100,000

We just had our 100,000^th reader. Thanks folks. The number 100,000 reminds me of the “Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall” song people sing on long bus rides. (Funny, you never hear of this being sung on trains, planes or subways.) You could traverse a whole county, maybe a small state while singing that song. We sang the version with the line “take one down and pass it around”. I never understood the lyrics: like, what was the beer doing on the wall? Were there shelves? And the beer had to be warm, right, sitting on that wall? And passing around 100 bottles was incredibly unsanitary, even before Covid. And the number of beers seemed overwhelming.

But was it? Let’s do some math here. If there were typically around 45 people on a bus, 100 bottles of beer is less than 2 beers per person when one allows for spillage and breakage. And if it’s a long trip, we’re looking at one oz of beer consumed every, like, 14 miles. And I picture this beer as Coors Light or Natural Light and not the more potent micro brews. And for all we know, we might have been singing about 7 oz Little Kings bottles…

So yeah, it’s a horrible song, but, assuming the driver didn’t participate, maybe not quite as bad as you thought.

Communication Breakdown

Do you ever hear someone talking and there’s nobody else there except you so you assume they’re talking to you only to find out they’re not talking to you? Yeah, they’re talking into their phone or some similar set-up. Last week, while waiting for my flight to take off, a woman boarded late and had the window seat in my row and I had to move out into the aisle so she could get past my seat. She apologized. I said “no problem”, a typical response, only to find out she was apologizing to the person on the other end of her video chat. This is known as Inappropriate Apology Reception or IAR. It's awkward.

Where does one go with this? Should I have apologized to her for my assuming she had apologized to me even though it would have been perfectly appropriate for her to apologize to me? Do you bring this up mid-flight? “You see, I thought you were apologizing to me for making me leave my seat…” If she didn’t respond you could just pretend that you’re talking on your phone. I should caution that most people know that cell phones don’t work after the plane’s left the ground, but this strategy could perhaps best be used on a bus or train ride.

Why wouldn’t the airline just seat the window seat folks first? Is that asking too much?

Isle of Man

A friend of mine knew a guy from the Isle of Man. The isle is off the coast of Great Britain somewhere. I’ve never been to the Isle of Man. (Somebody’s gotta run this blog!) I’d like to go there and explore the Isle of Man caves. I’m guessing this is where the man cave concept originated…

But yeah, the Isle of Man man my friend knew (Man from Man?) apparently came here for a while but went back to the Isle of Man. Maybe he couldn’t blend in with normal society. He was a man among boys…

When I was in high school, our choir sang a song called “No Man is an Island”. Maybe some of you remember it. You don’t hear it any more. I think it failed the test of time. I bet some smart kid called out the choir director and asked, “What about the Isle of Man? That man is an island, or at least he has an island.” I bet the guy who wrote the song never heard of the Isle of Man…

If I owned a pharmacy, I would, in honor of The Isle of Man, name my men’s section (deodorant, shaving cream, beard colorants) The Aisle of Man. Yeah. If I ever own a pharmacy Isle do that…

Micro (Wave) Managing

 

We wrote recently about finding coins in pay phones. The only thing free I seem to find anymore is time left on the microwave. You go to use the microwave and you try to put your cooking time in and yeah, there’s already 31 seconds on the timer. Somebody pulled out their popcorn with 31 seconds to go. So yeah, the time left on the microwave would be great if you had to pay to use the microwave (like a parking meter). But the microwave is free…

It’s even worse when you consider how fast the microwave cooks something. You really should take some of that time you saved and cancel the remaining cooking time when you leave the microwave. Somebody needs to invent the microwave that alerts you when you haven’t cancelled your remaining time…   

Besides, the amount of time you find on the microwave is never the amount you need anyway. Nobody’s ever said “I needed 31 seconds on the microwave and 31 seconds was already set for me”. No. I’ve never heard that, have you? This is not a “pay it forward” type of thing (“Somebody left me 31 seconds so I’m leaving 31 seconds for the next guy…”). No.

Only the Shadow Knows

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about job shadowing. That’s where a new employee follows you around on your job all day. I think it’s a great concept because the person being followed actually has to work. He or she can’t do their normal routine of hanging out at the water cooler or going for coffee or whatever it is they do all day. No three martini lunches. Folks, this concept has nothing to do with the new employee; it’s about making the veteran employee work.

Let’s take it to the next level and have some job shadowing of the people who “work from home”.
Let’s see how hard these people “working from home” really work. Let’s see if they even get dressed!

Sometimes? Why?

My wife and I were talking about vowels the other day.  A, E, I, O, U. And sometimes Y. Sometimes? That’s too vague. Let’s come up with a percentage of how often Y is a vowel. C’mon! We have the technology. Doing this would assist those trying to learn our difficult English language. I’m guessing that with all the adverbs we have Y is usually a vowel. But I've never seen verification.

Wouldn’t it be easier to teach students new to the language that the vowels are A, E, I, O, U and 81% of the time Y (or whatever we determine the percentage to be)?  The other 19% of the words (where Y is a consonant) could be handled as one off exceptions.  

The word “yield”, for example, could be taught in driver’s ed in the roundabout chapter.

Name Brand

My dry cleaner is very personable. The employees learn everyone’s name. You don’t have to give your name when you go in to pick up your clothes. Been this way for years. It’s a nice touch. ‘Til now. They hired a new woman who doesn’t know everyone’s name yet – I get that. But I was in there last week waiting for her to retrieve my shirts (after I had provided her my name) and a woman came in with a little dog. First of all, why is a dog in the dry cleaner? I personally am against dog hair on my clothing. But no, there’s more. The clerk knew the dog’s name! “Hi Charley!” the clerk shrieked as the woman came into the shop. I asked if the dog was a paying customer (it wore a little jacket thing). The clerk said, no, they did not dry clean Charley’s jacket. (Yes, I’ll admit, it’s none of my business knowing where a dog gets his jacket cleaned. But I was trying to make a point.)

I have a plan to help this woman learn my name. I have a name tag I can pin to my coat. I’m going to wear it into the dry cleaner the next 5 times or so I go in there. Come mid-April, I’m going to stop wearing it and see if she remembers my name.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll leave some pictures of my late dog in my dirty shirt pocket. At least she’ll learn the name of my dog…