Statute of Stupid

Everyone makes stupid mistakes. I feel like I'm particularly accomplished at them sometimes.

Recently, I made a real lame-brain mistake at work. It was a total rookie moment that I cannot (cannot!) believe I did. I fixed the problem, apologized profusely, and said a number of Hail Avids.

When do I get to be forgiven? What is the statute of limitations on Stupid Error? I throw myself on the mercy of the court. (I'm really freakin' tired of hearing the little side comments!) Any workplace lawyers that want to take my case?

(Note: edited to correct spelin' mistake.)

Dust

I grew up in a Kentucky coal mining community. Most people picture mountainous hollers of Appalachia, but my hometown was a world away, way out west in the Ohio River valley. There the land is largely rolling and transitioning to the plains. The people are not Hollywood's Hillbillies. They are crossroads people, crossbred people. I am part quiet southerner, part strong mid-westnerner, part rural northerner, and (probably) part Native American. Trace far enough back, and my people were the literal "brother against brother" in the Civil War mythos.

My family and my friends' families crawled into a cave at the break of dawn. They crawled back out again (hopefully) at dusk, their clothes as covered in black coal dust as their lungs. My classmates probably remember one particular morning in high school. The announcement said that a number of men had been killed in a mining accident. That explained some of the absent kids.

When I was young, though not a child, probably a pre-teen or teenager, my uncle and I went by his mines to pick up something he left at work. It was closed for the day. Before leaving he took me to the mouth of the cave to see inside. I'm a curious sort. I've always liked seeing new things. I've never been remotely claustrophobic, but I do hate heights. Standing on a bridge or roof, my palms drip and my knees quiver. I muster willpower and logic to prevent panic. I really hate heights. Confined, tight places have only one time caused any anxiety. Though the mouth of the tunnel was huge and I was barely ten feet inside, dread and terror seized me. My eyes and breathing must have alerted my uncle.

We turned back. Ten feet, that was the furthest I've ever been into a coal mine.

I won't pretend to understand any of what miners experience. Thankfully, I have no frame of reference. At work the closest thing I come to a coal mine is an air-conditioned edit bay. It's dimly lit; the shades remain drawn. But there's no fear of cave-in. The keyboard won't yank off a finger. The hard drives, spinning 5000 times per second, have no chance of chopping me in two. The air is fresh. Water in the refrigerator is filtered. The cleaner wipes away the traces of dust every Wednesday evening.

Like most of my friends, following footsteps into that dark career was never to be an option. Our families sacrificed themselves, sometimes quite literally, so that we would never have to. I do not recall it being a lesson explicitly taught, but I know that it was one well learned. Songwriter Pat Haney said it with more poetry than I could: "When I draw my dying breath, it won't be over no coal."

The Ramekin or the Tightrope Wire?

Amazon's "Super Saver Shipping" is brilliant marketing. And, I admit, I'm falling for it at this moment. The total price on my Amazon order is $25.02 after shipping. If I had a item at $5.27 to add to my cart, then I would qualify for the free shipping and effectively get something for free. Brilliant, right? (Brilliant, because we all know I'm probably going to find something for slightly more than $5.27.)

Enter my deal-seeking, cheapskate (I say that with much admiration) co-worker, VeggiePirate. She says, "Check out slickfillers.net." Holy cow, genius. Put in a pricing amount, check some categories, and (Voila!) the site offers up a bunch of items to help get you to that magic number. The list it generates is huge, because as we know Amazon sells damn near everything.

So, now I'm torn: an eight ounce ramekin or a six-foot tightrope wire. Hmm decisions, decisions…

All Hail Wasp Slayer

It was a beautiful creature. I admitted that to myself as I flushed the corpse down the toilet. Wasps have this armored aesthetic that probably plays to the sci-fi nerd in me. Sad, I realize.

Typically, I try to shoo pests out a door or window. My apartment layout and this poor wasp's timing sentenced it to death.

A piece of junk mail was my weapon. I slew the wasp with a thick, brown envelope from the National Arbor Day Foundation.

When Pigs Fly

It had rained all day. Actually, it had rained all week. The rain was a steady, penetrating rain. But, as often happens during the Spring in the river valley, the changing temperatures of the late afternoon provided a window of sunlight. To the west dark clouds were looming again, but there would be a few dry hours.

I was enjoying the breeze and staring into nothing while refueling my car. I hadn't paid much notice to the man on the opposite side of the pump. He spoke loudly on the phone, but my mind was far away. Suddenly his words smashed through my peaceful East Tennessee moment.

"I always said we'd have a black man as president only when pigs fly, and now we got this swine flu." He chuckled to the person on the other end of the phone call. He seemed very proud of his wit.

Well, I thought, that's progress, I suppose. At least he said "black man."

Slowly

In real life I move slowly.

In my career, I work hard and quickly. I am a fast editor. My mind solves problems and implements solutions with reasonably fast speed. I remain more ahead of schedule than behind it.

But in real life, I move slowly.

I am slow to make friends. I dawdle about that weird pain in my side. The recycling piles up for a few too many days. Great plans never get any further than the planning stage.

When I was in grade school—I was probably only eight or nine years old—the classroom had these binders of illustrated stories. They were comic book style, only a few pages long. I fixated on one of these stories reading it over and over. I remember it being monochromatic, brown-and-white.

Astronauts explored a distant world. They discovered two giant, humanoid statues. (Or, were they archaeologists in some distant corner of our world? The details are a bit fuzzy.) They chiseled a chunk of stone from the foot of one statue for testing. They left the planet and returned home with their specimen.

Many years later, they returned to find the statues had moved! One reached toward its foot. Its face showed pain. The other comforted its friend.

I read that story countless times. How different must the lives of the statue-people be from lives of the astronauts? Probably not very different, until forced to interact.

Lesson in Humility

I awoke late after snoozing the alarm too many times. I rushed to eat breakfast while listening to Radio Paradise. Steely Dan. I hate Steely Dan.

It was one of those mornings: late to work, fumble fingers, bad attitude.

I quickly ate my lunch and rushed to complete an errand within my allotted time. I noticed the middle-aged, unkempt woman when I entered the store. She was mumbling too loudly to herself. She was deciding between greeting cards. Crazy lady. I sped down the aisles of the store and found what I was looking for, naturally after looking in three different places.

I was late again. My time was up. I still had to check-out and drive ten minutes back to work. The employers do not pressure about this, but I dislike taking advantage.

Two lines were open. Both had a number of customers. I sized up the other line, mentally jockeying for position. That's when I realized that mumbling lady was in front of me. Great.

There were still two people in front of her, but she began preemptively haggling. "Those aren't marked, but they are supposed to be half off," she told the manager as he walked by apologizing to everyone for the wait. A few minutes later she would repeated that to the cashier. My jaw clenched. One of those…

Ten minutes had passed before she was at the cashier. She had a slight unbathed odor. Her hair was uncombed, her clothes unwashed.

The haggling continued. "How much is that? I don't want it then. Did that ring up half-off?" The cashier finally presented the total: twenty-some-odd bucks. Hand in pocket, her demeanor changed. "Where's my money? I can't find my money!"

What con job is this? Is she going to claim someone stole it? For the third time, I thought about leaving and returning after work. But, I was so close now. What was a minute more? Man, I hate people. What a crappy day.

"I can't find my money!" She frantically searched her purse. She felt through the pockets of her coat that was flung over the shopping cart. The cashier was looking annoyed. "I just went to the bank, and I can't find my money!" She was shaking. She was scarred.

A voice came from just behind me in line. "Now, honey, calm down. There ain't no use getting excited. Take a breath and look for it. If you get all worked up, you'll never find it."

"I'm sorry for holdin' up the line. I just know I put it in my purse." Her quakes had intensified. Her entire body showed real fear.

"It's fine, honey. Just calm down. Ain't none of use got nowhere to be. Just take your time." While their words ping-ponged past me I stared straightforward. The woman's kindness was slacking my jaw a bit, but I was still aware of how late I was.

"You got the patience of Job." She was triple checking her coat, her purse, her pockets. She was nearing tears, probably hysteria.

"Did they put it in one of those envelopes? Usually, they put it in one of those little white envelopes."

"You got the patience of Job." She searched the purse again and pulled out a fresh bank envelope. "Here it is. Thank the Lord! I just knew I'd put it in my purse. I'd just gone to the bank and took out two-hundred dollars, and I just knew I'd put it in my purse."

Two-hundred dollars. There have been nights in my life that I've pissed away that much. I've throw that much away in a frivolous click on a website. Two-hundred bucks.

Ashamed at my impatience, my cynical thoughts, I drove slowly back to work. "It's okay, honey, take your time." Those could have been my words. I could have shown kindness to that less-fortunate stranger. I was embarrassed and I felt penitence.

I mashed a preset. The same Steely Dan song was on the radio. Accepting my punishment, I turned up the volume.

Lessons Learned: 3/23/09

Lesson #1:
After two hours searching in the dark, a lost cell phone will not be found on the two miles of greenway near your apartment. It will be found in your couch.

Lesson #2:
Sprint's "parents can spy on the kids" cell phone tracker is worth the $5 if you haven't yet learned Lesson #1.

Customer Service Gladness

Later that night…

The tiny pocket of Hilltopper alumni within the sea of UT Orange all met up to watch the 14-seeded Toppers and pray for upset. Surprisingly, for a bunch of heathens, the prayers were answered. (We just busted your bracket, Mr. President!)

Since Buck Buck^* and I had already suffered a miserable experience earlier, we chose to meet up at what had been our second choice at lunchtime. For all my lamenting on the poor service at Restaurant #1, Restaurant #2 was a customer service redeemer. We asked if they would mind to put one of their many TVs on the WKU game. The manager came to our table and put every monitor within earshot on the game and gave us some volume (a big deal in the din of a sports bar). Then, he tuned a few monitors to the other game feeds for us, too. He was everything a professional in retail should be. He earned a big tip for his server, and a few loyal customers.

So, yes, the power is with the consumer after all. Restaurant #1 just got the boycott, and guess where we will watch Round Two on Saturday? Restaurant #2 gets to watch Gonzaga go down.


^*Name changed to protect his bracket embarrassment.

Customer Service Madness

My co-worker, Buck Buck^*, is a huge sports fan. I am a moderate sports fan, but the NCAA Tournament is fun to watch. So, I am willing to be a team player and head out for a long lunch and watch a game. After all, the daytime tournament games only happen on two days per year.

So, we left the office in search of a place that would have all of the games on via satellite. We settled on a spacious, non-smoking restaurant I had been to a few times. I recalled it having a zillion TVs in the bar-area.

"Oh yes, of course, we are showing all the tournament games," said our server as we followed her to an empty table. "What can I get you to drink?"

Looking up, sure enough, there were a zillion TVs gleaming in brilliant high-definition. And, all of them were tuned to a version of ESPN: ESPN 2, ESPN U, ESPN News, ESPN Kitchen Sink! (For the uninitiated, CBS has covered the NCAA Tournament since 1982.)

"So, are you guys going to switch these?" Buck Buck asked when she returned with his Diet Coke. "Because the LSU game is already three minutes in," he said looking at his iPhone "and the Memphis game is starting." (Did I mention that he's a huge sports fan?)

"I'll check on that. I don't know what's going on."

While we waited on her return we perused the menu, knowing that we'd pay for the sodas and head to the next restaurant down the street if the TVs weren't switched soon. I could have saved the cash and used the office microwave; watching a game was the whole point.

I glanced around the place. A number of other customers were getting antsy. Fifteen minutes go by (and much apologizing from the server) and one television in a corner finally switched channels. Very few customers could see it from their tables. "I asked the manager what was going on and he kicked me out of the office," the waitress explained.

Politely getting up, we deduced that the manager was experiencing some technical difficulties. I understand; it happens. Still, if you have a zillion expensive TVs and your restaurant is in a bustling shopping district and you hang a giant banner reading "Watch All 64 Tournament Games Here!" shouldn't you be checking your technology a hour earlier?

I know it's not surgery. I know it's not life or death. But, it's customer service, dagnabit! And it seems epidemic. When did we consumers lose all of our power? Or am I just being cranky?

(Oh, and don't get me started on my duels with the cable company!)


^*As always, for the sake of privacy, real names are substituted.

As Time Goes By

My uncle is a Fox News watcher. He's a old, white conservative of the standard Kentucky issue. (Just as a frame of reference, he joined the navy in 1946.) He's as right-wing, pro-'Merican as they come.

So, I was shocked when I visited Aunt and Uncle not too long ago, to find the tube tuned to PBS. Bemused (after the shock wore off) I asked, "Whatcha watchin'?"

"Summer Wine," he said. "My show's next," my aunt added, "I love that Hyacinth." Not only were they watching that pinko, lefty station, they were watching a British sitcoms on PBS! They were referring to The Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances; the main character on the latter is Hyacinth Bucket (she insists "Bucket" to be pronounced "bouquet"–great name!).

Now, I adore a certain britcom that I discovered via PBS. Though I'm sure I am thirty-plus years younger than the target audience, I have always loved As Time Goes By. The acting and scripting amazed me from the first time I saw it. The writing was so unlike sitcoms in the U.S. The scripts were tight and clever but very patient. The characters were well drawn and realistically quirky, and they are performed so believably. (I suppose having a true actor–Judi Dench–starring helps; we Yanks tend to cast stand-up comics in the lead roles…)

Seeing that I rarely have a topic of mutual conversation available, I seized on the moment. I said that, yes, I enjoyed both of their shows. The lady that plays Hyacinth is very funny, I agreed. "The one I really like, though, is As Times Goes By." Aunt immediately says, "that's because you are a romantic."

Screaming through cyberspace, I can hear friends' squealing at this thought. TonyN, a romantic! Ha!

You know what, though, Aunt was dead-on. Though I can rationalize my love for that show (writing, acting, etc.), the truth is that the story touched me. The story wasn't sappy or sachrine; it seemed real and beautiful and hopeful. Everyone needs a bit of hope.

Honky Tonk Heaven

Christine Wy's post (Stranger in a Strange Bar) brought back a similar "I should NOT be in this bar" memory from my time in college. Luckily, my experience was much less traumatic…

Though a Kentucky Boy, I was far from a redneck, and I viciously avoided any connection to things I perceived as such. Yet, one autumn evening I found myself in a bar that prided itself on its burgers, PBR, and western wear (yes, friends, the bar sold cowboy boots).

It was a dark and creepy place. Old men sat in the shadows, peering from underneath the rims of their cowboy hats. They were not modern cowboys, shot to mainstream by early 90s Pop Twang. These cowboys were not pastel and trimmed. They were ragged and tired and very drunk. They probably had very little in common with Clint Black.

Their eyes followed us three college kids as we walked into their bar. I'm sure I probably ordered something very inappropriate to the scene, something like a scotch and soda.

But, here's the punchline. My view of this place was being filtered through my own sensitivities and preconceptions. I hated country music; I hated everything I saw as "redneck." Beer even fell into that category for me. What can I say? I grew up in a small town where "Bud" was a synonym for "beer." I didn't know any better. (For the record, I still hate Nascar.)

Truly, the judgmental eyes that night were all mine. The bar, a fairly famous place in Nashville, had tons of traffic and was in a touristy part of town. It was a honky-tonk (said so, right on the sign!) but certainly not a dive. As the night went on, my tension eased. The regulars and the bartenders were very friendly. My friend, Camus^*, garnered the respect of the crowd by requesting the house band to play an obscure Johnny Cash song. In short, I had completely misjudged the place.

I guess it's all about perspective. Some things look so much worse in hindsight–many of my former apartments, for example. But some things, like Robert's Western World, become a fond memory.


^*Pseudonym used to protect his record collection…

Goal Keeping

I recently had a conversation about Goals. I, with quite frankness, told a friend that I "didn't have any of those things." I wasn't trying to elicit a response. I was just being truthful.

Okay, I suppose everyone has some goals–goals with a small "g." A goal of mine is to keep my job. A goal is to spend less and save more. But, those aren't Goals, ya know?

I know at one point I had some Goals, but I can't seem to find those darned things anywhere! And, truth be told, I'm sure I wouldn't want to find them. Most likely they would be haze-of-college goals, which means they are built on little more than haze…or pot…or whatever. (I had better press on from here; I'd hate this to become a "college angst" post!)

Now, I'm not saying that I'm happy about not having any Goals. That would just be sad. I just don't have any.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I have gotten two pieces of advice regarding Goals:

One friend said, "You should make 'Getting a Goal' your Goal." Now that's ridiculous. (Not to mention a vicious loop of logic.)

Another friend said, "Goals are not acquired. Goals are born." Yikes! That's pretty depressing. (And if I think something is depressing…)

So, I put it to you, dear commenter, "What's the deal with Goals, anyway?" I know I'm supposed to have some of those things, but–too bad–I don't.

Feelin' My Age (Maybe Not Acting It)

To nick the old cliché: "I'm gettin' too old for this stuff."



Since relocating to my new town of residence, I've experienced a statistical age shift in the people I hang out with. For most of my life, I've been the child of the group, one of the Pups. Now, I find myself more and more being the Old Dog.

I'm sure this is a function of being unmarried. I don't hang out with many (okay, any) married people. I have many married friends in the world; the significant phrase here is "hang out with."

Hanging out with people who are on the approach to 3-0 (unlike myself, rocketing away from it), I sometimes become involved in behavior I haven't indulged in since college.

In a lot of ways it's very fun; in a lot of ways it's very painful.



I'm proud that I could keep up with the marathon of beer that was Saturday night. I never was much of a sprinter, anyway, I just haven't been in training for a long, long time.

The sky was just starting to glow on Sunday morning as I was desperately crashing out on a near-stranger's couch. Next to me, my friend lay on my shoulder mumbling, "I have to warn you. I'm feeling a bit nauseous." Experience told me it was a false alarm, and soon enough her breathing was regular. Fast asleep.

The Old Dog looked around the strange surroundings and thought, "Man, I wish I had a toothbrush."