A number of years ago, before Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas transformed the workplace, some of the guys brought in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Calendar. As they were drooling over the various models, I got to thinking about creating a similar calendar, but targeted at women. This is how I believe such a calendar might play out….
January
Age of model: 25
Bare-chested guy in jeans, six-pack abs and great pecs, leaning against a junky car.
February
Age of model: 30
Construction worker, standing next to a late-model pickup truck, holding blueprints. This guy’s so good-looking that you think he’s probably gay.
March
Age of model: 35
Hot guy in Dockers and polo shirt, bedroom eyes, holding open the door to a Cadillac, smiling into the camera
April
Age of model: 40
Guy in a well-cut suit, sitting at a desk, still hot, smiling more with his eyes than his lips
May
Age of model: 45
Guy in a custom-tailored suit, a little silver at his temples, still hot, leaning against a black BMW 7 Series sedan with his arms crossed. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth.
June
Age of model: 50
Luxurious silver hair, great tan, standing in front of a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet, holding a bouquet of long-stemmed roses.
July
Age of model: 55
Silver-haired, not all that hot, holding out a diamond bracelet. He's smiling, but with his lips closed.
August
Age of model: 60
Black tie, paunch, standing in front of a Lexus LS 430, his teeth may be dentures
September
Age of model: 65
White dinner jacket, silver hair, balding, a chauffeur is holding the door to his Rolls, not what anyone would call hot, and he’s kind of grumpy looking (a la Dick Cheney)
October
Age of model: 75
Standing in front of his huge house with his walker, even more bald, kind of frail – looks kind of like a baby turkey -- but not quite so cranky looking.
November
Age of model: 80
Sitting in wheelchair in a marble foyer, his bony shoulders and concave chest don’t fill out his expensive bathrobe. A curvaceous blonde in a nurse’s uniform stands beside him.
December
Age of model: 85+
In a hospital room, on life support. The blonde now wears diamonds and furs and she looks very happy. In the hallway outside the door stands Mr. January.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Working at the Job Fair Blues
I’ve got those steadily depressing, low-down, mind-messing
Working at the job fair blues…..
It was in the early 1990’s, when unemployment was hovering around 7.5%, while working for a department store chain headquartered near Cincinnati, that I worked my first job fair.
There were supposed to be at least four staffers working our booth, but, for whatever reason, I was the only one who showed up. Someone from HR came by, looked relieved to see that we had a presence, and promptly disappeared, leaving me with a line of potential applicants that stretched back to what appeared to be infinity.
As I scanned resume after resume, shaking hands and assuring applicants that I would pass their info on to the appropriate manager, I observed several things:
- A surprising number of people feel the need to cough into their hand in a loud, productive manner, immediately before shaking yours.
- Although people may be anxious to find work, this eagerness does not necessarily translate into good hygiene.
- Desperation causes people to abandon good manners and ignore all the people in line behind them while they monopolize the one poor schmuck working the booth for up to five minutes.
- There are a lot of weirdos out there.
This final point was brought home to me when a 6’3”, 150 lb. man in a chartreuse, crushed-velvet tuxedo, complete with tailcoat, reached the front of the line. He doffed his top hat, removed a single red rose, held it out to me and said, “You will never forget me.”
It turns out what he was looking for, as best as I can recall, was someone to help him make a connection with someone in some middle-Eastern country – Iran? Syria? – so that he could market some product he’d invented. I have no idea why he thought he’d find that person at a job fair, and even less why he’d joined my queue, since the booth was clearly marked as belonging to a domestic retailer. And, I have no recollection what the product was.
He was right about one thing, though.
It’s been nearly twenty years, and, by golly, I’ve never forgotten him.
Who Hears a Horton?
In response to Mr. Horton's comment on the previous blog entry, I do see/read the comments (and generally respond to them). When you see a second comment has been added to an entry, it's usually me replying. Not sure that's how it's supposed to work, so if there's a better way, please let me know!
Also, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who's reading, and everyone who's passing the link on to others. I had a goal of 100 hits a week by Christmas, and I've already surpassed that.
Now, back to work on today's entry, so that I can accomplish my other goal, publishing on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday of each week.
Also, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who's reading, and everyone who's passing the link on to others. I had a goal of 100 hits a week by Christmas, and I've already surpassed that.
Now, back to work on today's entry, so that I can accomplish my other goal, publishing on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday of each week.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
What to Do When You Get Laid Off
Surge from your chair like Shamu breaching the surface of the show pool at Sea World and grab the edge of your desk, forcing them to peel your fingers loose.
Ask your boss: "Is this because I caught you doing the nasty with that blonde from the mailroom?"
Haggle over the severance package. Compare it to mythical packages from other companies.
Deface the framed poster that lists the company's core values with the single word "Bullshit" scrawled in dry erase marker.
Sing "Zippedee-doo-dah" at the top of your lungs as you pack your stuff. Bellow the part that goes, "My, oh, my, what a wonderful day!"
Make up a rap song about the HR lady and serenade her, complete with simulated turntable noises.
Do Brando in Streetcar, dropping to your knees and wailing your CEO's name.
Shout: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last!" as you exit the building.
Stop at a bar on the way home and knock back a shot of Jack Daniels with a beer chaser at ten in the morning, thinking about your family history of alcoholism -- what better time to exploit that legacy than now?
Visualize what the department will be like for those left behind. Picture them posting a sign that says, "Take a Number: 50. Now Serving: 3."
Imagine a scenario where your boss realizes he made a mistake and calls you and begs you to come back, giving you a raise by way of apology.
Make a deal with God that if he'll just let this not be true, you'll start tithing like you promised.
Think about the woman who was laid off in the last restructuring. She had nine years of experience and an MBA and she's now working as a telemarketer.
Pull into your driveway promptly at 5:23 like nothing's wrong.
Go through the motions of eating dinner, gnawing your way through meatloaf that morphs into granite when it hits your stomach.
Notice that your daughter's front teeth are starting to overlap and think about your dental insurance, which expires at midnight.
Listen, for the umpteenth time, as your wife brings up the Caribbean cruise she's been lobbying for.
Tell her everything is fine until your voice becomes brittle and too loud and she falls silent.
See the look on her face when she comes back from the garage and realize she's seen the box perched on your back seat, and she knows, she knows.
Tutor your son on the impact of the Monroe Doctrine on current events and wonder where you get off teaching him anything when it's clear that if you knew your ass from a hole in the ground you'd still be employed.
Watch "CSI” until the kids are packed off to bed and it's just you and her, staring at each other.
Sit beside your wife on the couch and hold her as she cries and tell her you love her, and it'll be okay, and you'll figure something out.
(Author's Note: I wrote this several years ago, after an earlier round of cuts, when we laid off a guy who had three kids with Muscular Dystrophy, all chairbound.)
Ask your boss: "Is this because I caught you doing the nasty with that blonde from the mailroom?"
Haggle over the severance package. Compare it to mythical packages from other companies.
Deface the framed poster that lists the company's core values with the single word "Bullshit" scrawled in dry erase marker.
Sing "Zippedee-doo-dah" at the top of your lungs as you pack your stuff. Bellow the part that goes, "My, oh, my, what a wonderful day!"
Make up a rap song about the HR lady and serenade her, complete with simulated turntable noises.
Do Brando in Streetcar, dropping to your knees and wailing your CEO's name.
Shout: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last!" as you exit the building.
Stop at a bar on the way home and knock back a shot of Jack Daniels with a beer chaser at ten in the morning, thinking about your family history of alcoholism -- what better time to exploit that legacy than now?
Visualize what the department will be like for those left behind. Picture them posting a sign that says, "Take a Number: 50. Now Serving: 3."
Imagine a scenario where your boss realizes he made a mistake and calls you and begs you to come back, giving you a raise by way of apology.
Make a deal with God that if he'll just let this not be true, you'll start tithing like you promised.
Think about the woman who was laid off in the last restructuring. She had nine years of experience and an MBA and she's now working as a telemarketer.
Pull into your driveway promptly at 5:23 like nothing's wrong.
Go through the motions of eating dinner, gnawing your way through meatloaf that morphs into granite when it hits your stomach.
Notice that your daughter's front teeth are starting to overlap and think about your dental insurance, which expires at midnight.
Listen, for the umpteenth time, as your wife brings up the Caribbean cruise she's been lobbying for.
Tell her everything is fine until your voice becomes brittle and too loud and she falls silent.
See the look on her face when she comes back from the garage and realize she's seen the box perched on your back seat, and she knows, she knows.
Tutor your son on the impact of the Monroe Doctrine on current events and wonder where you get off teaching him anything when it's clear that if you knew your ass from a hole in the ground you'd still be employed.
Watch "CSI” until the kids are packed off to bed and it's just you and her, staring at each other.
Sit beside your wife on the couch and hold her as she cries and tell her you love her, and it'll be okay, and you'll figure something out.
(Author's Note: I wrote this several years ago, after an earlier round of cuts, when we laid off a guy who had three kids with Muscular Dystrophy, all chairbound.)
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Paper Moon
Today we consider the age-old philosophical question: how much toilet paper is enough?
On the one hand, we have the conservationists, who believe every sheet beyond the bare minimum constitutes a crime against nature. On the other, the hygienists, who consider that thin ribbon of paper to be all that stands between mankind and germ terrorists.
My husband, like my father before him, belongs to the first group. He feels that toilet tissue should be treated as a precious resource. Based on a tip he heard on TV, he squashes the toilet paper rolls before he mounts them on the dispenser, so that they don’t roll freely, but bump along, a square at a time, until you give up in disgust and take what you’re given.
And he’s by no means the most extreme. Growing up, I had a girlfriend whose father decreed that four squares were sufficient. And he knew that, given 200 sheets to a roll, if his four daughters used the toilet an average of three times per day (five on the weekends), a roll should last two to three days.
All I can say is, this is clearly the viewpoint of someone who shakes and dabs, as opposed to owning real estate that actually needs to be de-moisturized. Sara was my best friend from age 6, when we met in first grade, to 12, when she moved away, so I don’t know if he adjusted his formula in response to the demands of puberty, but if not, there was some really unpleasant drippage in that house.
My step-daughter, on the other hand, leans to the hygienist ilk.
The term “cheapskate” has sometimes been bandied about among my husband’s offspring, though he prefers to think of himself as prudent. His tightfistedness is second, however, to his reticence. This is a man who, when he goes to buy underwear, checks to see who’s working the register. If the clerk is female, he puts his purchase back on the shelf and returns another day. So, when the amount of toilet paper we were buying doubled soon after his youngest daughter came to live with us, he found himself caught between the Scylla of shyness and the Charybdis of cheap.
One day when she was in the bathroom, he motioned me over to the door.
“Listen,” he hissed.
Concerned that she might be in pain, I joined him, but it was not an organic noise, but a sort of rattling “wheeeee” sound, like a cardboard spool performing rhythmic gymnastics.
“You need to talk to her about this,” he said.
I shook my head. I’ve done enough step-parenting to know that my input should be limited to, “Thank you,” “Nice job!” and “Are you sure you have enough money for lunch?”
“She’s your daughter,” I said.
He stewed about it for a while and, as I could have predicted, chose not to address it.
He got his revenge, however, when she called a while back, complaining that her 4-year-old had fed the end of a roll of toilet paper into the bowl and then pulled the handle.
Because today’s hygienists are tomorrow’s cheapskates.
On the one hand, we have the conservationists, who believe every sheet beyond the bare minimum constitutes a crime against nature. On the other, the hygienists, who consider that thin ribbon of paper to be all that stands between mankind and germ terrorists.
My husband, like my father before him, belongs to the first group. He feels that toilet tissue should be treated as a precious resource. Based on a tip he heard on TV, he squashes the toilet paper rolls before he mounts them on the dispenser, so that they don’t roll freely, but bump along, a square at a time, until you give up in disgust and take what you’re given.
And he’s by no means the most extreme. Growing up, I had a girlfriend whose father decreed that four squares were sufficient. And he knew that, given 200 sheets to a roll, if his four daughters used the toilet an average of three times per day (five on the weekends), a roll should last two to three days.
All I can say is, this is clearly the viewpoint of someone who shakes and dabs, as opposed to owning real estate that actually needs to be de-moisturized. Sara was my best friend from age 6, when we met in first grade, to 12, when she moved away, so I don’t know if he adjusted his formula in response to the demands of puberty, but if not, there was some really unpleasant drippage in that house.
My step-daughter, on the other hand, leans to the hygienist ilk.
The term “cheapskate” has sometimes been bandied about among my husband’s offspring, though he prefers to think of himself as prudent. His tightfistedness is second, however, to his reticence. This is a man who, when he goes to buy underwear, checks to see who’s working the register. If the clerk is female, he puts his purchase back on the shelf and returns another day. So, when the amount of toilet paper we were buying doubled soon after his youngest daughter came to live with us, he found himself caught between the Scylla of shyness and the Charybdis of cheap.
One day when she was in the bathroom, he motioned me over to the door.
“Listen,” he hissed.
Concerned that she might be in pain, I joined him, but it was not an organic noise, but a sort of rattling “wheeeee” sound, like a cardboard spool performing rhythmic gymnastics.
“You need to talk to her about this,” he said.
I shook my head. I’ve done enough step-parenting to know that my input should be limited to, “Thank you,” “Nice job!” and “Are you sure you have enough money for lunch?”
“She’s your daughter,” I said.
He stewed about it for a while and, as I could have predicted, chose not to address it.
He got his revenge, however, when she called a while back, complaining that her 4-year-old had fed the end of a roll of toilet paper into the bowl and then pulled the handle.
Because today’s hygienists are tomorrow’s cheapskates.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
With Wild Abandon
It was bound to happen.
Last year, Nebraska passed a safe haven law, allowing parents to drop off children at designated hospitals without fear of legal reprisals. It was the last state to do this, but their law had a different twist: there was no limit on the age of the child being left.
Now, they’re dealing with an influx of parents, even parents from out-of-state, dropping off teenagers.
The only question I have is: why didn’t they see this coming? Is there not one single parent of teenagers in the entire Nebraska legislature?
Because anyone who has ever survived an American adolescent knows that every parent, at some point during those long, long years between 13 and 20, fantasizes about driving his or her offspring out a lonely country road, slowing the car, then pushing the child out the door and speeding away in a cloud of dust and maniacal laughter.
My own daughter was a great kid. Good student, good citizen, athlete and popular. You couldn’t ask for better.
And yet, the year she was fourteen, I thought I was going to have to kill her. To this day, when I ask how old someone’s daughter is, and they reply, “Fourteen,” I automatically respond, “I’m sorry.”
Although I don’t have any deep beliefs against corporal punishment, we didn’t spank her, because she didn’t need it. (With this exception: when she was two years old, she went through a phase where she was out of control at the grocery. She’d grab things off the shelves, try to climb out of the cart and – this was the worst part – hold up her little arms to total strangers and beg to be rescued – “Help me! Help me!” After several humiliating weeks of this, we told her, in the car just before entering the store, that if she did any of these things we would spank her when we returned to the car. That happened two weeks running, after which her behavior improved.)
The year she was fourteen, however, I remember taking her and a friend of hers shopping. I asked the friend something, and Anne, evidently deciding it was an inappropriate question, answered for her. I don’t remember what she said, but I do recall the jut of her hip and the curl of her lip. And I remember hissing “If you ever speak to me in that tone of voice again, I will slap you so hard you will have to pick up your mouth on the other side of this store. Do you hear me?” And I remember her eyes growing huge as she nodded. We never had that conversation again.
My husband tells a story about when one of his daughters was around that age. He asked her to do something, she refused and it escalated. They reached the point where he threatened to spank her and she responded, “You can’t. I’ll call Children’s Services.” Which meant he had to spank her, of course. Afterwards, he handed her the phone. “Call them,” he said. She declined.
The purpose of these child abuse anecdotes is this: both of these teenagers grew up to be wonderful, successful women; good citizens with good jobs who are a source of joy to their parents and pride to their communities.
But if they were growing up in Nebraska today, they’d be on their way to foster care.
Last year, Nebraska passed a safe haven law, allowing parents to drop off children at designated hospitals without fear of legal reprisals. It was the last state to do this, but their law had a different twist: there was no limit on the age of the child being left.
Now, they’re dealing with an influx of parents, even parents from out-of-state, dropping off teenagers.
The only question I have is: why didn’t they see this coming? Is there not one single parent of teenagers in the entire Nebraska legislature?
Because anyone who has ever survived an American adolescent knows that every parent, at some point during those long, long years between 13 and 20, fantasizes about driving his or her offspring out a lonely country road, slowing the car, then pushing the child out the door and speeding away in a cloud of dust and maniacal laughter.
My own daughter was a great kid. Good student, good citizen, athlete and popular. You couldn’t ask for better.
And yet, the year she was fourteen, I thought I was going to have to kill her. To this day, when I ask how old someone’s daughter is, and they reply, “Fourteen,” I automatically respond, “I’m sorry.”
Although I don’t have any deep beliefs against corporal punishment, we didn’t spank her, because she didn’t need it. (With this exception: when she was two years old, she went through a phase where she was out of control at the grocery. She’d grab things off the shelves, try to climb out of the cart and – this was the worst part – hold up her little arms to total strangers and beg to be rescued – “Help me! Help me!” After several humiliating weeks of this, we told her, in the car just before entering the store, that if she did any of these things we would spank her when we returned to the car. That happened two weeks running, after which her behavior improved.)
The year she was fourteen, however, I remember taking her and a friend of hers shopping. I asked the friend something, and Anne, evidently deciding it was an inappropriate question, answered for her. I don’t remember what she said, but I do recall the jut of her hip and the curl of her lip. And I remember hissing “If you ever speak to me in that tone of voice again, I will slap you so hard you will have to pick up your mouth on the other side of this store. Do you hear me?” And I remember her eyes growing huge as she nodded. We never had that conversation again.
My husband tells a story about when one of his daughters was around that age. He asked her to do something, she refused and it escalated. They reached the point where he threatened to spank her and she responded, “You can’t. I’ll call Children’s Services.” Which meant he had to spank her, of course. Afterwards, he handed her the phone. “Call them,” he said. She declined.
The purpose of these child abuse anecdotes is this: both of these teenagers grew up to be wonderful, successful women; good citizens with good jobs who are a source of joy to their parents and pride to their communities.
But if they were growing up in Nebraska today, they’d be on their way to foster care.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Old Joke
A 70-year-old, and 80-year-old and a 90-year-old were sitting around at the nursing home discussing their health.
The 70-year-old said, “My health is pretty good. In fact, my life would be perfect if I could just take a healthy piss.”
The 80-year-old nodded. “My health is pretty good, too. In fact, my life would be perfect if I could just take a healthy shit.”
The 90-year-old shook his head. “Every morning at 7 o’clock, I take a healthy piss. Every morning at 8 o’clock I take a healthy shit. My life would be perfect if I could just wake up before 9 o’clock.”
This is not my joke.
I heard it on HBO back in the 1980’s (maybe even the 1970’s) on a pre-historic version of “Last Comic Standing.” The winner told the joke as a John Wayne impersonation. It turned out that, even though he was very funny, comedy wasn’t his true love and he couldn’t wait to ditch her for the girl of his dreams – directing movies. He used his 15 minutes of fame (okay, it was more like 90 seconds) to beg for an opportunity to do that.
If anyone remembers his name, please leave a comment. I’d like to research what happened to him, because I’m interested to learn whether he was successful in making the transition.
Because here’s the thing: this is a guy with perfect comic timing, but he didn’t really like comedy.
He reminds me of a programmer I used to work with. She was really good – she once wrote a nine-dimensional table (even if you’re not a programmer, just try to conceive of tracking something in nine dimensions – it makes my brain hurt to even think about it) but she hated office work. She wanted an outdoor job. So, she quit and became a meter-reader for the local utility company. And, up until the day that a Doberman chewed off a big chunk of her right calf, she loved it. (Despite some very weird stuff that happened to her, like the guys playing poker who locked her in the basement and kept laughing while she pounded on the door, trying to get out, or the guy who led her past the open door of a room where he had his naked girlfriend tied to the bed.)
It’s hard for me to fathom someone who has a gift to excel at something, but isn’t really interested in that thing. It would be like Mozart saying, “Music’s not really my bag. What I really want to do is carpentry.”
Or, I like to think, me spending the last 33 years in IT, instead of writing this goofy stuff.
The 70-year-old said, “My health is pretty good. In fact, my life would be perfect if I could just take a healthy piss.”
The 80-year-old nodded. “My health is pretty good, too. In fact, my life would be perfect if I could just take a healthy shit.”
The 90-year-old shook his head. “Every morning at 7 o’clock, I take a healthy piss. Every morning at 8 o’clock I take a healthy shit. My life would be perfect if I could just wake up before 9 o’clock.”
This is not my joke.
I heard it on HBO back in the 1980’s (maybe even the 1970’s) on a pre-historic version of “Last Comic Standing.” The winner told the joke as a John Wayne impersonation. It turned out that, even though he was very funny, comedy wasn’t his true love and he couldn’t wait to ditch her for the girl of his dreams – directing movies. He used his 15 minutes of fame (okay, it was more like 90 seconds) to beg for an opportunity to do that.
If anyone remembers his name, please leave a comment. I’d like to research what happened to him, because I’m interested to learn whether he was successful in making the transition.
Because here’s the thing: this is a guy with perfect comic timing, but he didn’t really like comedy.
He reminds me of a programmer I used to work with. She was really good – she once wrote a nine-dimensional table (even if you’re not a programmer, just try to conceive of tracking something in nine dimensions – it makes my brain hurt to even think about it) but she hated office work. She wanted an outdoor job. So, she quit and became a meter-reader for the local utility company. And, up until the day that a Doberman chewed off a big chunk of her right calf, she loved it. (Despite some very weird stuff that happened to her, like the guys playing poker who locked her in the basement and kept laughing while she pounded on the door, trying to get out, or the guy who led her past the open door of a room where he had his naked girlfriend tied to the bed.)
It’s hard for me to fathom someone who has a gift to excel at something, but isn’t really interested in that thing. It would be like Mozart saying, “Music’s not really my bag. What I really want to do is carpentry.”
Or, I like to think, me spending the last 33 years in IT, instead of writing this goofy stuff.
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