time, I had just completed an introductory accounting class at the local community college. Although I hadn’t much liked math during high school, I discovered I liked accounting. I was happy when the counselor at the Department of Employment Security sent me to an interview at a CPA office.

That is, I was happy until I stepped into the office.

I think Mr. C ran out of filing space about ten years before he hired me. Cardboard boxes were piled up all over the place in Esther’s office. I was even less happy when I saw the comptometer and manual typewriter on the desk in my prospective office. I had used an adding machine and electric typewriter at my previous job.

After a discouraging interview, he offered me the job on the spot. I wanted a job, but I didn’t want that job. However, thanks to being laid off from the Second Best Electric Company, I was collecting unemployment checks. So I felt obligated to accept the receptionist/ bookkeeper position.

About a year after he hired me, Mr. C earned his brief claim to fame by chasing down two teen-aged purse snatchers. He might have been old, but he was feisty. Mr. C never discussed his background or personal life with Esther and me. However, we knew he had grown up in New York City. We figured he probably had some previous experience with muggers.

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

Mr. C chased the thieves through the parking lot, across the street, and into another shopping center. When he got to the second parking lot, a passerby realized what was happening and joined the chase. Mr. C and Good Samaritan had cornered the teens against a fence, while a third person called the police from a nearby store.

Mr. C was 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. C was “in his sixties.” Esther and I snickered when we read that. We suspected our boss had lied to the court official. We were pretty sure he would never see 70 again. Apparently, Mr. C swore to tell the truth about everything except his age.

Excerpt from Adventures in Working

copyright 2019

Never Really Homeless, But I Felt Like I Was

I have compassion for individuals who are homeless because of circumstances beyond their control. On the other hand, I can understand why people don’t want them squatting in their front yards. Homelessness is a sad, tough problem with no easy solution.

I never actually was homeless, but there was one time in my life that I felt as if I were. And during another time, technically, I guess I really was.

In the late seventies we lived rent-free in an old bunkhouse on a ranch north of Tucson. I lived there at the whim of the owner who didn’t like me, despite never having done anything to cause her to dislike me. Initially, both late Other Half and I had been promised work there, but my bookkeeping job fell through. In hindsight, I suspect that the owner never intended to hire me.

To make a very long story short, I hated living there. I never had felt so lonely before--- or since. I don’t suffer from depression. Good thing, too, because living in that place was depressing. The ranch was located in the Catalina Mountains, aka the middle of nowhere.

After doing a few household chores, I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Because of the drug drops rumored to be taking place at a nearby airstrip, I was warned not to wander outside the ranch grounds. So my leisure activities generally were limited to: 1) hanging out with the ranch cats, or 2) visiting the foreman’s wife and watching what seemed like endless soap operas while listening to her complain about everything and everyone.

I frequently woke up at night wondering if I would ever get off the mountain. Worse, not having been employed for months, I wondered if anyone would ever hire me again. Oh, yeah, I did have a job in town for a short while. I quit after a couple of weeks. I just wasn’t cut out to be a bartender.

Eventually, I did get off the mountain.

After a week of unsuccessfully looking for work, I walked into the personnel office of a big box store and almost begged the clerk for a job. She called the controller, who came down and interviewed me. I walked out with a job in the accounting department. I think the controller hired me against his better judgement because he realized I was semi-desperate for a job. After I had worked there for a couple of months, he told another employee, “I hired her off the street. I didn’t think she would stay.”

But I stayed for a little over two years. Fun times.

I left the store when I went to work at the university. I am grateful for that university job, not only because it later looked good on my resume, but also because of the many college credits I was able to accumulate for a very low cost.

Fast forward several years. Those university credits transferred to another college during the time of my second experience with perceived homelessness.

I was living in an apartment that was close to my job and to the college I attended. But it wasn’t my apartment; I was never on the rental agreement. Fortunately the landlord was cool with me being there. And the legal tenant acted as a buffer between me and . . . well, not going for the long explanation at this time.

However, it didn’t take me long to discover that there was an individual in the area who was not thrilled to see me there. And unlike my experience with the ranch owner, I confess that this person probably had a valid reason to feel that way. Person probably was delighted to learn I was moving back to the West shortly after finishing my last class.

I still joke about living at the post office box I rented for several years while I was completing the requirements for my degree.

Cooling off in His Secret Spot

Here’s my Beach Buddy Bruce, aka YouTube’s Oceanside Trenchcoat Guy. I filmed this video when we were hanging out at the beach on a recent Sunday morning.

Bruce is a well-known Oceanside, California, beach personality. He’s been splashing in the water wearing a trench coat for about five years. He’s been filmed, photographed, and/or interviewed, most likely by hundreds of people, including Channel 8 San Diego’s own feature reporter Jeff Zevely who spotlighted Bruce during a Zevely’s Zone interview in August 2017.

Yes, a man walking into the ocean while wearing a trench coat is an unusual, sometimes even concerning, sight. Tourists have called 911 on him several times, only to be assured that that’s Bruce and he’s okay.

Bruce is well-liked and respected by the locals and tourists who have taken the time to get to know him. People admire him for having the courage to do what makes him happy. Oceanside residents and former residents look forward to seeing the live videos he films almost every day.

In addition to posting live videos on an Oceanside community Facebook page and posting GoPro videos on his YouTube channel, Bruce also posts short videos and photos on Instagram. At last count, he has more than 4,000 people following him there.

One day, but probably not soon, I’ll post “Knock Me Over,” the first video I filmed of Bruce. I did that two years ago, on a wild night in June, when the angry sea continually catapulted water and rocks onto and across the Strand, causing the powers-that- be to close the street.

[Note: I've blogged about my Beach Buddy on Blogger before. To learn more about him, read my September 7, 2016 post.]

Don't Like to Encourage Fibbing But . . .

A couple of weeks ago, after attending Coffee with a Cop, Beach Buddy, aka the Oceanside Trenchcoat Guy, dropped me off in front of my apartment complex. I was heading to the front gate when I noticed a twenty-something young man (YM) who seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. I didn’t recognize him as a neighborhood resident. On the other hand, he didn’t look homeless. He approached me as I was about to disappear into the courtyard.

YM: Do you have any spare change for the bus?

Me: Sorry, no. But you could try giving the bus driver a sob story. (Over the years, I’ve seen various scenarios work well hundreds of times.)

YM: I tried that.

Me: Try another bus driver.

Yes, I probably shouldn’t have offered suggestions, but I did. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to fib to an NCTD driver. But it was oppressively warm that day. And I all too well remember waiting for buses in Tucson during July.

Brouhaha At the Carnival

[Note: I confess that this essay is very badly written (and you know it is very badly written when I use two adverbs together to describe it). Sadly, over the years, I have downloaded too many freebie e-novels that weren’t written much better than this.]

Talk about being a drama queen; I think I was at my best with this essay. Well, at the time; later, I did top it as a college freshman. Unfortunately, the writing in this is really bad, well, more like terrible. But what the heck, I was seventeen when I wrote it. I’m fairly certain I typed this draft on a manual typewriter. During typing class, when, of course, I should have been practicing whatever lesson we were supposed to practice that day. And I sucked at typing on any form of a manual typewriter. My fingers were too short to reach the keys correctly. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

I’ve modified the essay just a tiny bit, but this version contains 99 percent of the original material, minus the typos and weird punctuation, of course. However, I did retain all those strangely structured sentences, the weird word usage, and those awful adverbs—ugh. I’ve also added comments in brackets. Names of all participants have been changed to (hopefully) prevent anyone reading this from figuring out who they really were.

This version isn’t complete; the last page seems to be missing. So this probably was a rough draft. I must have edited the story a bit because I’m sure I showed a “clean copy” to “Jeremy” (a high school boyfriend, more or less, mostly less as it turned out). I made him read a lot of the crazy stuff I wrote. He never told me I was crazy, except the time that “Kate” and I stalked his brother “Roddy” by trailing him down the street for about a half mile one Columbus Day, back in the Mid-Jurassic Period. Oh, wait; it was Roddy who told Jeremy we were crazy. (Sorry, Roddy, we were really bored that day, and you just happened to walk by. We saw an opportunity and we took it.)

Thinking about it now, I wonder how we ever got into this mess. Making that remark wasn’t like “Jenna.”

We We’re Minding Our Own Business When…

Every year, some organization in the next town [Fire Dept.?] sponsors a carnival. I think it goes on for the better part of a week. My four friends and I went to the carnival for three nights in a row. By the third night we felt like veterans [lame usage here].

Passing by a certain bunch of guys we knew, I could sense Roddy and “Max” staring at me behind my back [Yeah, I know, adolescent paranoia.] You’d think I committed a crime. [Huh! Jeremy cheated on me; well, I guess maybe he cheated on both of us. Yeah, he did.] But I wasn’t at the carnival to brood over my personal problems [even though I did anyway]. Thoughts of Roddy’s boyish looking [Well, he was a boy.] younger brother, Jeremy, never wandered far from my mind or my heart. [OMG, I can’t believe I wrote that, but I was sixteen (at the time this brouhaha happened) and thought I was “in luuuve.”]

The five of us decided to split up. Kate, “Cindy”, and I stayed together, while Jenna and “Sally” went off together in another direction. Kate talked Cindy into having a picture taken at the photo booth, so we went over there.

About twenty minutes later, we were standing in front of the photo booth when Sally came racing up to us, trailed closely by Jenna whose appearance had suddenly changed from one of exemplary to that of chaotic. Her long, honey-brown hair [honey brown?], which had been pulled back into a french twist, now looked disheveled and uncombed [redundant]. To me, her appearance relayed the impression that she had just slugged it out with someone. How right I was!

Breathlessly [How’s that for an adverb?], Jenna and Sally had pieced together their little escapade of a few minutes ago. They had been standing in front of the motorcycle exhibition when Sally made some reference to Hoody Guy who was practically the star attraction of that racket. A couple of nights previously, he had made clear his interest in Sally [In other words, he tried to hit on her.].

Although the feeling was NOT mutual, Sally made some remark about him. It was just her bad luck that the two girls standing in front of them didn’t exactly appreciate Sally’s praise of Hoody Guy’s masculine attributes [Whatever the heck they were. Sally may have been impressed, but I wasn’t.] In fact, their dislike was so intense that they started bugging Jenna.

Jenna was wearing a very nice pair of slacks. One of the girls said to her, “So, you think you’ve got hot pants.”

“No,” Jenna said. “I think they’re cool.”

The girl apparently didn’t much like that answer. She had slapped Jenna across the face and started pulling her hair. Sally, completely stunned, had backed off and watched the affair [weird choice of word] from a safe distance. Finally, Jenna got away and she and Sally went looking for the rest of the crew.

As we listened to the details, Kate, Cindy, and I began to feel pangs [another weird choice of word] of revenge surge within us [Oh, the drama---and the insanity.] In a wild moment of madness [That explains it.], we all hollered, “Let’s go get them.” After securing [Oh, puhlezzze!] a description of the two from Jenna and Sally, the five of us courageously set out to finish what Sally had unwillingly started.

Halfway to our destination, a thought suddenly hit me like a bombshell [Yikes!]. Calling our little army [Well, fits in with bombshell.] to an abrupt halt, I asked Jenna to repeat her description of the girls. She did: one blonde, one brunette. Oh, brother, I had seen those two here before. And man, were they ever something. My idea of two typical sluts [is writing sluts politically correct these days?], and how right I was.

Realizing that we weren’t fooling with just anybody, I began to think things over. However, the determination of the others dissolved [weird word again] any fears I might have had at the moment. Chins set firmly [s/b chins firmly set for consistency w/fists phrase] and fists tightly clenched, the five of us continued on in our search for trouble.

We found it, or rather, it found us halfway around the carnival grounds. That’s when we sighted [Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.] our opponents heading in our direction. Personally, I’d rather have sighted a saber-toothed tiger and a dinosaur instead, but that’s life, so they say [really lame sentence, and weird too]. Just about then, I thought life was getting to be pretty crazy and a little dangerous [Got even crazier a couple of weeks later, but that’s another story involving an “open house” event, a minor accident, and a state trooper.].

Our courage began to fail as we previewed [ugh] our opposition. We unanimously decided against violence and continued on our way, ignoring the two. Unfortunately they decided not to be ignored. We all cautioned one another not to get excited [Panic would be a better word here.] as the pair began trailing after us. After all, there were five of us and only two of them.

I walked about five yards ahead of the others, with Kate close behind [We were scared out of our minds at this point.]. Intuition told me there was going to be trouble, and again, how right I was [I seemed to be right a lot]. Making up my mind, I turned to Kate, “I’m going to find a cop.”

“No,” Kate said, “If my mom and dad see this….” [Kate and Jenna’s parents were also at the carnival that night.]

Ignoring Kate’s protest, I raced to the animal [sheep? cows? pigs?] exhibition where I found a rather elderly gentleman who was certainly far from my idea of a cop [I favored State Troopers; they looked good in uniform.] but it apparently suited the person who had the audacity to pin that badge on the man’s shirt. And as long as he was endowed with that shiny symbol of authority, he would do. [Oh, puhlezzze!]

Attempting not to appear too worried [actually too freaked out], I told the officer that two girls were apparently determined to start something with my friends and me. I explained that they had evidently [way too many adverbs in this thingy] singled out one of my friends to push around.

Without any sign of surprise [Happened all the time, I guess.], he followed me almost mechanically to one area of the carnival where a crowd had gathered. Shoving my way through the human mess, I blinked my eyes in disbelief at the sight before me. The Blonde had grabbed Jenna’s long brown hair and, by that means was whirling her around [bad sentence]. Jenna was no match for the girl, who, by her attitude of pugnacity [pugnacious attitude], conveyed to me the impression that she was, most likely, the veteran of several similar disagreements.

I knew that I had to do something. But what? Realization hit me like a rocket [Oh, puhleeze! Yeah, I know redundant expression.] as I turned my shocked gaze and discovered to my horror [No, really?] that Jenna wasn’t the only one being thrown around. Kate, standing stunned on one side of the crowd, was about to be charged by the Brunette, who looked no less friendly [This should either have been less friendly or no more friendly, but whatever.] than her companion.

In the midst of all this excitement, whom did I happen to glance upon standing bewildered among the spectators but Sally and the equally dazed Cindy.

I knew what I had to do. As the Brunette came racing toward Kate, I charged into her with all my strength, and as she retreated in surprise, I yelled in her face with all the audacity within me [sure], “You leave her alone!”

Caught off guard, the Brunette fell back, startled. “What are you butting in for?” she yelled.

Before I had a chance to yell a smart remark in return and before she had the chance to reciprocate the attack, the slightly tardy police officer (or whatever he was), who didn’t seem much interested in the first place, calmly wandered into the circle and broke everything up. The crowd, disappointed because the battle had culminated in the first round [Wonder what the heck that was supposed to mean?], faded away in amusement [ugh].

Hoping against hope that we had seen the last of that pleasant pair, Jenna, Kate, and I rounded up the two non-participants and proceeded to continue our tour of the carnival grounds. This time we stuck together.

About twenty minutes later, while standing before one of the many amusement booths, I learned to our great dismay that fate was against us. When turning around, I noticed the enemy sneaking up behind us. Not rejoicing at this present development, I concluded that I’d just better find that cop again.

I walked away from the booth at a normal pace. Kate came up behind me. “I think they’re going to start something,” she whispered. “I heard one of them say ‘you take this one, and I’ll take that one.’”

The next thing I knew, one of the girls grabbed my coat [Why the heck was I dragging a coat around? It was July.] “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

“I’m going to get a cop,” I said in exactly the tone of voice that I had been addressed.

“And why are you going to get a cop?” the Blonde asked.

“Because,” I retorted, “I don’t like the way you’re treating my friends.”

Apparently, that wasn’t the answer they were looking for, because the next thing I knew I was being slapped across the face. As I realized my true plight, I began to panic. I wanted to run, and then the Blonde smacked me good with her experienced little hand.

Courage renewed, I threw down my sweater [What the heck happened to my coat?] and began kicking wildly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kate shoving her way through the crowd that had gathered.

[Unfortunately, the last page of this story got lost somewhere between the Mid-Jurassic Period and now. However, here’s how it ended: Kate grabbed onto a post and started kicking the Brunette in the stomach. About two minutes later Kate and Jenna’s parents wandered into the scene and broke up the fight. Blonde and Brunette took off, never to be seen again that evening.

A few minutes later, we discussed the situation with two or three guys who began talking to us. They were strangers to us, but they knew the other girls and their reputations. The guys walked around the carnival with us for the remainder of the evening, for protection, I guess. I don’t remember who they were; I (more or less, less as it turned out) had a boyfriend at the time, so I wasn’t interested. At any rate, we didn’t become permanent friends with them, which probably is just as well.]

Just One of Those Things You Always Remember (Updated)

[Note: This post was originally published on November 12, 2012.]

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 formally been 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.

Postscript

I was formally introduced to Tough Guy during my senior year of high school. By that time we had several mutual friends, including my friend Kate.

Lily and Tough Guy eventually divorced. She remarried and moved out of state. Tough Guy never remarried. Maybe he thought two marriages and two divorces were enough.

Sadly, both Lily and Tough Guy died much too young. Lily was a likeable person. Tough Guy, not so likeable most of the time. However, there was an evening when I decided I liked him a little better.

One Friday evening, back in the Late Jurassic Period, I was watching Kate’s children when Tough Guy showed up at her house. I didn’t realize he had been drinking, or I would have told him to go away. With the kids there, I didn’t want to provoke him, so I figured I’d let him stay as long as he behaved.

Yes, he did behave.

I don’t remember what our original conversation was about, but after a while, Tough Guy started talking about the son he had with his first wife. The son, I’ll call him “Wayne,” had been a toddler when he was adopted by his mother’s new husband.

Apparently Wayne, now a teenager, recently had learned that Tough Guy was his biological father. Wayne telephoned Tough Guy and asked him if he was his real dad. Tough Guy told him, “I may be your biological dad, but that man you live with, the one who takes care of you, he’s your real dad.”

Of Taxes and Serial Killers

I’ve been busy for the last few months, and unfortunately have neglected my blogs.  So I decided to re-run this post from 2005. Seems appropriate:

Tax time has come and gone for another year.

I was thinking about taxes just before I drifted off to sleep last Wednesday night. Earlier, I had been reading a book about a serial killer who prowled I-5 between Washington State and northern California, killing prostitutes along the way.

I dreamed that I was doing his taxes, and he insisted on claiming mileage. I wouldn’t let him do it because he wasn’t engaged in a legitimate business. We started arguing. That’s when I woke up.

Whew, maybe I should give up reading those kinds of stories just before bedtime.

Yes, I have given up reading those kinds of stories just before bedtime.

Horses, Hooky, and a Hurricane

Note: This is a reprint of a post I originally published in 2011. I have modified it slightly. At the time it was initially published, late Other Half and I were living in Arizona.

My late 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 him to get 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.

Sunday Dinner in the Twilight Zone

A few nights ago, I dreamed I was at an upscale restaurant celebrating something with several people, none of whom I recognized. The place was so upscale that prices weren’t printed on the menu. Not surprising; however, the meal choices weren’t printed on the menu either.

I woke up at 3:22 a.m. wondering where that dream came from.

I think I’ve figured it out.

That afternoon, a woman posting on an online forum mentioned she had grown up in Connecticut. Maybe my dream was a subconscious flashback to a strange restaurant experience during a family trip to that state sometime in the early 1970s.

One Sunday morning after church, my parents and my dad’s Massachusetts cousins, whom I’ll call “Fred” and “Ethel,” made a spur of the moment decision. They decided to just drop in on the Connecticut cousins without first calling to see if the cousins would be home. Three related families lived close to one another. Dad and Fred figured someone would be home. I had nothing planned, so I went along for the ride.

We knew the cousins would offer us a snack. However, before then, we needed something more substantial than coffee and cake or cookies. We intended to stop for dinner at a Friendly’s restaurant along the way. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one during our two hour drive through what seemed like an endless trail of small towns.

We also passed several Mom and Pop restaurants, but they were closed. Finally, about three or four miles from our destination, Dad spotted a restaurant that looked open. I’ve forgotten the name of the place; I’ll call it the “Country Café.”

The flashing green OPEN sign in the window looked promising, the dining room did not. The lights were dimed, and we were the only customers in the place.

“Where is everyone?” Ethel asked.

“Maybe someone forgot to turn off the sign and lock the door when they closed yesterday,” I said.

We were about to leave when a woman popped out of the kitchen. The presumed hostess seemed surprised to see customers, but she led us to a table before scurrying back to the kitchen.

Fred and Ethel rolled their eyes. “I think she’s cross eyed or something,” Ethel said.

Mom frowned and looked around. “Well, at least the place seems clean.”

I thought the place seemed creepy. “Maybe we should just leave now.”

Dad vetoed my suggestion. He pointed out that this might be our last chance to get something other than coffee and cake or cookies until we were on our way home.

When the hostess returned, Ethel asked to see a menu. The woman frowned, mumbled something I’ve forgotten, and retreated to the kitchen. A few minutes later she reappeared, trailed by a tall, beefy man whom she introduced as the cook. He asked us what we wanted for dinner.

“Well, what do you have?” I asked. After a brief discussion, we decided on ham steak with mashed potatoes and carrots.

Thirty minutes later, our meals were delivered by another person who apparently had been lurking in the kitchen. We had no complaints about the food. However, the hostess hovered around while we ate. I wondered if she thought we were going to walk out with the silverware. Or maybe one of the employees noticed the out of state license plates on our car and thought we might walk out without paying.

That afternoon, we described our Country Café dining experience to several Connecticut relatives. None of them could place the restaurant, even though it was located within a few miles of their homes. I figured, being retired, they might not get around much, but then . . .

Postscript: Now I wonder if the restaurant possibly was a front for some illegal activity. That dining experience was one I didn’t care to repeat. Sad to say, I did, more or less, almost thirty years later on the other side of the country. And, maybe someday, but not too soon, I will blog about the place I often refer to as the Slug Café.

My Fridge Does the Shimmy Shake

Yes, my fridge does the shimmy shake.

There is a logical reason for that.

The floor in my current apartment is very uneven. I have no idea why. Maybe the ground under the building is sinking. And it seems to be getting worse. A few months ago, I only felt the slope of the floor under my feet. Now I can see it.

Based on my current and past experiences, sloping floors are annoying.

Every time the compressor hums, my refrigerator shimmies closer to the stove. When it gets too close, I shove it back where it belongs.

Once upon a time, in the nineties, we lived in an apartment house that had an uneven floor. I figured that floor sloped because the house had been built on a stone foundation in 1886. I was making a lot of beaded jewelry then. I worked on the kitchen table, and every time I dropped a bead, it rolled under the fridge or stove and was lost forever. Well, until we moved out, and someone had to pull out the fridge and stove to clean behind them.

The cleaning crew must have discovered quite a stash back there. I hope someone was able use those beads.

Am I Asking Too Much?

I eat breakfast out a few times a week. Perhaps I’m being unreasonable, or asking too much, but I like to relax while I’m eating.

This is what I look for when choosing a restaurant or café: a clean place with good food, good service, and fair prices. What I do NOT want to see are inciting TV newscasts or programs featuring a couple of shrieking individuals who are (verbally) slugging it out during a rabid political debate with each other.

Fortunately, with a TV it’s always possible to ask the-powers-that-be to switch channels.

Unfortunately, one place I sometimes go to features an “armchair political analyst," a regular customer who thinks he knows everything about everything. He sits at the counter and insists upon letting everyone in the place know everything, too. I have tried tuning him out by sitting far away from him, but it hasn’t worked. Yes, he’s that loud. For the last several weeks, I’ve been able to avoid him by going to breakfast later in the morning.

Is it too much to want to spend 45 minutes eating breakfast in peace without being reminded that the whole world seems to be falling apart?

I Am Not A Crazed Corporate Lackey

I recently read a social media thread in which the original poster (OP) complained about “crazed corporate lackeys” (CCL). According to the OP, in this instance a CCL is a person who refuses to let volunteers for political candidates enter the lackey’s home or property or the property of a condo/retirement community where the lackey resides.

Here’s the other side of the coin, so to speak. And just to let you know, I am not a crazed corporate lackey. I am not paranoid. I am not a hermit. And to shut down potential trolls, I am not a fan of either Trump or Hillary. However, I am a private person who was the target of a crazy individual back in the Late Jurassic Period. Having to put up with a prowler, busted window panes, and strange phone calls was not a pleasant experience.

Although I love getting together with people I know and like, I do not love strangers knocking on my door for any reason, especially strangers from the Nielsen organization (long, weird story). Fortunately, I live in a gated complex, and I also have a sign in the window, written in two languages, that reads Writer/Editor at Work. Please Do Not Disturb. (Unless it is an emergency. Then please DO disturb.)

I respect the right of political volunteers to solicit votes for their candidates. Yes, that is democracy in action, as the OP pointed out. At the same time, please respect my right to choose to NOT respond to the knock on my door. That, too, is democracy in action.

I Confess That I Once Worked at Walmart

I belong to a Facebook group that is focused on the county where I grew up. Having left that area (for the second and last time) almost twenty years ago, I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on the current lack of job opportunities there. I don’t want to jump in on what is essentially a local debate about the pros and cons of building a new Walmart Supercenter in the largest city and closing the existing smaller store.

I confess that I worked part time at a Walmart store in that county for several years in the 1990s.

I was employed there while I (finally) finished the requirements for my bachelor’s degree. Working as a Walmart fabrics and crafts associate wasn’t my idea of a dream job, but employment opportunities were slim in the college town where I attended classes.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of online complaints about Walmart. Two of the major complaints that got my attention were 1) Walmart jobs pay so little that employees often must apply for public assistance in order to support themselves and their families, and 2) Walmart jobs are “soul killing.”

I agree that low paying, associate level big-box store jobs generally are not great jobs for the long run. However, I think those jobs can be good temporary jobs for students or retirement jobs for people who want or need to keep working after retiring. And retail jobs worked for me as “interim jobs” three times while I looked for a better job.

Apparently, I was one of the more fortunate Walmart associates. Unlike some employees, I didn’t need any sort of public assistance while working there. Nope, not even food stamps. I had the resources to pay for my education, personal expenses, and share of the household expenses without help from anyone else.

I didn’t find the job to be soul killing, probably because I knew I wouldn’t be working at Walmart for almost forever. At that time, my hobby was making handcrafted beaded jewelry, so I was working in the department that was the best fit for me. I also had a rudimentary knowledge of sewing, thanks to a few years in 4-H and six months of home economics in the ninth grade. Although I sometimes had to deal with annoying customers, most of the time I enjoyed helping people with their craft or sewing projects.

I did find the job boring at times, usually on a Monday evening when business was slow. During those times, I tried to sneak over to the bargain fabric tables and reorganize the way too high displays of what seemed like a half-zillion bolts of material. That chore was a never-ending battle and a losing one, especially on the busy weekends. That’s when customers managed to destroy the displays within 15 minutes after I had reorganized them.

Coworkers sometimes asked if I intended to apply for a full-time job at Walmart after graduating from college. I was tempted to laugh and say, “Are you crazy, why would I want to do that?” But I was brought up to be nice, so I explained that I was working toward a degree in English with concentrations in writing and literature, and I hoped to find a job where I could use my writing and editing skills.

Trouble was, I knew that job probably didn’t exist in the area where I currently lived.

And I was right. In order to find any job that was even remotely connected to my major, I had to move. I moved back to the Southwest, to a larger city where I had an employment history and where I knew I could find better opportunities.

After working as a document analyst/quality checker at the company I refer to as The Zoo, I was hired as a staff assistant at a nonprofit organization. I was promoted to an editing position fifteen months later. I worked at that organization for almost eight years before I decided to retire from full-time brick and mortar employment.

In hindsight, working at Walmart wasn’t my best job, but it wasn’t my worst job, either.

Would I ever want to work at Walmart again? Honestly? No, but I was grateful to have that job when I needed it. And I met some very nice people there, both customers and co-workers.