Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2026

• It’s the Little Things

  Posted at 7:25 pm by kayewer, on July 25, 2026

  I took a chance this week and went to McDonald’s because they came out with a new snack wrap. Since an outbreak of a foodborne parasite has put a damper on any fast-food place that uses lettuce (thought to be the culprit), I questioned myself about how smart this decision was. The final determination of who was responsible for not keeping food free of contamination had reached a dead end after a suspected farm’s produce was tested and resulted in a false positive, so anything could still be the cause of the issue. However, I am a late generation Boomer who still has faith in the common sense of the CEOs in legacy restaurant chains such as McDonald’s, and I figured they would not be conducting business if their food was resulting in more illnesses, nor would they be dumb enough to not swap out their supplier if they were not sure of the cleanliness of the products.

  Since it was the first day with the new food item, naturally I was sent two windows forward to the “other” pick-up point. This is the midway point between driving away with your food and having to park to the side in a numbered spot to receive it from a server tasked with backorder running.

  I was waiting for the cooks to catch up and make sure they had the order right. They did and even designated the new item with a sticker (I wrote about the paper label issue once before). While I was in park by that dull window which offered a view of the staff’s safety gear hung on the far wall (another issue I brought up in a prior post), a woman exited the side door to run an order to a parked vehicle off to my right.

  The runner noted to the driver, as she handed over the order, that his gas cap was hanging and the hatch cover open. She then walked back and replaced the cap and closed the cover with the efficiency of an experienced service station attendant. Heck, maybe she did pump gas at some point in her life, this being New Jersey where self-service is forbidden, but women can run gas stations.

  The point is, that type of extra attention to detail is what makes this country run better. It may never be perfect, but that moment taken to secure a gas cap probably saved the driver a lot of wasted gas fumes disappearing into the atmosphere. Also, he got his food delivered fresh and hot.

  My food arrived shortly after that. And no, it did not cause me any health issues. The new wrap was, in fact, quite delightful.

  Now about that third drive-thru window.. . .

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• Saving (the Wrong) Time

  Posted at 6:40 pm by kayewer, on July 18, 2026

  Those of you who have followed my posts know that I am a proponent of Daylight Standard Time instead of Daylight Saving Time (note there is actually no plural). Recently a bill was introduced–H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act–which has made its way to the Senate floor for passage and signing by the president (who is in favor of the idea). If passed, the United States would reject a full hour on the normal 24-hour clock and remain at Daylight Saving Time hours permanently. The House passed the bill by a wide enough margin to warrant notice. The next step is for the Senate to approve it for presidential endorsement.

  On the other side of the issue is the move to revert permanently to Daylight Standard Time. The Sunshine for Our Kids Act (H.R. 9638) is a challenge enacted on July 8 to call attention to the flaws in the saving time bill.

  There is an abundance of information available about the disadvantages of keeping our clocks ahead by one hour. Rather than go into a long list of them, I invite you to look for yourself and be a little question-asker. Inquire in your favorite search engine or AI partner what effect keeping saving time will do to our health and environment. Read some information about the failed experiment of 1974 which tried to keep saving time in place but failed without lasting a year.

  A table available online which I will draw attention to provides some insight into what your new normal day will be like under permanent saving time. If you live on the East Coast, your sunrises will occur as early as 6:00 AM in June, but in December your sun would come up at almost 9:00 AM. Sunsets would be as early as 6:00 PM in December but as late as 9:00 PM in late June/early July. Under standard time, you would see sunlight between 5:00 AM and about 7:50 AM all year, and sunsets will vary from 5:00 PM until 8:00 PM. This means that the risk to school children of setting off from home in the dark (which did cause a problem during the 1974 experiment) would not be an issue. Waiting until after 9:00 for total darkness to view fireworks? Not a problem, because they can start sooner.

  The arguments seem to come from people who want to do more in the evenings with more daylight, but since when has sunset had a negative effect on evening activities before now? Schedules would not need to change for keeping standard time.

  However, the airlines have chimed in, because a permanent leap into skipping a whole hour will be permanently disruptive to pilots, staff and passengers. And to be brief, health-wise the change in circadian rhythms is detrimental to your health. There is an entire practice devoted to this aspect of human wellbeing known as chronobiology. Our bodies function on a 24-hour clock, because our planet runs on a 24-hour clock. This has been a fact since ancient times when great minds studied the heavens and recorded what they saw, turning their findings into what our daily lives depend upon for optimal living.

  The number of heart attacks and strokes which rise during the spring ahead/fall back weekends will decline. So will accidents related to the sudden one-hour difference in drivetime light or night.

  All of the evidence points to a simple logic. We are given 24 hours in a day, so we should use it as is. Our time zones make it easy to follow, and our bodies will sync naturally and forever if we keep to what nature intended.

  The best way to promote the new bill is to drop a quick email to your state senator. You can be brief: just say you want permanent daylight standard time. We have no better opportunity in our modern history to set things to the way they should have always been.

  It’s time to no longer mess with time.

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• Justice in the Karen Era

  Posted at 2:17 pm by kayewer, on July 11, 2026

  Apparently Karens–those annoying folks nobody wants to be forced to deal with because of their unusual philosophies and sense of entitlement–have been around in some form or other for ages.

  I just read an article about the legacy department store Marshall Field, which was a major shopping destination when they began business in 1852 and ceased in 2006. They had experiences with disgruntled customers as well, but they had a method of handling them that is truly empowerment at its best. Since they also coined the popular phrase, “The customer is always right” in an age when people were wary of trickery in consumerism, we should pay attention.

  They actually hired what they called “fired men.” These were employees paid to be the scapegoat when somebody complained about poor results. Apparently, the manager would upbraid the person, designate them as responsible for the mess and terminate their employment in the presence of the customer. Satisfaction obtained, the angry customer would smugly go about their day and so would the gentleman who would still be picking up a paycheck at the end of the week.

  The general purpose of a Karen’s outrage is a sense of having no control over their lives at a given moment. The truth is that none of us are really controlling anything, but these individuals are emotionally crippled without feeling as if they can pilot somebody else’s ship even if it is to the detriment of others.

  The videos we’re subjected to on social media seem to follow a pattern. We often are coming into the action moments after the original dispute which set the Karen off. In a restaurant it’s often a problem with a takeout order, and in a public place an argument over personal space, privileges or restrictions, or misbehavior not conducive to everybody enjoying their good time.

  The first thing a Karen will normally do is raise their voice and vocalize a fraction of an octave higher. They may lean over a counter and yell at the other individual at uncomfortably close quarters. They may begin repeating short phrases of reprimand or include a few choice negative names for the other person and say it over and over as if the momentum of the speech validates its truth (in their mind). They sometimes clap their hands loudly in a violent manner to indicate that they really want to slap the person on whom they are directing their anger. They pound on the counter. They escalate to hurling furniture and accessories around. They leap over the counter to start a fistfight.

  All for a missed order of fries.

  What these actions tell us is that some people have graduated from high school without having learned patience, manners, or honor. They don’t wish to handle mishaps in a civil manner and prefer venting to a calm discussion which may produce a better feeling outcome. These overreacting public terrors have a tendency to exhibit poor health symptoms such as anxiety, high blood pressure and low anger management skills. They end up in the hospital (and sometimes their victims with them), and the behavior certainly carries over into their home and personal lives to the dismay of their families.

  The customer is not always right, but employees dealing with customers are just as human. As soon as these hotheads have the realization that their rage avails nothing of value, we will no longer need to deal with watching human tornadoes trashing the taco place. We should not need to offer “satisfaction” to such people. We don’t need “fired men” to play a role, nor is it helpful to say a person is infallible in a merchant driven world if they’re on the paying side of the counter. Whatever happened to “I don’t see my fries in the bag?” The worker can then say they’re sorry and produce the missing part. No harm on either side.

  It would make social media less interesting, but we’d all be healthier for it.

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• What a Hoser

  Posted at 6:12 pm by kayewer, on July 4, 2026

  Everybody has little quirks that can be annoyingly difficult or impossible to overcome. People can’t figure out how to peel hard boiled eggs without wrecking the surface (hint: get under the membrane by starting at the blunt end). Folks chronically forget to fill the gas tank until their vehicle sputters to a halt (and it’s usually on a holiday when prices are jacked up). Others misplace their car keys. We get it, and we sigh and muddle our way through such obstacles.

  Another such roadblock to a smooth life is inanimate objects, whether it’s never being able to flick a lighter to life, keep a shoelace tied, or getting your electronic pass read at the bridge or parking garage. Daily progress comes to a complete stop when something doesn’t work the way it should. Hollywood even wastes footage because of malfunctioning props, so we’re all subject to it.

  Lately I have been having a war of epic stature with garden hoses.

  The hoses my parents had did finally surrender to old age, and I needed to replace them, but luck is not on my side. I have gone through about a dozen of these outdoor must-have contraptions, and for the life of me I cannot get them to function.

  When I saw an ad for a convenient hose which weighed next to nothing and expanded and shrank on its own, I thought it must be the holy (or hosey) grail of water delivery devices. The legacy variety kinks up, never stores easily, handles in the most unwieldy fashion, picks up dirt and debris as it’s dragged from the faucet to whatever you will be watering, and is never the right size for the yard in which it’s being used.

  Something light in weight that wouldn’t kink seemed a godsend. So I bought one.

  Turns out the thing is really an elongated bladder wrapped by a woven cover. Sure, it carries easily and can drape around its holder in half the time of the stiff and stubborn original. However, while it’s expanding it can ruin your landscaping and mow down your shrubbery and flowers. It requires some finagling to figure out how many washers the female coupling needs inside the screw to avoid getting showered with water. No matter what I’ve done, they always leaked. I always got wet.

  They are also sensitive and prone to bursting internally, which effectively ends their lifespan. One lasted eight months, and the other about three. I moved to a new-fangled flat product still guaranteed not to kink, but it didn’t make it through two seasons. So, back to the permanently curled old standby for my next attempt.

  I managed to hook up the hose (righty loosey, lefty tighty), turned it on, and got a free shower.

  Dragged the curly little darling out of the leaking firing line, along the length of the driveway to straighten it out, then moved toward my target for the morning: the birdbath, to give the poor avian world some fresh cool water during a heatwave with temperatures over 100 degrees. I turned on the nozzle and got nothing.

  The gosh-darned thing had kinked (and I didn’t actually say gosh-darned).

  Went back to unkink the hose, which usually looks something like that rope exercise one does in the gym to strengthen the upper arms and turn them into biceps which could feed a family of four zombies. Only this model of hose doesn’t undulate at all. I had to unwind it like an anaconda fresh out of the permafrost.

  Finally, I managed to turn on the nozzle and get a genuine jet of water to wash out the birdbath and fill it with fresh water. Mission accomplished. Sort of. Still needed to put the hose back to someplace it had never been before.

  A fifty-foot hose with the attitude of a snake is a son of a gun to wrestle into any semblance of order. My hose caddy is an F-shaped device on which one supposedly can wind the entire length of hose around and have the end result look like it did when purchased from the hardware store. Truth is it looks more like the cat got to the anaconda. Each coil is a different size, but when you’ve had this experience with hoses you know, like Kenny Rogers said, when to fold. The thing is on one place, and that’s that.

  This may be my cross to bear for a few years, having bought the gold standard of a product which has “always worked” just the way it is. Or rather we have grown to accept its flaws and go into battle knowing the outcome won’t be pretty.

  Just pretty wet.

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  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9