A Drip in the Night

We’ve had plumbing problems at home this week.

It’s been disorienting to stumble into the bathroom at 5 a.m. to brush my teeth and to be shocked by running water splashing around my ankles.

This puts Alf into a panic. Computers are his field, not pipes.

Our solution: buy another vanity. 

We went to Lowe’s armed with tape measures. We looked professional. We measured the vanities on display. We chose a very circumspect one, cherry brown with a white marble top. We hunted down a live sales person. He checked the inventory on the computer. It said they had two in the store. He began to look. Up and down the aisles he went. Nothing. Finally I asked him what the product number was, and now there were two of us, and then three with Alf. We stretched our necks searching for box # 400897 at a height of an eagle in a tree. Several strained necks later we returned to the computer to discover it had lied to us. There were two vanities, but one was a return because it was damaged, and the other was the display we had measured. How many others had measured it, kicked it, and shimmied it? We were not going to buy that one, but I was tempted to ask if we could get a discount on it. Nope, I didn’t do it. Our salesman was not to be daunted, so he called another store, and found a new one. So we put it on hold, dashed over there, confirmed they had told the truth, and paid for it.

This took the better part of the morning.

Our wonderful neighbor, a whiz at fixing all things broken and a truck owner, picked up the vanity with Alf and dragged it into the house. Like a moth to a flame, Ed’s attention was immediately drawn to the problem with the old vanity. After examining it he declared he could fix it. Why spend $400 on a new vanity when he could fix the old one for $32. So off he went to the hardware store, chose new parts, came back and got to work. What should have been a few hours turned into two days, with several additional trips to the store, but when he finished I had brand new, shinny silver pipes guaranteed never to leak a drop of water on me again no matter what time of day or night. Then Ed and Alf schlepped the new Lowe’s wonder back to the store to be returned to its black hole in the sky.

Calvin says, “You guys are ridiculous. What’s wrong with the hose out in back and one of the trees to pee on?”  

 

 

 

 

A Little Child Shall Lead Them

I had an interesting ride home on the subway this week.

My car was packed. Lots of people standing. A young mother and her child in a stroller came on. She positioned herself by the door and hung on.

In no time flat her baby boy, no more than 2 years old, began bellowing.

She ignored him.

His voice got louder.

The mother looked down at him and just stared.

The child began to yell. Big goldfish tears ran down his cheeks.

Mom stood there motionless.

Tension was rising in the car.

The kid was screaming even louder.

Out from between people’s legs a little girl, dressed in a pink hat, emerged and stood in front of the boy. She looked up at the mother as if to say, “Aren’t you going to take care of this?” She held in her hand a large opened bag of Cheetos and offered it to the boy. 

Instantly he was quiet.

He shoved his arm into the bag, extracted a Cheetos, and began to chew on it.

The little girl disappeared.

Mom never said a word.

The subway car made it’s routine stops, people got off, the crowd thinned out, a seat became vacant and mom sat down.

The little girl appeared again and offered the boy some more Cheetos. He plunged his arm into the bag and retrieved another one.

Mom never said a word.

I went back to my book and when I looked up again, Mom and son had gotten off the subway.

I’m not going to comment on the mother. For all I know she wasn’t the mother, but a babysitter. Or if she was the mother, she was in a frightful state of mind. Probably numb from the struggles of life. And in her shoes I would have reacted in the same manner.

What did make an impact was how a simple gesture of kindness can affect a whole lot of people.

It also showed me how powerful a child can be in the midst of a tense-filled moment.

Calvin says, “If I had been there that little girl and I would have wolfed down that bag of Cheetos together, tossing the occasional one to that boy.”

A Soul For Sale

A dialogue between two women in a restaurant. The tables were so close I couldn’t help eavesdrop.

“Someone’s selling her soul on eBay.”

“Does she have a good rating?”

“Yea, people are bidding.”

“What format is it in?”

“She just got out of a coma.”

“Is that with free shipping?”

“She’s crying for help.”

“Does eBay allow therapy?”

“All those gurus. There would be a bidding war.”

“Can you reach her by email?”

“I think so.”

“Write this poor soul before the bidding closes.”

Calvin says, “Hey, that’s an idea. Instead of donating my nose to science when I die, I’ll sell it on eBay. The bidding wars would skyrocket.”

How To Talk To a Spoiled Dog

Dear Calvin,

Did you get any responses for a new owner?

They’d be crazy to take you on.

You’re spoiled. Pampered. Set in your ways.

Opinionated. (That’s an understatement.) Stubborn. (Another understatement.)

You don’t listen. Obey is a foreign word to you.

You hate baths.

You eat too much.

Your breath smells.

Those are the things I love best about you.

You’re a full blown personality in fur and floppy ears.

Life would be dull without you.

Walks would be a bore without you tugging at your leash. I could let you off-leash, but that’s where the obey thing comes into play. I’ve given you plenty of lessons on how to come back to me when I call, but you usually have other plans, and scare the hell out of me while you disappear under fences, through neighbors’ backyards, and across streets in search of that wild thing your nose tells you is in the neighborhood. (It’s a child in a dirty diaper.)

You think somebody else will put up with your antics? Ha!

So you stick to your opinions and I’ll stick to mine.

We’ll continue to get along just fine.

Calvin says, “Touché. How’s that for a foreign word, eh? All right. I’ll cancel my ad in the classifieds.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Oh. Calvin Sounds Off.

I wasn’t my perky self today.

Maybe I’m not perky, but that’s my vision of myself. I strive to live up to it.

Today I was feeling blue.

A lot of drama going on with my relatives including health problems, relationship break-ups, worries about the future. I was thinking about all these when a colleague of mine popped in the door in my office.

“What’s new with you?” Agnes said.

“Oh, you know, the usual drama – health, romance, money,” I said.

“That’s nothing,” she said with a laugh. “In my family, I have people in prison, people that should be in prison, a daughter who’s running a muck, my dog is costing me a fortune in meds every month –  I look at him and think, I should put wheels on him, he’s more expensive than a new car. Then there’s my husband with the implants in his mouth, except they can’t put them in until his mouth heals from the infection he has. I squeeze his cheeks and say, ‘That’s my new car in there.'”

Then she gave me a hug.

“Feel better now?” she said and walked out.

Hmm…I was feeling better after hearing what she has to live with.

Then the thought hit me. I made her feel better, too by giving her an opportunity to download her life for a moment.

Glad I could listen.

Calvin says, “Her attitude toward her dog stinks. We work our tails off being good companions. We devote ourselves to listening, to loving, to obeying you. Well, maybe not to obeying – hey, nobody’s perfect – and this is the thanks we get? Where’s the devotion back? I thought this was a lifetime commitment. From breeder to the grave, that sort of thing. I’m hurt. Truly hurt. This revelation is shocking. I expected better. And don’t try buttering me up by tossing me a bone or taking me for a walk to my favorite place where all the trash cans are. I’m offended. Does anybody out there want an opinionated beagle?”

Online Dating Is Not For Wimps

Getting married used to be a simple thing. You lived in a village all your life, and when it was time to find a spouse, Aunt Sadie, the village matchmaker was only too happy to oblige.

The village is now the world.  Aunt Sadie is an online dating site that fulfills a similar role, but in a less quirky way. If you don’t like the looks and sounds of someone, you move on. After all he was only a photograph with a few descriptive lies, not a real person. I suppose the same happened back in the village, but in that instance you ran the risk of bumping into him the next day at the county hog races.

Finding a mate is not for the fainthearted. It takes finesse, timing, the right circumstances to come together, and plain sheer grit.

I asked a friend of mine, a perennial bachelor who continues to comb the online dating scene for hopefuls, what he does when he is hurt and in pain over not finding the right person. “I tell myself God loves me much more than all these losers,” he said with a laugh.

“Even at your age when you behave like a dejected 17-year old?” I asked.

“We’re all 17-years old inside. And it doesn’t get any better as you get older either,” he said.

And he ought to know. He’s been looking for a wife forever.

The truth is I know many couples who met online and they have happy marriages.

It’s the ones who are still hopeful that I feel for.

Sometimes the search is aggravating and unbearable.

Calvin says, “Do what I do. I dig up an old bone to re-acquaint myself with it. Then bury it under your pillow so I have something to keep me entertained while you search on your iPad.”

A Network To You

There’s a new app people are downloading to their smart phones these days. It alerts you to busybodies, bully bosses, and ex-lovers who are in the same vicinity as you. Then you can decide to call them and meet for drinks. Or not.

Why, I wonder, are phones called smart? Were they dumb before? Everything on your phone you either installed yourself or somebody in a factory in China did. I’m waiting for the day when you speak into your phone and tell it to have the nachos and beer waiting when you get home. And if it can arrange for somebody to walk the dog and vacuum the rug, even better.

It seems there’s a new app coming out every week claiming a better social media experience. Since the dawn of the human race, people have wanted to connect. I get that. It used to be smoke signals at first, and now it’s texting. However, I think there was more of a story in a smoke signal than there is in a text message. Getting a few sound bytes from your friend in Finland does not make a meaningful conversation. Or maybe it does these days? You’ve reached out and touched someone, even if for a nano second, and that’s what it’s all about. Somebody thought about you, typed a few letters, and pressed “send.”

Calvin says, “That’s pathetic. A meaningful conversation is when you’re gnawing on a bone together with your best friend.”