Category Archives: Uncategorized

Lamination gone bad

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I’m so mad I could spit!!

My favorite Domer and I took several of his dorm room posters to a local copy shop this morning for laminating. He said they last much longer with that plasticky stuff front and back.

We picked them up and paid for them (close to $30), then went home. When we gave them a closer inspection, we were appalled to realize the ink had bled through. The backs were almost as printed as the fronts. The lines and letters were fuzzy, the colors were blurry, and the edges had all kinds of icky ink bumps on them.

I called the shop manager, explained our “disappointment” (in a nice way, mind you), and was told we “must not have noticed” the ink was bad when we dropped them off.

Huh?

That doesn’t fly, because we had looked them over very carefully beforehand.

I tried to tell her this, but she got all huffy and told me she isn’t to blame for laminating that goes wrong.

Really?

As a small business person myself, I understand how difficult it is to have to re-do a job. It’s time-consuming and you can’t simply re-bill for that time.

But oh how much worse it would be NOT to “make it right”!

One bad customer with an axe to grind can truly ruin your entire basket of business!

Most business people know this.

Take Wal-Mart, for example. If you’re not satisfied with a purchase, simply return it — they’ll credit the card you used for the purchase, give you cash for your return, or let you exchange it for something else.

Simple. And effective.

That’s why folks love Wally-world!

Why should a copy shop be any different?

Sure, they have a monopoly — especially in a small town — but does that excuse them from Basic Business Ethics 101??

We went back to the shop to show the manager what we meant. MFD insisted I wait in the car — at 19, he’s certainly old enough to register his own complaints!

He was back within minutes, steaming. The manager, he said, refused to do anything. Since his posters are obviously ruined, he asked if she would reprint the posters from his flash drive, then try the lamination again. No deal.

She was sticking to her guns and that was that.

Now he’s out the initial money to print the posters AND the money for the ruined lamination job!

This, on a college kid’s “allowance.”

Of course I checked her business out online, hoping to register a complaint there. She’s not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, nor is she a member of our city’s Chamber of Commerce.

Short of writing a scathing Letter to the Editor of our newspaper, I’m at a loss.

It makes my hackles rise that one puny excuse of a business owner can set such a sorry example for our youth!

And you can bet we won’t step foot inside her shop again!

Thinking about Accents

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After I got home from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I was on the phone with one of my clients, who observed, “I can tell you went south for your vacation. You’re dropping “g’s” all over the place!”

Yes, I am.

It doesn’t take long for me to pick up a Southern accent!

Blame it on the fact that I was reared by two Southerners and was saying “y’all” before I even went off to kindergarten. I also went to college in the south and lived and worked in Mississippi and Texas for a number of years.

The whole thing’s even more prominent when I have a cold.

I make no apologies for my accent, and I’m pretty sure my client wasn’t poking fun at it. We all have to be from some place, and the majority of us pick up the accents we’re around the most.

Accents help us “categorize” each other. If you’ve got a halfway decent ear and a bit of experience, you can pinpoint at least the region a person hails from by his accent.

Most of the time.

Early in my career, I worked for a woman from Mississippi who admitted she’d taken elocution lessons and spent countless dollars to rid herself of a southern accent. It sounded rednecky, she told me.

How sad.

Just because a person’s from Hicksville doesn’t mean he’s a hick. By the same token, simply having a British accent does not confer the monarchy on you!

For years, a “flat, Midwestern accent” was considered the ideal when it came to TV anchors and other readers of the news (think Walter Cronkite). Everybody, it seemed, wanted to hear vowels and consonants pronounced the same way.

But even across the Midwest, there are many varieties of accent. A person from southern Illinois certainly speaks differently than a resident of Minnesota, for example, and “city folk” use different expressions than rural residents.

Because our society is so mobile today, I suspect even more shifting of accents will occur over time.

Still, isn’t it fascinating to talk to strangers and really listen to not only what they say but how they say it?

Of Tar balls and Heat

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Now that I’ve just about caught up from being on vacation, I can write about my experiences.

We traveled to Gulfport, MS. That’s all the way down south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Right there where BP’s tar balls were coming ashore.

No, I didn’t see any. In fact, what I saw were pristine, sandy beaches, with brand-new palm trees, piers, roadways, and new construction.

The Coast has come a long way from the state it was in five years ago after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the place.

Oh, sure, there’s much to be done — like getting the residents back, getting the businesses back, getting the hope and joy and spirit of fun back.

But, fellow travelers, don’t expect to see slime all over the beaches.

It ain’t there.

Don’t expect to find a wealth of homes and businesses sprouting up waterside, either.

The Mississippi Coast used to boast fabulous antebellum homes with sprawling lawns, profuse flowers, immense live oaks, and splendid views of the water. Home after home lined Highway 90, from the eastern state line to the west.

No more.

Katrina took care of that.

The owners of such “mansions” either moved farther inland or abandoned the area entirely.

What’s there now pales in comparison.

“Homes on stilts” or “hurricane-proof” structures are the wave of the present, thanks to more stringent construction laws.

Which were needed.

But it’s still sad to see.

Many of the restaurants and other businesses, too, relocated, meaning you have to work a bit harder and drive a bit farther to find your favorite places. But, as I was told, there’s no recession on the Coast when it comes to food — everybody, it seems, is eating out and enjoying it!

What I wasn’t prepared for was the heat and humidity.

You expect July to be hot. It’s hot in Central Illinois; it’s hot out East; shoot, it’s hot in Russia!

But this was beastly heat, the kind that sucks the energy right out of you, the kind that’s flat-out dangerous to be in.

So I stayed inside. With the air conditioning. And felt sorry for those who had to be out in the heat.

Vacation time

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Quick — what’s the worst thing about being on vacation?

The hassle of packing?

The agony of resting from work?

The relaxing of standards of diet and exercise?

Nope, it’s the being unconnected from things!

I took a few days off recently (more about that another time!), and even though I hauled my laptop with me, I found whole hours — even days! — passing without my turning it on.

To check e-mail.

To read blogs.

To do any work.

To simply catch up with the news.

I know, I know. Most people would say, “What’s the problem with that? You were on vacation.”

True, but when you like your “work” as much as I do, it’s not work.

It is vacation!

So, online friends, please forgive me for not commenting on your blogs or replying to your e-mail messages. I really didn’t fall down a hole.

I missed you, and your wit, and your thoughtful comments. I missed hearing what was going on in your world. I missed laughing with you, crying with you, seething with you.

I missed our connection.

And, even though there’s an immense pile of stuff screaming for my attention, it’s good to be back.

Mmm…bunnies!

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Okay, it’s hot and sticky outside, and there are a gazillion things I need to be doing.

Therefore, permit me to post a link of total cuteness for you.

Go on, it will only take a minute or so. No sound, just video, for those in an office situation.

My Favorite Domer sent it to me, and I want to share it with you.

Here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBIB6ZyTUmg

I’ll be back tomorrow with more musings!

Save my Neighborhood…Please!

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I called our city’s street department this morning to ask them (nicely!) when (or if) they plan on fixing an ongoing drainage problem in our neighborhood.

Like other neighbors who’ve called, I got the run-around.

Here’s what we’re dealing with:

pooling water

I don’t know about you, but I find this distasteful on several fronts:

  • Pooling water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which can carry the West Nile virus.
  • Lawn chemicals drain off into the sidewalk and street, eventually settling in the pooled water and attaching to dog paws. Dogs lick their paws, ingest chemicals, and become sick or die.
  • Some snakes (eeww!) prefer an aquatic environment.
  • Pooling water looks (and smells!) bad.
  • What kind of impression does it convey to visitors?

As I said, this problem has been going on for years. There are tiles in the nearby fields, they tell me, that drain rainwater into our neighborhood (and a few neighbors add to it by washing cars, watering lawns, etc.).

Admittedly, we’ve had a LOT of rain. During June alone, we amassed something like 10 inches of the stuff.

But I took this picture this morning — and we haven’t had rain for days! In fact, it’s been exceedingly hot and sticky, so you’d have thought this mess would have evaporated.

When I explained to the street department my concerns, the woman answering the phone said they’ve had crews out to look, but they “don’t have a solution at this time.”

Huh??

Sure, I’ve seen ’em out looking. But all they do is wave and drive by.

I asked if they couldn’t at least take a big sponge and sop up the water. No.

Couldn’t they hire a consultant to recommend an acceptable solution? No.

We pay taxes out here, hefty taxes, I pointed out. Sorry.

When I finally suggested calling the newspaper to have them investigate, she said, “I don’t know what they could do.”

I started back on the taxes and how much money the city throws away on useless consultants and the nastiness of the stagnant water and other stuff when I noticed she wasn’t there.

Probably laid the phone down and walked off.

Grrr, this makes me MAD!

And it doesn’t address our problem.

Anybody out there who’s succeeded in fighting city hall? I’d welcome your suggestions — and so would my neighbors.

Remembering my first piano teacher

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Besides the Fourth of July being, well, the Fourth of July, it’s also the birthday of my first piano teacher.

I don’t remember how my parents found Mrs. W., but her chief selling point was that she came to the house for lessons!

Yep, her aging husband drove her down from their tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it community every week, rain, snow, or whatever. He’d park their rattle-trap car in the driveway and sleep while she went inside for a 30-minute lesson in scales and the Schaum method.

As a kid, I didn’t appreciate her. My sister and I groaned about having to practice every day, having to endure a weekly lesson, having to participate in twice yearly recitals.

Mrs. W. was old. Clad in a belted dress (never pants!) and sensible shoes, she wore her graying hair in a bun and kind of leaned over you as you were tinkling the ivories.

Her breath smelled like an old person, and she had long hairs sticking out from her chin. Her eyes were a watery shade of blue behind her glasses; she never wore makeup or cologne or fingernail polish.

She was plain.

And looking back, I’m not even sure if she played piano! I mean, try as we might, we never could entice her to play something for us “so we could hear what it was supposed to sound like.”

But her fees were reasonable (too low, actually), and she awarded us lots of stars and stickers — Flags, dogs, flowers. And somewhere along the way, I learned how to play piano and how much I love music.

Mrs. W. passed away several years ago, and it bothers me that I didn’t have a chance to really thank her. After all, she was patient and kind, punctual and modest, and she must have known something because my teachers who followed her indicated I had a “good grounding in the basics.”

So Mrs. W., wherever you are, Thank You and Happy Birthday!

Bunnies

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One of my favorite things about this time of year is bunnies.

If I didn’t have a dog — a herding dog — I’d raise bunnies, lots of bunnies.

I love the way their little noses twitch and how oh-so-still they sit when they sense danger nearby. Maybe they think they’re invisible if they don’t move, but they haven’t got my dog fooled!

I’m thinking in particular about three special bunnies I’ve come into close contact with:

1) A tiny, jet-black bunny I picked up and cuddled in a petting zoo once. His little heart hammered like it would jump right out of his chest, but I just wanted to take him home!

2) A HUGE white bunny owned by one of my son’s friends. This one was the size of a small dog and would even let you pet him!

3) A “teenaged” bunny, much like the one in this picture.

bunny eating grass

In case you can’t find him, he’s sitting beside the sidewalk eating grass. I couldn’t get any closer, for fear he’d hop away.

Anyway, a bunny much like the photo-bunny managed to get tangled up in some fishing nets my dad had off our back porch one rainy Sunday afternoon several years ago.

Daddy said the bunny would work himself free and cautioned me he might be “sick,” but I didn’t listen. I ran to get a pair of scissors.

“Are you going to help, or do I have to do this by myself?” I demanded.

Daddy picked up the “prisoner,” who watched us warily. The poor thing seemed to know we were trying to help, for he stopped struggling against the netting and froze. I looked at his bleeding leg and felt tears come to my eyes.

Working fast, I snipped his little feet free. We set him down, and off he scampered!

It was a good feeling.

Since then, I’ve often wondered whether the bunny we saved ever returns to our yard, whether he (or she) had baby bunnies, and whether he remembers our setting him free.

I like to think he probably does!

Curious about tattoos

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I’ve got a question that’s been bothering me for some time — what’s with the proliferation of tattoos??

Now I realize this will probably brand me an “old fogey” or worse, but I’m serious. Why do so many people today get tattoos?

They’re young, old, or in-between; they’re black, white, or Hispanic; they’re in little towns or big cities. They tattoo their arms, legs, backs, chests, and every possible place, visible or not.

There are butterflies, crosses, tribal insignia, hearts and flowers, somebody’s name, and fancy designs.

And it seems as if one isn’t enough. One leads to two, two leads to four, you get the idea.

I’m not standing in judgment here. Really. I’m merely curious. What’s the attraction?

Not so long ago, tattoos were frowned upon in the working world. Job applicants kept their tattoos covered until they were safely hired; and if their new position required them to interact with the public, they were told to keep them covered.

Tattoos used to be the decoration of sailors, bikers, hard rock band members, and such. Increasingly, I’m seeing more and more “regular people” sporting inky designs, and nobody seems to think a thing about it.

When did all this change?

The most recent statistic I could find was a 2006 study by the American Academy of Dermatology. In it, researchers found that almost one in four Americans between 18 and 50 are tattooed! In addition, 36% of Americans aged 18 to 29 are tattooed.

Does that boggle your mind like it does mine?

I mean, tattooing involves needles (pain) and an electronic machine that sounds like a dental drill. Where’s the fun in that?

And it’s not cheap. Even a small tattoo under one inch in size can set you back $50 to $100.

In the olden days, Old Testament law forbade the Israelite people from tattooing themselves (Leviticus 19:28). But the New Testament of the Bible doesn’t address tattooing so the only guideline we can use is to honestly ask ourselves whether it’s pleasing to God. Our bodies, after all, belong to Him, having been purchased at great price (the death of His only Son on the Cross).

I’m “un-inked” and fully intend to remain so. That’s my choice. I don’t like needles, and I’m just changeable enough to realize I’d never want anything permanently marked on me that I couldn’t easily get off.

But that doesn’t stop my curiosity! I still want to know, Why do people get tattoos? Any thoughts?

What a bunch of weenies!

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Okay, I promised another move-in story, so here goes.

Arriving in South Bend, I wanted to get checked in to a hotel before moving My Favorite Domer into his dorm for Summer Term.

He, of course, insisted he move in first.

Since he only had a small window of time to move in, I acquiesced.

It wasn’t as bad as last year. We probably packed better, the weather cooperated, and we had less stuff.

How much junk does a kid need for Summer Term, anyway?

It’s almost like packing for camp.

So we got him settled, then off we went to find me a room for the night.

That’s when the fun started.

We checked a couple of places — all full.

Finally, in frustration, I asked one of the desk clerks what was going on that had hotel occupancy off the charts.

He sheepishly admitted they’d had a wicked storm the night before, and most of the hotel guests were actually residents who didn’t want to be inconvenienced because their power was out but knew the hotels had generators.

Huh??

You could have knocked me over with a feather!

After all, I lived on the Gulf Coast for several years, and every season (or so it seemed!), we had a hurricane blow through and knock out power for a week at a time!

In 90+ degree weather, day AND night!

No hot food. No hair dryer. No air conditioner. Not even a stinkin’ fan!

But we suffered through it. Brave little warriors, wearing our sweat-drenched T-shirts and sharing our tales of woe with anybody who’d listen.

Yet here these “weenies” were, spending a couple of hundred bucks to stay overnight  in a hotel — with FREE TV, air conditioning, and a pool!

Topping it off, the next morning I noticed the temperature had dropped to a cool 62 degrees.

I’m tellin’ ya, some people have more money than sense!