Some Blog Site

That headline means “toys that are annoying”, not “how to annoy toys”. I don’t know that inanimate objects can be annoyed, which makes it even more frustrating because they don’t even know or care how bothersome they can be.

Our basement is used mainly for storage. As a set of toys phases out of daily or weekly use by the kids, we will put the toys in the basement. Sometimes we will pull them out again, and the kids will be pleasantly surprised by the “new” toys, or they might remember them and be glad to play with them again.

Other times, usually as a threat an enticement to clean up a room, we will say something like “Whatever is still on the floor when I come back is going down to the basement.” The kids don’t go down in the basement by themselves (too many spiderwebs), so sending toys down there is equivalent to banishing them from the house. “Them” being the toys, not the children.

I just reinstated one toy that had been put down in the basement. It had been put down there because it wasn’t being used much, and it took a lot of floor space. But for fun, I brought it up. My wife and I quickly remembered the other reason it had quietly disappeared into the basement one night: the songs.

There are four buttons on this toy, and they play a random assortment of songs. Loud songs. Loud songs that last way too long. The buttons are touchy, so that the toy is easily set off. Not as touchy as the radio controls in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (waving a finger near them would change stations), but pretty sensitive nonetheless.

And then a thought occurred to me: we have never replaced the batteries on that thing.

So I am proposing some sort of a law, like Murphy’s Law or Muphry’s Law or something: The battery life of a toy is directly proportional to how annoying it is.

The more annoying the toy, the longer the batteries will last. The more you want something to wear out so it will stop bothering you, the more it will just keep working. Conversely, the more you like something, the more quickly its batteries will die.

“He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning,It will be reckoned a curse to him.”
– Proverbs 27:14

There are normally two times of the year that promote wistfulness: the beginning of school and Christmas.

The beginning of school is a nostalgic time because I am not in school anymore. It reminds me of all the good parts about the end of August / start of September: cross-country camp, band camp, shopping for school supplies, shopping for clothes, new football season, etc.

But I am not involved in those things anymore, other than watching football on TV. That’s not the same, though, as being in the marching band at the game, going through the pre-game drill, playing for the tunnel through which the players run, etc. The same with cross-country and all the other school activities – the “back to school” days reminds me that part of my life is past and makes me sentimental. I’ll get to go through those days again, in a different sense, once my kids are old enough to be involved in those things. Right now, with kindergarten, there’s not much as far as extra-curricular activities.

And Christmas is obvious – the nostalgia evoked by traditions, family gatherings, and the end of a calendar year make one reflect on what happened or was done during that year. The non-obvious trigger for the wow-where-did-the-year-go wistful thinking is the summer solstice. June 21st or so – the longest day of the year.

Starting in January, I begin reminding myself (subconsciously) that the days are getting longer and that reinforces the thought that the year is starting and there are oh so many things that we can do this year. I know it really starts several days earlier around December 21st, but Christmas takes priority.

Then after June 21st, the days start getting shorter. They’re still long enough so that it doesn’t really matter, but it’s the thought that counts. You know the days are getting shorter, that means the year is waning.

They should move the summer solstice, or maybe move the calendar months. Really, the longest day of the year should be in the middle of July, so that the longest days of the year are evenly distributed throughout the whole summer. Or maybe even better, move the longest day of the year to be at the end of August, so that the days start decreasing in length once school starts.

Hmm…then the warmest days of the year would be during school. Cross-country would not be fun at all because it would be during the hot season. The wool marching band uniforms would be even worse.

Never mind.

“He made the moon for the seasons;The sun knows the place of its setting.”
– Psalm 104:19

I had my first experience with government-run health care, and I am very unimpressed. No, worse than that – I am worried that anyone wants to expand this level of service.

Our oldest child will be starting kindergarten this fall. One of the state’s requirements for children starting school is that they have a vision test on record with the school.

“Not to worry,” says the local county government, “we provide free vision screenings for any county resident.” I thought that was fine, so my wife called the county to schedule an appointment.

A little background information first:

This was last week, in the first half of June. We registered our child for kindergarten back in April or so. The school district said that he was penciled in but would not be officially registered until we provided the results of the vision screening. The students are assigned to teachers in mid August, and school starts right after Labor Day, in early September.

So the county health division was glad to sign up our child for a free vision screening, but the first opening they had was August 24th, only two weeks before school started. What good is that, if I want my child to be registered before the classes are setup?

I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted to get everything set and out of the way. And I’m sure the school district wouldn’t want us to wait that long. They need to plan the classroom sizes and move teachers around if there are too few or too many students. They don’t want kids registering at the very last minute, after they have setup all the classrooms.

We called the doctor’s office. “Yes,” they said, “we offer vision screening. It should be covered by insurance, so it should be free to you.” Oh, and they could get us an appointment next week, while it is still June.

So we setup an appointment with the privately-run doctor’s office and will pay for it with our private insurance. I’m glad we have the private insurance and don’t need to use the free already-paid-for-by-my-taxes government services.

The government health department might be fine for those who really need it, but if you do use them, you need to be very prepared and schedule your appointments well before you normally would since they are so slow.

For a non-emergency situation like a vision test, it’s not that big a deal. What if there were an medical problem that needed attention? I would hope that the government service could act quickly enough to help. But so far, in both this country and others, government is big and slow. That’s fine for regulations and taxes and stuff, but not good for medical care.

“We waited for peace, but no good came;For a time of healing, but behold, terror!”
– Jeremiah 8:15

We spent some time in a touristy area last weekend, and it had an arcade. The kids enjoyed going through the arcade and playing some of the games, especially skeeball. We spent maybe $2-$4 total.

One of the games token-eating options, no matter what arcade, anywhere in the world, is always the bunch-of-tokens-in-a-pile-being-pushed-by-something game (apparently known as a “coin pusher” game). Here are some examples.

I’m always tempted to try those games because those coins are so precariously positioned that some of them just have to fall. But I know, from the couple of times long ago that I tried it, that it’s just a trap and chances are very good that the coin that I add will have no effect on the coins at the end – the ones that look like they are about to fall into the tray for me to grab.

For some reason, I thought about that today as I was trying to put a bottle back in the refrigerator. There is room at the back of the fridge, but I want to add the bottle to the front of the fridge since it’s a hassle to try to maneuver the bottle around everything that’s already in the fridge. I put the bottle at the front of the shelf and push, but nothing moves to the back of the fridge like I want. Instead, a couple of things move sideways and something falls over.

Just like the coin-pusher games (no matter how many coins you add to the back, no coins ever get pushed off the front), no matter how many items you put at the front of the fridge, the existing items never fill the back of the fridge.

Note: this applies only to the shelf that has the miscellaneous smaller items (hot sauce, water bottle, mayonnaise, A1 sauce, child’s drink from yesterday that he wanted to save but will never finish, ketchup, salsa, taco cause, soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, etc.) – our bottom shelf with the milk jugs and large items does not have this problem.

“He who tills his land will have plenty of food,But he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.”
– Proverbs 28:19

I have a new pair of shorts that I have started wearing now that the weather is warm. These shorts have a different style back pocket flap – they use Velcro hook-and-loop fasteners instead of buttons.

I like to leave the pockets unbuttoned and tuck the flaps inside the pockets.  That way, I don’t have to fight anything to get out my wallet or pull out the receipt or whatever it is I have stuck in my back pocket.  Of course, pick-pocketers have an easier time too, but that’s a risk I’ll take here in the suburbs.

The problem with these shorts – okay, so my title is somewhat misleading as they are shorts not pants but a liked the alliteration – is that the rough side of the fastener is on the outside of the shorts and the soft side is on the inside of the pocket flap.

That works fine for when the flap is closed.  But when the flap is tucked inside the pocket, the rough stuff (rough stough?) is exposed and gets caught on things.  Mainly on my shirt.  If I sit down, the bottom of my shirt becomes fastened to my shorts.  If I sit on a carpet, then my shorts become fastened to the floor.

Please, pants and shorts designers, if you’re going to put Velcro® on clothes, design them so that the rough side is on the flap.

“Yet You would plunge me into the pit, And my own clothes would abhor me.”
– Job 9:31

I started a protest and signed a petition this morning. I didn’t intend to do anything, and wasn’t even thinking about it until the situation arose.

I am no longer claiming responsibility for unsolicited pay-at-the-pump receipts. If you print out something and try to hand it to me, I will just not take it anymore. It is your receipt, you keep it.

Here’s the story: I just stopped by the usual on-the-way-to-work gas station this morning. I swiped my credit card at the pump and had to answer a couple of questions (Debit card? Y/N, Car wash? Y/N) before I could pump the gas.

While I was watching the gallons and dollars numbers increase, my attention was drawn to the receipt that was blowin’ in the wind. The two previous customers had not taken their receipts, so a strand of paper was sticking out of the gas pump. On this particular type of receipt-printing pump, the receipt does not normally protrude very much, so if you’re not expecting a receipt to print, it is easy to miss it because it is small.

My thoughts while observing this receipt and waiting for the gas to fill my vehicle were akin to these:
“Huh, two receipts still in the pump…”
“I bet the first guy didn’t even know he left his receipt in there.”
“I wonder if the second guy just left his on purpose.”
“I wish this gas station gave me an option to decline the receipt.”
“I wish I could leave my receipt here on purpose.”
“Hey, why don’t I?”

So I checked the receipts to make sure they did not show the whole credit card number. Then I empowered myself to just leave the receipt in the machine. I don’t want the receipt, why should I waste my time pulling it out of the printer and walking it over to the trash can? At some point, someone, whether it is the gas station attendant whose job is to clean and maintain the pumps or it is the customer who really does want his receipt, will tear all the receipts off the pump.

How much time and expense goes into replacing the receipt paper in the pumps and emptying the trash cans? All that could be money saved by that business with one simple change. The pumps already ask about debit cards and car washes, so I know they have the capability of asking about receipts too.

If you’re reading this, Mr. Valero, why don’t you have your gas pumps ask people if they want receipts? Because most of them don’t want them. And if you see me frequenting the Meijer gas station across the street more, and yours less, it is because Meijer lets me decline the receipt.

Consider all the names on receipts left in pumps as signatures on the petition to stop automatically printing receipts.

“We will sing for joy over your victory,And in the name of our God we will set up our banners May the LORD fulfill all your petitions.”
– Psalm 20:5

Chapter 1: Off to the Store

The kitchen lady at the local home-improvement store insulted me. I won’t say the name of the store, but the lady was wearing an orange apron.

This last weekend, I went to the store for some cabinets to put in the new laundry room. Kitchen cabinets work well above the washer and dryer, for storing bathroom, laundry, and even some kitchen supplies. We were ready to put them in, so I just needed to buy them.

I found the cabinets. We had already decided on 12″ deep and 30″ tall and 60″ wide. They don’t sell 60″-wide cabinets, but they did have some that were 30″ wide. There were three of them on a shelf, and the shelf was about as high as my waist.

The first cabinet was upside-down. The “This end up” wording was upside-down and the arrow was pointing down. Not trusting that one, I decided I wanted the two cabinets behind it. So I took the first one off the shelf and put it on my flatbed cart. Because of their size, cabinets are a little awkward to carry, but it’s not really a problem. They weigh around 40-50 lbs – about the same as the 5-year-old I had with me at the store and am used to carrying.

Chapter 2: The Plot Begins

I moved the unwanted cabinet to the end of the cart and put the first good one at the front of the cart. As I was getting ready to put the last cabinet on the cart, the lady who patrols the kitchen center stopped by.

“Do you need any help?” she asked.
“No thanks,” I replied.
“We can get someone to lift those for you.” she continued.
I responded with something like “it’s just this last one; it’s no problem.” but she would not give up.
“Well then, I will hold the cart while you put the cabinet on it.”

What was going on? I don’t like to be bothered at stores. I like to get my merchandise, buy it, and leave. And I don’t want to wait for help.

So I grabbed the cabinet and put it on the cart while she held the cart. It’s not like the cart was prone to rolling. It hadn’t budged while I put the other two cabinets on it. If the store had a policy about customers handling large items, she should have said so. And if that were the case, then why would the store put large items in the aisles for customers to take?

But she didn’t say anything about store policies, so my only other explanation is that she had lived through a really bad cart-rolling accident and has vowed that she would never let that happen again.

I wanted to show her that I knew how to lift things properly (so that she wouldn’t worry so much about me), so I used my legs and not my back when lowering the cabinet. I didn’t want to have to deal with explaining that I didn’t want the one cabinet and would be putting it back on the shelf, so I said “Okay” and waited for her to leave.

Chapter 3: The Plot Thickens

She, however, was not done yet: “Now when you check-out, there are people there who can help you load these into your car.”
“You have to be kidding!” I said to myself. Outwardly though, it sounded a lot like “Okay.”
“Just ask at the check-out, and they’ll help.”
“O-kaaay.”
“No sense in having you lifting all these things – have the young guys do the work instead.”
“What!?!” – “Okay, thanks.”

First she insults my physical capabilities and therefore my masculinity by implying that I can’t handle lifting a cabinet. Now she insults my appearance by calling me old? I am in my early 30s, and I am guessing that she was in her late 40s. So she should have known better.

If you are in customer service at all, here are some tips:

1. Don’t imply that a guy can’t do something (especially if he has already done it twice). If you must try to help him, say that it will make the task go quicker, not that it will help him.
2. If a person is old enough to have kids, never make him feel older. Always err on the side of youth. Aim for compliments, not back-handed insults.

Finally, after I started browsing for small cabinet accessories, she left. I glanced around to make sure the coast was clear, then I hoisted the upside-down cabinet back onto its shelf. All by myself. Yes, I flipped it over so it was upside-up.

Chapter 4: Free at Last

I then went over the water-softener salt section and tossed eight 40-lb bags of salt onto the cart.
With my back bent.
So there.
Okay, maybe I didn’t exactly toss them. But I did move them from the pallet to my cart.

We checked out, and I forgot to tell the cashier lady that someone was to help load my stuff in my car. I half expected that the kitchen lady had called the front of the store to have someone waiting for me, but no one said anything so I just left.

I rolled the cart to the minivan, tossed the salt in the back of the van (it actually was more of a toss this time), and put the cabinets in the middle of the van (after making sure the 5-year-old was in his car seat and buckled). No one came running out of the store to say anything, so I was home free.

In case you’re wondering, my arms and back are just fine.

“How long will you torment me And crush me with words? These ten times you have insulted me; You are not ashamed to wrong me.”
– Job 19:2-3