Ebony and ivory

posted Fri, 15 Jul 2005

So I’m walking out to my car and one of the maintenance guys, who is black (this is relevant to the story), says, “Nice hat!”

“Thanks,” I answer. “We white chicks don’t age well, you know!”

And, of course, my sister and my uncle have had suspicious skin spots cut out and my aunt Rita has just been diagnosed with melanoma. My aunt Rita, the pale Norwegian/Slovak who lives in Wisconsin and has spent most of her life indoors. It’s not a good idea for me to be in the sun.

He laughs and asks, “How old do you think I am?”

I study his face and answer, “Mid forties?”

“Nope! I’m 58! You’re right. White folks age a lot faster than black people.”

“Yeah. I’m Norwegian. We’re not supposed to be in the sun. We’re supposed to spend six months of the year in the dark and the cold.”

It is 10:00 in the morning and already warm and muggy. He gestures at the sun. “Not me. I’m fine with this weather. That’s because my people come from the tropics. I can spend all day in the sun and not be bothered. Doesn’t bother me a bit.”

“You know,” I say, “we’re not supposed to be able to say these things. Even though they’re fact.”

He laughs. “You’re not allowed to say them or you’re racist. It’s OK for me to say them because I’m black!”

We agree that it’s a stupid system that labels someone as a racist for stating the truth.

How not to talk to a woman, part 124

posted Mon, 11 Jul 2005

Yesterday afternoon, I traipsed from house to house on my street, collecting email addresses for my neighborhood’s crime and lost pet alert system. I had only my block to cover, so you would think it wouldn’t take that long, but this is the South, and people are friendly, and one must chat. You can’t just say, “Hello, I’m Class Factotum, I live down the street and I’m collecting email addresses for the neighborhood mail list. What’s yours? Thank you very much. Goodbye.”

Really, that’s how I’d like to do it, because I am all about efficiency and getting the job done, but, as I said, this is the South. In three hours, I got only 13 emails. Less than half.

I knew I was in trouble with the first one when we spent 15 minutes talking about sinus surgery, Mr Ray, who was the old man who used to own my house (the only owner prior to me, actually), azaleas, and the sorry idiots who run this city.

The next few were relatively quick, but then I got another talker. She was very nice – as were they all, but I kept thinking that I just wanted to finish. She asked how long I had lived on the block – where had I moved from. Oh Miami? Really? Her son spoke Spanish! So did I? Well, let her get her son out here so we could speak Spanish together! No, really!

When I said that I really should be getting the rest of the addresses, she said oh, no, it would just take a second. She was so nice, despite her four yippy obnoxious dogs, that I quelled my protests. She told me she would help me collect any addresses I had had trouble with and flagged down a few neighbors who were outdoors.

The next lady was elderly and told me she was so sorry but she didn’t have a computah but she was in the phone book, if I did need to reach her.

Then I got to Eddie’s house. I had met Eddie, an airline pilot/real estate magnate when I first moved in four years ago. He introduced himself to me by telling me he had wanted to buy my house but I had beat him to it. Still, he took the time to point out that I needed to put a lock on my fuse box, which is on the outside of my house.

“If someone wanted to break in and hurt you, the first thing he would do is cut off your power,” he warned. He also wanted me to put burglar bars on my basement windows. “A woman living alone,” he said. “Not safe.”

I hadn’t seen Eddie since then, although I had noticed that the décor of his house had not been updated from basic bachelor: he has a plastic Arkansas razorback on his front porch and a rusty chair. That’s about it. I took that to mean he is still a bachelor.

He really is a nice guy – he just bought the house next door for his aunt from Houston, who is recovering from breast cancer. He had moved there for six months to take care of her while she was undergoing treatment at MD Anderson, and now wants her up here where there is some more family.

But he does not know how to talk to women! Yes, he got the part right about my looking not 41 (although really, this is what 41 looks like), and he got the part right about being interesting to talk to, but when he said, “Ah, this weather is great! If I were a nudist, this would be perfect!”

I had to say, “Eddie, that’s a little too much information!”

He grinned and blushed beet red. Red to match that razorback.

Adding injury to insult

posted Sat, 09 Jul 2005

This afternoon, while I was altering a pair of $5 Junior League thrift shop pants for Leigh (“Don’t you dare pay someone $35 to alter those for you!” I told her), my friend Aimee came over, bearing gifts and seeking forgiveness for having stood me up for lunch yesterday. I had waited for her, starving, at the restaurant, for 15 minutes, before deciding she wasn’t going to show up. I went to Kroger for bread and cheese and returned to work. Not my idea of a good lunch.

When she told me that she had stayed home from work with a sick infant and had spent all day awaiting word of the diagnosis of a suddenly ill friend – sadly, terminal cancer, I forgave her.

And I liked the present.

After a short time, the conversation turned to mammograms, as women talk so often does. It takes us only a few minutes to dispense with talk about men, and then we move on to the good stuff. Sorry, guys.

Aimee and I were both astonished to discover that Leigh has not yet had a mammogram. She is past 35, which is the age at which one is supposed to have the baseline exam.

“It hurts!” I warned her.

“No, it doesn’t,” Aimee laughed.

I looked at Aimee, who is quite voluptuous. She had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable.

“Well, with me, I guess it’s just kinda like laying a big ole slab of meat on the machine,” she laughed. “With women with little titties...”

“Yeah, well, with me, it hurt!” I said.

Leigh, who has an infant, looked at me, then at Aimee, and said, “I’d better have mine done before I quit nursing, because I looked like Class Factotum before Sophia was born.”

I think they read the "survived by" lists for prospects

posted Wed, 06 Jul 2005

Less than a month ago, the wife of my colleague George died. Clara had been ill for a while, so her death, although saddening, was not a surprise.

Tonight, on my way out of the office, I passed George and Stan. They wanted me to chat, but I informed them I was starving and wanted to get home.

You’d think that the single/divorced/widowed church ladies would have the grace to let the body of their friend get cold before they would start hitting on her husband.
Source: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/04/29/vulture11b.jpg

“You can go with George to his church for supper! He needs protection!” said Stan.

“Are they attacking you already?” I asked George in disbelief.

He looked up at me, shook his head and smiled.

“Have they showed up at your house with casseroles?”

“No, they just keep coming up to me at church,” he laughed. “Clara warned me about this before she died.”

Stan urged, “You go with him so they will think you are his girlfriend!”

As George is three years older than my mother, some of his church friends might find that a little hard to believe – especially less than a month after Clara’s passing.

“That would cause some gossip for sure!” George chuckled.

“I’ll do it if you want me to!” I said. I draped my arm over his shoulder and said, “I’ll tell those women, ‘Y’all keep your hands off my man!’”

Earth girls are easy

posted Tue, 05 Jul 2005

What is it with Middle Eastern men and American women? When other men treat their sisters the way they treat us, they kill their sisters for dishonoring the family. I don’t know why they don’t kill the man instead (that is, if they must kill someone), but I’m not in charge of the rules over there.

Yet here in the US, it is perfectly OK to treat an American woman disrespectfully.

Why are we so deserving of this disrespect?

Maybe I need to wear a chador when I go to this store. I thought my sundress was modest. I guess not.
Source: http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t628/T628501A.jpg

And why am I ranting about this?

Yesterday, I went to the Mideast grocery store near my house. It’s a neat place – and it was one of the few businesses open on the Fourth. I had foolishly let my cupboard become bare and was hungry for more than oatmeal and tuna.

As I walked into the store, I was changing from my sunglasses to my regular glasses, so was in that in-between stage of blurriness so familiar to my astigmatic, myopic peers. A Middle Eastern man walked past me and said, “Hello.” This was not a casual hello. It was a “Well, hello baby!” kind of hello. I have finally learned to tell the difference.

I don’t know what inspired him to say anything at all to me other than the fact that I am an American woman. I was not looking at him – I was looking into my purse. Even if I had been facing in his general direction, I could not have made eye contact with him because without my glasses, I cannot focus more than a few feet in front of me. Even with my glasses, I am not inclined to make eye contact with men I do not know. (See previous posts on salsa classes for more on eye contact with strangers and my intense dislike of it.)

I noticed this phenomenon in Chile as well. Men would treat me differently from Chilean women. I finally got so annoyed and frustrated that I started calling them on it. “Would you treat a Chilean girl like this?” I would ask. “Is this how you would want someone to speak to your sister?” That would usually stun them into silence.

But I do know why they do it. It’s obvious. Look at what we export. Watch almost any American TV show or movie. This is what the rest of the world thinks the US is like: American women are sluts. We will have sex with any guy in a second – and it’s almost all there on camera. Thanks, Hollywood. You make international travel and living for American women so easy.

The case for marriage

posted Mon, 04 Jul 2005

I haven’t been able to understand how a financially independent woman past her childbearing years would benefit from marriage. What’s in it for her, really? More laundry? Cooking when she doesn’t feel like it? Fighting over the proper position of the toilet seat?

This morning, I figured it out.

I would be willing to do all the laundry, all the cooking, all the toilet seat adjusting for all of eternity if I would never, ever, ever again have to clean the hair from the drain in the tub.

That has got to be the most disgusting job in the world. I thought the super-duper chemical drain unclogger from Home Depot would take care of it, but no. Chemicals do not dissolve hair unless hair is on the head (and hair dissolving is not the desired result – it only happens when you don’t want it to happen – tricky that way).

I tried pulling the hair out with a stick, but you can’t get it with a stick.

You have to use your fingers.

Fortunately, I had some latex gloves left over from when I put insulation in my attic, but it did not make the job any less disgusting.

I would get married just not to have to do that again ever.

On a mission from God

posted Sun, 03 Jul 2005

I just finished a three-hour stint volunteering at the fundraising carnival for the diocese’s old-folks’ home and orphanage. I worked at the watermelon booth along with three very sweet, very polite teenage girls – Megan, Maria and Natalie – and two other adults. The girls did all the work. There was a surfeit of adult volunteers, apparently, so the adults were there to supervise (ie, stand around and do nothing). The volunteer coordinator asked us just to make sure the girls didn’t do anything dangerous or stupid. (There were big knives involved.)

When I arrived at the booth, they were out of forks – and people were not buying watermelon slices because of it. “Can we get some more forks?” I asked.

No one knew. No one had asked. No one had thought to ask.

“Maria,” I said, “Go to the other food booths and find one that sells something that uses forks. Ask them to give us some of theirs.”

I surveyed the surroundings. I suspected that our strategic location next to the porta-potties and away from the other food booths was probably affecting sales. Why hadn’t they put watermelons with corn dogs, funnel cakes, and hamburgers? What were we doing by face painting, the cake walk and the toilets?

I pointed to Megan, a stunningly beautiful Italian (yes, I know) girl with long brown hair, shorts and a white halter top, and said, “Megan. Cut up a few slices of watermelon into small pieces as samples and put them on a plate. Take them over by the other food booths and hand them out. Tell people there is a watermelon booth over here.”

She looked uncertain and asked, “But what if no one will take them?”

I answered, “You’re fifteen years old and you’re gorgeous! If you can’t get people to take free food from you now, then there is no hope!”

And yes, I had mixed emotions about using sex to sell, but really, all three of them were pretty girls. Having one of the adults do it would not have accomplished anything, I assure you. Yes, yes, yes, I am using the ends justify the means argument here and I know that’s an invalid argument, but darnit, I wanted to move those melons and make money for charity!

In the end, the volunteer coordinator, Betsy, who happens to be Natalie’s mother, killed the whole sample promotion anyhow, so the point is moot. She saw Megan with the samples, asked her what she was doing, relieved her of the plate, told her that giving out samples was not necessary, and sent her back over to the booth.

Of course it was necessary because we ended the day with ten unsold watermelons, thank you very much. If we had done it my way, we would have sold the darn things.

Post-breakup family custody

posted Thu, 30 Jun 2005

After some breakups, there ought to be special post-relationship visitation privileges with each other’s families. These privileges would apply in cases where the relationship ended amicably (well, as amicably as a relationship can end). That is, where the relationship ended with both parties still loving each other but knowing they could never live with each other.

There might be a time requirement, as well. I dated one guy for a few months. I wanted to date him longer just because I liked his family so much. Actually, I was tempted to ask if I could break up with him but keep his family, but didn’t think that would be tactful.

Years ago (like 17), I was ordered by my mother not to bring home another boyfriend unless I was going to keep him. “I am tired of meeting these guys and getting to know and like them and then never getting to see them again,” she said.
Source: http://www.gidzinski.com/Family%20Reunion%201999%20lo%20res.jpg

But if you’ve dated for say, over three years, I think that the relationships with the families should be allowed to stand. Or, at least, the breakee should be allowed to keep the relationship with the breaker’s family.

It is up to the breakee to decide whether the breaker can keep the relationship with his family, whom the breaker adores. He, after all, is the injured party.

In some long-term relationships, the boyfriend can become much-beloved by the family. When the girlfriend informs her family that she has broken up with said boyfriend, her sister might become very upset with her. “But I love Boyfriend! How could you do that?” In these cases, it is important to inform the family that they are allowed to maintain their friendships with Boyfriend.

The brother has much the same reaction, although not as emotional. The aunt says, “But I thought you were so well matched!” The mother says nothing. She is upset. But you can tell she is not going to allow her daughter to bring home any more boyfriends. Only husbands. Husband.

One woman`s scent is another woman`s stench

posted Wed, 29 Jun 2005

When I am in charge of everything, it will be against the rules for anyone to wear any scent that can be detected by any other person who is standing more than six inches away from the scent wearer.

The scent cannot linger after the wearer has left the area.

BTW, just for those of you who are unclear as to what “scent” includes. It encompasses lotions, perfumes, colognes, and aftershave. It can also possibly include your laundry detergent, the nasty air freshener hanging in your car, the air freshener they spray in the bathroom at work, and your hair conditioner. If it has a smell, it might stink to someone else. Think about it.
Source: http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/misc/images/skunk.jpg

Ideally, I would ban the wearing of scent altogether, but I don’t think I could get away with that. Even benevolent dictators can’t control everything.

Am I wrong here? Shouldn’t I be able to walk into the office – I’m sorry – the cubicle in the morning and not be assaulted by the stinky perfume lingering in the empty hallway?

And why is it that those who feel compelled to douse themselves with perfume always have such bad taste in it?

I stopped at the greengrocer on the way home from work. There were fewer than ten of us in there. One woman reeked of patchouli. I hate patchouli. Damn. It’s 97 degrees outside. Why do you need to put anything else on your body that will add to the smells in the air? We already smell all the rotting trash. We don’t need your nasty incense smell, too.

Home sweet home

posted Tue, 28 Jun 2005

My friend Lindley is an interior decorator. I met her through the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer group that Megan, Leigh and I founded to meet men. (It worked for Megan – she met Steve, who was a volunteer in Chad, and they are now happily causing trouble in Morocco after having closed the Peace Corps programs in China, Nepal and Uzbekistan, where Megan was the business officer.)

Lindley’s husband, Tim, was a volunteer somewhere in Africa. Lindley says the only ministry to the poor she ever did was when she was a designer for Ralph Lauren in New York and she had to go to the Hamptons.

Anyhow, we became fast friends as soon as we met. As an interior decorator, Lindley knows everyone in town related to furniture and fabrics. She recommended someone to clean the ink from my sofa. (From when my former cleaning lady’s little girl drew on my white sofa with a pen in January.)

When Tamara got to my house yesterday, she walked in, looked around, and asked, “So. How do you know Lindley?”

As in, “Obviously not as your decorator.”

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound

posted Tue, 28 Jun 2005

Men fascinate me. How can they be so brave in so many areas – running into burning houses, chasing bad guys into dark alleys, going to war – yet so timid when it comes to women?

I once dated a guy who had been a Green Beret in Vietnam. (Yes, I often date men much older than I. Guys my age don’t seem to be interested in me. Go figure.) He had jumped out of planes behind enemy lines while men had shot at him – yet didn’t have the guts to tell me he didn’t want to see me any more.

Scenes from Boot Camp, number 26

posted Tue, 28 Jun 2005

Scene #1:

Tony told us to run Mount Fuji (the five-storey parking garage). “It will give you Herschel Walker thighs,” he promised.

Oh great. Just what every woman wants. Bigger thighs.

Scene #2:

We are getting ready to do sit-ups.

Not crunches. Crunches are for sissies.

Sit-ups. There is a huge difference between sit-ups and crunches. If you don’t believe me, lie down right now. Do some crunches and then do some sit-ups.

See what I mean?

This is boot camp. It’s not the day spa, as that guy says.

Anyhow, Barbie is my sit-ups partner.

“Do you want me to hold your knees? Or your ankles? Should I stand on your feet? What do you want me to do?

As I am lying on my back on my pink mat, so grateful for these few seconds of rest, I answer, “I want you to stand between me and that damn Marine so he can’t see me while I lie here and do nothing. Just block me from his view, that’s what I want you to do.”

My Mexican yenta

posted Fri, 24 Jun 2005

I just had lunch with my friend Maria Antonette, the Mexican lawyer. Toni has been out of the dating game for a while, or maybe they just do it differently in Mexico. As soon as she found out that I am now a free agent, she told me I had to meet a colleague of hers.

“You’ll really like Mark! He’s a vice-president!”

“Isn’t everyone and his dog a vice-president at a bank?” I asked.

“He has a Mercedes two-seater convertible,” she said.

“Big deal,” I said. “I’m not a car snob. Where has he traveled?”

“He’s smart and he’s a really nice guy,” she admitted.

So after lunch, I go back to her office with her. She drags Mark to the reception area. We meet. We are making small talk. It’s fine.

“Mark!” Toni says. “Class Factotum speaks Spanish fluently!”

“Oh really,” he says politely. Yep. That’s the way to a man’s heart. He looks at the items on a woman’s resume.

“I need to get back to work,” I say.

“Don’t you have a card?” Toni asks Mark.

“Not on me,” he answers.

“Callate,” I tell her. Be quiet!

“But,” she protests.

“Deja que las cosas sigan como deben,” I insist. Let things go the way they should.

I chatted with this guy for five minutes. He’s not someone who, at first glance, I would think I would want to date, but I like Toni and think she has good judgment (after all, she has me as a friend, right?), so if he asked me out to dinner, I would go. But I am not going to take his card and call him.

When Toni walks to the elevator with me, she says, “I’ll talk to him and get his number for you!”

“No, Toni!” I insist. “If he’s interested in calling me, that’s fine. He’ll come to you and ask for my phone number. But your work here is done!”

No good deed goes unpunished, part 2

posted Thu, 23 Jun 2005

I told LizBeth the truth: that I had told Lucy this was a poorly-managed company and she had a better future with EDS.

Long silence.

A sigh.

“You’re right. I would have made the same decision if I were her.”

"Salsa is a macho dance."

posted Wed, 22 Jun 2005

Becky and I went to the salsa class again tonight. It was a lot better, except some of the guys decided to really get into the spirit of the thing and douse themselves in cologne. Overall, I would say that the total consumption of cologne in the US is the same as it is in Latin America, it’s just that in the US, it is distributed evenly across the population and in Latin America, it is skewed at one end of the curve. So where you might have a bunch of US guys each wearing a little bit of cologne, you would have most latino men wearing none at all, but one in one hundred wearing a ton of it.

We did a lot better on the steps, although the twisty hip move ones were challenging. Becky and I have Norwegian blood, thanks to our grandpa Ole. Our hips do not move separately from the rest of our bodies. We are a stiff people. We are not bred for Latin dance or anything that involves sensual movement. We are bred to survive cold winters.

Most of the guys were really nice and pretty good dancers, but we ran into the same few weird ones. The “look into my eyes” guy was there again. He’d expanded his repertoire to include telling me what to do. This time, in addition to pointing to his eyes and to the floor, he pulled his mouth into a smile to indicate I should turn that frown upside down.

I really, really hate it when men tell me to smile.

I really hate it. I won’t go into this issue, but I know other women share my feelings on this. Just who the hell do these men think they are, telling me what to feel and express?

There was also this nerd I didn’t have to dance with last time who spent the whole time explaining to me why he couldn’t do any of the steps. With bad breath. He had pasty soft hands and Todd pants pulled up over his waist.

Becky and I have decided we don’t need any more lessons. As long as we are dancing with a man who knows what he is doing, we can follow. We just need to go out salsa dancing. Unfortunately, this involves staying up past 9:00 at night, so it might be a challenge.

At least she took the EDS job

posted Wed, 22 Jun 2005

Voicemail message 1: “Class Factotum, this is LizBeth in Corporate Recruiting. Lucy X. told me the reason she is not accepting the job with Consolidated Buggy Whips is because she talked to you. I am concerned. Please call me at extension 1234.”

Voicemail message 2: “Class Factotum, this is Lucy. I hope I did not get you into trouble, but LizBeth wanted to know why I did not accept the offer from Consolidated Buggy Whips. I told her I heard about the layoffs. She got upset and said those were just rumors and asked who had told me. I gave her your name. I am so sorry. I am so worried she will do something to you.”

There`s some messiness in the Mideast you can work on next

posted Tue, 21 Jun 2005

In my long wait at the otolaryngologist’s office yesterday (OK, it’s an ENT, but I just love that I know that word – otolaryngologist), not only did I have time to read “From Good to Great,” (start to finish) and write yesterday’s post, I also was able to observe a lot of human behavior. Mostly of people who seemed to have arrived after I did but were getting to see the doctor before me. Which was unfair. Which annoyed me greatly.

Well anyway.

I was very impressed with a woman who had two young daughters, Sarah and Lauren. I knew which one Lauren was because she had a name tag stuck to her back. Sarah was about five; Lauren was three. They were fighting over the train set in the waiting room. Mom never lost her patience. “Look, Sarah. Here are three pieces for you.”

“But Lauren has the one I want!” she wailed.

Meanwhile, Lauren had crawled under the train tracks to get a book. Now that she was no longer interested in the train, Sarah wasn’t, either.

Mom tried to distract them.

“Come sit by me and let’s read a book quietly.”

“Fairies!” screamed Lauren.

“Shhh,” said mom.

One of the old ladies said, “Ah remember when mine were that age…”

Fortunately, most of the patients were older and hard of hearing. I myself was there for an inner ear problem that is causing occasional deafness. I was not bothered by the girls. I don’t get bothered – much – by unruly children if it’s clear that the parent is making an effort to discipline them. If the kid is throwing a tantrum because mom is being a good parent, I am silently cheering her on.

“Stick to your guns,” I want to say. “Keep up the good work! We’re behind you!” It’s when the parents cave that I get annoyed. I can put up with some public messiness if I know it will yield a good citizen in the end.

Sarah started to pitch a fit, so mom was trying to calm her. Lauren saw her chance. She ran in between the backs of the two couches that were pushed together and crouched down. A minute later, mom looked around. “Lauren?” she asked. She stood. When she saw Lauren, she ran and grabbed her. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going to the potty.”

“But I was pooping!” Lauren shouted.

“I know what you were doing,” her mother sighed.

“I don’t want to go to the potty,” Lauren screamed.

“Come on, Sarah,” mom said as she gathered her purse and other mom supplies.

“No, Mom, I don’t want to go,” Sarah whined.

That’s where I would have snapped. This woman was either a saint or on drugs. She just grabbed Sarah’s hand and said calmly, “We’ll come back here in a little bit.”

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

posted Tue, 21 Jun 2005

OK, this is really flattering, if a bit disconcerting.

I tried to set Billy up with a young woman in the accounting department. “She’s your age!” I emailed. “She’s very cute.”

Sometimes a May-December romance can work, when there is true intellectual compatibility.
Source: http://www.balkanmedia.com/m2/sl/2648-1-1.jpg

I asked her if she wanted to be set up. “I have a boyfriend,” she said.

Rats.

“I’d really be more interested in getting to know you better,” he replied.

So now I have to figure out how to tell a guy who is 13 years younger than I am that I do not want to date him – but in such a way that he is not insulted or hurt – and in a way that we can continue to work together.

This is a rather delicate situation. I have never had to do this before. I welcome advice.

You don`t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps

posted Mon, 20 Jun 2005

What would you do if not one, not two, but three people at a company told you not to accept a job offer from that company? Wouldn’t that be a pretty good sign that said company is not a good place to work?

About two months ago, a young woman, “Lucy,” called me. She had gotten my name from the Rice alumni association. About to get her MBA from Rice, she was interviewing for jobs. She had an interview with my company, which we will call “Consolidated Buggy Whips.” What is the corporate culture like, she wanted to know. I told her she should only come to work here if she had no other offers.

Last week, Lucy called again. My company had indeed made her an offer. So had EDS. What to do, what to do.

I yelled to a colleague: “Hey, Jack! I’ve got a woman on the phone from my college who has an offer from us and from EDS. She wants to know which offer to take.”

His voice floated over the cubicle walls. “Even if EDS is offering 15% lower salary, she should take the EDS job.”

“Did you hear that?” I asked. “Take the EDS offer”

“But it’s a field office job,” she protested.

“Field office jobs are always more fun than corporate jobs,” I replied.

“They want me to lead a team of people. With Consolidated Buggy Whips, I would get to work for some directors. I would learn from them.”

“Let me get this straight. You would rather not have the opportunity to lead people? Because you will always have someone to report to.”

By now, Jack and Stan, who also spoke to Lucy before her interview to tell her about the Chinese community in M’town, have both come over to my desk. They are fascinated that this woman is arguing about coming to work for a company where two people have already told her it’s a bad idea.

“Lucy. EDS sells ideas and problem solving. There will always be a market for that. Consolidated Buggy Whips sells – buggy whips. Do you know what is happening to the market for buggy whips worldwide? It’s shrinking. And it’s not like our factories can be converted over to something else. We are set up to make buggy whips. Period. That’s what we make. That’s the only thing we can make. And no one wants buggy whips anymore. Last Friday, every single person in my building except the ten people on my team lost his job.”

Stan said, “Don’t take the job, Lucy.”

She gasped. “Consolidated has had layoffs?”

“Oh honey. Four rounds in the past five years. Including here at corporate.”

“But nobody said anything about it at the interview.”

“Of course they didn’t! An interview is like dating. I know you’re married and it’s been a while since you’ve been on a date, but in an interview, they will say anything to get you into bed. After that, well, you know.”

“But I liked the people I interviewed with.”

By now, I am getting really exasperated. Maybe Lucy deserves to work here.

“Lucy. I am going to show you one last piece of evidence, OK? Let’s compare stock performance. First, let’s check Consolidated’s stock price over the past 12 months. Let me get to the CNN website. Oh, look! It’s dropped 25%! Yes, that’s a sign of a company with a great future.

“Now let’s look at EDS’s performance. Hmm. Not stellar, but it hasn’t dropped. It’s actually gone up about 10%.”

“Which company would you invest money in? Which one would you invest you in?”

She still argued with me that she should take the job with my company. I’ll bet she does, too.

Would you like to see my etchings?

posted Sun, 19 Jun 2005

One of the many lunch dates in my busy social calendar last week was with a colleague, Billy, whom I have known for five years. I have known him since he came to work for the company, right after he graduated from college. He’s a really nice kid. We have worked on several projects together, although not recently.

For whatever reason, Billy asked if I wanted to have lunch together last week. When we got to the restaurant, he told me this was his treat. I protested, but he insisted. I stopped arguing and accepted graciously, although I think lunch between colleagues should be dutch treat. But it’s ungracious to argue when someone makes a generous offer like that. When I offer to buy lunch for someone, I mean it, and find it insulting to have the person make more than a token protest.

I really can’t see myself in a Mrs Robinson-type situation. More the opposite, really. I usually attract men much older than myself. Guys my own age usually want nothing to do with me. I’ve been told I intimidate men. I have no idea why I would. Well. Maybe a little idea why I would.
Source: http://nativetexas.com/_roger/dh.jpg

We had a nice conversation. On the one big project we had worked on together, I used to make brownies for the team frequently. “No brownies for you!” became a mantra when I was teasing someone. Billy told me there was a guy on his team now who was always bringing elaborate desserts to work and that he – Billy – wanted to make something even better. (Men are so competitive.) Did I give dessert-making lessons?

No, I told him, but I would send him some recipes. And, I said, he might want to consider taking some cooking classes – that would be a great way to meet girls! Then I got nosy. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No, not right now,” he said, blushing. He’s a quiet, reserved guy – not the sort who would be out on the town all the time, I would think.

“We’ll have to figure out a way for you to meet a nice girl,” said yenta me.

Then he told me that he had gotten a cat and we compared kitten and cat stories. “You need to come over and meet my cat,” he suggested.

“OK, sure,” I said.

Then he told me about the business trip he had taken to Goa. I was really interested to hear about such an exotic city. “I have photos,” he offered. “You can come over and see them if you want.”

“Email me some!” I said.

By now I am starting to wonder, but thinking, No! I am THIRTEEN YEARS OLDER than he is! I am completely misreading things here. (And no, I did not pick up any gaydar, either.)

Leigh thinks he is interested in me and not in a I-am-old-enough-to-be-his-big-sister way.

I think she is wrong.

Men, what do you think?

In which I discover I am a garden hoe

posted Sat, 18 Jun 2005

I have never relied on my feminine wiles or beauty to get what I wanted from men, mostly because I have neither.

I am not unattractive, but I am nowhere near gorgeous. Gorgeous and I are not even on the same map. (This is where my mom is going to protest. Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it – but those are the mom rules. Mothers see with special eyes.)

But I have absolutely no sense of how to charm men. Never have. I was not asked to a single high-school dance. I go years between boyfriends. I don’t know how to flirt. When I do talk to men, I am direct – a quality that is not particularly appreciated in the South. On one blind date, we discussed US energy policy. I had a great time. But he did not call again.

I have always been the sidekick friend to the girl all the guys wanted to date. In high school, Julie was the tall, gorgeous leggy one; I was the sidekick. In college, Anita was the cute, bubbly one; I was the sidekick. Since college, I have had a series of cute, beautiful, flirtatious and otherwise attractive friends to whom I have been sidekick. Leigh is the current one. Even though she is married and had a baby four months ago, it hasn’t diminished her appeal one bit.

Years ago, when my sister was visiting me, she came to pick me up at work for lunch. As usual, Jenny was dressed in a way that accented her considerable attributes. Her hair, makeup and nails were done. (She got the makeup and accessory gene, I did not.) When I introduced her to my male colleagues, their jaws dropped. Later, one told me, “You and your sister are complete opposites.” The other told me, “Your sister oozes sensuality.” Gee, thanks, guys.

Even now, in my flirt email exchanges with the boot camp DI, who, it appears, cannot decide whether to fish or to cut bait, I am far more comfortable with talking about his time teaching applied linguistics in Japan than with more traditional provocative flirting dialogue. I just don’t know what to say! [Turns out he just wasn't that into me. Ha. How dumb was I?]

I showed my friend Susie one of our email exchanges and she ordered me to ask Tony for a do-over. “That’s pathetic!” she scolded me. “You do not know what you are doing. That poor guy thinks you have just slammed him down. You need to clear everything with me before you send it.”

Which leads me to my current dilemma.

I seem to finally have become attractive to men in general.

Why this didn’t happen until I was 41, I don’t know.

But I must admit, I am having fun with it. I keep reminding myself, though, that I must use my power for good.

So the situation is that the guy who wanted the verbena from my garden – the one who looks like Santa Claus in overalls – has been hitting on me by email. At first, he sent me photos of his garden – and told me I could come see it in person if I wanted.

I didn’t reply.

Then I got another note yesterday – how was it going?

How it was going was that all the strawberry plants he had given me had died. They died because I dug them up again and left them out for a day while I cut down the tree and dug up the old flowerbed. They didn’t like that day of being naked before being replanted.

Quelle dilemma.

I knew if I told him this, there was a pretty good chance he would give me more strawberries.

But wouldn’t that be wrong?

I have no intention of ever going out with this guy. All I want him for is his strawberry plants. I would be using him as a means to an end, which is morally wrong. Human beings are never supposed to be used as means to an end. Human beings are ends in themselves.

But I have never had the power even to do that before! No man has ever been willing to be a means for me before!

This was very exciting.

And telling him that the plants were dead wasn’t the same as asking for new ones, was it?

Ah, the beginning of the slippery slope…

You might have to be Baptist to get to heaven, but it`s more fun to be Catholic here on earth

posted Fri, 17 Jun 2005

I just attended my first Baptist funeral. My first Baptist anything, actually. I had no idea it would be so different from a Catholic funeral. I guess I should have suspected something was up when there was no beer at the visitation last night.

At a Catholic wake, you say the Rosary, then go to the back of the funeral parlor for sausage, cheese, crackers, beer and conversation. In the old days, this all happened at the house. At one wake my grandmother told me about, the party got big enough that the coffin had to be pushed out of the kitchen onto the porch.

The Baptists win on music. (And on Bible verses. Baptists throw out Bible quotations – chapter and verse – the way I throw out Baci chocolate wrappers.) I held the hymnal out to share with the woman next to me – a Baptist – and she laughed. She knew all the songs by heart. She didn’t need no stinking hymnal. And their songs are good, too. They weren’t ruined by Vatican II.
Source: http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/12/large_watch.jpg

At a Baptist visitation, you stand in line, express your condolences to the family, then – leave. At least at this visitation, there was no service. Maybe there is at others. I don’t know. There wasn’t any food.

At a Catholic funeral, there is a Mass. You know what you are supposed to do (that is, if you are Catholic). There is a structure – a liturgy. It is a ritual, a tradition that has been in place for 2,000 years. Well, maybe 2,000 years. I don’t know how long the funeral mass has been in existence, but it’s been a long time. Let’s say at least centuries.

After a Catholic funeral mass, you go to the cemetery for the burial, then you return to the church hall for the reception. Except for the part about my dad being dead, my dad’s reception was really fun. We had a great time with incredible food. My uncle Larry made the bratwurst and the church ladies made the rest of the food. Everyone kept saying that Dad would have really enjoyed his party and wished he could have been there.

This Baptist funeral seemed unstructured. Not that what happened wasn’t nice. The pastor was a wonderful speaker. The singers were excellent. I mean no disrespect to the Baptists, but it seemed rather – random. There were no prayers that we said together. I wasn’t really sure when the service was over. We didn’t go to the cemetery for the burial. There was no reception or food afterwards.

The most interesting thing that happened was this: The preacher called for conversions. Right there in the middle of his closing remarks.

“Sister Jane asked that if anyone was moved by her testimony here today that we offer him the chance to be saved.”

I sat up in the pew. There was going to be an altar call! I had never seen one! Catholics do not "get saved!" I have always wanted to see this!

But the pastor had other plans.

“Everyone bow your head. If you feel so moved to let Jesus into your heart, just say this prayer to yourself. ‘Jesus, I accept You as my personal savior.’ Now, if you want me to know that you have accepted Him, you don’t have to walk down the aisle. Just lift your head up right quick and I’ll be the only one who sees you.”

Rats. I really wanted to see some of that old-time religion

I wanna put on my my my my shoes de boogie

posted Thu, 16 Jun 2005

My cousin Becky and I took a salsa class last night. The dancing kind, not the chips and kind.

I thought I would tear it up, as I took salsa dancing classes for a couple of months when I lived in Miami. But I hadn’t been in years and this teacher, Alex, was awful! He started the class 25 minutes late (in true Latin fashion) and then, he tried to rush through everything to make up for it. Frustrated the heck out of me because I don’t like to be rushed. I like to be the rusher.

In Miami, I had a great teacher. She made sure everyone had the step before moving on to the next one. This guy was going so fast that I was tempted to sit on the floor and go on strike in protest.

It got better, though, once we actually got to dance with partners. Alex did that part right. He had us change partners every few minutes so we would learn to dance the step, not just to dance with one particular partner.

I took lessons once where apparently (not that they put this information in the class description), you had to bring your own partner. I had never taken a dance class like that before. Ever other time, the teacher had us share partners. But this teacher, when she saw I was unaccompanied, told me that I would have to practice the steps by myself in the corner. For all four sessions of the class.

Then, when she would see someone not doing the step right, rather than correct that person, she would stop the music, look up at the ceiling, and say, “Someone isn’t rocking back on the two count.”

We would all look at each other, wondering who she was talking about, wondering, “Is it I?” Why wouldn’t she just tell the person? We were paying to learn, after all. Our egos were not going to be devastated by a little corrective instruction.

Back to last night. We started having more fun when we got to dance with partners and to music, even though there was a lot of difference in the men. Some were good, some were not so good. And some were downright weird.

One guy wouldn’t start dancing until I looked into his eyes. I couldn’t figure out why we were standing still. I finally looked at him quizzically. He pointed his index and middle finger at his eyes, saying dramatically, “It’s easier to dance if you are looking into my eyes.”

Well, no it’s not. I don’t know you and I find that level of intimacy with a stranger very uncomfortable.

Every time I looked away, he would stop dancing. I was quite relieved to get to an ordinary bad dancer with sweaty hands who counted out loud and who wouldn’t look at me.

If you can`t have kids like Jordan and Jillian, then don`t have any at all

posted Wed, 15 Jun 2005

Jordan and Jillian hard at work, cleaning my car with a dustbuster, paper towels, and rainwater.

These girls have been raised right. All children should be taught to ask for chores when they have dinner at the homes of their parents’ friends. What a charming thing for them to do. The next night, when we met for dinner at Café Ole, Jillian tugged on my dress. “Miss Class Factotum, when are you going to give us that list?”

“List?” I asked.

“Of chores!” she said impatiently.

I remembered. I had told her the night before that I didn’t have any more chores after the car and the pile of grass and sod in the front yard that they had moved to the compost heap in the back, but that I would keep a list for the next time they visited.

I don`t have time to be everywhere

posted Wed, 15 Jun 2005

My friend Susie met this guy online a few weeks ago. For their first meeting – I am not even going to call it a date, she went to his house. She did not consult me beforehand, because I would have advised her against it. I would have told her to meet him in a crowded public place, but that’s because I am convinced that any man who has not been vetted by friends or is somehow otherwise known to you -- work, church, other organization -- is an ax murderer.

She goes to his house and it turns out he is really wealthy. He claims he has never been married. (He also claims it’s really his house.) First red flag. Mid forties – wealthy – and never been married? Better to have been divorced at that age than never married if you ask me. After 40 and never been married for a guy and there’s usually a darn good reason.

Never married – or if he did, it was well after he was 40. I rest my case.
Source: http://www.cronologia.it/storia/biografie/hitler.jpg

They have a nice evening, then several phone calls over the next week or two. I think they meet for lunch once.

Then he calls her and tells her to be waiting for him at his house that evening.

Without any clothes.

Well.

“That’s where you hung up, right?” I say.

“Only after I told him I didn’t appreciate being treated that way,” she sniffed.

Her first mistake was not to insist on being treated properly from the outset, I think. But she never wants men to treat her like a lady – like they are on a date.

Last year, she met a guy in her motorcycle group. He called her up, asked her to dinner, picked her up at her house, took her out, tried to pay (she wouldn’t let him – she never lets men pay for her), then, much to her shock and surprise, “he kissed me!”

“Well, Susie, you were on a date! What did you think would happen when he took you home?”

“That wasn’t a date! We’re just friends from riding!”

I rolled my eyes as I enumerated the points to her. “Susie. He called you. He asked you out. He picked you up. He took you to a restaurant. He tried to pay except stubborn you wouldn’t let him. What exactly about that is not a date to you?”

“Well, I didn’t think it was one!” she sputtered.

She had a point. If both parties do not consider the date to be a date, it’s not a date. It’s that simple.

The waiting is the hardest part

posted Tue, 14 Jun 2005

If any of you were ever to meet me in person, you would undoubtedly be very surprised to learn that I am a bossy control freak.

Yes, it’s true.

I couldn’t find any women dictators when I searched google! I asked my colleagues and all they could suggest was Evita Peron and Imelda Marcos. I pointed out that all their power was derivative. At least Imelda, poor homely thing, got some good shoes out of us UN contributors. There is no woman who has made it on her own as a true dictator. Where are those diversity programs when you really need them?
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/08/04/imelda,0.jpg

I like to be the one in charge, the one giving orders.

It just comes naturally to me. It’s a gift, really.

But not everyone appreciates this quality. I don’t know why, because usually, my way is best.

So I have been working on keeping the inner dictator in check. It’s one of the many self-improvement projects I am working on (on which I am working?).

I had a lunch date today – my second – with this guy who wanted to know if we could meet again this week for lunch. He will be out of town next week. I told him that unfortunately, I am already booked for lunch the rest of this week.

I waited for him to suggest an evening engagement, but the idea did not occur to him.

I tried to think of a way to prompt him, but "subtle" is not an adjective anyone thinks of when they think “Class Factotum.”

My usual MO would be to say, “How about supper on Saturday, then?” but I bit my tongue. I am supposed to let the man do the asking. The Rules said so.

Who writes this baloney? Patient people?

Ditch the bitch and make the switch

posted Mon, 13 Jun 2005

Ilene and I started wondering: if we were lesbians, with whom would we want to sleep?

Or, even better – even if we weren’t lesbians, with whom would we want to sleep? Or whatever. You know. My mom reads this blog. I have to keep it somewhat clean.

The only bad thing about being on the same team is that another woman will steal your chocolate. The good part is you can share shoes and clothes.
Source: http://webfantasy.info/Angelina_Jolie/Images/Angelina_Jolie_Lara_Croft_01.jpg

Because really, I think I would make an exception for Angelina right now. She is that hot.

But I have been running names through my mind all day of other women (or, should I say, “womyn”) and I can’t think of anyone else who inspires that reaction in me. Yes. I have been doing this instead of working. I owe my employer a refund. But considering that on Friday, they eliminated the jobs of everyone in my building except the ten in my group, I don’t feel too bad.

Ilene suggested Sharon Stone, but blondes have never done it for me. Even female blondes.

Then again, I never saw “Basic Instinct.”

Maybe Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat.” That was pretty steamy. I saw it when I was a freshman in college and I thought it was a porn movie. Mom, it wasn't. Don't worry. I had just been very sheltered.

None of the others in the current crop make me want to make the switch, though. Yeah, if I already went the other way, they’d be fine. For sure, I would want someone pretty like Cindy Crawford or Eva Mendes or Gabrielle Union. (What is it with those mullet-headed, flannel-shirted, mannish types? Why not just get a man if that’s what you want? Even though I cannot possibly think of any circumstance where I would find a mullet acceptable in a man or a woman.) But I can’t think of anyone on whom I would want to nibble right now.

But Angelina. Man. That chick smolders.

Coke kills

posted Mon, 13 Jun 2005

Saturday morning, I was at the grocery store at 6:15 a.m. Not for fun. Not because it’s the most efficient time to shop for groceries, because it’s not – there are a lot of stock outs at that hour and not a good selection of produce. In Miami, it actually was the best time to shop. There was no traffic and no one else in the store. I would get in and get out. On my way there, I would see people stumbling out of nightclubs.

No, I was there because the Coke distributor had run me out of diet Cherry Coke.

I had warned the guy the weekend before when I saw him stacking a bunch of lime diet Cokes. “Don’t run me out of diet Cherry,” I said.

“Uh huh,” he said absent-mindedly, as he unbuckled that silly back brace they make them wear. The corporate safety guy would be furious if he knew that no one ever buckles those things.

Last Sunday, I ran out of diet Cherry cokes. I put it on my list. Tuesday evening, I went to the grocery store after work for a few things. I checked the soda aisle. No diet Cherry coke. This was not yet a problem, because I had two cases of it at work for a.m. consumption. (I don’t drink coffee.)

What I needed was a case to have at home for the weekend. But the weekend was not yet nigh. I had time.

Friday night, I didn’t go to the grocery store. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. So when I awoke Saturday morning, I had no source of caffeine. I had to make a trip right away to the store. I was not in a good mood when I got there.

See, this is all just the warmup for the real story. Now we’re getting to the actual plot. That was just the introduction. This is the man vs self, man vs man, man vs nature part (at least for anyone educated before 1980).

So I get to the produce department. I have had no caffeine and nothing to eat. I have already checked the soda aisle and there is still no diet Cherry Coke.

The rhubarb (an absolutely delicious Midwestern fruit -- vegetable? stalk?, for those of you who have not had the privilege) has been in stock for over a week.

Yet they still haven’t put out a price for it.

I find a clerk.

“I’m just curious,” I say. “Why is there a price up for beets – even though are no beets in stock – yet there is no price up for rhubarb?”

The clerk yells. “Andre! This lady wants to know much the rhubarb cost!”

“No,” I say patiently. “That’s not what I said. What I asked is why there is no price posted for a product that has been sitting in the bin for over a week?”

She looks at me as if I am nuts. Andre approaches us.

“It’s cheap. Two ninety nine a pound,” he says.

“That’s not cheap,” I say. “Why haven’t you posted the price?”

He shrugs. “You hafta ask the manager that. He’s not here.”

The woman looks at me. “Why do you care?”

“Because every time I walk into a store, I think how I would run it better. If I were in charge here, that price would have been posted when the rhubarb was stocked. The prices for the items not in stock would be removed. I wouldn’t make it so hard for customers to buy things. Last week, it took me forever to find someone to tell me the rhubarb price. It shouldn’t be hard for me to buy something from you.”

She stepped back.

I took pity on her.

“Look. I haven’t had any caffeine yet, OK? I’m a little testy.”

But she didn’t come any closer. I gave up and got diet Dr Pepper instead. I’ll have to visit my mom for the rhubarb. If I am going to pay that much for it, I might as well buy a plane ticket.

Brave new world

posted Sun, 12 Jun 2005

Minor Clergy, a lawyer studying to be an Orthodox priest, is one of my favorites. I read his site daily. I didn’t know until I read his post about it that Jesus didn’t just give the blind man sight – he gave him eyes. See for yourself here.

We have a reader in my parish who is blind. I didn’t even realize it until I noticed that someone always guides him to the lectern – his white cane isn’t adequate for this situation. Instead of looking down, he looks out at the congregation as he reads. Someone must translate the reading into Braille for him.

A few Sundays ago, we had a diocese-wide mass for the handicapped. The altar servers, the ushers and the readers were all handicapped in one way or another. Most were mentally handicapped, although one man who used crutches looked as if he had had polio – he was the right age.

The first lector read the Old Testament passage with grim determination, sounding out every word, repeating the hard ones until he got them right. He had rehearsed, but reading in front of an audience is not the same as practicing at home. I could tell everyone wanted to clap when he was done, but applause after someone has read is really not appropriate in church, although I think most of us would have gladly made an exception.

For the Our Father, one of the altar boys, who had Down’s syndrome and who must have been deaf, too, signed the prayer. I couldn’t sing because I was too busy trying to hide my tears.

Another altar boy couldn’t stop smiling. He was so happy just to be included in something so ordinary – to be part of everyday life.

Where am I going with this? Not sure, except that for someone as against mainstreaming in public schools as I am, I am for mainstreaming in life. That is, there are all sorts of people in life. Not everyone is born with eyes – or with a mind or body that works the way it is supposed to. But that does not mean that person does not deserve to live.

I was horrified to read in the Guardian that a baby in Britain had been aborted at 24 weeks because it had a cleft palate!

My sister is a neo-natal nurse practitioner.

She takes care of babies born at 24 weeks.

Cleft palates can be fixed.

Babies are aborted in this country for being handicapped.

There is a difference between letting a severely handicapped baby be born and letting nature take its course (which does not include starvation) and killing it in the womb. There is also a difference between letting a Down’s syndrome or other mildly handicapped baby be born and letting it live and killing it.

I cannot begin to know what life must be like for the parents of such a child. But is imperfection a reason to kill? How perfect do you have to be to be allowed to live? My insurance company would probably like to see me go. My migraine drugs cost hundreds of dollars a month – way more than I pay in premiums. (I am so lucky to have a good health plan.) Who gets to make these decisions?

Race for the cure

posted Sun, 12 Jun 2005

I had no idea my whiteface inspired such curiosity amongst my fellow boot campers. On Friday, we split into small groups for self-directed exercise, which I really didn’t like, because the main reason I am paying to be in this program is I want someone to tell me what to do. If I could get a decent workout by directing myself, I would still be swimming.

Anyhow, Tony, the DI, made some smart-aleck comment about my kabuki face, as he always does – he calls me “Kabuki Chick” – and I said something back about how he wasn’t going to hurt my feelings talking about my sunblock.

Another woman in my group gasped, “That’s your sunblock?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Why? What did you think it was?”

“We thought maybe you had poison ivy. Or some weird skin condition or disease.”

I laughed. Of course, this being the South, no one would ever have asked me about it. That would be rude. (Not a bad quality, actually.) I had a horrible black eye a couple of years ago – I had fallen and hit my eye on the windowsill in the middle of the night – and no one would say anything. I took pity on one woman and told her, after 15 minutes of conversation, “I fell.”

“Oh honey,” she said sympathetically, as she leaned forward and touched my arm, “My ex used to beat me, too.”

I explained to my boot camp friend that I get icky brown blotches on my face if I get any sun on it, so I wear as much sunblock as I can.

“We just thought you were being really brave in the face of an odd disease,” she said.

“I had no idea everyone was so interested in this,” I laughed. “It’s just zinc oxide! Diaper rash ointment!”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said. “Maintain the myth and have some fundraisers!”

Lead or get the heck out of my way

posted Thu, 09 Jun 2005

I just finished one of my favorite work tasks: packing boxes of chocolate for shipment to the customer service reps at the factories. I work with a couple hundred service reps at over 50 factories. I am in charge of a project that requires their cooperation, even though I have no authority over them.

I give them tons of extra work – ask them learn new processes and procedures – and I am not even the boss of them. But they do it. It’s amazing what people will do if you give them a clear objective, a good reason for reaching it, the tools and the training to do the job, and appropriate incentives.

The tiaras have been an enormous hit. I had no idea. At one plant, the service rep sent me an email that she and the other reps decided they would all have to take turns wearing the tiara, even though it was rightfully hers. “Every woman should be a princess,” she wrote.
Source: http://www.heirloomsewingforchildren.com/images/PhotoGallery/05.jpg

Our customer service departments are understaffed. These women (mostly women) are not paid very much and get little recognition or appreciation. Yet they are our main contact with the customer. My company has the money for corporate jets and swanky offices for the bigwigs, but can’t pay an extra $25,000 a year per factory to have another person on staff to take the burden off the existing service reps. Go figure.

So I do what I can with my corporate American Express. I load up at the Godiva store. If I am going to ask these women to do extra work, I am going to reward them for it. When a factory has made significant progress on a project, I send them a box of chocolate. They deserve it.

But it’s not just the chocolate. Do you know what a difference it makes to write someone a personal note telling her she did a great job on something? Or to send an email to a factory with the graph showing all the factories and their relative progress on a project and the words, “Great job, Boise team!” You make sure you copy the factory manager and the division director, too. Praise in public, punish in private.

Now is the part where I totally out myself, but anyone from work who has stumbled across this site and has read more than two entries has figured out who I am anyhow.

I am the SAP Queen. I didn’t give that name to myself, but the moniker has stuck.

If I am the queen, I can create princesses. When a service rep does something noteworthy, I write a note praising what she has done – and I tell her she is an SAP Princess.

Whenever I see something at Target that is princess related, I buy it. Recently, in that dollar section up front, they had a bunch of princess pens, wands and tiaras. I bought all they had. I have been sending them out, along with a handful of Baci chocolates and the handwritten note, to individual service reps for individual recognition.

I am very interested in the questions of how you lead people and what makes one organization succeed and another fail. It has been fascinating to see how easy it is to work with this bunch of great service reps – over whom I have no authority – to implement my goals yet watch the rest of my division be run so – differently. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Stripping: acceptable profession for my little girl or not?

posted Wed, 08 Jun 2005

When I worked at Ryder, I overheard a woman in the locker room at the onsite gym complaining that her boss had taken her entire group to Hooter’s for a meeting during work hours. She thought – and I agreed – that this was inappropriate.

When I told the Hooter’s story to my VP, who was only in his early 40s – young enough to know better, he was befuddled.

“What’s wrong with having a work meeting at Hooter’s? I like their food. They have great wings.”

“George,” I asked, “You don’t see why maybe some of the women might have felt uncomfortable?”

“No,” he answered, genuinely puzzled.

“So you think this is the sort of place women should feel comfortable.”

“Sure.”

His daughter was seven at the time.

“Would you like your daughter to work there when she gets old enough?”

All the color drained from his face.

“Oh,” he said. “I see what you mean.”

At work today, a guy and I were talking about strippers. “I wouldn’t want my daughter to work at a strip joint, but I wouldn’t mind if she worked at Hooter’s,” he claimed. “If you look at women on the beach, they are wearing a lot less clothing than the women do at Hooter’s. What’s the difference?”

I have been trying to figure that out. The difference is, I think, that the women on the beach aren’t trying to make money by selling their bodies. But I guess that’s only bad if you think selling your body and prostitution are bad things.

I don’t care if Hooter’s is in business. It’s not the same as a house of prostitution – don’t get me wrong here – but we are at the beginning of a continuum. Don’t kid yourself. People do not go to Hooter’s for the food.

And really, I’m not sure I have a problem with a pretty girl with a nice figure working her way through college at Hooter’s. But it would be a tough call, because she would always be on that razor’s edge, dodging the groping hands and leering eyes.

It is the commoditization of the girl herself that bothers me. What does it do to her soul? I don’t care if she takes the money from those guys. But it’s the way they just see her as nothing more than a pretty face with a pretty body and nothing behind it – a body there to serve them – that bothers me. She becomes a means rather than an end in herself. And a person is never supposed to be a means to an end.

Whew. I am getting way too philosophical. Better stop.

I remember the FedEx pilot I met in the Atlanta airport who told me his daughter was an “exotic dancer.” I was so shocked that I blurted out, “Wow. I’ll bet that’s not what you hoped for her when she was a little girl.

He just shrugged and said, “You can’t help how they turn out.”

Well, yes and no. Much of personality is hard wired, but there is a lot you can do to put a child on the right path. There are many choices between the convent and stripping.

What was really creepy was that later, I saw him working on his laptop. The background image was of a very scantily-clad, very busty (like GGG cup) young woman who looked like a stripper. That is just not right, as in it is quasi incestuous.

I asked Joan and Steve if they would mind if Jordan and Jillian worked at Hooter’s when they were grown. Steve shook his head and rolled his eyes. Joan said, “We really have much higher aspirations for them than that. We think they can achieve more than that sort of work.”

That’s the right answer.

Plane ticket -- $280, Hotel -- $90, Being hit on by captain of the high school football team -- priceless

posted Wed, 08 Jun 2005

More high school stories. Some of you have heard this one before, but it’s so good it bears re-telling.

You have to know this first, though.

This will come as a big surprise to most of you, but the CF has not always been the bombshell you see before you today. Nope, there was a time when she was a nerd.

Yes.

You read that right.

A nerd.

A nerd who was not asked to a single high school dance. Well, except for when Mike N. asked me to the ROTC winter formal and I don’t think that counts because he asked every other girl in our chemistry class before he got to me.

Not one.

Yes, I know this is a great shock, but for whatever reason, smart girls on the swim team who sew all their own unfashionable clothes are not usually on the top of the social ladder. Go figure.

So. When I went to my 20-year high school reunion, I was not expecting any boys – well, men, I guess – to pay any attention to me. I was going to the reunion only because my therapist thought it would be a good idea, not because there was anyone I wanted to see. None of the high school friends I kept in touch with were going.

(NB I had gone to see the therapist after a bad breakup. I took a spreadsheet of all my boyfriends up to then, thinking she should be able to look at the data – length of relationship, age of boyfriend, job, religion, and other info, and tell me what I was doing wrong after a few sessions. I was paying $60 an hour, after all. I didn’t want to waste my money. I thought three sessions ought to do the trick.)

I was sitting next to Scott K, on whom I’d had a crush from ninth through 11th grade, trying to get his attention. He was trying to get Elaine R’s attention. Elaine was just as nice and just as stunning as she was in high school, only now she had a PhD. Meanwhile, Ricky R was on my other side, talking to me. I was paying him hardly any attention.

Finally, Ricky said, in frustration, “Hey! I’m trying to flirt with you!’

I looked at him in bewilderment. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you remember me from school?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. I wished I remembered him. He was very nice looking – dressed well.

“I was the president of the senior class.”

“We moved back to the States after my junior year.”

“I was the captain of the football team!” he protested.

“I didn’t care about football.”

“My uncle was the president of Panama!”

“I wasn’t interested in politics back then,” I explained.

I looked over at Scott. He was still mooning over Elaine. I looked at Ricky. He was obviously interested in me. It might have been 20 years too late, and I knew I shouldn’t have been as excited about it as I was, but darnit, the captain of the football team was hitting on me!

And I had no idea what to do about it.

You might be able to, but I can`t go home again

posted Tue, 07 Jun 2005

Let me explain why it is such a big deal to me to see a friend from high school.

Except for my relatives, I have no connection to my past before a few high school friends. Military brats lose their history every time they move. Between kindergarten and my senior year of high school, I went to ten different schools. In fifth grade, I changed schools three times.

I don’t keep in touch with a single friend from before high school – not because I don’t want to, mind you – but because you lose track of people. Youngsters, there was a time when it was really hard to keep up with people. Yes, there was an era when you couldn’t just google someone. I could google friends from back then now, but their names have changed.

I don’t even have the luxury of returning to a place to learn how the story ended. If I returned to Torrejon Air Force Base in Spain, no one who was living there when I was a kid would be there now. (Not to mention I think it is now the property of Spain’s Air Force.) I can’t go back to a hometown and find the parents of my second-grade classmates.

So I have been burning the candle at both ends to see as much of Joan and her family as possible. I met them for dinner on Sunday, had them over to my house last night and will see them again tonight.

Joan and her husband Steve have two really cute little girls: Jordan, who is seven, and Jillian, four. After dinner last night, we were sitting on the front porch eating watermelon. Jordan asked me in her melodious, lilting voice, “Miss Class Factotum, do you have any chores for us to do?”

Just to tease her, I said, “You see that pile of grass on the sidewalk there? I need it moved to the compost heap in the back yard.” It was the grass I had dug out of the flowerbed on Saturday.

“OK!” she said brightly and jumped out of the swing.

Not to be outdone, Jillian scrambled out of the swing and grabbed her shoes. They marched out to the pile and started carrying the grass, handful by handful, into the back.

Steve took pity on them and got the wheelbarrow and the shovel and took care of most of it.

When they finished, they asked for the next project.

“Well,” I said thoughtfully. “My car needs to be vacuumed and cleaned.”

“OK!” they said enthusiastically and jumped to the task as soon as I got the dustbuster and some rags.

“You’re doing a great job!” I praised them.

“I’m only four!” Jillian boasted.

“Most four-year-olds can’t do this caliber of work,” I told her.

“And I used to be three!” she said.

When they finished the car, they asked for the next project.

“I need a new roof,” I mused.

Jordan’s face fell. “We don’t know how to do that yet,” she said.

I might have been an English major, but I understand the laws of physics

posted Mon, 06 Jun 2005

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Call me crazy, but I think my time should be respected. If I make an appointment with a doctor, I will show up on time. Heck, I will even show up early so I can have all the paperwork completed before the scheduled appointment time.

Today, I had an appointment with a new doc. The appointment was for 12:45 – first appointment after lunch, so no excuses of anyone running late. I got there at 12:30 and completed all the paperwork, even doing a little copy editing to correct the grammar on the form. (Am I nice or what?)

At 12:45, I was still in the waiting room, waiting. Waiting. Started talking to another guy waiting with me. Discovered he, too, had a 12:45 appointment. With the same doc. Hmm. How can that be? Indeed, there were ten of us in the room. For two docs.

At 1:00, they took me into an exam room. I read through an old Biography magazine and learned the tragic tale of Joy Adamson, who wrote Born Free, which was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, then did some work I had in my briefcase.

Waited, waited, waited.

I finally had had enough.

I left the room, went to the receptionist, and asked her to return my copay. “But the doctor is almost about to see you.”

I said very politely, “I need to return to work.”

I will find a different doctor.

Paula Bunyan, baby (bird) killer

posted Sat, 04 Jun 2005

4:30 in the morning on day three of insomnia is probably not the best time to make a mental list of what you are going to do once it is light, but it is too late for regrets now.

But let me say first that arborists are big fat liars.

As in a tree planted in the middle of my yard will kill the flowerbed on the west side of my yard.

Yes, it will. Yes, it did. I suffered for two years. I watched all the foxglove die, then the coneflower, then all the stuff I can’t remember. It all went. Died for lack of sun. Eventually, I gave up. Transplanted what little remained alive and planted grass in the now-rich soil that I had dug, tilled and fertilized. The grass grew quite well, even though it doesn’t match the rest of the yard grass, which is bermuda. I am very, very good at growing grass in places where I want to grow flowers.

But darnit, it just didn’t look right. And then the tree started to kill the flowers I planted in the beds I created on the east side of the yard.

Basta! I said. Enough! I want flowers in my flowerbeds, not grass!

This morning, I got up (well – out of bed – “up” implies I awoke) and started digging. I am going to clear out the grass and plant flowers again. I got about one-third of the bed cleared before the sun got over the big trees to the east.

Then I got my handy little Stanley SharpTooth saw. It only took me about five minutes to cut down the tree. I didn’t even get to yell “timber.” Honestly, I don’t know why lumberjacks have the reputation of being such macho men. It’s not like cutting down a tree is such a hard thing! I’m a girl and I did it in no time at all with a 15”, nine-point saw.

It took me another 15 minutes to cut up the branches and stack them on the sidewalk. I used pruning clippers for that. Lumberjacks. Feh. Lumberjack breakfast? I had a banana smoothie and a diet Coke. Please.

When I got to the inner branches, I saw a nest. I was relieved to see it was empty. But then, as I cleared branches and could see the street, I saw shattered robin’s eggs.

Ooops. That robin that was hopping around in the dirt I had already turned eating the worms and bugs is going to find me and peck my eyes out.

Bible trivia du jour on the country music station

posted Fri, 03 Jun 2005

[music: singers – “Bible trivia! Bible trivia!” to the melody of Handel’s “Messiah”]

[music: organ – “Rock of Ages”]

DJ 1: How did the Lord part the Red Sea?

DJ 2: With Moses?

DJ 1: No! You know the story, right?

DJ 2: Right! The one with Charleton Heston.

DJ 2: Yeah, except Charleton Heston was an actor.

Caller 1: Was it Moses’ staff?

DJ 1: Nope. That’s not right.

Caller 1: Was it Moses’ hand?

DJ 1: Nope. That’s not right, either.

Caller 2: Was it Moses?

DJ 1: No, it was not Moses.

Caller 2: Was it Moses’ hand?

DJ 1: No, Moses’ hand would be part of Moses.

Caller 3: Was it a wind?

DJ 1: That is correct! “The Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind.” Exodus 14:21 and 22.

eHarmony, match.com, GardenLove.com?

posted Thu, 02 Jun 2005

I called the garden mash note guy, Danny G. He asked me what the funny tall purple flowers were. Verbena. Could he have some, he asked. Sure – I yank ‘em out like weeds, I told him.

He offered me strawberries in exchange. I said that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted. A woman he had dated only a week and a half had given him the plants and they had proliferated. Well, OK.

Nobody with any gardening savvy pays for black-eyed Susan, evening primrose or lambs’ (lamb’s?) ear. They are like kittens: there is always someone who has some to give away.
Source: http://www.meowhoo.com/images/contest/winners/Aristorags%20Kittens.big.jpg

He also told me about his two marriages and two divorces and gave me a lot more information than I really wanted. I didn’t realize that gardening is the real way to meet men -- multiple divorced, old serial-murderer men, but men. Who knew?

He showed up at my house about 6:00 in an old pickup truck. He was a big ol’ guy – looked like Santa Claus in overalls. Well, a middle-aged Santa in overalls.

He showered me with bedding plants: a dozen strawberries, 18 dusty millers, three castor beans (which are poisonous but no one ever suspects castor bean poisoning!), a moonflower, six hummingbird vines, five tomato seedlings, and six something I forgot.

So of course I felt I had to offer more than just a few verbena. He admired my shamrocks, so I gave him some of those. I really don’t have much more that is invasive or proliferating except for my black-eyed Susan and offering someone black-eyed Susan is almost like offering him dandelions. I mean, you can’t give that stuff away! My friend Holly begged me to take more when I was taking black-eyed Susan from her to get my garden started.

Still, just to be funny, I asked if he wanted some. “Sure!” he said. “I’ve tried to grow it from seed, but I can’t get it to take.”

He dug up a big shovelful, which was fine, but I noticed to my dismay that there was a huge hole left.

Not to worry. Any man who shows up bearing strawberry plants is not going to leave holes in a garden. He went to his truck and returned with a bucketful of dirt. “Prime potting soil,” he said. “The rest of your garden will be jealous.”

He gave me his email address, too, but I think I have enough information.

Topic du jour

posted Wed, 01 Jun 2005

Thong underpants. Padded bras. Appropriate for pre-teen girls? Discuss amongst yourselves.

This almost makes up for not being asked to the prom -- or a single high school dance, actually

posted Tue, 31 May 2005

It is about damn time that my garden started getting the attention it deserved. It got a mash note today. I found this note in my mailbox when I got home from work:

Pls, call me concerning your beautiful flower garden
Danny G
461-xxxx
1:30 pm -------

Ha. Let the Yard of the Month Committee take note of that.

Le mot just

posted Sat, 28 May 2005

It has been pointed out to me that I am not a garden slut but a garden hoe. That is all.

Now we are merely negotiating price

I originally put Bubba's real name in this post. He googled his name and found this post. He had emailed me the photos he took, so had my email. After finding his name with the implication that he might be a murdered, he emailed me again, very insulted. I learned my lesson about using real names. I was more than ashamed.

posted Sat, 28 May 2005

I am a total garden slut. All a man has to do is talk nice about my flowerbeds and I will bend to his will. This morning, I was weeding and winnowing and doing other gardening stuff – I won’t use all those technical gardening terms because I don’t want to make you non-gardeners feel bad – when this late-middle-aged Asian man drove up. Came to a screeching halt, actually, right at my driveway, and got out of his car.

I removed my walkman earpieces – reluctantly, because they were on number 467 of the Memorial Day Weekend countdown (Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”) – so I could hear him.

Good thing I did, because he began to lavish praise upon my flowers. At last, a man of intelligence and perception.

“Your garden is beautiful!” he gushed.

I didn’t bother to try to deny it, because the man, he spoke the truth.

“Are those poppies?” he gasped.

Yep. In Flanders field the poppies blow…

“How did you get them to grow? I’ve tried and tried but I have never been able to get any to come up. I even took photos of your garden last summer.”

Well. This was the gardening equivalent of, “You are the most beautiful woman in the world and if I can’t have you, I will throw myself off the bridge.”

He hesitated, then plunged in. “Do you think – do you think I might have some seeds from those poppies?”

Sure! I told him. And here! I’ll even give you a baby poppy plant!

Then he admired my verbena. Verbena is like black-eyed Susan and kittens: you never pay for it. Someone is always trying to get rid of it. So I dug some of that up for him, too. I even gave him the plastic sandwich bag to put it all in.

He left, but 15 minutes later, he returned with his camera. I thought he wanted more photos of my garden, but no, he wanted them of moi. Either he has exceptionally good taste, or he is a serial garden killer planning his next strike. Mom, if they find me dead in the garden with a trowel through my heart, tell them to look for Bubba Jones.

Mel Gibson, dream gynecologist

posted Sat, 28 May 2005

When I made the appointment to see a doctor about that problem whose name shall not be spoken (or written), the receptionist asked which doc I wished to see.

“I don’t know any of them,” I told her. “But this is already humiliating enough. Not a cute one.”

“All of our doctors look like movie stars,” she deadpanned.

I wouldn`t mind if Frank Langella bit me

posted Fri, 27 May 2005

At PE this morning, Tony was hassling me – as usual – about my kabuki face sunscreen. “This is the result of the medical advice I give,” he told one of the black students. “Be careful. It’s Michael Jackson syndrome.”

When I was harassing him about a story he was telling, he told me to be quiet or he was going to yank my hat off and show my nasty hair. “I have great hair,” I told him.

Once the sun is up, I must retreat to my coffin.
Source: http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/grafix/vampira.jpg

“Then I will throw you in the sun,” he warned.

“I will die if you do that,” I answered.

“Tell her you’ll lock her in a tanning bed,” yelled the guy next to me.

Tickle me Elmo

posted Thu, 26 May 2005

My mom wrote that she saw a girl of about 13 or 14 at mass last week wearing clothes she (my mother) thought inappropriate for church. The girl was in a very short skirt and a cropped shirt. You could see the tattoo on her back because the shirt did not cover her midriff. It also appeared that the girl had forgotten, in her rush to get to the church on time, to put on undergarments.

My mother commented to the man holding the door open after mass that perhaps the girl’s outfit was not the best one for church. The man answered icily that Jesus wore sandals, my mother should not be judgmental, and that the girl was his beautiful daughter.

I agree with my mother. Not that she should be commenting on someone else’s outfit to a stranger – she should save those comments for her friends and family! – but that semi-nudity is best reserved for – for – well, you know, the beach or someplace like that.

Not only that, but to quote the great Manolo, “Manolo says, the Kelly Clarkson, she must learn that the public baring of the belly it is the privilege, not the right.”

Heck, at St Peter’s in Rome, they won’t let you in if you are wearing a sleeveless blouse or a short skirt! I was told my skirt was too short when I was there the first time in 1992. I tugged it down a few inches so they would let me in.

The dad here is the big problem. The girl should know better but the only way she would know better is if her parents had taught her. Instead, her father, who should be protecting his daughter, is flaunting her sexuality. How many good fathers prefer to see their daughters in miniskirts instead of burlap sacks? This poor girl is going to have bigger problems later.

A colleague told me that when his three girls got into junior high, they would try to sneak out of the house every morning in little shirts that would show their tummies. He wouldn’t let them leave before they had passed his test: they had to raise their arms completely over their heads – and their tummies had to remain covered. If the tummy became exposed, it was back upstairs to change clothes.

“There are enough creeps out there trying to get my girls,” he explained. “I don’t need to wrap them up with a bow.”

SWF seeks challenging opportunity to contribute to growing company

posted Wed, 25 May 2005

A headhunter finally called me! Finally finally finally! OK, so she is a rookie who has only been in the job for three months, but still. She saw my resume on monster.com and thought I was great, great, great.

We spoke for about 20 minutes yesterday. She said I must get called a lot by other headhunters.

No, no headhunter has ever called me before. No, I didn’t get asked to a single high school dance, except for one ROTC dance by Mark N in my chemistry class and I didn’t accept. No, I have never been married. Really. Never. No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, OK? so quit asking!
Source: http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users2/dataprom/default/jason-saline-high-school-prom--large-msg-1086119106-2.jpg

Well, no.

Really! Oh, come on! Someone like me! I must get calls all the time! Top schools, top grades, great work experience and accomplishments at top companies.

Um, no. Actually, you’re the first headhunter who has ever called me.

Really. Her tone gets a little flat, but then she brightens. Well! We’ll market you, even though we usually don’t have people of your caliber!

I do start to feel a bit like she is trying to sell me a used car, but figure I have nothing to lose.

She asks me to write a paragraph describing myself – because I can do a much better job than she can! I tell her that maybe an improved version of my resume might be a better idea.

This morning, she sent me an email. Perhaps I could give her some the titles of some jobs I might want?

Well, Ms Recruiter. Now you are starting to understand why I don’t get called by recruiters. It is really hard to classify me. But tell me exactly what it is that you are supposed to do for me if I am doing all the work? Where is it that you are adding value here?

When a man is tired of Willie and Waylon, he is tired of life

posted Wed, 25 May 2005

This will come as a great shock to the four of you readers who do not know me in real life or who are not my mother’s friends (my mother, my syndicator), but I am not as perfect as I might appear to be in my writings. But everyone gets to be a hero in her own story.

At the dry cleaner last night, the clerk asked if I was going to watch “American Idol.” I told her no. She asked why not. I finally had to admit I don’t have a TV. It’s something I usually don’t tell people because of the reaction I get.

Step back and Gasp of Horror. “You don’t have a TV?”

No.

“What do you do? How do you keep up with what’s going on?”

I refrained from pointing out that watching “American Idol” is hardly “keeping up with what’s going on.” I didn’t quiz her on her position on the latest judicial nominations, the filibuster, the Republican sellout, fetal stem cell research and federal funding, illegal aliens, M’town’s budget deficit, the proposed increase in property taxes and other current issues.

I didn’t ask her what she does besides watch TV. I didn’t ask if she reads, if she gardens, if she exercises, if she blogs (God knows that can eat your time), if she fixes things around her house, if she goes to the movies, if she does any volunteer work, if she meets her friends for lunch.

When I lived in Miami, I wasn’t as polite. I would ask, “What do I do? I take Portuguese classes twice a week. I tutor algebra. I swim before work. What do you do?”

All those celibate (OK, castrated) moths so that we might have woolens

posted Tue, 24 May 2005

Walgreen’s needs to hire me as a merchandising taxonomist. Maybe my friend Lenore, who is consulting with them right now, can put a bug in their ear. They have no sense of logic about where to place their items.

Remember when I was looking for a flyswatter? I looked in the section containing plastic equipment used for household cleaning.

That’s not where they were. They were by the roach motels and other pesticides, which had a certain logic, although I’m not sure that chemical and mechanical bug killers belonged in the same section. But OK. Put flyswatters there and put them in the common plastic household items.

Today, I sought mothballs. Thinking of my previous experience, I went straight to pesticides. After all, the purpose of naphthalene is to kill moths, or their larvae, right?

Nope. No mothballs.

Maybe by the laundry detergent?

Nope.

I finally had to ask a clerk.

Aisle 8b. Things to hang clothes: hangers, hooks, clothespins.

Excuse me???????

OK, yes, these moth balls are on a hook that can hang in your closet, but the principle of the product is to kill moths – that is, pesticide. Therefore, this product belongs with the other pesticides.

Damn. Where is Linnaeus when you need him?

It`s neither the heat nor the humidity

posted Tue, 24 May 2005

Sissies, sissies, sissies. That’s what they are here in M’town. They think the weather is hot and humid here? They don’t know from hot and humid.

Yesterday at the dry cleaners, the man behind me in line was complaining about the weather. Oh, it’s so hot and so humid! he was whining. At 6:00 p.m., it was 86 degrees and 41% humidity. I called him a sissy to his face.

No, my mother did not raise me that way and no, I am not proud of my behavior. But really. I lived in Houston for six years. We would have wept for joy at 41% humidity. 41% humidity is dry.

My first week of college in Houston, I changed clothes three times a day. I was getting soaking wet walking around campus. And this was just moving from San Antonio to Houston. Before that, we were in Panama. You would have thought I would have been accustomed to heat and humidity by the time I got to Houston, but no. Houston is worse than Central America. Hell is just a staging area for Houston as far as I am concerned.

Every May now, I hear the dire warnings. “It’s going to be a bad one.” “Oh, summer’s going to be so awful!”

Yeah. This is while I am still using a quilt and a bedspread at night to keep warm. Even in late June, I will use a light jacket in the morning. I have a space heater under my desk at work. I have used the heat in my house in the past week. We might have a dozen two- or three-day stretches in July and August where it gets above 90 degrees and where the humidity becomes uncomfortable. But that’s it. The rest of the time, it’s very nice.

I have used my air conditioner maybe five times since I moved into my house four years ago. The rest of the time, I use my attic fan. That’s all I need. I have no pity for these people.