Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Category: Commentary

• Making Room

  Posted at 2:39 am by kayewer, on December 23, 2018

  From the moment the innkeeper decided he had not a spare foot of space for a pregnant woman for whom the act of giving birth was imminent, we have had issues with space. We buy and steal space, argue about space, and even explore outer space for more space. We store stuff we don’t use but can’t get rid of in rental space. We buy things called space savers, but you need space to put the space savers because they don’t hover in space.

  During the holiday season, arguments break out over parking lot spaces. Malls and shopping centers have plenty of space to park cars, except for about a month each year when everybody wants just one spot closest to the store doors. If I had my way, stores would have two or three spaces in front of their doors just for pregnant women and the handicapped, and then about twenty feet of no parking area and the rest of the cars parked beyond that. We’re all fat and could use the exercise.

  And if you’re saying, “There go the malls; everybody will shop online,” I already thought of that. Just now. I’m not changing my stance. Amazon will never be able to deliver it immediately, so if people want it, they will go out for it.

  So the savior of humankind spent his early life in a space reserved for domestic livestock, and we have issues with space? Stand aside and remember that we own nothing and can’t take it with us. Coincidentally, the words material and maternal only have one letter different between them. Care for the space you have, and don’t clutter it. And give room to pregnant women.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Christmas Mary Space Holiday Shopping

• Cruze’n for a Bruisin’

  Posted at 12:53 am by kayewer, on December 3, 2018

  Has GM lost its way? I think so. The big automaker and a staple of American car production received word from its CEO Mary Barra that plants will be closing down and thousands of jobs cut in an effort to salvage the company.  Again. They fought back against bankruptcy with a federal bailout, and many thought they had done so well enough not to worry that such a day as this would come. She has said that she wants to devote its energies to a restructured market, so the Chevrolet Volt–their first electric hybrid vehicle–is slated to cease production, along with the Impala and Cruze from Chevrolet, as well as the Cadillac XTS and CT6.

  People seem to have become selectively obtuse, choosing to share car rides with strangers–probably to rebel against our parents who told us not to–and plug in a car rather than gas it up. Barra also brought up the future of self-driving cars, since it seems that Americans are giving up passenger vehicles unless they do the work for them. Or somebody drives for them.

  I bought a Cruze, manufactured by a plant in Lordstown, Ohio by some 1,600 dedicated workers who may now lose their jobs. This car is fine example of skilled design and dependability, which has gotten me to work in the worst weather with no signs of poor manufacturing. A Cruze model is also made in Mexico for a lot more money, but I chose to buy American. Now that the vehicle will be declared obsolete by a woman in a suit, I don’t know what my decades of devotion to GM and Chevrolet means to her.

  Restructuring a company should not mean ditching your best products or kicking good people to the curb. It means reviewing the market and moving the parts of your operation around to keep your best around you.

  Ms. Barra, I don’t want to move to driving a Malibu. I’m not a Malibu type person. I’m practical. So is GM. Rethink this before you take GM in a direction from which it can’t return.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Chevrolet Cruze, General Motors, GM, GM Plant, Lordstown, Mary Barra, OH

• No Sale?

  Posted at 3:08 am by kayewer, on June 25, 2017

  I think there is a plot out there to destroy brick and mortar retail stores. Either that, or I have a “Don’t Serve Me” sign stuck to my back. Nobody helps me in a store, but an invisible source on a website takes my money easily (well, somewhat). Which all goes back to my comments awhile ago that we, as human beings, can’t stand each other anymore. Either that, or we have suddenly become Planet Stepford (if you are scratching your head, look it up: a movie called the Stepford Wives from 1975), and I’ve suddenly realized that I’m not one of them.

  I have spent over two weeks trying to buy a cell phone. Model one was very low-tech, so I felt inclined to buy the more expensive model two, but that model was out of stock. The sales associate (their gender neutral title these days) said that his girlfriend’s friend happened to work at the one store that still had one in stock, but they would get it for me. Days passed and I heard nothing, so I played phone tag; the associate called me back to say that a new model was coming in which would be better and easy to get because he was expecting it the next day. Of course it cost half again what I intended to pay for model two. Fine, I said. He’ll call me, he said.

  Yes, I’m still waiting for that call, as I hold on to my Luddite model which is not supported anymore and could die at any moment. No, I am not going to buy an IPhone, which apparently is well stocked because they buy them.

  I have found that the sales associates in Best Buy follow a Murphy’s law of customer service: whatever department I’m in, that’s the one where nobody is working.

  I was at Wegman’s to buy some healthy vegetables and happened to spot a Pepperidge Farm layer cake on sale. The self-serve lines were jammed, so the staffer there (another gender neutral job title) sent me to Customer Service to have my purchases handled. The associate loaded the box into a plastic bag upside down; fortunately the icing inside was frozen enough that no residue was left on the roof of the box. I guess that was their way of scolding me for ruining my wonder vegetarian grocery shopping experience with a cake that’s bad for you.

  My online purchases this week, however, went without a hitch. One of these days I’ll have to click on the chat feature and see how interacting with a live person is when we don’t have to stand a few feet from each other. I just hope they’re not one of them.

   

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• Coin Artists

  Posted at 2:49 am by kayewer, on May 22, 2016

  TD Bank just announced that it is discontinuing their Penny Arcade automated coin counter machines after a lawsuit and NBC investigation shut them down a few weeks ago. You can bring in coins you have rolled yourself, but mechanical counting, the bank says, has lost its popularity, and they want to ensure accuracy for all bank customers.

  How the heck did coins become such a burden?

  To this day I am holding onto a Euro coin which nobody wants to exchange for me. I got it in change at a supermarket in place of a quarter, and I know it’s worth more than that. I refuse to give it up, and I’m determined to find somebody who will give me fair market value for it. Foreign currency exchanges won’t even touch it: I went to three in New York City and got the polite brush-off.

  A friend of mine is not above going to the mall food court and counting out coins in place of paper money. It does involve waiting while she separates and tallies up the denominations, but they spend just the same. Also, coins bulging in your handbag add quite a bit of weight. I should know: if I didn’t dump out my quarters and pennies once a week, I’d be carrying around the weight of a toddler on my shoulder.

  It used to be fun to go to the coin machine and have it spin your metal money around in a centrifuge like way. The Penny Arcade was a sort of interactive experience featuring a red-headed computer generated little girl who talked you through the process of getting paper for your coins. “Wow, you sure saved a lot of coins,” she says as she directs you to her friend the teller and reminds you to check the reject slot for any duds.

  It seems whatever magical force counted the coins registered more duds than they returned to the reject slot: the NBC experiment allegedly put $300 in coins in one Penny Arcade and it counted short by some $44.00. TD’s non-bank competitor, Coinstar, was found to be accurate, but you surrender 11 cents for every dollar you put in unless you elect to receive an e-gift card in place of cash.

  TD is still offering to give out coin sleeves so you can count your coins yourself, but I long for the days when coins were as valuable to a bank as paper.

  Here’s what I think: TD should replace the Penny Arcades with coin counting stations, complete with sleeves, sorters and hand sanitizer (coins do make your hands smell metallic). Somebody has to give respect to coinage, and it could redeem some of the damage done by this mechanical mayhem.

  Either that, or round everything up and abolish coins altogether.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Penny Arcade, TD Bank

• Pop-Ups

  Posted at 5:49 am by kayewer, on March 17, 2016

  So I discovered something on YouTube that I have to share. If you avoid shows like Grey’s Anatomy or Code Black like the plague, it is probably  not the channel for you, but apparently for tons of viewers, it’s good stuff. It’s also known as  pimple p*rn.

  Dr. Sandra Lee, also known as Dr. Pimple Popper (drpimplepopper.com), performs dermatological procedures on consenting patients  and films the results for informational purposes for other doctors in the skin industry. It also turns out that watching acne and other skin problems being nipped in the bud is enjoyable for the average person, and some of the videos have over a million views.  This is educational surgical sebum shenanigans that come in two main categories: blackheads and whiteheads that are called “soft pops,” and benign lumps and such which are called “hard pops.” Dr. Lee has appeared on the daytime show The Doctors with some of her “greatest hits,” and though the audience often says a collective “Ewwww,” they can’t look away. I learned about the channel in a weekend newspaper article, and after watching a video I admit it’s got an attraction to it.

  If you have ever (or deny having ever) had acne, you know to some extent what it is like to try to exorcise one of those demonic date-ruining suckers from your flesh. Doctors don’t recommend squeezing acne yourself because of the risk or infection, but we do anyway. This is a look at some people who are not you at your cosmetic worst, getting zits and lipomas (those benign lumps I mentioned) taken out by a professional. Dr. Lee always asks the patient to make sure they feel nothing once the local anesthetic kicks in. She  uses a special extraction tool for the blackheads and such, and sometimes a punch tool (yes it does what it says) or a scalpel  to open up larger growths. The fun views are usually of blackheads which emerge in long curlicues, and the patients sometimes have so many, they look as if their torsos need daily shaving from chronic five o-clock shadow. The other videos show cysts which resemble seed pods or tubes as they get chased out of their follicular abodes. Some exit quietly, while others ooze massively as if a floodgate has been opened. Grossed out yet?

  These videos give “what lies underneath” a whole new meaning. Imagine a follicle of your skin being invaded by fluids native to your body but not co-existing well at the time. Sometimes acne runs deep, and excision is quite a relief. Having had acne through most of my life until I found what worked for me to prevent it, I can relate to these patients and the sense of closure that comes from saying goodbye to an acne invasion. It’s interesting to watch and learn what can happen when body oils go outlaw. But then I reach for a warm cloth and some cleanser and sigh with relief that Dr. Lee won’t be filming me anytime soon.

   

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Dr. Pimple Popper, pimple popper, pimples, Sandra Lee

• Suda Fed Up

  Posted at 1:41 am by kayewer, on April 19, 2015

  I know it’s been ages since I’ve dealt with a cold, because getting an antihistamine wasn’t so time-consuming the last time I needed it. The box in my medicine cabinet had expired years ago; at first I thought the date said 2017, but after putting my glasses on, I realized the “7” was a “1.”

  That’s how I racked up so much time off at work: I couldn’t even call out with a cold, because I didn’t get one.

  So this morning I was at the local Rite-Aid, looking for my familiar red and white box of Sudafed®. Plenty of over the counter medications were around, but all of them treated not only congestion, but body aches (didn’t have any), sinus pressure (nope, just a lot of gushing), fever (nope), muscle spasms and chronic flatulence. I just wanted to dry up my nostrils. Not so easy.

  The boxes on the shelves have been replaced with “calling cards” one must take to the pharmacy counter. It seems that kids who can’t formulate a proper sentence or make change from a twenty dollar bill can make methamphetamine from ingredients found in my drip fix of choice.

  So I took a card–thinking that I had just contaminated it, if somebody before me had not done so already–and went to the pharmacy counter, where I waited in line behind customers with real medication needs to do things such as saving their lives. I presented my card, and the pharmacist had to ask me for ID and to sign a waiver that I’m legal and not a meth concocter.

  I wonder if, when I go to CVS or Walgreens five years down the road, they’ll pull up my name and flag me for too much Sudafed®?

  Anyway, the stuff works, and I will probably need only two or three to take me through the weekend while my symptoms continue (the box has 20). And this box will probably expire before I get another cold. I guess this is one of the bad things about good health; it keeps you out of the loop when it comes to what you try to buy over the counter. Next time I may need to get a federal permit.

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• Jaws of the Betta

  Posted at 4:46 am by kayewer, on February 8, 2015

  After years without a pet, and after checking out the possibilities, I got a fish for the office. Just one in a comfortable square tank in a corner of the cubicle; a perfect reflection of office life.

  It’s a betta, also known as a Siamese fighting fish because two males in one tank will quickly become a “Last Fish Standing” fight to the death. So the fish swims alone, as do I and my fellow walled-in denizens. He rests and circles, stares and darts, and two to three times daily he gets fed.

  I must say that, for a five dollar fish, his table manners aren’t worth two cents.

  For the first day or so, he didn’t eat. Finally he gave in and took to the food I had bought for him, like a finicky cat, and we got into a routine in which I got his attention and he casually picked at his food. At least it doesn’t come in six million varieties like dog or cat food. The betta apparently eats pellets three meals a day and blood worms for dessert. The worms look like finely cut mulch for a miniature garden. The pellets would probably fertilize a garden, but I save them for the fish anyway.

  Over the past couple of weeks, the betta has gone all “Jaws” on me, lunging at his daily pellet as if he could worry it to death like a dog at a bone. Only I don’t think he has teeth. Thank goodness for that. One day I expect him to leap from the tank and latch onto my finger.

  It’s not as if he doesn’t have company; I have motion toys at my desk to keep him amused, and coworkers visit him regularly. They also think he hasn’t been fed, so he sometimes gets overfed by day and then goes hungry overnight for eight hours. That probably explains the predatory behavior when I rush in the next morning to set him up by the desk to enjoy the view and hand feed him pellets one at a time.

  Maybe he has a case of ADHD, because I drop pellets and he swims right by them or under them. He also doesn’t pick up on pellets he missed the first trip around; or maybe he doesn’t like leftovers.

  The uneaten pellets drop to the bottom of the tank and make the water cloudy. This means cleaning up uneaten food along with poo, but at least the tank has a self-cleaning siphon function which makes it easier. No chasing Jaws around the tank to transfer him to a water glass while his environment is given a thorough sanitizing.

  Like me, bettas are low maintenance fish. They’re beautiful to watch and can be a source of relaxation in an office environment. Just watch your fingers when they’re hungry.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged betta fish

• Good Grief Grocer

  Posted at 2:54 am by kayewer, on February 1, 2015

  I have always had issues with supermarket checkout lines, but I’ve found that self checkout is not much better. It has come down to a choice of let somebody do it for you their way, or do it yourself and deal with your own shortcomings in the process.

  Either way, the grocer wins.

  Normally the process of checking out involves a war of paper in plastic, in which the paper bag is the wrong size for the plastic bag (incredibly, they’re often too big). Or it turns out the shipment of paper bags had defects involving fused bottoms which won’t open. I pointed out three such bags to a checker, who shrugged and said, “That’s what they sent us.”

  Then no matter in what order you place your items on the conveyor belt–if you have enough time to unload your entire cart–the checker will reach for the eggs at the back of the belt and put them in the bottom of an equally defectively assembled paper-in-plastic. She then reaches for the giant can of beans and throws it in like a three pointer in the NBA.

  The problem is that checkers are monitored for speed, even if nobody is in line behind their current customer. There is no area to recover the change, bills and register tape (which these days is five feet long and always seems to include a Sports Authority ad for me). Just mash it all together somehow and get the heck out so the next customer can go through the same experience.

  So I decided to try self checkout today, and wheeled my cart up to the amazing assembly of consumer friendly technology, with its bagging stations, scales sensitive to the weight of a toenail and a touch screen which supposedly knows everything.

  At least that’s the idea.

  The first thing I did was to insert a paper bag into a plastic bag at bagging station number one before starting to “ring my order,” only to hear a computerized female voice intone, “Unauthorized item detected in bagging area: please remove item.” It seems the human attendant relegated to oversee the stupidity of self-baggers must inform the machine that one of its own bags is going combo. She had to come back for two more bags (fortunately the kiosk only has three bagging stations). The programmer who instructs the machine to say, “If you want paper in plastic, please assemble your bags now” will win the Nobel Prize for humanitarianism. The human checkers simply glare at you for combo bags; the computer reads you off.

  Three bags, a coupon inspection equivalent to an airport strip search and an empty cart later, I was thanked by the computer for shopping there. Checkers don’t often do that anymore.

  So what do I do? The experience is insufferable either way. Maybe I should invent my own supermarket, with checkers who wait for you to instruct them how you want items bagged, a recovery zone where you can put your change away and round up the rug rats, and pre-assembled combo bags.

  Maybe I’ll just shop at 24 hour markets after 1:00 AM.

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• Find the Sandcastle Kings

  Posted at 2:23 am by kayewer, on January 4, 2015

  In January 1985, the Navy stationed me on the island of Guam. One of my first experiences there (besides exhaustion due to the time shift) was to tour the island and become familiar with its sights and culture. I found these fellows on the beach building a sand castle, and they posed for a picture. Of course this was the age before social media, and we were total strangers and never saw each other again, but I believe that the world is really smaller than we might think, so for the 30th anniversary of this experience, I’m posting this photo and hope that somebody will recognize himself or somebody in the photo and let the world know where they are now.
  So here is the photo. I’m also posting on Facebook with some of this information in English and (hopefully) Japanese. Let the search begin.

  

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• Devious DVD

  Posted at 3:36 am by kayewer, on November 23, 2014

  Will somebody please slow the progress of entertainment media so old geezers like me can catch up? My DVD player was running fine until a few weeks ago, when the TV died and I had to get Cletus the Cable Guy to come put up a new flat screen. He hooked up the DVD player and told me to hit a button on the remote to play a movie.

  Well, I didn’t get up the nerve to try playing a movie right away. I have a life when I’m not booking time to watch movies at home, after all. So finally I tried the little button, inserted a DVD and it worked. Great, I said; we’ll play the movie tomorrow afternoon.

  The following afternoon, I inserted the DVD, only to have it spat back out at me with the message “DVD Error.” I tried some other DVDs and got one or two to play, but most gave me the same message. Well, they were all fine DVDs yesterday, I said to myself, so I must have a problem with the player. The instruction manual (yes, I’m one of two people who can actually find the manual that comes with an appliance) suggested cleaning the DVD. I went to BestBuy®, who didn’t have a single DVD cleaner in stock. I went to a second BestBuy®, and the sales associate suggested I go to RadioShack®. Well, thank goodness some place still knows how to do business. They had two in stock, along with friendly sales associates.

  The cleaner apparently didn’t work. So the obvious message is that I should, as any average American would do, ditch the old player and buy a new one, or go with an extensive (or expensive) upgrade to turn my home into a multi-media palace of instant entertainment gratification with streaming video, ambient sound coming from every wall and a monthly bill the size of a car payment. I’ll rent my discs and keep the electric bill down, thank you.

  I guess I’ll go out and buy another player, which I assume will have to be Blu-Ray, another format doomed to go the way of all modern technology. The old machinery will wind up in a junk pile somewhere. Nobody repairs stuff anymore. There must be a Mount Everest of discarded appliances somewhere on this planet, tied together with old VHS tape.

  Modern technology sucks.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged DVD

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