DoTell Phone Company

My cell phone bill didn’t look right.  I called in the evening and got through twelve rounds of press this number, only to hear, “We are experiencing a large volume of calls at this time and cannot take your call. Please call back or visit our website.”  So I called back at 8 AM and got the same message.  I imagined one person sitting there answering one line at a time, doing her nails, eating breakfast, picking her teeth, or whatever they do when they don’t have time to take my “customer service call.” 

A few days later, I did get through to a surly “customer service representative.”  After playing press this number for a few minutes, I was provoked, I admit.  If you speak English, press one.  If you’re calling about becoming a customer, press two (we’ll give you the nice person and handle your call right away).  If you are an existing customer, press three (and you will never speak to a real person).  If you are an optimist with lots of time, press four.  If you are a pessimist, press off.  I was an optimist, but the representative cured me.

I called because if I go into the office, it looks like a refuge camp.  People with forlorn expressions sitting hunched over, or leaning against a wall, looking as if they have been there for generations, waiting for help.  The representative goes to the sign in sheet every couple of hours and calls out a name.  “Jeff”.  He looks around the room—hopefully—maybe the guy left.  Finally someone in the back says, “He died yesterday here in the corner.”  He gestures to a crumpled form. “He was afraid to go out for food or drink because he would go to the bottom of the list.  He’s been here for four days.  I offered to call my wife to bring provisions, but my cell phone doesn’t work.”  The reporter looks downcast, sad to report the tragic, but not unheard of event.  It happens, you know. Do tell.

Casket Warranty

          My mother told me something that puzzles me a little. When she bought my Dad’s casket, it came with a warranty. A lifetime warranty. So I’m wondering, whose lifetime? Obviously Dad is already gone. Is it Mom’s lifetime? That’s an easy game for manufacturers. Selling lifetime warranties to seventy-year-old women. I checked into it and found some caskets are warranted for 80, 90, even 200 years. They advertise a “fully insured warranty”, whatever that is. There is a “locking mechanism”, a system to seal the bottom, and we are promised an “exterior cathodically protected against rust and corrosion.” And there is a sealing system to keep the elements out.

            Now this is really bothering me. Why do we need to lock it down so tight? If the person is trying to get out, we probably should let them out, right? I can see why having the bottom fall out during the carrying of it could be a bad thing. The strong bottom sounds reasonable. Now, here’s the other thing that has me wondering. Are we supposed to be checking them? Of all my relatives who have died, I don’t remember once going to check the casket to see if the warranty was good. How do we know if the seal has held? How do we know if the locking mechanism held? How do we know if there is rust and corrosion? We can’t make good on the warranty if we don’t know it failed, can we? 

            As a young child, I remember going to the cemetery to place flowers on the graves. “Oh look, someone put flags on the graves,” my aunt would say. “Alf is doing a good job of keeping the grass cut and the weeds away from the stone,” my mother would say as she pulled the errant weed. Not once did I ever hear them say, “It’s time to check the casket for rust and corrosion.”

Grandchildren

When I had babies, we delighted in the surprise of hearing, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!”  Nurseries were pale yellow and pale green, so as not to offend the little one.  As if they cared.  Now days we know babies like black and white and they star in their own little video, complete with gender identification, long before we get to hold them.  These are our grandchildren—we know much about them and love them before they are born.

Research shows that baby boomer grandmothers are more active than our grandmothers were.  Now days children go to grandmother’s house and she says, “Where are your hiking boots? Pack up the granola bars, we’re going up the mountain.”  What happened to baking cookies and sewing your own clothes?

We all know we don’t have time for that.  We are career women.  We are educated on health issues.  We know those quarter pound hamburgers will kill us, so we don’t eat them every day, just on Saturdays. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, women fought for the right to enter the rat race.  We got in the race, but still don’t have front starting status.  It takes a while to get around with all that extra baggage—women’s work—that we kept when we entered the race.  Something’s wrong with this picture. 

 

Now I’d rather be home baking cookies—but I’d have to do it after work.  Many of the young moms would rather be baking cookies too.  Listen to me now, this is what I’ve learned.  Go for it.  Work enough to stimulate your intellect and challenge you professionally and stay home as much as you can afford and want.  Spend time with the kids.  Their intelligence and compassion will increase and, in the long run, make a better world.  The world where my grandchildren live.

Tell No One

          My mother was talking to a friend the other day and she said she never tells anyone she has had a heart attack.  People treat you differently when they know, she says.  I think she’s onto something.  I’m not going to tell people I’m short.  It makes them treat me differently.  I don’t want them to know.  Vertically challenged people are discriminated against. 

     Listen to me now.  The thermostat is at a level where I can’t even see the numbers.  No wonder the house is always either too hot or too cold.  And the buttons on the microwave—Amazon height.  Ever notice that the short people hose are at the tip top of the rack and the queen size Amazon height hose are at the bottom?  Who came up with that brilliant plan?  I don’t let anyone see me step up on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator section at the grocery store.  How else am I going to reach the last carton of milk that is on the very top shelf?  The check-writing shelf at the bank—giant level.  That’s double jeopardy now that I can’t see up close without glasses.  The check is right under my nose.  And at the library—might as well bring a spyglass to check out the books on the top shelf there.  Thank goodness for cell phone banking and Kindle books. Stretch those screens to suit you!

     See the short person wiggle from side to side in her chair at the movies?  Her feet don’t touch the floor and the circulation in her legs has been cut off.  That’s me, trying to restore blood supply to the lower extremities.  But I tell no one, because they will treat me differently.  Only the guy that I stopped to ask if he would hand me a box of trash bags off the top shelf at the super home store.  He won’t remember though—he had a new power drill in his hand and a smile on his face.

The Way Things Are

So here we are in the “mid-life”, hot flashes leaving us wanting to tear our clothes off right in the middle of a staff meeting.  We are less likely to want to impress someone than the young woman with the fresh manicure, sitting across the table.  What do we know that she doesn’t?  Plenty.  Let’s pause to think about it.

Communicaton: It's a Wonderful Thing if You Can Get It

Universities have paid thousands of dollars to research something we all know.  Men and women communicate differently.  We use different words and gestures for the same meanings. And we try to open communication in different ways. A man always wants the woman’s attention when she is on the phone, bathing the children, or taking a shower.  Maybe you've noticed that when couples are home alone and she is ready to talk, he will have a mandatory program to watch on the Discovery Channel.  This leads to the root of all evil—lack of communication. Listen to me now.  It’s true.  What we need is a dictionary. English speakers use a dictionary when communicating with someone who speaks Spanish, French, or Farsi, right?  It makes sense and it could save marriages. Here's a start.

Male Says	Translation
I’ll call you.	If you don’t hear from me in two weeks, I’m not interested.
Are you wearing that?	I like the slinky one better.
You look nice.	You are beautiful and I’m so proud to be going out with you.
We’re almost there.	We’re lost.
I’ll watch the kids for you.	I’ll watch the kids, but I can’t do dishes, laundry or yard work at the same time.  And tonight I’ll get a reward.
I like your tuna casserole just fine.	I’d rather eat dirt.
Yea, me too.	I love you too.
That guy’s an idiot.	His opinion is different than mine.

I'm sure you've noticed other ones. Send them along to add to the dictionary.