Category Archives: List

Size 12…

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Strip away the layers of technology, the fancy polo shirts, and khaki pants, and at my heart of hearts you’ll find that I’m actually a remarkably simple man. You’ll find that I’m the kind of guy who does what he says he’s going to do, when he said he’s going to do it, unless there are some truly exceptional circumstances preventing that from happening. The unfortunate side effect of that tendency is that it leads me to have that same expectation for the people and companies I deal with. There are only a handfull of things that make me as absolutely batshit crazy as taking time off, sitting around the house waiting, and then getting a call near the end of the scheduled “service window” letting me know that someone isn’t going to be able to make it out and that the appointment will need to be rescheduled for a more inconvenient time the following week. It’s even better when you call the other company who was supposed to do an estimate and they “can’t find a record of the appointment.” I’m serious. It makes me want to bash my head repeatedly against the nearest cinder block wall – right after I beat someone to a bleeding pulp with their own arms.

To the companies doing business at 866-366-2606 and 877-321-7038, I hope someone here on the interwebs hijacks your phone numbers and ties up your incoming lines for the next week or two. That would save me the trouble and the legal fees resulting from coming over there and driving one of my size 12 Doc Martens directly into your colon.

Beware of Dog…

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Once upon a time, my opinions were sought out on such issues as organizational efficiencies and streamlining processes and procedures. I like to think that I had some good ideas that ended up saving a decent amount of time and money for my employer. Since that kind of thing is no longer part of my operational portfolio, I have to make do with dispensing these little pearls of wisdom to whomever happens to be in earshot at any given time (i.e. anyone who happens to wander across this page in the hope of finding something new or informative to read). Suckers.

It’s with that in mind that my thoughts turn to Halloween and trick-or-treating. That magical time of year when for one dark, dark night, it’s perfectly acceptable for your children to brazenly approach strangers and accept candy from them. If I sat at the park offering the same candy on a random weekday evening in June, I’d be locked up for sure. Like most other pegan-based holidays, I’m sure the roots of Halloween are originally a good time for everyone. In a day and age when you have to drive little Bobby and Suzy from door to door so they can learn the only socially accepted form of begging in the civilized world, I’m not sure that it continues to serve a useful purpose. That said, this is my proposal: Instead of spending a lot of money on a costume, running out gas getting too and from the neighborhood of your choice, and generally spending several hours out in the cold, why doesn’t every parent just go to the nearest Walmart, Giant, Kroger, or local convenience store, spend five dollars on candy for their own kid, and call it a day. We’d collectively save a mountain of cash by following this simple plan. I wouldn’t spend the night worried that someone is going to slip, fall, and sue me. And the dogs wouldn’t launch into a barking fit every time they hear someone walking across the deck. So come on, help me help you.

Now if you’ll excuse me it’s time to go hang up the Beware of Dog signs and make sure today’s troubled youth stay off my lawn.

The stink…

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My home office is under assault by stink bugs. So far in the last 30 minutes I’ve sent seven of them to a watery grave, but there’s still one here… somewhere… stinking. It has to be somewhere in or on my desk, because it is truly overpowering and the only place in the room where I can smell it. He’s running covert and has so far resisted every effort to discover his hiding place. It’s truly awful. I’m surrendering my position and making a a break for an area that has breathable air… like right outside a smelter… or a slaughterhouse… or a septic tank.

Missing in Transit…

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Setting aside the fact that the US Postal Service has a legal monopoly on delivering first class mail in this country and they fact that they’ve had 236 years of practice moving things from Point A to Point B, sometimes I wonder why they have as many problems as they do. Then, of course, I get a handy reminder of why they suck and I used them as little as possible.

I ordered a prescription refill from my vendor of choice on the morning of August 11th and it shipped out later that afternoon. Then, somewhat inexplicably, on August 14th my order was scanned at a post office in Fort Lee, NJ and labeled “missent.” Which is fine, of course, except for the part where according to the USPS it has never been seen again. They’re quick to point out that theirs is a “delivery confirmation” system and not a “tracking” system like they use at such upscale shippers as FedEx and UPS. So it’s equally possible that the envelope containing my prescription has actually left the Garden State. It’s also possible that it’s still sitting there. There is apparently no way known to man to find out which of these options is the case. Let’s just say that the conversation with the USPS Customer Service Representative (and I use that term loosely) does not fill me with confidence. But hey, if it stays missing for five more Postal Business Days, we can officially proclaim it lost, so that’s a plus.

Don’t worry, I’m not letting CVS Caremark off the hook for their role in this little fiasco either. After all, they’re the ones who selected the USPS as the shipper of choice, which shows piss poor decision making skills right off the bat. They’re also the ones who won’t reship a prescription unless it’s been “missing in transit” for more than 15 days. They did, however, offer a very helpful suggestion of getting my doctor to give me a new prescription that I could fill at my local pharmacy… Which pretty much defeats the purpose of using your goddamned bloody mail order pharmacy program in the bleeding first place, doesn’t it you backwater asshats?

I’m a reasonable guy. I don’t expect miracles. All I know is that I can order tasty bits from Europe and have them in my hands three days later (including a Sunday) with UPS. I can order a book from Amazon and it’s sitting on my porch in 48 hours. But apparently delivering the drugs that keeps my blood pressure from rocketing into the “about to have a stroke” level in less than ten days is a bridge too far for United States Postal Service. Next time I’ll leave well enough alone and just walk to New Jersey to pick it up. It’d be faster.

Editorial Note: In the interests of fair and balanced reporting, two hours after I called USPS, the package in question was scanned in at my local post office and showed “out for delivery.” It arrived, crinkled and battered, ten days after I ordered it, but it arrived. Fortunately, the rant had progressed too far past its failsafe point to call back.

Don’t ruin it…

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There’s a scene early in the movie Crimson Tide where the skipper and his new executive officer are standing atop the sail of the USS Alabama taking a long last look at the sky and setting sun. At the end of the scene, captain turns to the XO and says something like, “Your stock went up a few points, you didn’t ruin it by talking.” I think the world would be a better place if more people had the sense of that fictitious XO and didn’t ruin an otherwise nice moment by opening their yap and letting words fly out unrestrained.

Sure, talking is an important way that we humans communicate with one another, but it strikes me that people are so damned busy listening themselves talk that they never pause long enough to consider if what they’re saying actually adds anything to the moment. More often than not, it really, really doesn’t. Sadly, social convention frowns on us from looking someone directly in the eye and telling them to STFU, so we’re left to use more subtle cues like body language to try letting them know that we are less than interested in hearing that really funny story about what happened on their family vacation 40 years ago for the fourth or fifth time. I suspect the real reason homicide is illegal is because at times like that, wrapping your hands around someone’s throat and choking the life out of them seems like a perfectly reasonable course of action.

If I don’t leave the house, I can pass an entire day without saying 100 words from the time I wake up to the time I go back to bed. Not everyone is so laconic, I know. If I find there’s something that needs said, I’m more than happy to speak up loud and long, but I like to think I know the difference between having a point and just nattering at everyone who wanders by because I’m bored. If you’re really that desperate to tell every passing stranger your life story, I have a modest recommendation: get a dog. They’re always terribly interested in whatever you have to say. If you crave a wider audience, start a blog or work part time writing for your local newspaper. Hell, sign up for your own public access television show for all I care, but please, for the love of Good, His saints, and all things good and holy, leave me out of it. If you must include me in your delusions of being interesting, at least have the decency not to ruin it by talking.

The trouble with compromise…

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I’ve been told from time to time that I have a tendency towards being an uncompromising bastard. I’m fairly sure that wasn’t meant as a compliment at the time. It occurs to me, though, that we spend an inordinate amount of time looking for the win-win solution. At best, most people accept a win-lose proposition where at least one person gives up some part of what they were trying to achieve. More often, we tend to settle into the lose-lose option where everyone walks away equally dissatisfied with the result.

It seems to me that life is too damned short for half measures. When’s the last time you remember anything great happening because someone settled for “enough”? If you said “never,” you’re on the right track.

Maybe that does make me uncompromising. I think I’ll find a way to live with it.

Stupid lists…

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I start nearly every day of my life with a list. Sometimes it’s a real list written on paper or filed away in a “to do” app. Other times it’s a simple mental check list of things I want to get done before the lights go out sometime between 10-11:30 that night. The only thing all of these lists have in common is that I haven’t managed to work my way all the way to the last item on any of them since before I can remember. Some days these damned lists are longer at the end of the day than they were at the beginning. That feels wrong on so many levels. At the rate I’m tacking things to do onto the bottom of my most current list, I should be catching up sometime around summer 2015.

Now let’s face it, I’m a pretty productive guy. In fact, I take great and perverse pride in my ability to get things done. Even so, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a better way. Maybe it really is time to outsource some of the domestic responsibilities around here so I’ve got a snowball’s chance of getting caught up any time in the near future.

Jackpot dreams…

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A disturbing number of things I say every week start with the phrase “When I hit the PowerBall…” Usually that’s leading to some discussion of buying an island somewhere in the South Pacific and doing my best to ignore the rest of the world. It occurs to me that my needs are really much more mundane. Sitting here tonight, I suspect I could be bought off with much less than a full-blown lottery jackpot. Sure, the island or a well fortified Montana compound would be a nice touch, but I suspect I’d be perfectly happy just sitting here on the porch with the dogs at my feet and my nose stuck in a good book. I think I could potentially entertain myself like that for years, as long as I didn’t have a tiny little voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have to get up at first light tomorrow to go sit in a cube for eight hours. It seems the better the weekend, the heavier the weight of Sunday night bears down. Bugger all.

The sounds they make…

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I was sitting on the deck last night enjoying a beverage, a book and letting the dogs do whatever they needed to do before locking up for the night. Around 10:00, I heard the neighbor’s screen door slam followed by a chorus of girly screams. If I sit quietly and don’t move too much I know they won’t see me through the hedge. Although the hedge provides great camouflage, it lacks the sound deadening qualities I’d really appreciate more of in foliage.

From across the driveway, I heard a rather insistent “daddy… daddy… daddy… daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy.” Each iteration raised in pitch just slightly until the end when I’m pretty sure only the dogs could make out the words. Sadly, his daughters’ attempt to get my neighbor’s undivided attention was less than successful. This led to a renewed chorus of “daddy look, daddy look, daddy look daddy look daddy look daddy look, look what I found look what I found look what I found look what I found look what I found daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy.” It’s possible that my ears were bleeding by that point.

Still, even with ice picks in my ears I was able to make out the most dire of their words… “Ohhhhhh… I want to play with the doggies” followed by shrieking that would make even the most dedicated banshee pause in respect for such superior sound generation. The jig was up. With a whistle, the dogs came running and we beat a hasty retreat. An hour later, with the TV on and at least one dog snoring in my ear, I could still hear them next door. I don’t know if they were successful in their efforts to raise the dead.

I’m sure the neighbor girls are perfectly good as far as children go, but the sounds they make cut through my head like the proverbial hot knife through butter. Sure, saying that out loud probably makes me a bad person, but on the list of things I’ve done that make me a bad person, it’s not even on the first page. If nothing else, I’m a man who recognizes his own limitations. Honest to God, if I could get a waiver, I’d move into one of those gated 55-and-over communities and call it a day. A small island off the coast of St. Wherever would be better, but I’m willing to take baby steps.

Things I like (today)…

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1. My doctor’s office. They send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy so all I have to do is get in line and pay. Less waiting makes me happy.

2. Fisherman’s Friend. Best throat lozenge ever. It tastes like a cross between licorice, a menthol cigarette, and poop, but works better than anything I’ve ever tried at soothing a scratchy throat.

3. Health insurance. $20 co-pay for the visit and $20 co-pay for giant antibiotic pills. Plus $2 in gas. Starting to feel less like a warm steaming pile cost $42 out of pocket.

4. WaWa. Your $6 salad is big enough that I actually feel like I ate something at lunch time. Plus you give me a hardboiled egg. That’s a classy touch for a gas station.

5. Meeting a suspense with time to spare and without being badgered to make a million minor changes at the last minute. That’s called productivity right there. Get some.