Summer of the Slobs

It was a difficult night last night at Rhymes with Farnes and Goble – summers usually are. It’s the time of the year when it’s hot outside, and people would rather be indoors where it’s air conditioned. So what do they do? They go to the mall, park their butts in Rhymes with Harnes and Doble, make a huge mess but rarely ever buy anything, then walk out, leaving their piles of books, coffee cups, and other assorted trash behind for me to clean up, like I was really dying to be their manservant. Gee, thanks.

Now, normally Rhymes with Sarnes and Yoble is a pretty mellow place to hang out. And we don’t mind – usually. Pick up a book or magazine, don’t spill crap all over it, and sit and stay a while. Don’t make a huge mess, don’t make a scene and yell out loud while you peruse the sex books, and don’t get huffy when we don’t have an in-store copy of “Barney Goes To The Brothel” that you remember from your childhood 20 years ago, and we’ll get along just dandy.

But it’s the people who come in and hang out all day long and never buy a damn thing who drive me nuts. We have many “regulars” who do this, and they all seemed to be there last evening. They’ll take 10 – 15 books off the shelf at a time, like we were the freaking public library or something, then they spill coffee on everything, or they thumb through the magazines, getting greasy fingerprints on everything. Then they’ll walk off and leave the piles of books for me to pick up. Pigs. Don’t you people have homes of your own? Just once I’d love to come over, go through your stuff, pick out a dozen or so items that I’d like to look at, spill a Grande Latte on it, then just walk out. See how you like it.

The ones that drive me battiest are the people who come in demanding a certain book title. And you spend a good 5 minutes tracking it down, and when you finally hand it to them...they look at it for 5 seconds, then ditch it on a shelf. You find it abandoned a half hour later, shoved in the wrong section. God. Worse yet are the people who want an obscure book that’s been out of print since the 70’s, and they’re pissed that we don’t have a copy in the store. Sometimes we can order them, but books have shelf lives – not every book ever printed is available for me to magically pull out of my bookselling ass. I do what I can, but God knows I’m not THAT good.

So I spent my evening cleaning up after Sioux City’s slobs, not-so-secretly wishing they had the courtesy to not leave such a huge mess in the first place.

Manners, people. They teach them. Hell, I can even point you to the section in the store where you'll find plenty of books on them. Try it – you might like it.

Looking Out For Number One...And Two

I’m a man, so naturally I should have an answer to this question. But honestly, I’m stumped. If anyone out there knows the answer, please let me know, will ya?

So here it is: Why is it that a man can shoot the eye out of a sparrow at 100 yards, but he can’t pee into a toilet 18 inches from their waist without getting it everywhere?

I mention this because I just returned from my employer’s most often-visited men’s room, where there was a yet another yellow puddle all over the floor. Why is it that these mouth breathers think that we want to stand in their old stale urine? It’s not exactly my idea of shoe polish, if you must know. Worse yet, why do they think there are janitors out there who have nothing better to do than clean up their bodily spillage? Someone should make them clean one of these potties one day, and we’ll see how much they enjoy playing “fire hose” after that.

I’m not a huge fan of public restrooms anyway – I’m usually not a germophobe, but when it comes to the filthy cans around here, I’ll make an exception. They “clean” them twice a day (they’re that heavily used), but I’ve watched the janitor – trust me; they don’t really “clean” them. A little wipe-down of the countertops, the trash may get emptied if it’s full enough, and that’s about it. I know for a fact that the floors haven’t been mopped since the Clinton administration, so you know that there’s just a ton of freeze-dried numero unos on that floor. Spew, kiddies. Spew.

My next restroom question has to do with these two words: Courtesy Flush. Nobody told you to eat all those chili cheese dogs. Can’t you give your fellow restroom mates a freaking break every now and then? Do I really need I elaborate? Lord, I hope not.

And while we’re on the subject, why do some guys think it’s appropriate to go into the john, rip the biggest fart they’ve ever cooked up, and then not even have the common decency to say “excuse me” or even “look out!” Inconsiderate bastards.

So there’s your potty talk for the day. I’ll leave you with this thought, courtesy of the men’s room in a building I loved working in some twenty years ago:

Be like Dad
Not like Sis
Raise the seat
Before you piss.

See? That wasn’t really so hard, now was it?

Hu Hot's Revenge

Well, we ended up avoiding the Icky Nickel. Thank God. We ended up talking Skippy & friends into going to Hu Hot, a local Mongolian Grill place. Basically, it’s like a buffet line, only everything is still raw. You grab a bowl, choose the meat you want, add veggies, pour on some sauce and oil, then give the whole thing to the sweaty kid behind the grill who gives it a quick stir fry/Benihana treatment, then serves it up, cooked to perfection (if “perfection” means well, well done, that is).

Hu Hot isn’t that bad of a place, but you have to wait in line behind the “newcomers” who can’t seem to make up their minds of what they want to put in their bowl. Let’s see – pork, chicken, beef, salmon, fish, noodles...it’s just TOO MUCH GODDAMN PRESSURE!!!! Here’s my advice – take something. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. But whatever you do, make up your mind and get the hell out of my way. Thank you.

Oh, and there’s a nasty little side effect of eating at Hu Hot we like to refer to as “Hu Hot’s Revenge”. It’s similar to Montezuma’s world-famous revenge, only it’s not from ‘la agua’, but from the high amounts of liquid oils you eat with your food. If you want to avoid an afternoon of explosive diarrhea, then may I recommend that you stay away from the garlic and hot chili oils. All I can say is that I’m hoping to God I didn’t overdo it – otherwise it’s going to be a long afternoon.

The six of us remainers in our little group went to say goodbye to our old pal Dan. (Remember, we used to be 32 people strong when I joined the group. Now there's 6, thanks to the layoff wagon's frequent visits.) Dan used to be in our team, but was transferred, then outsourced, then hired back again, and now he’s escaping for good. Lucky soul.

Anyway, one of the guys in our team, “Richie”, is a very quiet, very shy country boy. Richie isn’t much of an adventurous eater, either – anything beyond a PB&J on white for lunch is exotic to him. So here we are, in a Mongolian grill restaurant, with Mr. Picky Eater. But he’s a good sport about it, and can usually find something else to eat.

But thank God today that Skippy Whitebread was there to butt in and save the day. As soon as we sat down, Skippy immediately pipes up to the waitress that Richie doesn’t like to eat food like this, and could he please order off the kiddie menu. “Look, Richie,” Skippy says. “They have chicken strips. You like chicken strips.” Just like Skippy had been appointed his Father Pro Tem. We could all see that it was really embarrassing for Richie to have Skippy ordering food for him like he was four years old – Richie is close to 30 years old, just a couple of years behind Skippy. What’s next, was Skippy going to put a bib on him and spoon feed him too? Oy.

So in addition to avoiding the Hu Hot Revenge, be sure to also keep Skippy away from your dinner table, if you know what’s good for you and you’d rather not have your boss telling you what to order. ‘Cause Skippy’s Revenge may not put you on the pot for a half hour, but it will still make you red in the face.

Footnote: As I write this, Skippy is over at his desk whining about his stomach gurgling. Uh-oh. Let the Mongolian plundering begin!

Quitting is cool

Today we’re going to lunch as a group to say goodbye to our pal Dan, who is moving on to a new job. Skippy Whitebread has decided that the appropriate celebration will be mini-golf and lunch at some place called the “Icky Nickel”. I’m not so sure about that – eating at any place with the word “icky” in its name can’t be a good thing.

Dan is a lucky guy; he got a great new job in Oregon, so he’s implemented his escape clause and is getting the hell out of this company with his dignity intact, something very few people manage to do. Usually when people leave this place it’s because they’ve been pink slipped out the door. “Rightsized”, as the executive bastards used to call it. But Dan is leaving on his own accord, and hopefully on his last day will follow my suggestion and will drop a box of donuts off on his manager desk that have “Kiss My Ass” inscribed in icing on them.

Regardless, Danny’s last day is Friday, and I’ll be sad to see him go. He and I went to lunch quite often, and spent our hours bitching about the company, politics, and whatever else came to mind. He’s the only person I’ve met around here who is even further politically left than I am, so he’ll fit in just fine with the tree huggers in Eugene, OR.

Good luck, Dan. Hope your new world is better than this “icky” one.

Shave and a Haircut

The second biggest thing that teenage boys dream about and look forward to (we all know what #1 is, so there’s no need to go there) is shaving. Yes, the true sign of being a REAL MAN – the daily scraping of growth off your face each and every day. Or, if you’re really cool, growing yourself a studly, ZZ-Top worthy beard. Yeah, that’s what being a man is all about.

Shaving is soooo much fun. You grab that tri-blade disposible razor with full gusto, slap on a little (or a lot) of Dad’s shaving foam, and go to it. Hopefully you won’t cut your jugular open in the process. Once finished, it’s time for “dessert” – AQUA VELVA! Or if you’re lucky, your old man has some leftover Old Spice from Father’s Day (‘cause you know he won’t be wearing it anytime soon). With any luck, the stinging and burning sensation from all that aftershave will wear off long before the manly scent does.

The problem with shaving is you spend your early teen years dreaming of the day when you’ll need to actually shave, then the rest of your life bitching about having to do it. You know the old phrase about being careful about what you wish for?

I couldn’t wait to start shaving when I was young. I was pretty much a hairless wonder until I was around 19, when I tried growing a mustache. Why did I try growing a mustache? Well, I’d like to tell you it was because I wanted to be cool, but the truth was I was tired of people calling me “ma’am.” I had a young face anyway, and my voice was still pretty high, so I decided that facial hair would be the way to differentiate me from an ugly woman. Unless they mistook me for an ugly Italian woman, I’d be set. So in late 1983 I stopped shaving my upper lip. And my puny-yet-effective mustache (sort of) came to life. Coooooool.

It was fun for a while. There was a time in my life (the late 80’s of course) when I liked my ‘stache, but the Lovely Mrs. G. always called it my “pimp mustache”, so it went away when I went to work for the Mouse and has never come back. (Uncle Mickey didn’t allow mustaches, no matter how pimping they may have been.) I did try a 'stache and goatee once, but it itched like a son of a bitch, and since my chin hairs are starting to come in gray, too, it was just pointless. So nowadays I’m a clean shaven man, and will probably remain that way for life. Or at least until I get good and fed up with the whole process and become a hermit.

I’m an electric razor kind of guy – the old safety-blade-and-methol-hot-foam routine never really appealed to me that much, so I toughened up my face and went with the foil razor style. This seems to work best for me, especially when I’m still half asleep at 5:30 AM. Putting sharp knives up against my skin when I’m looking in the mirror through one half-open eye isn’t the wisest of ideas. Over the last 20 years I’ve gone through probably a half dozen razors, mainly because they either no longer hold a charge or they become so damn uncomfortable that it’s like pulling each hair out one by one.

Speaking of which, a survey a few years ago asked 100 men who hated shaving every morning if they’d be willing to go through electro-removal of every hair follicle so that they wouldn’t have to shave ever again. Not one said “yes”. Can’t say I blame them much. I wouldn’t do that. And no “waxing” for me, either. Sure, I may have some hair on my back, but nobody is going to rip the little fuckers out, that’s for sure.

So I’ll just keep up with my daily shaving habit, and hope that someday mankind will invent a way to remove facial hair quickly, painlessly, and in a manner that doesn’t draw blood. And maybe they’ll come up with a pill to give to 15 year old mouth breathers to brainwash them into thinking that shaving ain’t that cool after all. That and cheap tattoos.

I’m Back – Did You Miss Me?

Well, here I am – officially 40 years young. Hooray, I suppose. The Lovely Mrs. G. and I escaped town last Wednesday and spent four glorious nights in Minnesota trying to pretend that we didn’t have to get old. We ate, we gambled, we ate, we shared a delightful aperitif, we ate, we drove around looking at stuff, we ate, we rode roller coasters, and... oh, yeah – we ate. I’m still full.

I made the most out of turning 40 the old fashioned way -- by sniveling. Hey, if it works for genuine senior citizens who seem to bitch and moan all the time, then it should work for me too, right? Anyway, I whined to the desk clerk at the hotel that it was my 40th birthday, and he bumped us up to a “theme room” from the standard typical motel room. The Quiet House hotel in Red Wing, MN has themed rooms – the “Roman Bath” room, the “High Tech Geek” room, the “Fisherman’s Lodge” room, etc. Well, we somehow managed to end up in the “Fur Trappers Room”, which was decorated with log-cabin style walls, a stretched and hanging beaver pelt (with little holes where his eyes and nose had been – definitely not a PETA-approved decoration, that’s for sure), a large wooden four-poster bed that I kept hitting my head on, and a fake, poorly sewn moose head on the wall. The poor “moose” looked more like a skinned gopher with antlers, but who were we to complain? It was very nice of them to upgrade our room for us, and we’d gladly stay there again – maybe in the “Old Farts” room next time.

I also practiced my birthday whimpering at the Treasure Island casino buffet, where they had a beautiful huge prime rib waiting for us. I told the carver that it was my 40th birthday, and as a present I really wanted a slab of prime rib, if you don’t mind. Sure enough, that’s exactly what they gave me. This chunk of meat was at least two pounds and a good two inches thick. Sweet! As the server dropped this roasted behemoth on my plate, she told me “I don’t think you’ll be back for another one.” I almost did go back for another, just to tease them, but I did eat it all. (And that was just about it, except for that piece of chocolate cake. It was my birthday, after all.)

Unfortunately, all the pathetic whining in the world didn’t have any affect on the slot machines – damn them anyway – and they immediately took my money without even the courtesy of saying “thanks” or “happy birthday”. (I did think one managed to belch a little bit, though.) In my usual not-so-lucky-on-the-slots way, the one armed bandits fully lived up to their names. Oh, well – easy come, easier go.

We had a great time in Minnesota – we went to the amusement park, saw the Twins beat up on the Tigers, shopped the Mall of America for a while, and ate a whole lot of good food. Have I mentioned the eating part yet? Sioux City’s restaurants stink on ice for the most part, so we really enjoyed having access to the Cheesecake Factory and Pizzeria Uno. Good, good stuff.

So now vacation is over – time to go back to work and pretend to be motivated. Still, Mrs. G. and I had a swell time, and have accepted our 40th birthdays with about as much grace and dignity as possible. Because it could’ve always been worse – we could be 50. Right?

Sick of Cruise

Do you remember the “good ol’ days” when the only time you ever heard anyone mention Tom Cruise’s name was when he & Nicole were suing the pants off yet another tabloid? Nowadays you can’t take a dump without seeing Tom “Lots o’ Teeth & Energy” Cruise and his dorky grin staring back at you. Whether his expressing his “love” for his practically-embryonic girlfriend or jumping up and down on Oprah’s sofa, he just seems to be everywhere these days. And quite frankly, I’m pretty damn sick and tired of him. He’s sort of like your leftover Thanksgiving turkey on the following Monday night – you find yourself thinking, “Oh, for the love of God – not again. Isn’t it gone yet???”

Now, I have to admit – I don’t mind a decent Tom Cruise movie every now and then. Risky Business came out at about the same time as my high school graduation, and it THE MOVIE we all had to see that summer. I still find myself quoting lines from it every now and then. (Usually about Guido the Killer Pimp.) Top Gun was a little too homoerotic for me, IMHO, but it was an okay story...once. Let’s face it; Maverick & Pals really didn’t have a long shelf life. And I’m one of the few who really didn’t mind his portrayal of Vampire Lestat. Call me weird. (The book was still 100 times better, though.) He’s no Olivier or Bogart – not by a long shot. But he’s no Carrottop, either.

But now Tom is back with Mr. Stephen Spielberg, a semi-genius who used to make great films (Indiana Jones, Jaws, and Close Encounters come to mind), but nowadays makes either confusing flicks (A.I.) or movies that are so damn violent and/or heavy handed and gut wrenching you’d better thank God that you didn’t bring a girl on a first date to see them (Schlinder’s, Saving Private Ryan’s Privates). This time around Tommy and Stevie are remaking War of the Worlds, the classic HG Wells story that Orson Wells brought to life so well long ago. Two thumbs up...or one giant finger instead? The world will soon decide.

I haven’t seen Tommy Boy’s War of the Worlds yet, and quite honestly, I’m not so sure I want to. This being the 21st century, I fully expect it to be filled with quasi-realistic CG animated aliens and about 5 minutes of plot, and knowing The Thomster and his antics of late, I suspect the storyline will involve Tom passing out Scientology pamphlets to the invading aliens while hitting on their younger sisters...

Oh, why, Lord? What sins have we done to deserve the scorn of a 24/7 nonstop Cruise-a-thon? There’s a list of people that I sincerely wish would Just Go Away...And Stay There. Guess what, Mr. Mapother? Your name just went on it. Congrats. You’ve joined such elite dignitaries such as:

Britney Spears & her greaseball man-child K-Fed
Paris Hilton
Pauly Shore/Tom Green
Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown

And now, our newest entry – Mr. Tom Cruise. Huzzah!

I pick on Tom, mainly because it’s a free country, dammit, but partially because he’s become so damn annoying. He’s become the biggest tabloid fodder in the world, and he seems to really enjoy his newfound notoriety. Meanwhile, he’s become a Grade A Jackass in the public’s point of view, and all the spin doctoring and Hollywood A-List publicity machines in the world aren’t going to make you look like a saint. You’ve become an Asshat, Mr. Cruise. A full blown, overblown, overexposed Asshat. So sorry, Tom.

Okay – so there’s my T.C. rant for the day. I’ll leave him alone now, in case his total lack of a sense of humor fails to find this funny. And you’ll notice that for the most part, I left Katie Holmes out of the picture. Why? Well, for one I expect to see them break up before Labor Day, and two...it’s not her fault. At least not until she jumps on Oprah’s couch.

Something to Crow About

Good news – my cancer doc gave me a clean bill of health – no new growth to report. Well, that’s a load off my mind. I’ve got to go back in 6 months for a followup, but if everything checks out okay then, it’ll be a year until I have to go back. Thank God – I really didn’t want to spend my 40th birthday walking around with a charred forehead again.

So keep wearing your hat and sunscreen, ‘cause you know I will be.

Cancer sucks

It’s June – time for yet another followup. Yep, tomorrow morning I’m off to the cancer doc again. With any luck he’ll say “Gee whiz, Tommy – it’s a goddamn miracle. Your cancer is gone!”, but I’m not holding my breath for it. On my last visit in March he was afraid it was starting to grow again, so that’s why I have to go back in 3 months instead of 6.

True, it’s “only” skin cancer – it could be much, much worse. But cancer is cancer – something nobody wants. I’m actually quite thankful that it’s only skin cancer; the thought of slowly rotting away from bad internal cancer would be enough to send me to a Jim Jones Kool-Aid party. Glug, glug, nighty-night.

So I’ve been a good boy – been wearing my sun screen faithfully, and I put on a hat whenever I’m outdoors. Why this shit thinks it needs to come back now, I’ll never understand. They burned the last of the cancer off my forehead a year ago, and we thought we had it all.
The spot on my head has finally healed, too. It’d be a damn shame if they have to burn me some more. For a while it looked like someone had put cigarettes out on my head. Now I just have a small divot on my head, which for some reason doesn’t tan. Go figure.

I’ll try to keep an optimistic outlook about it – the doc seems to think it’s controllable, and as long as it doesn’t seep into my brain, I’ll be okay with it. If a little extra SPF 45 is what it’ll take to keep the cancer bug away, then I’m all for it.

See you tomorrow...

Dad's Day 2005

Today is Father’s Day, a day set aside to give Dad some really tacky ties or a large industrial sized bottle of Old Spice. It’s nice that Dad’s have one day of the year where they’re the stars – often times credit is given to Mom first, which while important, always seems to leave dear Daddy-o out in the cold.

My Dad died 8 years ago. I miss him a whole lot, but I still feel his presence around me. I used to dream about him quite a bit, but not so much anymore. But he’s still a big part of my life, and I’ll always remember him for his sense of humor, his laugh, his ability to catch a fish when nobody else could, his occasional lucky streak, and his Saturday morning breakfasts. Potatoes (“square fries”, as my sister and I called them), eggs, bacon, lots of toast, and homemade jam. There was nothing else quite like those breakfasts.

I try to be the best Dad that I can to Miss Katie, and for the most part I think I’ve succeeded. Sure, she’s not the best student in the world, and her room really is a pit most of the time, but overall, she’s a good kid and I wouldn’t trade her in for anyone else. I was a single parent to her for a long time before The Lovely Mrs. G. came back into my life, and Miss Katie and I have always been really close. I remember when she was little how she liked to sit in her rocker/swing and smile while I sang to her. I was usually singing ABC songs (the band, not the alphabet – this was the 80’s, after all), and she’d laugh and smile at me. Ah, those were the days.

So happy Father’s Day to all you daddies out there. Be nice to your kids and your Missus, and try not to slop breakfast on your new tie.

Lordy, Lordy, I Hate That Phrase

My in-laws tried last night to have a little fun. Too bad they’re the only ones laughing.

You see, the lovely Mrs. G. and I both turn 40 next week – she on Wednesday, and me a mere 48 hours later. (Yes, I married an older woman. Two days older, but still...) And Mrs. G’s parents had been acting kind of goofy about the whole thing; we halfway expected them to show up unannounced on our front door next Wednesday to “surprise!” her. (They live 1,000 miles away.) Ah, but Mrs. G. and I are escaping town next week for a couple of days – to go hide amongst people who don’t know our ages. So if the in-laws did come a-calling, I suppose they’d have to sit on the front porch for 5 days, unless Miss Katie happens to stop home briefly in between her 23-hours-a-day summer running around schedule.

But instead of showing up in person, my in-laws and Mrs. G.’s aunt JoAnn did the “next best thing” – they bought one of those dumb classified ads in the local newspaper. You know the ones – where they run your picture and include the most hated phrase in the world:

“Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40!”
Happy 40th Birthday Mrs. G. and Tommy

Ugh. Of all the phrases in the world that I LOATHE, “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40” is right up there. In fact, my Top 5 Most Hated Phrases in the World are:

5 – “Sorry, you are not a winner.”
4 – “Tommy, we need to talk.”
3 – “Dads & Grads”
2 – “Stocking Stuffers”
1 – Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40.

I’ve always hated that expression, long before I began to approach the fateful day. The only thing worse than being told that all day long would be spending your 40th birthday hearing that while surrounded by Black Balloons.

Tell me -- who honestly thinks this shit is funny?

I can’t help but think back to my friend Donna’s 40th birthday – September 16, 1989. She and I worked together for years, but I had just recently left the company to go work for a guy who turned out to be a gigantic scumbag/thief. But that’s a tale for another day.

Anyway, the night before Donna’s Big Day, the rest of our co-workers thought it’d be fun to decorate her small office with black streamers. Then someone broke out the El Markos and made the omnipresent “Lordy Lordy” sign. Then someone else ran out to the store and bought...black balloons. Those inflated, they were satisfied that her office would be 100% respectably embarrassing.

Then someone had a bright idea. Why stop there? If a dozen black balloons taped to her office walls looked good, why – filling the entire office up to the ceiling with black balloons would LOOK EVEN BETTER!

So my friends and former co-workers, a crew of about 40 people, (including the Lovely Mrs. G., long before she was “Mrs. G.”, by the way – see how well we got along as co-workers?) spent the rest of the evening ignoring their job duties and blowing up hundreds and hundreds of balloons. They wiped the nearby party supply store out of black balloons, and started using scuba tanks to help inflate the balloons when their little comedic lips got tired.

Four hours later, Donna’s office was literally filled to the brim with balloons. Hardy har frickin’ har.

So the next morning Donna comes to work, pretends to be impressed while keeping her rude “Goddammit – why’d they do this?” comments to herself, and then gets on the phone to someone as she tries to ignore that there are several feet of balloons crammed into her little glass-windowed office.

While she was on the phone, one of her employees (and one of my best friends from way back when) decided that he would do something that was sure to be both really, really fun and something he’d always wanted to try – he’d jump into a room filled of balloons. It’d be like a giant ball pit at McDonalds, only more fun, right?

So John took a running start, leaped through the air, and dived headfirst into the balloons. Wheeee!

Now, as anyone who has ever taken Physics 101 (or has ever played with a balloon) can tell you, balloons like to move around, especially since they’re practically lighter than air and extremely elastic. So when John hit the pile of balloons headfirst, did they cushion him ever so gently? Nope. They parted right down the middle, and gravity took over. As he plummeted towards Earth, John’s forehead smacked into the edge of Donna’s credenza, which was nowhere near as soft as he probably hoped it would be.

Blood. Screaming. A panicked 911 call. A pretty ambulance ride. 47 stitches in Johnny’s forehead. That’s how Donna’s 40th birthday was celebrated.

Lordy, Lordy, indeed.

Now, I found this out much later in the day when I stopped by the office to see Donna and (attempt) to wish her Happy Birthday. There she was, sitting at her desk, which was surrounded by little scraps of black latex that hadn’t been picked up yet. (Someone had wisely taken a sharp pair of scissors to the balloons. The party was definitely over.) She was power smoking a cigarette, and from the packed ashtray in front of her, it was obvious that she’d been at it for quite a while. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were huge.

After listening to Donna’s tale (and watching her suck down a couple more cigs), I looked her deep in the eyes and told her the only thing I could think of at a moment like that:

“I just want you to know...I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this.”

And it was true – I’d heard about the fun the night before, but you wouldn’t find my DNA inside any of those black balloons. Of course, Donna didn’t believe me – I still think she doubts my denial to this day – but it was 100% true.

So here I am, 16 years later, still friends with Donna, John, and many of those same people from way back when. John still has a pretty good scar on his forehead from the 47 stitches, and being the sympathetic people we were, we insisted on calling him “Frankenstein” for the next few months.

As for Donna, I think that her 40th was the last birthday she ever “celebrated”. We’ve all vowed to never, ever mention the black balloon story again in her presence, unless she happens to bring it up first. And then we’d better have a pack of smokes handy.

And now here it is – Mrs. G.’s and my turns for the Big Four-Oh. We won’t be celebrating with our current co-workers, but never fear: we won’t be totally alone. Mrs. G. and I are driving up to Wisconsin next weekend to see Donna and her husband Mike for a couple of days.

God, I hope she doesn’t have any you-know-whats waiting for us.

The 7 Year Itch

Okay, time for a little explanation of why I’m so damn bitter between 8:00 and 5:00 Monday-Friday. (And I apologize up front for my incessant whining.)

It just dawned on me that yesterday was my 7th anniversary with my primary employer. Wow, 7 years. That’s the longest amount of time I’ve ever had a job. (The shortest? That’d be my one day with a retailer many years ago, when I was young and courageous (and a little stupid). I looked at the plastic nametag and mop they handed me, said, “screw this”, and walked out. Never went back.)

In many ways, it’s surprising I’ve lasted here that long. Most of the staff has been laid off over the past 4 years or so, and there are relatively very few people around here any longer with over 5 years tenure. Who knew I’d end up as an “old timer?”

Time for a history lesson: Things were chugging along beautifully back in the “good old days” – 1998, 1999, even early 2000. At the end of Y2K, my employer had a U.S. staff of 25,000 or so, plus another 13,000 international workers all over the planet. My facility had 9,000 employees, and was by far one of the largest employers within a 100 mile radius. We received small-but-fair bonus checks every month, and with a little hard work and dedication you could work yourself up to a fairly livable salary (I doubled my pay in less than two years through hard work and "far exceeds expectations" reviews). Our Christmas party that year had REO Speedwagon as the musical guest. Life was good.

Then things quickly fell apart. In Jan 2001 the company announced less than expected 4th quarter earnings, and that there would be an immediate 12% reduction in staff to “rightsize” the company. Rightsizing. That’s what the execs called it. Bastards.

Over the next 3 years the company tried dozens of new strategies to bring back profitability, but it didn’t happen. Quarter after quarter of losses piled up. Executives came and went on an almost daily basis. Advertising plans totally flipped from consumer to professional to enthusiast to professional again, then back to consumer. Nothing seemed to work. The company started closing facilities around the country, and before long announced that they were pulling out of the international market altogether. 13,000 people lost their jobs that day.

The company then decided that outsourcing was the way to go. Just about every job category (except for the executive level, of course) was about to be shipped out of the country. Human Resources, IT, Manufacturing, Customer Service, Support, Accounting, you name it – were all now handled by a company in Bombay, India, which paid their employees an average of $2.65 an hour. My local facility, which once housed 9,000 employees, was down to about 900 people. It became a literal ghost town. Row after row of now-empty cubicles were lined up, like one of those zombie movies where everyone has just suddenly disappeared. It was nothing to see major headlines that another 2,500 or 5,000 employees had been laid off. The local economy tanked as the unemployment rate skyrocketed.

My team somehow managed to miss the Jan 2001 layoffs, but they weren’t the last of the job cuts – far from it. We had 16 writers on September 24, 2001 – but only 10 on Sept 25. My former group, which when I left had 150 employees, was reduced to 45. A few months later our 10 writers was “rightsized” down to 9. A few months after that, our party of 9 was cut into a party of 4. The work load remained, but with 75% less employees. And just when it couldn’t get any more gruesome, we lost yet another writer last October. So now where there was 16, there is now 3.

Last November they packed the last few of us that remain here into one building – we used to have 5 – and tried to pretend that everything was fine, and that once again we’d be a happy family. Yeah, right. We’d just lived through 10 major rounds of job cuts, and watched our friends and family members be escorted out the door time and time again. From 38,000 employees to just 1,800. Ouch.

I have a hard time describing what it feels like to come to a job in the morning knowing that odds are even that this will be your last day working there. Try doing that for four straight years. Even now, when they haven’t cut any more positions since last fall, you still find yourself looking over your shoulder. We’ve been burned too many times to trust management. You couldn't plan a vacation, and you were afraid to take a sick day, less HR decide that if they could do without you for one day, perhaps they could do without you forever. Rumors flew all the time, and the company did little or nothing to reassure us. Oh, yeah -- there was a town hall meeting with our former CEO, where he told us that "those awful layoffs are a thing of the past." People cheered. This was on a Friday; the following Wednesday...guess what? The Chief Executive of our company - the man we counted on for our livelihoods - had lied to our faces. No wonder there is so little trust around here anymore.

Meanwhile, for those of us that have remained (notice how I didn’t say “are lucky enough”), life hasn’t been all that easy. There has been a wage freeze in place for the last two years, and our last pay increase was a token piddly amount in 2003 that figured out for me to be $17 a paycheck. There’s little incentive to work harder, as it won’t matter financially. I can bust my ass and double my productivity, and be paid exactly the same. Or I can coast along, do my job but nothing more, and be paid exactly the same. We haven’t had a review in two years (there’s really no point, since they can’t set goals or offer a wage increase for making or exceeding targets), and if Skippy Whitebread was to even say, “Hey, Tommy – I sure appreciate what you do” or “You know what, Tom? Thanks for a good job,” I’d probably check to see if hell has frozen over, right after I faint.

There’s not a chance of promotion or a raise, and their bonus program is structured in such a way that it’s damn near impossible to hit it. Oh, yeah – they do offer us stock options, but the price is always above the market value, so we’ve never been able to cash them in. (Cut them in quarters and use them as toilet paper or kindling for the BBQ. Maybe then they’ll be useful.) Meanwhile, our insurance costs have gone up 40%, they’ve cut our sick leave days, they’ve monkeyed with the vacation policy so that you can’t take it with you if you’re the next to be rightsized, and they’ve cheapened up on everything there is. Remember the REO Speedwagon Christmas? The next year there was a potluck. The year after that, and every Christmas since? We were treated with a week of unpaid leave. Ho, ho, ho.

So here I sit, waiting for the next shoe to fall. We still have the same work load we’ve always had, but with far less people to respond to it. My team of 24 (including managers) is now a team of 6. My old group of 150 is now a team of 3. (They were outsourced to the Philippines.) Manufacturing is 100% gone, and products are now built in Mexico and Asia. Part of the old manufacturing facility has since been leased out be a company that makes fertilizer carts. The other four buildings in our complex have been mothballed and are currently for sale, as they have been for the past year. Remaining employees drop out daily – the first chance they have at a new job, they tend to jump for it. Even executives are bailing around here; they must be tired of not being compensated for their work, too. The company is now desperate to fill some positions – funny, they’re having a hard time recruiting qualified people, since their reputation as a company that doesn’t pay well and likes to lay off their staff has proceeded them. Gee, imagine that.

And you wonder why I (and probably just about everyone else around here) is hard at work on an exit strategy?

Ah, my exit strategy. The light at the proverbial end of the tunnel. It’ll take me two years to finish it, but when it’s done, my E.S. will be a work of art. It’ll be a beautiful thing. And when I go, it’ll be on my own terms – not from a tap on my shoulder from HR saying, “Mr. Gressel, will you come with me?”

More details on my E.S. will be forthcoming. I’m kinda excited about it, though. I’ll be able to bag his hellhole, and go give my time and energy to a company that will respect me as a person and value me as an employee. And that, my friends, is what I’ll have.

Until then...thank you for listening.

TJ

The Working Man Blues...

Heigh, ho – Heigh, ho...

It’s Thursday morning – 8 days to go until I become old and decrepit.

I’m dragging tail this morning, despite the fact that I’ve already slammed one can of Diet Pepsi, and I’m seriously considering a second. I got home from my PT job late last night, and I’m running on about 5 hours of sleep. That, and I worked my butt off at the gym this morning. But no whining – it’s not allowed or socially polite. Besides, you really don’t want to hear it, so I’ll just spare you and move on. Be sure to thank me later.

I had a good night last night at “Rhymes with Farnes and Roble”; I worked with the store’s manager last night for the first time in months – we just never seem to be there on the same days. She was amazed at how quickly I had the store ready to close at 10:00; I fully believe in the Golden Rule of Working (“don’t piss about”), and work hard to get that place organized and ready to go so that we’re not there until midnight reshelving books and straightening magazines. It was nice to show off how slick my time management skills can be. Heh, heh.

Rhymes with Sarnes and Coble is getting ready for the big Harry Potter 6 kickoff party – the book is officially released at the stroke of midnight on July 16, so we started going over some of the plans for the party/celebration/sales madhouse that young Mr. Potter & friends will bring forth. We’ll be open until 2:00 AM or so, and they’ve told everyone to expect to be scheduled that night. I’m actually looking forward to it – I’m going to dress as a wizard and run the Sorting Hat, splitting the little tykes into the four different Hogwarts houses (or in our case, arts and crafts projects). It should be a wild and incredibly fun night. I can’t wait to sort the bratty little kids into the Slytherin house – “No Gryffindor for you!”

In my full time world, it’s been a nice, quiet week, since Skippy Whitebread is out of town for two weeks. It’s nice not having him and his obsessive-compulsive disorder shadowing over me for 8 hours a day. I like the guy on a personal level, but since he gave up his OCD meds cold turkey, he’s been damn near impossible to work with. Plus, he’s going through a nasty bout of depression, and won’t admit to himself he needs some help. I see him at his desk quite often with his head down on the tabletop, and it looks like he’s crying. God, I wish he’d get some help.

I find myself dreaming that I’m working for The Mouse again lately – it’s been over 4 years now since I walked away from Uncle Walt; who knows – maybe absence does make the subconscious heart grow fonder. Maybe someday I’ll have to go be a CM again; I obviously didn’t get it all out of my system the first time. Of course, these days I’d have to move to work for The Mouse again – our TDS closed, as did most of them in the tri-state area. But life in Lake Buena Vista wouldn’t be that bad – depending on what you did for them, I suppose. I’d like to be a tour guide, or maybe a mystery shopper (do I know guest service, or WHAT?), or something really cool like a Traditions trainer. As long as I don’t get stuck dipping frozen bananas in chocolate and nuts for 10 hours a day, I should be fine.

So now it’s time to go write something highly technical. That’s what I’m here for. Ciao.

The Old Gray Hare - it ain't what it used to be.

Only 9 more days until I'm officially OLD. Sucks, don't it? I've occasionally thought about washing that gray right outta my hair, just for laughs. I started going gray when I was about 20, and nowadays it's about 50/50 gray/black. It's really noticeable the shorter my hair is, and if I wear a hat (like the cancer doc says!), it's really obvious because of its concentration in the front.


Personally, I sort of like the gray.

1 - It's distinguishing.
2 - It gets me further in this world than having blue hair would. (Cyndi Lauper I'm not.)
3 - Better gray than none.

I monitor my older brother's hair color closely (he's 52), and already I have 10 times the gray he does. Either we're genetically different, or ol' Mr. Grecian Formula has been a-knockin' on his door. My brother also has most of his hair left, which is a good sign - our Dad was thinning by the time he was 30, and when I came along he had a combover deluxe that would make The Donald seethe with jealousy.

So maybe I'll live with the gray, and be glad that I am who I am. Besides, do I really want to have to pay someone to dye my locks every few weeks to keep the roots from showing? Nah.

The modern 8th anniversary gift? A blog entry!

Today is the Lovely Mrs. G. and my 8th anniversary. 8 years already – where does the time go? Seems like just yesterday we were having dinner, dancing, and fireworks over the river to celebrate our wedded bliss.

I’m a lucky guy, I know. Mrs. G. takes damn good care of me, puts up with my crap, knocks me down a notch when I really deserve it, and keeps me from doing really dumb things, like quitting my yucky job and moving us to somewhere like Bolivia to sell twine necklaces on the beach. (As romantic as that may sound at times, there’s probably not much of a market for homemade rope jewelry sold by a unbathed gringo.)

Mrs. G. has also been a great mother to Miss Katie; I know they have their “moments” at times, but what stepmother/stepdaughter doesn’t? But I know that deep down they love each other, and that there is nothing they wouldn’t do for each other.

As for the little lady and I, well let's just say that we get along swimmingly. There's nobody else in this world I'd rather hang out with. She's the best friend a smart-aleck like me could ever hope for, and the fact that she likes me too makes it all the better.

So happy anniversary, Mrs. G. Ol’ Tommy loves you very much.

Revenge of the N.O.G.s

I’ve proven my theory to be correct!!!

This morning I followed an old dude into the Y. He was clean-shaven, his hair was combed, and he was neatly dressed. He wasn’t carrying anything with him. He walked in, picked up a towel off the counter, punched in his security code, then walked downstairs to the Athletic Club.

He then took off all his clothes and stood there talking, naked as a wrinkled jaybird.

See? What’d I tell you about the N.O.G.s and their lovin’-the-nudity lifestyle? Yikes!

Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.

Who's in favor of annual driver's license tests?

Well, it was yet another humdinger evening in the Gressel household. Miss Katie got in yet another auto accident; only this time it wasn’t her fault. She was backing out of a parking space at the mall and was just starting to drive away when a woman in a van parked across from her backed out of her spot and hit Katie’s car in the passenger’s door. She tried asking Katie if her husband could just fix it and we’d leave the insurance out of it – har, har, lady – but I have to admit that Katie handled it well. She told her that she’d have to call her Dad. Big Bad Bad. Big Bad Rad Dad - the co-owner of the car in question.

So I get there, and immediately the lady says the same thing to me. “Can I husband just fix it? He fixes cars.” Um...no. The Lovely Mrs. G. works for an attorney, and she’d have my nuts in a jar if I was to pull something stupid like that. I asked her if she had insurance and a license, which she did produce. (It’s a good thing, too – if she hadn’t, it would have been 9-1-1 time for us.) So I got her info, and we’ll call the insurance people and open a claim today. Dumb broad.

Katie’s car is a bucket of crap – a 91 Dodge Dynasty. She had a good car – my old Grand Am – which she totaled about a month after I gave it to her. So to make her a little bit humble for wrecking my formerly "nice" car, we bought her “Earl”, the piece-of-shit-mobile. Now Earl has a dent. Miss Katie is still on her intermediate license until she turns 18, so with a little luck the state won’t take her driver’s license away from her. (They told her after her last accident that she’d lose it if she had any more accidents or tickets, but this one clearly wasn’t her fault.) Poor kid - she may get screwed, even though she was only in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So we’ll see. I hate dealing with auto accidents – I was hurt pretty badly in one 10 years ago, and am still dealing with the pain from it. I know things like this happen, but for God’s sake – turn down the stereo, put out the cigarette, hang up the goddamn cell phone, put away the Big Mac and Fries, and try using your mirrors and turn signals every now and then, will you people? Oh, and maybe a little bit of common courtesy wouldn’t hurt, either.

There. That’s my rant for the morning. Now buckle up.

The Great Kitten Caper Ends

A followup on the Tawney Kitten tale of woe and misery: Apparently Miss Katie has found a home for her poor little orphaned kitty. A friend of hers lives on a farm, and they need a new female barn cat that hasn't been fixed, as all the cats they currently have are a little nutty from all the inbreeding. So it'll work out well for everyone - Tawney gets a good comfy home and a whole lot of attention from the boys, and in a few months the male cats on the farm will get themselves some 'strange'. (Break out the Whitesnake, fellas!)

See? Everyone is happy.

Tawney Kitten

My dear, sweet, darling, precious, yet full-o-crap daughter brought home a kitten yesterday. Cute little thing – maybe 5, 6 weeks old, long hair tabby, with big blue eyes. Miss Katie wants to name it “Tawney Kitten”, because the two kids she found it with were named “Tom” and “Johnny”, and each of them wanted it named after them, so she compromised. The Lovely Mrs. G. and I found it odd that she’d want to name the cat “Tawney Kitten”, but Miss Katie didn’t get the joke – apparently she hasn’t watched as many Whitesnake videos as we have. Hey – at least she didn’t name it “Oprah” or “Alanis”.

Now, while Miss Katie may be a perfectly nice 17-year-old girl with a gigantic heart of gold, I say with all confidence that she’s full-o-crap, mainly because this is the story we got when said kitten came home with her:

“Okay, Dad – it’s like this – I did something heroic today. Me and my friends were driving, and I saw a car in front of us run over a cat. So we pulled over to see if the cat was dead, which it was, but she had a little baby kitty in her mouth. The kitten is okay and she’s so cute and can we keep her? I mean, I couldn’t just leave her there to STARVE!”

Do you buy that tale? I don’t. On the credibility scale, I’d have to give that story a 2. Creativity a 6, originality a 5, but credibility remains at 2.

So for the time being we have 3 cats in our house. Or 2 ½, if you consider Tawney’s size. Our other two feline residents, Jack and Tasha, aren’t so hot on the new visitor, which isn’t surprising. They’re 12 and 14 years old and are mighty set in their ways. After all, any new cats might displace their position in the kitty pecking order, and they can’t have that. (We imagined an “All About Eve” scenario, with little Tawney “accidently” pushing Jack down the stairs.)

Anyway, Miss Katie begged, pleaded, and flashed her best Bambi eyes, but I’m afraid that Little Tawney the Supposedly Orphaned Kitten won’t be joining the Gressel family on a permanent basis. Two cats is plenty. Sorry kid, nice try. Miss Katie is supposed to take Tawney down to the Humane Society today, where I’m sure some nice family will adopt her and give her the love and devotion we don’t have time for. She’ll be happy in her new home, Jack and Tasha will be thrilled to not have to share their daily adoration with a newcomer, and Mrs. G. and I won’t have to clean up cat barf at 4:00 AM from a third beast.

But...maybe I can get Miss Katie to bring home a puppy...

"Sorry don't fry the chickens"

Is it a full moon? I’ll have to check.

Last night I had to work at my part time gig – I’m a bookseller for the local branch of the “nation’s largest retail book chain”. Three guesses who that may be. It’s an okay job – I don’t work too many hours a week, but it’s enough to give me a little bit of pocket money, and the employee discount is pretty sweet. So technically I get paid, but it’s more like I’m reinvesting in the company.

I like the store and the people I work with, so I won’t pick on “Rhymes with Larnes and Goble” per se; instead, I’ll tell snark about some of the people we deal with on a daily basis.

First, let it be known that most book store customers are perfectly normal, happy, polite (usually), socially well-adjusted citizens. But some of the people who come through our doors? Let’s just say that I’m surprised their allowed outdoors unsupervised. We have acres of stories there, but this trio all came to see us last night:

1 – Mr. Backpack: Mr. Backpack comes in a few times a week. He loiters, but never buys. (We actually get lots of those, but for the most part, they’re harmless. Just don’t make a huge mess, and we’ll get along fine.) Mr. Backpack wears a dirty 70’s t-shirt (usually with Mr. Spock, Farrah Fawcett, or the General Lee ironed on it), and a huge backpack over his shoulders. I swear, if his backpack was any larger it’d look like he could survive in the desert for a month with what he could cram in there. Yet he isn’t homeless; he just dresses that way.

Anyway, Mr. Backpack’s shtick is to tell everyone – booksellers, café workers, customers – that he too is a writer. In fact, he’s written about 70 books so far, and is working on at least 5 or 6 right now. He’s also a writing professor, and is currently selecting a select number of protégés to attend his exclusive writing seminars. Of course, he doesn’t look like he can hold a pen, much less type, but hey – all you have to do is write the words, and anyone can call themselves a “writer”. Hell, I do.

2 – I was at the customer service desk and an older woman – probably late 80’s or early 90’s came up to me. “Excuse me,” she smiled and said gingerly, “I understand you carry Easy Rider magazine.” And she was dead serious about it. So okay – everybody has their own thing – I’m just not used to nice old grandmothers asking for biker magazines. (Give an all-new twist to the phrase “Old Lady”, doesn’t it?) She was thrilled when I handed it to her. “I’m sending it to my OLDER SISTER”, she said. “She lives in Florida, and can’t get it in her complex.”

3 – We have 65,000 different book titles in the store at any given time, and we have a database where we can order you copies of up to another million titles, but customers sometimes expect us to pull out of print books out of the air anytime they demand. See, books have an expiration date – just like milk, meat, and Pauly Shore’s career. If they don’t sell, we don’t keep them around, and publishers don’t make any more. Oh, sure – there are a few popular authors you’ll always find in bookstores – your Kings, your Pattersons, your Nora Roberts – but you aren’t likely to find Mr. Backpack’s tome from 1981 on our shelves, even if he did manage to sell 500 copies to his mother way back when.
So again I’m at the customer service desk, helping an older guy with a book on bison he saw in an old magazine. On the plus side, at least he knew the title and author – sometimes customers will ask for “the book that was on the front table around Christmas, with the green cover and a picture of a guy doing something. You know the one.” Uhhh, no. But anyway, this guy wanted his bison book. Well, I found it in the system, and sure enough – it wasn’t available to us any longer. This usually means that it’s out of print, but it could also be that the publisher is small, and doesn’t have thousands of copies to distribute to every large chain store around the country.

So I told Old Coot that his book was no longer available, and he had a conniption. “Why not?” he yelled. “I just saw it in a magazine this weekend!” I didn’t ask him how old the mag was; it just wasn’t worth going there. (The book was published originally in 1979.) I suggested he try a used book dealer or maybe go online (the blank stare he gave me back told me that his house wasn’t wired for that new-fangled Internet doohickey), but that didn’t work.

So I smiled, held my tongue, and said sorry. And his reply is what makes this Old Coot so memorable:

“Sorry doesn’t fry the chicken, now does it?”

Huh? What the hell does that mean? I give up.

So I’m back to the store today – we’ll see who and what comes through the doors this afternoon. Hopefully they won’t come in looking for fried chicken – although I’ll be glad to direct you to the cookbooks if you’d like.

P.S. It’s not a full moon – I just checked. Swell; that just means the regular weirdoes are a couple of weeks off...

Attack of the N.O.G.s

There are three stereotypical things a guy will supposedly do as he approaches 40:

1 – He’ll buy a convertible.
2 – He’ll join a gym.
3 – He’ll trade the ol' ball & chain in for a trophy wife.

Well, let’s set the record straight, at least in my case. First off, yes – I do drive a convertible. But I’ve wanted one since I was 6, so it wasn’t a spur of the moment “Oh, shit I’m turning forty – I’d better buy a hot car” decision.

As far as the trophy wife biz goes, um...no thanks. I’m mighty fond of the Lovely Mrs. G., and I have every intention of becoming an old coot with her right next to me. She’s my trophy, and that’s all I need. Or want. Or can handle. Besides, I can’t imagine myself being saddled with a giggly 20 year old any longer. If she can’t remember the 80’s in vivid first-person detail, then we’d have nothing to talk about.

But joining the gym? That’s exactly what Mrs. G and I recently did. After having a membership to the South Sioux City community indoor swimming pool for the past year, we decided to escape that grody-to-the-max dirty facility and pay the extra few bucks a month needed for a membership at the Siouxland Y. (The community pool showers were cleaned about once every decade – they were literally a science project waiting to happen, they were that disgusting. And their solution for cleaning the pool itself? “Add another gallon of Clorox, boys!” If it wasn’t for swim goggles, you’d be blind by the end of the first lap.)

So we up and joined the Y. Treadmills, elliptical machines that literally work your ass off, Nautilus Primitive Torture Devices, a basketball court, and yes – a swimming pool where the water won’t peel off the first three layers of your skin.

We also kicked in the extra $5 a month for a “fitness membership”, which includes complimentary use of their scratchy towels and access to the “Y Athletic Club”; i.e. the “good” locker rooms. Aren’t we special? We don’t have to hob-nob with the ordinary folks – nope, we get to use the deluxe facilities. There you’ll find a steam room, a large locker room, TVs, a spa, massages (for an extra fee), and oh, yeah – lots and lots of N.O.G.s – Naked Old Guys.

Now, I’ve never been much of a “gym” person – in my freshman year of high school I was only 4 foot 11, so I wasn’t exactly a giant among athletic giants in school. Gym class was miserable for me for the 4 months it lasted; I’m probably the only guy on the face of the planet who says “Thank God” that he got Hepatitis B, because it meant an immediate P.E. waiver for the rest of my school days.

But here I am, 25 years later, reintroducing myself to the world of locker rooms. And I really can’t help but notice – since they’re EVERYWERE – that the Athletic Club is jam packed with Naked Old Guys.

Seriously; you can’t turn your head without seeing some old fart’s Johnson right in front of you. They walk around naked, they stand and chat naked, they sit and watch Don Imus on TV naked – it just goes on and on. It’s Attack of the N.O.G.s. Most of these guys I never see outside of the Athletic Club – i.e. they’re never upstairs using the weight room or the exercise equipment. I really suspect that most of the N.O.G.s just get up in the morning, come down to the Y, take off their clothes, and wander for an hour or two in their wrinkled up birthday suits.

Now, being the macho guy I am, I’m proud to admit that yes, I too have a John Thomas. I just don’t feel the need to show it to the world. But the N.O.Gs? They absolutely love showing it off. I asked Mrs. G. if the ladies in her locker room do the same thing, but she said that they did not, so apparently N.O.G. syndrome is strictly an old male codger kind of thing. A leisure time activity, if you will. Yes, horseracing may be the Sport of Kings, but standing around with your willie hanging out for hours on end is apparently the Sport of Old Dudes.

The worst part? I’m trying to get dressed and one of the N.O.G.s will come up and talk to me. Yes, yes – I’m enjoying the Y. Yes, the facilities are very nice. No, I’m only 39. Why, do I look that old?

Meanwhile, two thoughts are running through my head:

1 – Must. Avert. Eyes.
2 – Good Lord, man – haven’t you ever heard of a bikini wax? I hear a Weed Whacker will work wonders. If nothing else, try some Nair, for God’s sake. There’s no need to look like a hairy ape with a long nose.

So there’s my adventures with the N.O.G.s. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy it, but at least it give me something to write about.

Now – will someone hand him a towel? Please?

Do to come directly for the second time!

My employer has recently re-entered the international sales market, which they abandoned (along with 13,000 foreign employees) four years ago. Because we’re now selling in Japan, we need to come up with documentation written in Japanese. And since my Japanese is limited to the few curse words my Japanese friend taught me when growing up and the little bit I’ve picked up from Iron Chef (“Fukui-san!”), the need to hire a translator has come up.

Ah, but here’s the rub. To translate a one-page doc from English to Japanese, the service that my employer contracted with wants $185. Ouch. I tried suggesting that perhaps they find a college grad student who’d be willing to do it for the experience and a few bucks, but instead the Powers That Be decided to drop the money for automatic translating software. What could be easier? Type your text, and the software does everything for you.

Well, as you can see below, the results are a little less than pretty.

The paragraph below is what I sent through the software. I then reversed the process and had it translated back into English. Judge for yourself how well it works.

* * * * * * * *

Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between!

Today we are going to try a global marketing experiment. We are going to see how well this paragraph translates back and forth from English to Japanese to English again. See how well it works. See how many grammatical errors the software makes. Because if you are anything like good old cynical me, you're hoping for a really messed up hilarious translation, because that's when the good times really start to kick in. Trust me; there are few things I enjoy snarking at more than really bad English, especially when it is auto-generated by a machine that thinks it knows more than humans. (That is the writer within me speaking, I suppose. Down with HAL 9000 and his poor verbiage. Down, I say! Now please open the pod bay door, if you do not mind.)

So without further ado, lets get on with it. Let the games begin.
Enjoy your day, and please come again soon!

* * * * * * * *

Here’s how it came out. I especially like the last sentence – it sounds almost smutty, doesn’t it?

* * * * * * * *

Good morning, the woman, the gentlemen, and everyone center!

Present we have done the fact that experiment of entire marketing is tried. We just which this paragraph from English from Japanese to English translates well in approximately re-degree, have done the fact that you see. Just which that works well, see. The software makes some grammatical mistake, see. If you me with what like well old sneer, when being good, without the stand it becomes really in regard to hilarious translation when really it starts kicking the you' which is desired; Being re, the that' Being S. Rely on me; Especially when the automobile occurring with the machine compared to, really bad English, from many which think of that the human I who have known the snarking is enjoyed is a small-numbered thing which in at many. (I who am the writer among me whom you speak suppose. HAL 9000 and that bad verbiage. I say! You. When it did not make the air, the door of the ポッド bay which now was opened do)

without the ado above the そ lie れ happily, that in order to obtain. The game starts, the sea urchin do.

Enjoy your day, do to come directly for the second time!

* * * * * * * *

Ain’t modern technology great????

The Joy of Little Sisters

Thursday, June 9 – 15 days to go until Black Friday. But for once this isn’t all about me. Nope, today we celebrate my “kid” sister’s 38th birthday. "Hippo Birdy Two Shoes", Alie! (Sorry – that was the most beaten to death pun in our family, usually said by our older and wackier sister. But since she’s not here to do it, someone had to. It’s tradition, you know.)

Anyway, Alie and I get along fairly well nowadays, as we did when we were kids. The teen years, though? Let’s just say that they were tumultuous at best. But now that we’re older and wiser (or at least older), we get along swimmingly. Perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve matured, or maybe it’s because there are now 1,600 miles separating us. Either way, it’s nice to have Alie as a sister.

As kids, it was my goal to tease her as much as humanly possible. (I had a charter membership in the Annoying Big Brother Club, let me tell you.) It’s no wonder I had welts on my head from where a thrown hairbrush, shoe, etc. would connect with my skull. (Alie wasn't much of an athlete, but when using a hairbrush as a projectile, she could outpitch Nolan Ryan.) But despite the pain, it was worth it. My best stunt however was the one that took the most patience. She’d pissed me off over something I can’t remember, and I decided to slowly take revenge. So every day I snuck into her room and removed exactly one item. It was usually something small – her hairbrush, some makeup, her favorite rainbow-colored socks with toes, or that goddamn over-played Pat Benetar 45 (“Fire and Ice”. Still makes me scream to hear it today.). I stashed all of these items in a shoe box in my closet, and waited for her to notice.

She didn’t say anything at first, but I did notice that she seemed to be spening an awful lot of time looking underneath her bed, behind dressers, and under piles of dirty clothes. Her room was usually a slop hole anyway, so I suspect that she blamed the missing items on her lack of organization, and not her cruel brother. She tried whining to our Mom about the disappearing stuff, but Mother Dearest knew the state of Alie’s room was less than tidy, so there was little sympathy there. The more she searched, the more I laughed...to myself. It was great fun to watch, in a sadistic sort of way. I'm just sorry I couldn't have sold tickets to others to enjoy. (And to think - this was well before Pay Per View. I would've made a fortune.)

This continued for about a month and a half. My shoebox of Alie’s personal items was now overflowing, and had to be transferred to a large box I’d used for baseball cards. Finally, the day arrived. She asked me if I knew where her stuff was.

Now, I could’ve dragged it out for another month or so by denying any knowledge – a simple “What would I want your stinky-ass Love’s Baby Soft for?” would’ve sufficed. But instead I told her to wait there, and I went to the closet, got the box, and dropped it in her lap.

The look on her face? It was a combination of Christmas, her birthday, and extreme anger, all rolled into one. Half of her comments were about me and what I should go do to myself, while the other half was “I’d been wondering where this was.” Heh, heh, heh. She never did try to get revenge; she really was a smart girl deep down. I may have caught yet another brush to the temple as punishment, but once again – it was soooooo worth it.

So happy birthday, Alie. And no, I don’t have a box of your junk to this day...

...or at least not that you know about.

What's for lunch?

We got an e-mail today from HR letting us know that as of next week you can have a payroll deduction made when you purchase food items from the company cafeteria. I wonder if it’s tax deductible?

My employer’s cafeteria is named "Earle’s Place". AKA Botulism City. Nausea Palace. A real shithole.

The cafeteria has been operated by a half dozen companies in the time that I’ve been here (7 years), but always with the same staff. Different company name embroidered on the polo shirt, same parolee employees. The food has always been overpriced and lousy – can’t anyone make a decent roast beef sandwich anymore? – so I usually avoid it like the plague it is. For a long time the vendor was “Eurest”, which tried to make things chi-chi cool and gourmet, which lasted about a week when they discovered that Iowans won’t pay $8 for a 4-ounce prime rib lunch when they can just run over to Billy Boy Drive-In, where chili dogs are available for two for a buck.

The revolving staff at Eurest at first wore headsets to communicate with each other, but those too didn’t last too long. I mean, what were they really going to say to each other: “More spoiled meat for the deli!” “Hey, make sure you overcharge them for that salad!” By the time they faded away and the newest vendor took over, they’d gone from 2 daily specials to zero, from a complete salad bar to a half dozen half-rotten prepackaged salads, from two soups and a pot of chili to one soup (quality? Made Campbells look 5 stars), and lots and lots of canned pop, candy bars, and chips. Nothing like a healthy, nutritious meal, is there? Eurest was also world famous for their 50% meat hamburgers that actually did taste more like oatmeal than ground chuck. There was so much filler in those bad boys you could’ve poured milk over them and served them as part of a complete breakfast.

So the new vendor took over in January, naturally hiring the entire Eurest staff, but paying them $2 an hour less than they made before. We all know this, because the employees are still whining to everyone within earshot about their now-lower salary, whether we care to hear it or not. Hey, we’ve all got our own workplace problems, pal. My company has laid off 92% of its staff in the past four years. We’ve gone from 25,000 people to just 1,800. For those of us “lucky” enough to remain, we haven’t had a pay raise in two years and our medical costs have gone up 40%. So don’t whine to me about your barely-skilled job paying you less. I really don’t want to hear it. And get your dirty thumb out of my scrambled eggs.

Looking back on that last paragraph, it does sound like I’m bitter and angry, doesn’t it? But this is the life we lead. Everyone has to do something they don’t particularly care for. Some people mop floors and change the expiration date on milk cartons for a living; some of us put up with people like Skippy Whitebread. All for a steady paycheck and the hope that someday you’ll be able to walk away with your dignity intact. That’s the working life, I suppose. So you smile, pretend that it really doesn't bother you that badly, and keep looking forward to Friday.

In the end, I’ll keep plugging away here, doing what I do and doing it to the best of my abilities. I won’t hold my breath for a pay raise, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to quit on my own terms instead of getting that dreaded tap on my shoulder from HR when they decide to do their next round of layoffs. (I’ve lived through 10 rounds of job cuts so far – a rather amazing feat, don’t you think?) I’m a talented guy and I know my job very well, and in just a mere 24 months from right now I’m planning on using those skills that I’ve picked up over the last 7 years to go somewhere where I’m respected as a human and valued as an employee.

Because it could always be worse. I could work at Earle’s Place.

Cleanup on Aisle 904

I went into Sioux City’s new Hy-Vee grocery store today. Hy-Vee is a Midwest-based chain, which claims in their many ads to have “A Helpful Smile in Every Aisle”. Usually this is more accurately described as “A Smashed Dozen Eggs in Every Bag” or “A Dumb Mouthbreather at Every Register”. As you can probably assume, I’m not all that crazy about Hy-Vee. They talk a good game, but when it comes to service, they’re sorely lacking.

Anyway, this new store is supposedly the largest one in the entire Siouxland region. And it was big all right – you name it, they have it. Patio furniture, toys, 6-foot tall houseplants, color TVs, a portrait studio (I keep threatening Miss Katie to have her Senior pictures taken there), a bank, a video counter, a huge line of deli-style items (nothing homemade, of course – this is Iowa, not Manhattan), and oh, yeah – groceries. It’s not quite Super Wally World big – I didn’t see any rainbow-colored polyesther jumpsuits or car tires – but as far as regular supermarkets go, it’s got a lot of acreage.

But the highlight of this store (at least according to all the press reports this week) has got to be...are you ready for it?...

Hy-Vee’s New Colossal-Amazing-Cooler-Than-Hell Olive Bar!!!

Yes, Sioux City now has an olive bar – 16 varieties, in fact. Walk right up, grab a plastic carton, and fill it up with olives to your heart’s delight. Oooh! Aaah! Look out world, Sioux City has gone Mediterranean!

It’s amazing – most people in this part of the world consume four basic food stuffs: Frozen pizza, beer, taverns (i.e. – loose meat sandwiches – a disgusting rant for another day), and cigarettes. We’re not known as a community that cherishes such things as fresh seafood, foie gras, truffles, or 16-item olive bars. Oh, sure – there’s probably someone out there like me who has moved to this Hickville town, and this now-happy soul will probably appreciate having an olive bar. But for the most part? The locals wouldn’t know a greek olive from a greek gyro.

So I made my tiny purchase from the surly cashier, but I have to admit it wasn’t olives. Too bad – perhaps next time. And if I ask nicely, maybe I can have my portrait taken while scooping them up.

Beauty and the Buffet

So last night the lovely Mrs. G and I went out for Chinese buffet. If there’s any one thing people in this part of Iowa love, it’s a buffet. (Well, that along with beer, cigarettes, and getting a 50% discount on anything.) Buffets are HUGE in this part of the world, as are the collective asses of most of the buffet patrons.

Regardless, Mrs. G and I decided to try the latest & greatest Chinese buffet in town, Beijing-something-or-another. Could be “Beijing Palace”, or possibly “Beijing City”. Who knows, who cares. They opened their Beijing Doors recently, so we decided to risk it and see what it’s like.

Sioux City has three other Chinese buffets – King Sea, which always smells like a steamy locker room filled with chicken, China One, where the guy who works the cash register has one facial expression (“SCOWL!”) and they serve Chinese delicacies such as ham, chicken wings, and mashed potatoes to the “What is it? Never mind – I’ll eat it anyway” Iowans, and a place just across the bridge in South Sioux City that I can’t recall their name, since it was so incredibly awful I’ll never go back.

Anyway, we go to the new Beijing Joint. The food was eerily similar to that you’d find at China One and King Sea – I suspect they must all pass the same half dozen cooks back and forth amongst each other. It was fairly good – mostly chicken dishes, but it was oddly arranged. Most buffets have a reasonable sense of semblance to them – there’s a certain order to the universe when you find the salads first, then entrees, then maybe desserts.

Nope. Not here.

The buffet was L shaped, with a large tub of white rice first. So far so good, right? Well, next it was a small ice cream freezer, which contained 6 5-gallon buckets of Blue Bunny ice cream – chocolate, vanilla, chocolate chip, cookie dough, strawberry swirl, and cherry nut, if you must know. So to go with your white rice, you now had a scoop of semi-mediocre ice cream.

Next it was the Fried Foods aisle. If it could be deep fried, it was here. Most of it was standard stuff – two types of egg rolls, tiny little crab rangoons, shrimp, chicken wings (remember – it’s Iowa!), and bacon-wrapped “Krab”. Then came the entrees – as I said, mostly chicken. Finally, there was salads. They did have kim-chee, which surprised me, but otherwise their “salad” consisted of Sysco-canned pudding and macaroni salad, along with a large bowl of lettuce they called “tossed salad”.

Now, I’m not knocking the food. It was tasty in its own way, and I certainly ate my Iowa-boy share. But it was just strange to see the layout they had. Not what I expected.

But while the setup was oddly arranged, the service? Top notch. And then some.

You see, Beijing Boulevard is a tiny place. Maybe 20 tables, tops. And they had four waitresses working that little dining room. But since it was buffet, they weren’t bringing food or taking orders – only carrying off empty dishes and refilling Pepsis. So instead of finding something productive with their time, they hounded us. “Can I take your plate?” 10 seconds later. “More Diet Pepsi?” 30 seconds later. “Are you through with that plate yet?” Wait 20 seconds. “How about now – can I take your plate yet?”

This is how it went throughout our meal. My drink was literally 1/3 empty when she swooped it away to refill it. She stood over me while I ate the last of my soup so that she could have the bowl. And when I pushed my empty ice cream dish to the far side, she literally reached across me to take it off the table. What – was she afraid that any errant drops of melting Blue Bunny Cherry Nut ice cream may stain their new carpets? Oy.

Once again, I have to say that I don’t fault the nice young Beijing Babes who work there. They’re just doing their jobs, and doing them efficiently, dammit.

So that was our culinary adventure for the evening. I haven’t even mentioned the piggish lout of a man who sat on the other side of the wall from us with his paper napkin tucked into his farmer’s shirt. He probably put away a good dozen plates of food (each of which was expertly cleaned up by the staff, let me tell ya!), all the while watching what other people took off the buffet and commenting loudly to his hysterically homely wife about everyone’s dining choices. Asshat.

Tonight when the lovely Mrs. G. gets home from jury duty I’ll have to find her something to eat. She’ll want to eat in, I’m sure, but since it’s in the mid-90’s outside, I’m willing to bet that neither one of us is really that willing to cook. So we’ll see what we end up with.

Either way, I can promise you that my dishes won’t be cleaned up that fast.

17 days to go...

We're now down to 17 days until the Big Four-Oh. Hooray! (How's that for sounding optimistic?) To help pass the time I'm sitting here listening to a little live Muddy Waters while trying to avoid my annoying manager. The supe is on vacation this week, so my manager ("Skippy Whitebread" as he's known) is driving me nuts instead. Fortunately he'll be gone for two weeks here shortly, so I should be able to get something done. Skippy is a nice enough fellow, but there's a reason why they market OCD medications...

It's really loud here in our veal pens today - one of the other department manager's wives is currently appearing on The Price Is Right, so his entire team is standing around watching TV instead of working. (Hey, I'm blogging. So I have to right to talk, now do I?) In a few minutes she'll win $10,000 worth of crap - a hot tub, $3400 worth of patio furniture, and if she's lucky, some Rice-A-Roni and Turtle Wax. Good for them. I like winning prizes, so I'll never fault anyone for that. I'm just glad I don't have to pay the IRS for accepting $10K worth of stuff I don't have room for.

Soon I'll have to tell you all about my employer, but that's a post that's far too long to post now. Let's just say that I'm not so thrilled with life here. But I have an exit plan. It'll take me two years to complete, but once I'm ready, look out world. Here comes ol' Tommy G.

So that's it for now. I'm working. My co-workers are watching Bob Barker. The lovely Mrs. G. is stuck on jury duty today. See? It could be worse.

More soon...

Article #1

I've decided that the time has come for me to have a blog. Why? Well, there are many reasons:

1 - Everyone else is doing it. I know, I know. It's a lame reason, but it sure beats jumping off that cliff like everyone else, like my mother used to threaten me with.

2 - It's going to force me to write something fresh every day. God knows I need that. If I just let my stream of consciousness flow, and just start writing, who knows - maybe I'll find that spark within me again. I like to write, and I wish I had the creativity to write more. Maybe this will force me to do so.

3 - I've got a lot of good stories to share. Some may be funny, some may be dull, some may be a little too "insider" for the masses. Regardless of how you cut it, though, they'll be mine.

So there you go - post #1. I'll have to see what I can come up with next.

Ta-ta for now...

The title

So - I suppose you're wondering why in the hell I named this Blog "I'll grow old - but I won't grow up", aren't you? Well, it's like this...

In exactly 18 days from this very moment, I will officially turn 40.

AAAAAHHHH!

Actually, it's not as scary as it could be. I mean, I've already lived a lot longer than a lot of people, and that doesn't count all of the rock stars who've drowned in pools of their own vomit. So turning 40 really doesn't frighten me as much as it makes me think - by God, where does time go? It seems like it was not too long ago that I was a smart-ass kid who spent his days listening to "Mr. Roboto" and thinking I was king of the world because I had $5 in my pocket, and that meant I had money for a Super Slurpee and some chili-cheese nachos from 7-11. The world was my oyster - no mortgage, no job, no gray hair.

So I've had to grow old. God says so. But who says I have to GROW UP? I think I'll pull the Peter Pan trick and Just Say No.

I've got my health (for the most part - we won't discuss that skin cancer crap, now will we?), I've got a lovely bride and a reasonably nice teenage daughter (she's 17 - all you parents of teenaged daughters will understand, right?), a nice home, a black cat that likes to howl at me until I give him treats, a fire red convertible that plays loud rock & roll whenever I want, and I've still got a bit of a sense of humor to me. Oh, sure - I can't run the 100 yard dash in 11 seconds, but I never was able to do so when I was 20, so I can't beat myself up over that.

So Happy Birthday to me, soon. We'll see how it goes, won't we?

Until then...