Susan's Scribblings the Blog

When I first started life in the workforce, if somebody called in sick, a person hired by the company would visit your home and follow up with you. I heard a story in which the designated person popped into the shower to talk with said worker while bathing. Back then, if you called out sick, you had better darned well be sick. Companies did not pay you for self-imposed vacation days. You needed a doctor’s note, or you at least had to appear to be in the later stages of recovery when you got back.

Today, a company has to abide by certain government imposed healthcare rules regarding sick time. You are expected to look after your health, and your company works with you to a point to stay that way or get back into shape if you have a minor setback. No home visits to check up on you, though.

In the case you just stop coming in, companies allow so many days and then they send you a terse termination letter.

Sure, the at home follow up may have been a bit extreme, but it probably did save companies from paying shirkers while the rest of the employee base made up for it. Still, would you want nobody to check to see if you’re okay if you suddenly failed to show up at work?

A woman in Pontiac, Michigan, got into her car one day and suddenly died with her key half in the ignition. That wouldn’t be so unusual, except that nothing happened after that.  The woman was known to travel extensively and, therefore, was a loner who kept to herself. She had arranged for her bills to be paid electronically through her bank account. A neighbor kept the lawn mowed, and the house was never disturbed. After payments stopped going through for her auto loan and the house was foreclosed, a man was sent to fix a hole in the roof and that was when they found her body, some six years later.

Of course this is an extreme case, because in 2011 a woman named Rebecca Wells, 51, was found in her cubicle a day after she died, so it took less than 24 hours to notice that the woman who was described as “always working” had given her life to the rat race.

What happens in the case of people who are hiding spousal or date abuse? Companies still send out termination letters after so many days, but nobody seems to follow up to see if the person is really okay.  Sometimes these people are whisked out of state by their abusers, or they have to go into hiding to prevent further tragedy, but we really are losing touch with each other today. Nobody should just vanish and not be noticed. We need to change some of these policies to prevent such events. Nobody should lie dead for years or hours and not be missed. All lives matter.

The Acme was selling sundresses. There was a rack of them between the greeting cards and the baked goods, in sizes small through extra large. I didn’t buy one because none of the prints flattered me, and I don’t think clothes should be sold in a grocery store. I have seen similar fare in the Walgreen’s. Wouldn’t buy one there, either.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to go to a retailer with a clothing department. I like the racks, the colors, the designers sorted nicely into sections and sales tags almost always in full display. I shoot for thirty percent off or more, and I always check each item in my size before selecting one, just to make sure a print is properly aligned or the seams finished.

Sure, clothes are not much more than nudity blockers, but today we have such a variety of ways to do that.  At least women do; men are stuck with pants and shirts forever (and with no way to carry much more than a wallet and keys).

In the summer, men get to toss the shirts, which is probably why we women have a better selection to make up for our loss of upper body freedom.

Whoever decided that clothing should appear in drug stores or grocers must have thought it was the holiday season, when stores stock anything they think will be bought by desperate consumers shopping in vain for the perfect gift and finally giving in to lowering their standards. Those sundresses were like that: strange prints, little tailoring (one seam and two strings at the shoulders) and a one-use price tag. I walked away.

Unfortunately the clothing store didn’t have anything I liked when I went there earlier this week. That still won’t send me desperately running to the Acme for a sundress. I’ll wait until later this season, when the last collections come out and the tags are forty percent less. And I’ll check much more carefully for pattern matches.

And the seams, it seems, make the clothes worthy of one store or the other.

We live in a world of nearly instantaneous gratification, so when my computer started loading much slower than usual, I was slightly concerned. Make that crestfallen. Make that ticked off. Okay, a range of emotions went through my head.  Not my lifeline to the digital world, and not now with a three-day weekend coming up. It’s bad enough when somebody takes your computer from you, but another when it quits by itself.

Now I have to figure out what the bleep is wrong with it, besides the fact that it’s over three years old. I keep it clean, both in terms of surface and hard drive. I avoid viruses by having good software installed. Maybe it’s just one component, like the video graphics or an outdated hidden feature I don’t know about. But why does other stuff work okay? Maybe it’s just one website that is causing the trouble. So in times like this, we turn to the local computer technician for help, and I’m taking it there for diagnosis and treatment. Maybe its time has ended, and I need a new computer. Nothing lasts like it used to, especially electronics. The days of taking the old television to the repair shop are gone. Now people toss them on the curb.

The thought of buying a new computer makes me cringe. There are too many choices, too many prices and too much hassle involved. Apple fans would love for me to come over to the dark side for over a grand, and Windows fans argue the finer points of good old Windows 8 against the latest Windows 10. And who knows what happened to Windows 9.

Maybe I need to go back to the good old typewriter. A qwerty keyboard, a ribbon and a bottle of correction fluid. No printer needed.

When I first began participating in social media, it was a scary idea. Everything said about social media discusses the pitfalls above the pleasures. Bullying and ignorance are just as prevalent on social media as in the school hallway or work restroom. But I took the chance and have a presence on a few sites. Strange, but I don’t feel any more social now than before. Maybe I feel even less human.

Sure, we sometimes offer comments or other feedback, and we can track how popular we supposedly are by who reads what we post, but are those numbers actual measurements of real life? Is the person with one hundred friends less of a human being than one with one million? All it takes is one “friend” to post a hateful comment, and sometimes all the positive ones have lost their effect.

Those of us who game on social media exchange lives and give little gifts as determined by the company producing the games. It’s a third party way of saying “Joe Blow said hello, and here is another chance to waste your time playing Sweet Bashing Story on your work time.” They know that extra lives or gifts won’t help you win the game any faster. They’ve programmed them that way.

When you’re on social media, you can still do silly things like make bad posts while drunk, upload a selfie you forgot your boss can see because you have him on your friend list, or make a grammar error that offends somebody and they and their friends cause your computer to crash with their feedback about what a jerk you are.

I really don’t want anybody to follow me on social media as if those who do are sheep just flocking around like-minded people: I want them to come on my journey with me. By my side. Respecting my opinions as I respect theirs. Don’t make jabs to put me down, and I’ll try to help lift you up.

And I’ll send you an extra life or help you get the key to unlock level 254.

I’ve realized that some of my social media friends are just curious about me: I know this because they added me to their friends list but don’t know exactly how to ask how I’ve been since the last time they saw me. We’re a shy bunch of social media friends.

So what does it mean to post videos and comments and gaming help if we’re really not being very social on what is called social media? I don’t know. While I’m figuring it out, I’ll just keep posting. Maybe somebody will read this all the way through and answer.

My mother pointed to a dress in the Lord & Taylor ad and said it would look good on me. That’s a subtle hint that I should try to get and wear that dress. It looked kind of nice, but of course no mention of it was made anywhere on the ad (“On the Cover:  etc.”) that would clue me in as to how to get that particular one. This meant either going to the store and having a discussion with a sales associate, or going online and trying to pin it down. I did the latter. The last time I went looking for a clothing article in a picture at the store, I wound up having a battle of wits with a sales associate at Macy’s who, of course, never got a copy of what she was supposed to be ready to sell to anxious customers like me. We found the article, but she was still too jaded to appreciate the smell of victory (over the smell of fake leather and fitting rooms).

I found the dress easily enough on the website: a Vince Camuto. It took about three seconds to click on the size chart to find that sizes stopped at 14.

Of course, one can’t blame the designer for restricting his sizes, but he did lose a potential first-time customer in the process.  Maybe next time–the third–will be the best experience ever. How I’ll get there, now that I’ve exhausted two different forms of shopping, is yet to be discovered.

For Administrative Professionals Day I got cards and flowers and such, and I also got a few gift cards. Every gift card I receive is a golden opportunity, and I like to use them. Sometimes I accumulate them for a bit, but they always get used. I have already planned a visit to Starbucks to get a drink or two (but not of coffee, since I’m a tea drinker). I can visit Outback for their wonderful food which will take me five visits to the gym to work off (totally worth it) and Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Then I can hit Wawa (there seems to be one every two miles around here) and Barnes & Noble (not quite as many, but I know the locations of five of them). If I get stomach distress, I have a card from CVS. Once I feel better, I’ll do Dunkin’ Donuts.

Stores seem to like their own gift cards more than cash or credit. I never get a bad attitude from somebody behind the counter when I use one. Recently I had a coupon mailed to me from McDonald’s for a free Extra Value Meal. Normally I don’t do a full meal because I like to have my own beverage–even if it’s just water–but I was on a time crunch and decided to go for it. The cashier didn’t know what to do with it and had to ask a manager. Funny how some of these things work: cards and coupons are both virtual reality cash, but one was more of an enigma than the other. Maybe they just didn’t know where to store it: under the cash or under the gift cards.

Even if you get a card from a place you don’t normally visit, it can be a fun adventure just to poke your head in and try something on your gift giver’s dollar. It’s great to discover a new favorite. Some folks go on trading websites and swap for a familiar merchant card at a loss of some value off your original gift. I can’t picture doing that, especially if the gift card involves food. I’ll try something new at least once, and often I’ll end up coming back and having it again. Those same folks who trade their gift cards sometimes seem to feel that the giver shortchanged them by not getting an actual item, but I don’t feel that way. A gift card adds something new to a regular aspect of life–the shopping or dining experience–which puts you in control of what you buy, so actually the giver is getting that item for you in a way.

Thank you for the gift card. Whatever I get, I’ll think of you as having wrapped it.

I feel obligated to share my story about how Prince affected my life. Since his passing at age 57 was announced on April 21, a world of admirers and their messages have filled phone banks, print and social media with their own stories. My story is about his influence on my writing, and goes back to 1989.

At the time, I was reading an international Prince fan magazine called Controversy. Over the years since becoming a Prince fan, I had developed an interest in many things, including some of the quirks and trivia associated with music. One afternoon, I was listening intently to a Prince album and singing along until I hit a stumbling block and thought I could do something about it. I prepared and submitted an article to the magazine about misheard lyrics (also known as mondegreens) in Prince’s songs, and the magazine printed it in the August 1st issue #18. What a thrill!

The bigger thrill came with the next issue (October 1, #19), when the editor announced that Prince had actually read the issue and jotted down a quick reply to my article: his secretary contacted her and asked if she wanted to include it in the next issue and, after what I’m sure was a few moments of hyperventilating, the arrangement was made.

When the issue went to print, I and myriad other fans were also hyperventilating. The fan in me was over the moon, but the writer in me leaped even higher. It was not just Prince reaching out to me as a fan or sharing something with all the fans reading the magazine; it was proving that my writing was not only worth publishing, but that the subject of the article read it himself. It was an honor and an affirmation to me to keep writing.

I did go on to write more articles, eventually shifting to another newsletter after Controversy folded. The readers continued to praise my work, and I was and am grateful. Now that Prince is gone, a creative spark has flamed out. Writers, fans and all of us who communicate about his contributions to our world will keep the big light burning until we all get to see what he does in concert in the after world. For me, Prince opened the door to my writing, and I hope all my words in the future will be my thanks to him for that.

I went to have my car washed the other day. After weeks of rain and schedules which didn’t match its hours (closes at 5:00 on weekdays to leave out most business folk for some reason), I finally had a day off and penned in a car wash on my calendar of things to do. The attendant had an attitude like car wash owner Bogdan Wolynetz  in Breaking Bad. Except I didn’t see any big eyebrows.

After I got my proof of payment slip and a curt “pay inside” response, I entered the walk-through area to watch my vehicular baby get its spa treatment. I happened to look back outside toward the men who were vacuuming and applying “wheel bright” to my tires. The guy who had just helped me was standing where I had been moments before and blew a  snot rocket on the spot.

Twice in my life I have so closely encountered men who have done this inexcusable thing on public space in my viewing range. My first thought this time was that I was likely to carry some icky stuff back into my freshly cleaned car, then my home. I was suddenly wishing with all my might that a sudden thunderstorm would come and cleanse the entire ground of the contamination.

My mother has told stories about men using handkerchiefs, which then had to be boiled to clean them. This was before oxygenated detergents. With the arrival of tissues and the freedom movements of some 50 years ago, those went out of style, but apparently men don’t like to carry tissues anyway. I suppose that the pain of a wallet under one’s butt for hours daily is enough of a burden, but the solution is not to open-air de-snot oneself in public. Carry a couple of them, guys.

Men belch, pass gas, scratch and adjust their nether regions in public, you might say, so why not toot the snoot as well? There used to be laws about expectorating in public (for a funny take on this, look up “Pay the Two Dollars” on YouTube), but now you don’t know what might be on the ground beneath your feet. I guess I can think about what happened this way: they use steam and jets outside the entrance, so maybe that spot did get cleaned eventually. The image in my head won’t be so easy to dismiss.

My can opener tried to take a plastic bag hostage. Maybe it had issues with the attention I was giving the bag, whereas I had not opened a can for a over a week. Really, though, it was just a crazy incident, resulting from factors beyond my control, that got the bag into the grips of the can opener.

The great mystery of how air and matter come together in a single moment cannot be lost on an event like this. I had just turned around with the bag in my hand to fold it on the table. The handles were waving through the air. The magnetic arm of the can opener was in the same air space as the handles, and one handle was open at just the right angle that it caught on the arm. The one smooth motion I intended to make turned into an awkward tug of war with an inanimate object, which promptly fell over.

It’s worth laughing at now, but if that bag had been a single man, and the can opener another single woman, blood might have been shed. At my stage of life, if the chance for an interaction with an available member of the opposite sex came along, I’d unsheathe the claws and ask questions later. As it was, I won the battle with the can opener, and the bag suffered no ill effects. I guess with a man it would mean no second date.

Sometimes life is just that exciting. The score is one for me and zero for the can opener. And I still got the bag folded.