The Junk Drawer

These are trying times. Kathy has no words. A whopping ten drafts in her queue and nothing worthy of posting.

I think if I don’t post something today, nothing will ever get posted again, the Junk Drawer will close shop and you guys will loiter outside wondering what the hell happened.

I have to get something on the page to kick start me out of this funk I’m in.

Come back in a couple days if this post bores you to tears. I’m about to tell you about my weekend:

1. I fell asleep on the couch at 5PM yesterday and awoke at 8PM thinking it was the next day already. I slept hard. I even had full, movie-length dreams. In one of them, I was standing in a reception line at a political function, holding hands with Henry Kissinger. Discuss.

2. I worked all day Saturday, brought a lunch, but ate it before 10AM. So the rest of the day I took from the other junk drawer in my life and gave myself a headache, a stomachache and left work on such a sugar high I don’t remember how I got home.

3. My husband cleaned the bathrooms, God bless him, but broke the toilet seat off one of the toilets. How is this possible? Broke an entire toilet seat off its hinges? Men, if you’re going to help clean the house, don’t do it in the manner you would, say, play football. Cleaning a toilet needn’t be a race nor a destructive act. It just needs to be wiped down — gently.

4. In the process of preparing to send DrowseyMonkey her prize magnet for having the fattest head, I got sidetracked researching whether I can mail it with U.S. postage or if I have to take it to the post office to get international postage put on it. I tried Googling for the answer to this simple question, but could not find a satisfactory one. I’m too embarrassed to ask Drowsey, so I’ll just head to the post office tomorrow where I’m sure a clerk there will tell me what a moron I am.

5. I didn’t have the energy to fix something that’s been bugging me for a month. Our wall clock is stuck at 4 o’clock. We don’t know why because the batteries are fine. The pendulum below the clock face continues to swing to and fro. I meant to check on why it’s malfunctioning, but now I’m getting really used to it being 4 o’clock all the time. Four happens to be my favorite number, so I’m keeping it.

6. Since I took such a long nap yesterday, I couldn’t get to sleep until midnight last night. But my body always, always gets up between 4AM-5AM, which means I’m running on fumes right now. I’m sorry. This is the kind of post you get on fumes.

Forgive me for having to post such lame material, but this was the prescription for funkitis and it had to be done. Pray I’m funkless tomorrow.

Night.

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Anyone who works in an office environment comes to expect certain things:

1. Staff will always be a little slow-moving on Monday mornings.

2. Meetings will always run later than expected.

3. No one ever wants to make the next pot of coffee.

4. The copy machine needs paper the second you’re about to use it.

5. Staff don’t clean the kitty litter box often enough, which is a shame because everyone knows cats will go anywhere they please when it’s not kept spotless.

Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.

My sister Marlene works at what I thought was a cat-free, poo-free insurance company. When she sent it to me, the first thing I wrote her was “You’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

She reported back, “We found it in our office this morning. No one knows how it got there.”

I replied, “Who disposed of it, and more importantly, can I blog about it?”

Marlene replied, “One of the guys picked it up and Gina sprayed Bath & Body Wash on the spot, but we have no Lysol….Yes, you can blog about it, in fact, the lunch bunch said you would have a field day with this….”

She and her colleagues have two theories:

1. A cat or other animal got in somehow - maybe Louie - he’s a cat that roams outside. Somebody in one of the buildings of our industrial park feeds him, but he’s allowed to roam.

2. The cleaning people brought their pet.

My money’s on Louie. All I’m gonna say is they should be real happy that Louie left his calling card in an obvious, open space. Otherwise, I’d hate to be the poor soul who sits down at his desk Monday morning, bleary-eyed from the weekend, only to find a fresh Tootsie Roll next to the keyboard.

What’s that saying? All the world’s your litter box?

Oh, and God bless the person who thought to take this picture. I love that it was the first thing someone did before cleaning it up. There’s a Junk Drawer magnet for you if you want it.

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Ahhh, bathroom issues at work. We either hear something we don’t want to hear, or see something we don’t want to see.

The two bathrooms nearest my office are single-use. You have to lock the door behind you because the only toilet inside has no privacy wall around it. The room has just the toilet, a chair, a sink and a trash can. And the toilet is at the farthest point from the door.

If you forget to lock the door, you’re in serious trouble. If someone comes in, unless you can cross the space-time continuum, there’s no way you can slam it shut before they see you.

Someone forgot to lock the door.

Here’s a run-down of the voice mail I got from a colleague who walked in on some poor sap.

Kath, the opposite of my worst fear happened to me. I walked in on a dude in the bathroom who didn’t lock the door. He was totally exposed, man. Just an island out there. He was an older dude. I don’t know who it was.

As I’m shuttin’ the door, I’m like “You gotta lock the door, dude!” He’s like “I know! I’m sorry!” Usually I’m scared I’m on the opposite end of that, totally prone! Dude. It was crazy. God! I have a 2:00 meeting. I gotta go. God!

When I met up with him later, he told me that in the split second he was witness to the horror, he could tell the guy was hunkered down for a long visit. He had the chair pulled up in front of the bowl and was reading! On the toilet! At work? The hell???

I will never understand why a man will take reading material into a bathroom at work, plan to stay a while, and forget to lock the door. Maybe he was so excited about the latest Wall Street Journal, locking the door slipped his mind?

When I use the ladies room, I probably check the lock four different times before I’m sure I’m safe. If someone walked in on me, I’d have to find a new job. I could never go back.

And let’s not forget there were two victims here. The obvious one, but also my colleague, whose eyes are still burning from the vision. No matter how brief the encounter, he’ll probably never forget it.

For the love of God, check the lock once, twice, three times if you have to. I’m not sure post-traumatic stress disorder is covered under my benefits plan.

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All too often I’m complaining about something. If you heard that’s what happens here, sorry to disappoint you for today.

The thing is it snowed last night. Not a blizzard, but enough snow to make the prospect of shoveling it unappealing to my husband Dave and me. We’re off work today and really wanted to kick back and relax. The more it snowed, the more our backs instinctively started hurting.

The plan was to watch the forecast and estimate the best time to go out, between when the snow was expected to stop and when the sleet was expected to start.  We had another hour to complain about work neither of us wanted to do.

Just then Dave heard some kids walking up towards the house. Kids with shovels. Five of them. In the ten years we’ve lived in this house, we never had kids come by to offer to shovel for us. I figured that was an activity today’s youth wanted no part of, or their parents were afraid to send them out the door to strangers’ homes. I thought what a sad sign of the times. As kids, Dave and I shoveled for money. All our friends shoveled for money. Doesn’t anyone want to shovel for money anymore?

Before the kids even rang our doorbell, Dave handed me 25 bucks. “Here, this should be enough for the driveway.”  I opened the door and before the kid could even say anything, I thrust the money at him and said “Is this enough for the driveway?” The look on his face was priceless. Red-cheeked from the cold and eyes wide open, he said “Yeah!! Thanks!!”

When he turned around, he waved the cash at his buddies and their faces lit up. They got crackin’ immediately.

Before they got halfway done, Dave asked me “Do we have any more cash laying around? We should ask them to do the back sidewalk.”

I frowned. I only had about three bucks in my purse and he only had eight more singles. I cursed the fact that I almost never have cash on me, since I prefer to use my debit card at stores. I considered writing a check. Dave and I discussed how stupid it would be to write a check to a child. I suggested we write it to one of the kids’ mothers, but then that seemed too weird. Dammit!!! We need more cash! And, hurry! They’re almost done with the driveway!

After nixing the check idea, we did the only thing we could do. We raided the change jar for quarters. There we stood, counting out enough quarters to round out to 20+ more bucks. As dumb as it felt to give them a pound of change and some bills, money is money. I hardly think they would care. They didn’t.

I opened the door and yelled “Hey guys? Is twenty good for the sidewalk?”

They shouted back, “Yeah! Cool!” And off they went. We had ourselves our own little snow-shoveling chain gang and now we didn’t have to get bundled up, get wet and cold or break our backs on what looked like very heavy snow.

When they were done, the leader of the group returned to tell me they were finished and to thank me for the money. No, thank you!

God bless you, Chain Gang. Your parents should be proud that you’re not afraid to sweat for a few bucks. I didn’t think I’d ever see that sight for the rest of my life. I hope I see them again next year. I’m pretty sure after making almost 50 bucks for a half hour’s work, those kids will remember our address.

“Y’all come back now, ya hear!”

So do any of you see kids shoveling for money (or maybe for nothing) in your neighborhoods? Or do I just live in a really lazy section of town?

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One would reasonably expect that if you entered a restroom at work that your private activities would be between only you and the toilet bowl. Not in our building.

A couple of months ago our restrooms were outfitted with the Kimberley-Clark Professional Toilet Paper Dispenser. It’s a fine toilet paper dispenser. Except for one thing.

Every time someone pulls paper from the rolls, something inside the dispenser shakes and shimmies so loudly, it sounds like machine-gun fire. How do we know? Our suite is located on the other side of the wall and the walls are paper thin.

What does this mean for us? Well, we get to hear every single time someone is about to …. er …. take care of the cleaning end of business. Once or twice a day wouldn’t bother me and my office mates, but our office is located next to a very popular, conveniently-located bathroom. Everybody uses it.

Yesterday I counted how many times we got to hear someone …. er …. get spring fresh. Thirty one times.

If you’re a regular reader here, you know I have issues with annoying noises and this is no different.  In fact, it’s worse than any of the other annoying noises because those aren’t attached to a private bodily function.

We’ve considered hanging a sign on the dispenser that reads: “Please pull paper gently. We can hear you.” But that will only serve to freak people out and we’re not that cruel. I decided the best thing to do is ask our Facilities Services staff to send someone over to either remove it and replace it with a quieter model.

Here’s the request I submitted:

The mens (Rm336) and ladies restroom (Rm334) toilet paper dispensers are incredibly loud. Everyone in our suite can hear whenever someone is in there. We never heard anything with the old type dispenser. It’s embarrassing to hear it all day, and so loud it disturbs our work. Hanging a sign “Please be quiet. We can hear you.” is not an option. Can they be removed, or fixed to be silenced? Thanks.

What happened today? A service repairman showed up in my office and asked “You the woman who reported a loud toilet paper dispenser?” Responding the only way I knew how to the most ridiculous question ever uttered in the English language, I said “Um. Yeah. Sorry.”

He and I then proceeded to discuss the problem at hand. I made him walk over to the kitchenette which is opposite the restrooms. I told him if he stood there for five minutes, he was sure to hear it. Every single time someone is in the bathroom, without fail, we get the noise.

I was really glad that one of my office mates, Jason, showed up to confirm to the nice man that indeed we are subjected to loud toilet paper rolling. We both explained that not only were we jarred by this loud noise, but that I could actually feel the vibrations from it under my feet if I stood near the shared wall.

That’s when he looked at us and said “It’s highly doubtful it’s the TP dispenser then.” Though it did just occur to us that it would be beyond bizarre to actually feel its vibration through the floor, we insisted we test our theory about the dispenser and MAKE it make the noise.

So off Jason went to the men’s room. “I’ll go nuts on the thing and I know you’ll hear it.”  The serviceman and I stood and waited as I grew increasingly embarrassed at having drug this guy over to our office to listen to our bathroom noise. I asked him if this was the stupidest job he ever got assigned and he said “Yeah, pretty much.”

Jason did like he said and went ballistic on the dispenser. The only problem was it didn’t sound like the noise we’ve been hearing. He ran back over and reported that it wasn’t the right noise. So I suggested it was the ladies room dispenser. Off I went to “fake pee” and do a number on the toilet paper. What I fast realized is it cannot possibly be this dispenser because you can barely get two good sheets out of the thing, much less pull down real hard so that the rollers shake and shimmy. I returned to the office deflated. “That’s not it!”

The serviceman who’d been humoring us all this time gave his assessment: “I think there’s air in the water lines. I’ll take a look.” He suspected that every time someone turned on the faucet to wash their hands, water and air ran through the lines and caused the noise. Just as we were getting over our embarrassment, we all heard THE noise. “Yep. It’s your water lines.” He rooted around in the maintenance closet, while I returned to my office with my tail between my legs. Whatever he worked on silenced the noise.

So it turns out our co-workers are not violent toilet paper grabbers after all, and we are the stupidest people on the planet. Thank God I never hung that note.

——-

Other humor bloggers are way smarter than me.

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No one has to tell me I’ve gained weight this year. Not that anyone would dare say that to my face, or they’d have a mouthful of Chicklets for teeth.

And not that I don’t recognize what happened to my body over the last 12 months. I see it every day in the mirrors I haven’t already thrown a drape over.

But as so often happens with weight gain, you tend to ignore the obvious and just buy bigger clothes. Last week, my butt decided to publicly and rudely remind me of just how big it’s gotten. It almost injured a person.

The date: Friday, January 4.

Where: In a seminar room at work. I was about to give a presentation to a group of graduate students, who had just begun filing in at the door next to the instructor’s station.

How it happened: As I was preparing materials and kicking equipment cables out of the way, I backed up into the line of students and my butt nearly jettisoned a petite, twenty-something woman past the coat rack, through a wall and into the next room.

I. was. mor-ti-FIED. One, because my body was capable of almost knocking someone to the floor, and 2) because SHE apologized to ME. Oh, please don’t say you’re sorry. I almost killed you.

For those of you who think I’m exaggerating, I swear on a stack of Twinkies I’m not. The scale doesn’t lie. I’ve gained 25 pounds since last December. Twenty-three of them went straight to my butt, and the other two went to my face: one pound to Chin #1 and the other to Chin #2.

This bizarre distribution is because I have one of those pear-shaped bodies. I’m two sizes bigger on the bottom than I am on the top. I look pretty much the same in my blog photo as I did when it was taken about a year ago. It’s the lower half of me that needs work.

So what to do? I’m not averse to exercise, but it’s much harder to get outdoors and walk in the winter. I prefer walking as exercise over anything else. My plan is to try and burn calories indoors, at work, so I don’t have to walk in the cold and darkness at night.

Here’s the plan I’ve devised:

1. I’ve begun to stand at my desk while working. So that I’m not hunched over while typing on my laptop, I stuck a box under it so that it’s at waist-level and easier to work. It looks stupid, but I’m considering alternatives.

2. A friend sent me some information about JARM-ing, (J)ogging with your ARMS, an upper-body exercise you can do anywhere. Basically, I’m flexing and flailing my arms around in the privacy of my own cubicle and burning extra calories while doing it. It looks a little goofy, but I’ll take goofy over fat any day of the week.

3. No more junk food, especially not take-out. My husband and I like to order take-out on Friday nights. And Mondays. And Thursdays. And weekends. When he asked yesterday if we could get cheeseburgers and cheese sticks, I replied “No. We’re not doing that anymore.” Simple as that. I’m pretty militant about my plan. He has no choice but to lose weight with me. He’ll thank me later.

Although this “standing while working” thing has its benefits (you burn about 100 calories an hour vs. 40 if you’re just sitting), standing so long will hurt you in some way. The first day I tried it, I did it for six of nine hours and started to get short stabbing pains in my lower back.

Tweaks to the plan:

1.  When a colleague saw what I was doing, he promptly yelled at me “You can’t do that in THOSE shoes.” So now I wear supportive sneakers when I’m not meeting with clients.

2. I mentioned my crazy plan to my sister, who promptly yelled at me “You can’t do that! You probably have a quarter inch of carpet over a concrete floor! You need a special mat for that!” A special standin’ and flailin’ mat?

So I’m off this weekend to shop for a couple things. One, something else to put my laptop on, so I can get rid of the cardboard box it’s currently sitting on. And two, a “special mat,” whatever that might be. I need to find something that a chair can roll over for times when I need to sit down and rest.

Is my plan working? Most definitely. I’ve lost three pounds this week. I’m not going for quick weight loss, although I know how to do that (I once lost 7lbs in one week on The Survivor Diet, eating nothing but rice and water. It works, but it’s unsustainable. Plus, I think it can kill you.) The loss has to be gradual, the way it went on. I accept that, despite wanting to get rid of this big butt by next Wednesday.

If you’d like to share creative diet and exercise tips that work for you, drop a comment in the drawer. I’m open to crazy.

——-

Humor-blogs has some fine butts, I’ve heard.

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Yesterday I had to take my car to the dealer and pay $400 to have a mechanic turn off a bright yellow malfunction light in my dashboard. That’s what I think when I take my car to the shop. "A light came on in the dashboard. I don’t know what it means. But make it go away."

I know the technicians root around in my car’s innards and do something. Whatever they do makes the light go off and that’s what I pay the money for. If you’re a mechanic, don’t waste your energy trying to explain it to my pea brain.

When I found out it would take the whole day to fix, I asked if they could give me a loaner to drive to work. They didn’t have loaners, but they offered a shuttle service to anywhere within 15 miles.

I wrote my name on the sign-up sheet and soon after, the shuttle driver collected me and three other carless people, and we all piled into a van. Excellent! I’ll be at work in no time at all. Or so I thought.

We exchanged pleasantries and got settled in, only to smell trouble immediately as our driver fumbled with his papers, mumbled to himself, and stumbled into gear. It was apparent we’d gotten the Don Knotts of shuttle drivers and this would be no ordinary trip. I fastened my seatbelt. HARD and SURE.

I shall refer to him now as Worse Than Me. Regular readers know that I’m the most directionally-challenged person to get behind the wheel of a car. Our driver wishes he were only as challenged as I am.

Worse Than Me had no plan, couldn’t read street names, and didn’t appreciate helpful instructions from his passengers. They only seemed to anger him ("I know where I’m going!") To add insult to injury, he TALKED ALL THE TIME. Sometimes to us. Sometimes to himself.

Worse Than Me chatted up the poor soul who got into the front seat with him. It went something like this:

So we’ll take you first since you’re close I know the back roads and you’ll have to tell me if you need a ride home and oh boy it’s been busy the last few days I had six people to deliver to work yesterday and all of them wanted to get there right away because everybody wants to get dropped off first you know and sometimes I have only one person in the morning but today is an average day with the four of you sometimes I have a lot of people to pick up at night the shop closes at 5 o’clock but sometimes I’m still out driving at 6 o’clock the mechanics leave at 5 o’clock but customers can pickup their cars until 8 o’clock so which building do I have to drop you off at?

Wow.

He did not take a breath.  He wasn’t expecting responses. More importantly, he wasn’t exactly watching the road.  And then his cell phone rang. Oh, dear God. Please don’t answer that.  Luckily, it rang only once and he never got to pick it up.  Eyes on the road, buddy. Eyes on the road.

Worse Than Me keeps talking to Poor Soul #1 all the way to the first drop-off point. I have remained silent thus far and intend to stay that way, even if I’m the last person to be dropped off. I’m kind of into him concentrating on his driving and the not-getting-in-an-accident part of this expedition.

When we get to Poor Soul #1’s workplace, he exits the van and now the driver has to figure out how to get Poor Soul #2 to her destination, a house in the middle of nowhere.

We continue through towns I’ve heard of, then through towns I haven’t. Traffic gets thinner and thinner and I don’t know where I am. Neither does Worse Than Me. Poor Soul #2 tries her best to direct him to her house and a very long discussion ensues about where he’ll find the Burger King he needs to turn at.

Apparently the driver thinks he knows where to turn, but Poor Soul #2 has to correct him at almost every intersection. He argues with her about which way to go, despite her objections about the path he’s taking. She indicates there is a much faster route, but he repeatedly states "I don’t want to mess up." All I’m thinking is — Then let her help you! I’m very uncomfortable at this point because two people who have just met each other are arguing already. This does not bode well.

Poor Soul #2 abandons her effort to guide our driver and let’s him do whatever he wants. He mumbles something about "I know all the back roads from when I was a kid," and Poor Soul #2 announces "You know, I’m really not feeling well and I can’t comprehend what you’re saying to me." I laugh very loud at that in my head.

We eventually make our way to Poor Soul #2’s house in the boondocks and she quickly slips out of the van, to presumably go inside and scream her head off. I consider briefly getting out with her, pretending I live there, too. I could have always called a cab from there. Darn! Why did I think of that just now?

I allow her to exit the van, and against my better judgement, I get into the empty front seat. I’m now inches from the driver, but I’m still silent and I don’t plan on making eye contact. My only fear now is that he’s dropping off Poor Soul #3 next, and I’ll be left alone with him in my quiet misery.

My fear washes away as Worse Than Me announces he taking me to work next. Poor Soul #3, a woman in the back seat, sighs "Oh my God. We were closer to where I work when we were back at the first place. By the time I get to work, my car will be done!"

Worse Than Me says nothing and proceeds to drive further east towards my workplace and much further from Poor Soul #3’s destination. I silently pity her, as I realize that she’s going to be alone with him for another hour, at least.

I’m blessed that our driver knows how to get to South Mountain, which is about two miles from where I work. This means I can continue my vow of silence and not have to give him directions from Timbuktu. I have absolutely no idea where I am at this point. I ask myself repeatedly whether I should have just stayed back at the dealer and waited for my car right there in the shop, instead of here in Wayward Van.

Traveling past more places the driver recalls from his childhood ("I remember that park from when I was a kid." "I remember that’s where I used to hunt as a kid." "I remember that little house from when I was a kid."), we finally approach South Mountain and I realize it’s time to speak soon. I have to tell him which street to turn on at the base of the mountain.

On approach I finally utter three words: "Turn right here."  Worse Than Me jabbers away about how he remembers dropping off some passengers at one of the big buildings on campus and asks me when they put up that sculpture near the front of it. I reply without opening my mouth, "I-hmm-no" (translation: "I don’t know.")

I give up a couple more words: "Turn here." We have two more blocks on the journey, and I insist I won’t speak any more than is absolutely necessary, so I just wave him on with my hands. We approach my stop and I allow a final word to escape: "Here."  I have successfully been driven to my destination, not engaged the driver once, and said less than ten words in 57 minutes. I don’t know any monks who could do that.

As I reach for the door handle and Poor Soul #3 prepares to make her transition to the front seat, I look at her with all the sympathy I can muster. I silently mouth the words "Good luck" as I step onto the curb. She looks at me with a pained expression, her eyes the size of saucers.

All I could do was wish her well for the next hour I’m sure it’ll take her to get 20 miles west of here. I half expected her to put her hands up on the inside of the window as they drove away, in a Edvard Munch-esque silent scream and a face that said "Save me." But I never looked back. I didn’t have the courage. I failed as a human.

Godspeed, Poor Soul #3. Godspeed.

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The Junk Drawer has undergone some serious cosmetic surgery today and is in recovery. I’ve been in the process of moving to WordPress and things went a little haywire for several hours today.

My blog’s appearance may change over the next few days, so bear with me. My old backlinks also do not work, but will be repaired in the next day or so.

Please check back for a new look and new posts soon!

UPDATE 12/12: This is my site’s final look. If I kept searching for a theme that was perfect, I wouldn’t be done until January.

This theme has most of the features I needed, won’t require too much tweaking, and so it got the thumbs-up. I hope you like it, too!

I still need to resolve some issues with links and RSS feeds. Thanks for your patience.

Junk Drawer Management

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Dear Poopy Head Truck Driver:

I know you didn’t mean it when you had an accident on the bridge I cross to get to work. But I just have to tell you what you were responsible for this morning.

1. You made me 45 minutes late for work.

2. You made about 2,500 other people 45 minutes late for work. That means the world lost 1,875 man hours of work, about a year’s worth of a typical job.

3. You forced me to look death in the eye and try crazy stunts to shoot off the last exit before the bridge in an effort to get away from the traffic jam.

4. You made it so that 1,000 other drivers tried the same thing and caused us to get in a second traffic jam on side roads.

5. You made my office have to make a pot of Disney Mickey Mouse coffee that’s been in the refrigerator for about a year, since I had the supply of new coffee in my car.

6. You caused all the people who could finally get moving again to gun the accelerator and violate every driving rule known to man, trying to make up lost time.

7. You made me hate the innocent cyclist who I saw whiz by me at one point, getting to his destination on time.

8. You made a thousand people, who just finished their morning coffee, wish for a Port-o-Potty on the side of the road.

I hope you totaled your truck, don’t have insurance and have to take a bus to work for a month. I hope you were cited and fined for your incompetence. I hope everyone flipped you off when they made it past your stupid accident. You should be lucky they didn’t kill you. I know I wanted to.

P.S. Poopy Head isn’t what I was calling you that whole time, but this is a G-rated blog, so that’ll have to do.

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Like many high-schoolers my first job was at a fast-food restaurant. I learned a lot about responsibility, working in a fast-paced environment and coping with the public.

I also learned why you should avoid eating there if at all possible. Consider this the next time you pay a visit to your neighborhood quickie-meal joint:

1. Teenagers run the place. The majority of the staff were under 18 years old. Teenagers have zero vested interest in serving quality food to you. They are biding their time until they can punch out and resume the part of their lives they give a damn about.

2. Managers can’t be everywhere. Yes, the good managers will oversee the production line and make sure nothing bad happens to your food. But they are not omnipresent. I once witnessed a co-worker drop a large cut of roast beef on the floor while trying to load it into a slow-cook oven. He picked it up and put it right back in. (I reported him).

3. The sneeze guard over the salad bar is worthless. Understand that salad bar items are subjected to dirty fingers, dirty air, coughing and hacking customers and fluctuating cooling temperatures. Face it. The food sits out all day and God knows what happens to it before you sidle up and help yourself. In addition, if enough of one item is too much to toss for the day, it’ll be put out the very next day to mix with the same environmental pollutants as it did the day before.

4. Cleanliness is not top priority. One day the restaurant’s drainage system backed up and we sloshed around for two hours with plastic bags over our shoes, still serving food, before someone came from the Health Department to shut us down until repairs could take place.

5. Food for you one minute, dog food the next. For about a year, our restaurant entered into an arrangement with the local SPCA. Food that was deemed fit for human consumption was fed to people. After the food was under heat lamps too long, it was dropped in a bucket and picked up to be fed to dogs. We’re not talking quality here. Five minutes ago, it was meant for you.

6. You get what minimum wage pays for. Almost anyone can get hired. The same guy who dropped the roast beef on the floor also cut off part of his fingertip while slicing ham. A week later he was caught smoking pot behind the drive-thru window and finally fired. He worked under the influence a lot of the time. Your best interest was not on his stoned-out mind. We didn’t like to think what else he did that no one caught him doing.

7. Cross contamination is the norm. When things got busy, the same person who just swept garbage off the floor might be asked to perform cashier duties without washing their hands in between. They may rearrange your food on your serving tray, help the food line staff assemble sandwiches, grab cups and utensils, all with their bare hands. What they touched, you touched and you probably put it into your mouth.

Bon appetite! (if you dare)

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People are worried about me.

A couple days ago, I was working on a client’s PC in another office installing some software that takes forever to load. Since waiting for software to install is akin to watching water boil, I thought I’d at least be productive and check for voice mail or email messages. Nothin’. I looked around for something interesting to read. Nothin’. I stared at the wall and wondered how I was going to avoid gaining 17 pounds over Thanksgiving weekend and got all stressed out.

And then it happened. I heard a paper shredder in the distance.

Oh, yeah, baby. Now we’re talkin’! See, there’s one thing in this world that is no bigger stress reliever for me than shredding documents. Yoga? Sorry, no can do. Meditation? Not my thing. Visualization? Only if it looks like this. Sending paper through a slotted, metal-toothed grinder and watching it turn into tiny confetti dots? Priceless.

Seems the client whose computer I was working on was sifting through a humongous container of confidential paperwork that her office collects for shredding. The bin was busting at the seams.

I asked her if she really had to shred all that, and she said “Yeah. It’s a big, annoying job. Even our student workers don’t want to do it.”

I started to tremble and shake.

“Raquel? Um, would you mind if I helped?”

Looking up from her 300 lb. paper pile with a seriously confused look on her face, she asked, “Are you feeling all right? You really want to do this?”

“Yes. I know. I have a problem. But I like to shred paper. It’s destructive and productive! And if you don’t let me do it, I won’t fix your PC.”

“You kidding me?”

“No. Now are you gonna keep looking at me like that, or are you gonna let me get this party started? Move it, sister.”

So there I stood, gleefully feeding a few sheets in at a time, while Raquel sorted out non-shreddable items and things that could just go in the recycle bin. She started to realize what a wonderful discovery she just found in my neurosis. She started to think that together we could make a serious dent in the pile. She started to think she found a sucker who might just do this on a regular basis.

She found me. A paper-feeding, paper clip-pulling, confetti-dumping, maniacal demolition machine.

We worked through the bin for about thirty minutes. All the while, her office mates sauntered up to me and asked “What’s going on? Did Raquel put you to work?”

“No! I like it! Now stop bothering me. You’re screwing up my rhythm.”

One guy who didn’t know me asked if I was brought in just for this job. When he found out I was just doing a favor and getting my jollies in the process, he asked if I would come over to his office and do his shredding.

“Listen, dude. Don’t toy with me. If you’re making fun of me, I can take it. But if you’re telling me you have a fresh pile of paper somewhere that needs to be sent through this shredder, you better mean business because if you’re kidding, I’ll take you down, I swear to God.”

Backing away slowly now, he whimpered “Lady, you’re scaring me.”

As Raquel and I plowed through the documents and emptied the receptacle a few times when it got full of glorious confetti, I realized my fun was coming to an end. The software installation I’d been monitoring finally finished. The shredding party was over.

Raquel thanked me profusely, since we’d gotten through more than half of the bin’s contents. She just couldn’t get over how much we got done.

I asked her if I could come back sometime and finish this pile, or even do future piles. And we all know there will always be future piles. Whoever said we’d be living in a paperless society by now couldn’t have been more wonderfully wrong.

She said, “Of course. We can put you on a schedule.”

Happy in the knowledge that I’ll always have a place in her office for shredding whenever I want, I left and skipped down the hall to my own office. When I passed by our reception desk, I noticed a co-worker sitting next to our own shredder with a pile of papers.

“Want some help with that?”

“Kathy, are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah. It’s my catharsis. Now beat it before I have to hurt you.”

I love to shred, I love to shred!

Don’t deny me shredding, or I’ll beat you on the head!

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Like everyone else, I enjoy kicking back on Sundays, reading the paper, puttering around and generally being lazy. It helps to take the downtime and rejuvenate my spirit before the craziness of another week begins.

I don’t recall where I read the following passage, but I jotted it down and tacked it up on my refrigerator, reading it on Sundays or whenever I feel the need for calm. Be sure to read it slowly and carefully, visualizing it for the greatest benefit.

Picture yourself near a stream. Birds are softly chirping in the crisp, cool mountain air. Nothing can bother you here. No one knows this secret place. You are in total seclusion from that place called “the world.” The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity. The water is clear. You can easily make
out the face of the person whose head you’re holding under the water.

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Let’s face it. "The road less traveled" doesn’t exist anymore. Unless you’re lucky enough to be retired, you have to get out on jammed roads during rush hour, compete for space, avoid the idiots and get to and from work without getting frazzled.

Here are ten ways to minimize the hassle, maximize your calm and have a safer commute. They may seem like no-brainers, but if more people would employ these techniques, driving might just be fun again. Or at least a little more tolerable.

1. Leave earlier. This is a hard one for many of us. Getting out on the road just 10 minutes earlier than normal gives you time to pay more attention to the road and traffic patterns. One day last week I left 10 minutes later than normal and it took me 10 minutes longer to get to work.
2. When merging onto a highway, try to get directly behind a big truck. Based purely on observational evidence, I find that most drivers will move to the passing lane if they see a large truck trying to merge. They’re less inclined to do so for a mere car. Use this to your advantage and get right behind the biggest one you can find and follow it as you both merge smoothly. You can always pass it later.
3. Try to get ahead of SUVs and trucks to maximize your field of vision. I drive a small car and find it impossible to see ahead of and around bigger vehicles. Do what you can to safely position yourself behind cars the same size as yours. Then you’ll be ready to react if you see trouble up ahead.
4. Let tailgaters pass you. The only solution to tailgating drivers is to get out of their way as quickly and safely as possible. Let them pass you so you can maintain your calm.
5. Look both ways before pulling out when the light turns green. This takes just a second and can save your life. We’ve all seen other drivers running red lights. Wait a moment to allow for that possibility. I’ve twice avoided an accident by waiting a beat before advancing through the green.
6. Turn your headlights on in any kind of weather. Many of today’s cars automatically turn on your lights when you start your car. If yours doesn’t, consider turning them on manually, even in fair weather. This isn’t so much for you to see better; it’s so that other drivers can see you, particularly if you drive a dark-colored vehicle.
7. Signal early and make your turn only when you can. Let other drivers know when you’re about to turn. If you’re ahead of a tailgater, don’t try to make your turn. Skip it and wait until you can turn with at least three car lengths of open space behind you. I once damaged a tire because I tried to make my turn with a tailgater just feet behind me. I tried to get as close to the curb as possible to allow him to get around me, and in the process, scraped it hard enough to ruin a perfectly good tire.
8. Practice safe cell-phoning. Simply put, drivers cannot possibly concentrate on the road if they’re talking on the phone. If you must make a call, pull over at a safe spot, make the call and then resume driving. It takes just a few minutes out of your drive, but will minimize the chances you’ll cause an accident due to driver inattention.
9. Wear a seat belt. If you don’t care about your personal safety, that’s one thing. But at least think of your family. You are your family’s most important asset. Protect it for their sake.
10. Say a little prayer for road ragers. Pray for them? Are you nuts? Well, sort of. But I’m also a big believer in karma. If you send a little kindness out into the world, it might come back to you when you least expect it. Besides, people so angry behind the wheel clearly need some help and it makes me feel better when I react positively to a stressful situation. And it’s all about feeling better on the road!

If you had a bad commute today, here’s wishing you a better one tomorrow!

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So yesterday new partitions went up in my office. They separate me from a pile of laptops and equipment we loan out to faculty to use in classrooms. I used to have a wide open space, but now I’m almost totally insulated and I have to tell you, it’s very weird. I can’t see or hear people coming, and even when they announce themselves, I’m usually jumping out of my seat when they appear around the partition. I may need to invest in a driveway mirror, a bell, a webcam trained on the door, or all of the above.

I’ll get used to it over time, but right now it feels a little like this:

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