Headlights? Head Leitz?

"What are head lights?" my daughter asked me at lunch the other day.

"Uhh...those lights on the front of the car," I responded blankly.

"No," she insisted, "head lights." Apparently there was something more here, since she continued with "The kind you get from wearing someone else's hat."

Headlights? Head lights? HEAD LICE???!!!!

And although this was not suitable lunch coversation, I spoke at length about the not-so-fabulous world of head lice. The land of stinking, burning shampoo and tiny-toothed combs, the land of "Let's just cut all your hair off, it's just easier that way." She posed many follow-up questions, which I answered to the best of my knowledge (having never had, nor seen the mythical head lice). With my assurances that she need not unreasonably fear these creatures, she was satisfied.

Thinking about it at the end, she laughed a little. "I'm glad it's called head lice instead of headlights like I thought. Head lights sounds like our name---Head Leitz."

Yeah.

Weed Detail

I am constantly warning the kids about potential brain-rot as a result of watching too much TV. It has seemed to me for some time that their imaginations have been stunted, probably from exposure to so many expensive toys. The 6-year-old in particular is always complaining about "having nothing to do," and "needing ideas of what to draw." Her younger brother, 4, is not quite so damaged (yet); he still wanders around alone and can typically find some mindless entertainment.

Yesterday the weather was nice and both kids were home early from school. "Can I go in the backyard?" the little one asked. "Of course you can," I answered without hesitation. "That giant backyard is the whole reason we moved all the way up here in the damn suburbs. You guys are supposed to be out there all afternoon until I ring the bell to call you in for dinner. See you later!" (OK, I didn't say all that, but I thought it.) He and his sister trudged outside; I figured they'd be back in 5 minutes as usual, asking for one of us to "come play."

Surprisingly, they did not come back in 5 minutes, or 10, or 15. I watched through the giant windows as the small one made a hole in the ground with a stick, then proceeded to fill it up with small pieces of debris he had found. The older one got a "digger" (small gardening spade) from the garage and began searching for buried treasure. When I realized there was a chance I could get them to do actual yard work, I headed outside to manage the labor detail.

First off, NUMBE-RETRIEVAL. Our dog Stacy likes to poop in a specific 'region' of the large yard, which is a bonus. I made a quick pass through the minefield to pick up all the refuse. I once told my husband that when the kids were big enough, he could pay them a nickel for each numbe they retrieved: he did not find this humorous. Sometimes the kids will run around locating the numbes for pickup, but today they stayed busy with their respective digging projects.

Next, WEED-REMOVAL. The yard is just coming back to life after winter, and the weeds are first on the scene. Spotting a bunch of those clover-like weeds that stab you with their stickers, I grabbed the weed-popper from the garage to start pulling them up. If I had a real sense of "doing things right the first time," I probably would have grabbed the wheelbarrow at the same time, to dump the weed-bodies as I pulled them up. Nah. As I started popping the weeds out, I threw them back on the lawn for my little helpers to handle. Once I had quite a few piles, I yelled to the kids to get going.

The same lazy kids that won't even pick their own shoes off the floor suddenly were weed-hauling machines. They're too small to handle the wheelbarrow, so they got a fertilizer spreader from the garage and used that to collect the weeds. Each of them donned gloves to avoid the weed-spikes, and away they went! I actually witnessed some fighting about who had claiming rights to certain piles of weeds. Once I started slowing down, they ran around on search-and-destroy missions, shrieking "Here's one! Here's one!" when they found weeds I had missed on the first pass. Eventually they were saddened to realize that all the stabbing weeds were indeed gone. No more weed "fun" on this day.

My husband came out at one point to help dump the weeds from the spreader. "Guess we could make them do the fertilizer," he commented. My mind flashed forward to the day when they would be old enough to do all the yard work: mowing, weeding, edging, planting, watering...free family labor at its finest!

The kids went back to their holes, until it got late and too cool to stay outside.

Coffee BRAKE Part 2: Coff-Tea

I have now seen lack of common sense and courtesy rise to a new level in regard to the office coffee station: someone today took an iced-tea bag and put it on top of old coffee grounds, then brewed it into the half-full coffee pot. 

For this occasion, laziness (throwing the bag on top of the old grounds) actually combined seamlessly with stupidity (not realizing this was a filter bag containing iced tea).  This cannot even be categorized as average stupidity, since the iced tea filter bags are located two cabinets away from the coffee pot, in a drawer with a box obviously labeled with the Lipton Tea logo. Coffee filters and coffee bags are stored in the drawers directly under the coffee pot.  Beyond all this, there are SIGNS posted above the coffee pot giving specific instruction on filters, coffee, and brewing!

Once I discovered the "coff-tea" (after filling my cup, I immediately got the unmistakable whiff of tea-odor), I considered for a moment whether I should leave it there as a sort of social experiment:  1) Will people actually drink, even enjoy, the coff-tea?  2) Will someone eventually take the action necessary to dump it out, rinse the pot, and make normal coffee? or 3) Will the coff-tea stay there through the day, with people recognizing it as undrinkable, but doing nothing?

I broke down and took care of the problem myself, of course;  not necessarily because I wanted a cup of coffee that badly, but because it just seemed wrong to let the mutant coff-tea hang around.  My friendly co-workers are always reminding me that I should help people out of their ignorant state; as a precaution against a repeat creation of the offensive liquid, I left a coffee filter and a bag of coffee right out on the counter next to the pot. Hopefully people will see this and a light bulb will pop over their head like "Oh! That's what coffee looks like!.

What we really need is a security camera in the breakroom (or even just one of those 'fake' security cameras that isn't a camera at all, just something to make people think they are under scrutiny).  We could see who flings the sugar all over, who rocks and kicks the vending machine, and most of all---who brews the coff-tea.

Laundry Life

When I was a parasite in my parents’ household, a maid did the laundry. This was "full-service" at its finest: I threw my dirty clothes anywhere in the house and by MAGIC they reappeared in my closet, clean and pressed! Missing buttons, tears—everything was handled without my even realizing it. There was a dirty-clothes hamper in the bathroom, which I occasionally managed to throw a wet towel in, of course. But for the most part, I let the dirty clothes drop wherever I undressed. Add in the pile of clean clothes that I regularly let fall to the bottom of the closet as I tried on different outfits for the day, and you will agree that I was a high-maintenance laundry "customer." (Hey, I wasn’t the only one with this laundry ethic: we were an entire family of offenders on this point.)

In college, I guess I did my own laundry. These years are somewhat blurry from the drug-and-alcohol haze, so who knows for sure. I do know that I was too lazy to clean my own towels and sheets: I signed up for a weekly linen service which only required me to stuff the dirty things into a storage locker and then retrieve the clean things later in the day. Mind you, this was still more work than I had ever done in this arena. At home, I had had bed-changing and turndown service worthy of a fine hotel, all courtesy of the same loving maid.

After college, I made my way through a series of apartments and roommates. Only at this point do I actually remember specifically traipsing to laundromats to handle the wash-and-dry of daily life. (I must add here that I had a lot of clothes, and often went shopping for something new rather than get a load of laundry together.) My roommates were very meticulous with the care of their own garments, and occasionally I could convince them to wash some of my things as well. I did try out several laundry ‘services’ but since that still required me getting the clothes together and taking them to the laundromat, it seemed about the same trouble as doing it myself.

I did have moments of laundry enjoyment during the apartment-dwelling years. I remember times when going to the Laundromat seemed like a quiet escape from the daily hectic grind. I would take a book and hang out with the soothing white noise of the machines in the background. Laundromats seem to often be situated near a convenience store, so there was a chance to grab a junk-food treat not usually available in my own pantry. In one apartment complex, the laundry room was situated right by the pool: a real "resort" laundry experience!

When I moved into a higher-end apartment with actual laundry hookups, I finally broke down and had my own washer and dryer installed. It made laundry care more convenient, of course, since I only had to drag the dirty clothes down the hall; however, I generally still postponed the chore until I literally had nothing to wear. When I had friends over, they occasionally felt sorry for me and tossed a load in.

Finally there was relief: with my marriage I got a bonus---a great husband who does laundry. I must admit, I have complained from time to time about the quality of his work (stains that weren’t pretreated, lack of bleach in the whites); he advised, "Walk out your front door and yell to the other women in the neighborhood about your complaints, and see how much sympathy you get." I backed down.

My childhood experience has obviously had a lifelong effect in my regard for this household chore. I demand laundry PERFECTION---daily wash/dry opportunities, pickup/delivery, repair, ironing, and (of course) superior quality on both whites and colors. I suppose I could take the bull by the horns and start doing the laundry myself, to ensure I would have complete customer satisfaction…but why start now after so many years?

Coffee BRAKE

What in the hell is wrong with people? The public arena is filled to the rafters with idiots who are navigating each day as the stars of the movie that is their own life. Look to the left and right at any moment, and you will find someone with no understanding of common courtesy and zero regard for what happens before and after they inhabit that exact moment in time.

In my office, there are several large public breakrooms and numerous smaller coffee/vending areas. Coffee supplies and vending machines are stocked by an outside company; coffee production is handled by the drinkers themselves.

In the past, I worked near one of the small coffee stations, which was used by members of just my immediate team. Now that I frequent a larger breakroom, I am a witness to daily violations of decency by the caffeinated set. What parents would raise their children to behave like this?

First, you have the "casual offender": this person is messy but perhaps not on purpose. They will spill the sugar and creamer on the counter, leave ripped Sweet-n-Low packages lying around, and splash coffee here and there. Never does it occur to them to grab a paper towel for a quick swipe of the space. Occasionally they leave the valve on the coffee dispenser twisted, which allows coffee to drip slowly but surely all over the place. Maybe they're just in a hurry to get back to all their hard work (yeah, right).

Next up there is the "not my problem, not my money" employee: these people will pick up a sugar or creamer canister to find it empty, yet put it right back on the counter instead of turning around and dropping it in the trash can 2 feet behind them. They grab 2 or 3 paper coffee cups and stack them together so their hands don't get too hot on the way back to the cubicle. SIDENOTE: in an attempt to curb expense, each office worker was given a company-logo ceramic coffee mug; to no avail, most people in this category are too lazy to wash their own mug and prefer to just remain in disposable-paper mode.

Worst of all are the people who truly have no concern for anyone but themselves: they fill their own coffee cup while the pot is still brewing (leaving the remaining drinkers with weak-water brew), throw used stirrer sticks all over the place, and leave their condiment-trash everywhere. These same people will leave the used coffee cup on the table in a meeting room instead of throwing it in the trash---guess they're confusing the workplace with the movie theatre.

Today I watched someone block the entire condiment area while he meticulously "seasoned" his 3-layer coffee cup. Probably five other people were standing behind him, waiting for him to get out of the way already so they could grab some sugar or creamer before getting back into their meetings. There he was, completely oblivious to everyone else, adding minute amounts of sugar and re-sampling the taste before finally (of course) flinging his stir-stick on the counter and walking off.

I walked over to get some coffee myself, then noticed some coffee grounds in my cup as it dispensed. I dumped my cup out and investigated the situation, to find that the last person to brew coffee had inserted the filter incorrectly. I threw the whole pot down the drain to start over, and the amount of coffee grounds in the bottom of the pot was amazing: it looked as if a whole pot had been brewed with no filter at all! One other employee was there and commented "Wow, that's gross" as it went down the sink drain. We both then laughed with the same sudden realization: the idiot who had monopolized the condiment area 'perfecting' his coffee must have a huge pile of grounds floating around in the cup.

Coffee JUSTICE.

Hey There

A salutation like "Hey" invariably got a return of "Hay is for horses" when I was a child. Hey was definitely at that time considered a lazy, disrespectful greeting; it gave off the impression that you had forgotten the actual name of the person you were addressing. As the years went by, I didn't have much difficulty shaking off my childood tendency to "hey" people.

Hey is back in style in a new arena: MESSAGES. With answering machines at home, and voicemail for both cellular and business users, people of all ages and walks of life have pulled hey off the shelf as the first word of every message they leave. It's immediately apparent when you have a whole boxful of messages, and you quickly scan through them, listening to only the first couple of words: "Hey, Sam, it's Evelyn..." and "Hey, Edna, just wanted to touch base with you..." and "Hey, Sam, did you find that book I loaned you?" Scan quickly through your voicemails and you get a full-throttle rush of "Hey--Hey--Hey--Hey--Hey--HEY."

When I happen to actually pick up the phone, I find that the callers do not start off with "hey"---they typically call me by my name. "Ellen, it's Susan. Did you find the book I loaned you?" So why is HEY only a popular greeting on a message? I have listened to a lot of voicemails in my day, and even the non-spontaneous ones (like the Boss reading a scripted announcement) start with hey. Now that I am super-aware of the ubiquitous HEY, it almost shocks me to get a message that starts with "This is Susan from accounting..." or "Greetings All!"

I am now a conscientous objector to HEY-messaging. I not only refuse to leave a HEY-message, I am considering escalating my protest to the next level: deleting the voicemail as soon as I hear the word. This will certainly free up a lot of time, as only 1% of the messages I get start with anything other than hey...and most of that 1% are calls from "tone" (fax machines accidentally calling my phone).

Now that I've pointed this out to you, the HEYs of your world will start to crush you down as well. JOIN THE RESISTANCE!