Chuckle #435 | December 22, 2010
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There is something strangely compelling - and guilt inducing - about a person who selflessly stands outside a store in the freezing cold, ringing a bell. The resulting primal urge to stuff a buck into absurd looking red kettle is simply irresistible...as noted by the insightful minor talent Robert Palmer.
Did you ever wonder why the Salvation Army uses a red camp cooker to collect money? Or why Pavlov used bells to train his dogs? Yeah, me too. Apparently the color red and the sound of bells, attract…especially around the holidays. And unless you are a cold hearted down-on-your luck scrooge, you are going to put SOMETHING in that pot.
I’ve got to hand it to the Salvation Army. Someone there has a brilliant understanding of human motivation. Maslow placed the “urge to donate” (or more specifically, to be seen donating) at the very top of the hierarchy of needs pyramid. So why people make gigantic anonymous donations is hard to understand.
Then there’s me. Caught up in the holiday excitement of making my 15th paltry kettle contribution (and becoming self-actualized), I somehow managed to get my fingers stuck in the pot. Not because I have pudgy fingers or anything, but because there are obvious design flaws in that T shaped money slot.
The people coming out of the grocery store behind me were confronted with a hysterical bell ringer and an even more disturbed woman who looked like she was trying to steal from the Salvation Army.
This particular situation was clearly NOT covered in the bell ringer dude training manual, because he kind of flipped out right along with me.
Sadly enough, I was stealing from the Salvation Army. If my hand had NOT been stuck in the slot for five minutes, they would have taken in at least another 20 bucks. That’s a significant donor shortfall for which I am personally responsible. On the other hand, I drew a pretty big crowd with my kettle dance shenanigans – which surely made up the difference.
That was a LOT of excitement for a 10AM trip to the grocery store. And the day had only just begun.
The holidays are exhausting, even when you DON’T inadvertently steal from the poor; suffer a minor finger injury; and endure massive reputational damage.
The next time I donate, (and there will be a next time because you can’t exit any store without tripping over a Salvation Army guy) I’m using coins. They drop right in and don’t require any prestidigitation at all.
Despite evidence to the contrary, stealing from the poor is not really what I’m all about, (no matter how enticing a class action suit might appear now that I’ve contacted the hundred other people who’ve also gotten their hands stuck in the kettle.)
But just in “case”, the Salvation Army should probably make sure that their liability coverage extends to donor entrapment and holiday mental anguish. Just a friendly suggestion made in the true spirit of the holiday season.
…and to all my Wiccan, Druid and Pagan readers, happy winter solstice.
See you all in 2011!
----------------------------------------------------
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Copyright 2008-2010 LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT USA
Waiting to Explode in Line at Starbucks
Chuckle #434 | December 15th 2010
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I like waiting in lines. It’s my favorite part of the holiday season. Lines give me the chance to demonstrate just how much better I am than the cranky guy standing next to me in line at Starbucks. I am living proof that the holiday spirit is alive and well simply because I do NOT roll my eyes and radiate absolute despair.
In the old days, God used to test us by asking us to do stuff like sacrifice our first born son or build an improbably large ark. Nowadays he simply puts 10 Starbucks “rookies” in line in front of us, several of whom are trying to chat, breastfeed and order all at the same time. If you can hold it together under those circumstances, you are truly virtuous.
Long lines challenge us to show that we are worthy of evolution (or of creation) by staying perfectly, beatifically CALM. Call it what you will – sainthood or survival instinct – patience is what separates us from the apes, our dogs, and precocious two year olds.
At least this is what I told myself while waiting in line at the post office yesterday.
The line was, as expected, ASTRONOMICALLY long. Two of the three postal workers were on break, which bothered some people but left me unperturbed. As I’ve always said, a happy, well rested postal worker doesn’t feel the need to bring his shotgun to work wrapped in a baby blanket.
Yes, the wait was interminable, but finally there was just one person between me and the counter…an attractive Swedish lady with a striking resemblance to Gisele Bundchen. She was so pretty she made everyone in line smile. And she wasn’t even breastfeeding.
“Gisele” wanted to mail some letters, but she had a lot of random stamps to use up. The post office guy told her he didn’t have 10 cent stamps but he could give her 4 cent and 6 cent stamps so that she could combine them with her old stamps and mail her stuff without spending a single extra penny on postage.
Gisele, unsure of how many letters/stamps she had, spent the next 10 minutes counting them. Let’s just say that Gisele's math skills did not seem to be as honed as her appearance. NOT profiling (because I am better than that), just an honest observation.
It didn’t take long for EVERYONE in line to begin to despise Gisele and to swear off Toblerone forever.
By the time Gisele finished her basic math calculations the postman’s face was very red. Total cost to Gisele: 66 cents. Total cost to the rest of us: 20 minutes of our lives and a heightened risk of postal attack. I couldn’t help but think that it would only be fair if Gisele were shot first, giving the rest of us time to bolt for the exit.
Is it possible that God (or the Alien Being that Lives 8 Billion Light Years Away) sent Gisele to test the patience that I so smugly claim to possess? If so, I have failed.
To redeem myself and regain my aura of niceness, I have determined that I must subject myself to an even worse line than the post office in December - which as we all know means a trip to the DMV at lunch time.
I will become the Madonna of Lines once again, even if I have to walk through fire. Even if it requires a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Lines, Disney World.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that many of us, including me (and a certain tightly wound lawyer friend of mine who probably shouldn’t be having caffeine at all), could show a little more patience this time of year.
So the next time “we” are in line at Starbucks, “we” will cut the nursing mom with the three screaming toddlers some slack. “We” won’t make rude gestures at the guy ordering for 10 of his colleagues.
And this holiday season, all of us will remember that real mensch’s DO NOT order blender drinks, especially if there are any postal workers in line behind us.
--------------------------------------------------------
Get your Weekly Chuckle via Email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright 2008-2010, LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT
scroll down to leave a comment
I like waiting in lines. It’s my favorite part of the holiday season. Lines give me the chance to demonstrate just how much better I am than the cranky guy standing next to me in line at Starbucks. I am living proof that the holiday spirit is alive and well simply because I do NOT roll my eyes and radiate absolute despair.
In the old days, God used to test us by asking us to do stuff like sacrifice our first born son or build an improbably large ark. Nowadays he simply puts 10 Starbucks “rookies” in line in front of us, several of whom are trying to chat, breastfeed and order all at the same time. If you can hold it together under those circumstances, you are truly virtuous.
Long lines challenge us to show that we are worthy of evolution (or of creation) by staying perfectly, beatifically CALM. Call it what you will – sainthood or survival instinct – patience is what separates us from the apes, our dogs, and precocious two year olds.
At least this is what I told myself while waiting in line at the post office yesterday.
The line was, as expected, ASTRONOMICALLY long. Two of the three postal workers were on break, which bothered some people but left me unperturbed. As I’ve always said, a happy, well rested postal worker doesn’t feel the need to bring his shotgun to work wrapped in a baby blanket.
Yes, the wait was interminable, but finally there was just one person between me and the counter…an attractive Swedish lady with a striking resemblance to Gisele Bundchen. She was so pretty she made everyone in line smile. And she wasn’t even breastfeeding.
“Gisele” wanted to mail some letters, but she had a lot of random stamps to use up. The post office guy told her he didn’t have 10 cent stamps but he could give her 4 cent and 6 cent stamps so that she could combine them with her old stamps and mail her stuff without spending a single extra penny on postage.
Gisele, unsure of how many letters/stamps she had, spent the next 10 minutes counting them. Let’s just say that Gisele's math skills did not seem to be as honed as her appearance. NOT profiling (because I am better than that), just an honest observation.
It didn’t take long for EVERYONE in line to begin to despise Gisele and to swear off Toblerone forever.
By the time Gisele finished her basic math calculations the postman’s face was very red. Total cost to Gisele: 66 cents. Total cost to the rest of us: 20 minutes of our lives and a heightened risk of postal attack. I couldn’t help but think that it would only be fair if Gisele were shot first, giving the rest of us time to bolt for the exit.
Is it possible that God (or the Alien Being that Lives 8 Billion Light Years Away) sent Gisele to test the patience that I so smugly claim to possess? If so, I have failed.
To redeem myself and regain my aura of niceness, I have determined that I must subject myself to an even worse line than the post office in December - which as we all know means a trip to the DMV at lunch time.
I will become the Madonna of Lines once again, even if I have to walk through fire. Even if it requires a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Lines, Disney World.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that many of us, including me (and a certain tightly wound lawyer friend of mine who probably shouldn’t be having caffeine at all), could show a little more patience this time of year.
So the next time “we” are in line at Starbucks, “we” will cut the nursing mom with the three screaming toddlers some slack. “We” won’t make rude gestures at the guy ordering for 10 of his colleagues.
And this holiday season, all of us will remember that real mensch’s DO NOT order blender drinks, especially if there are any postal workers in line behind us.
--------------------------------------------------------
Get your Weekly Chuckle via Email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright 2008-2010, LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT
Trouble with Towels
Chuckle #433 | December 8th, 2010
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I’ve been having towel trouble. I know, I know…as problems go this is a relatively minor one, but it is slowly sucking the joy out of my life; making me resentful of my family; and eating away at my normally happy-go-lucky nature.
All I seem to do these days is endless loads of laundry, half of which are towels. Yet the linen closet is nearly always empty. Wiped out.
I thought I could solve this problem by simply buying more towels. Rookie mistake. I learned that the more towels I own, the more towels I wash and the more indescribably annoyed I become.
Then I figured out that problem is not so much the towels as it is the people who use them. An infinite number of towels can be absorbed into the teenage lair. A teenager will choose the towel that is clean and folded over one of the five barely touched towels on their bedroom floor EVERY single time.
Hence the mania.
I honestly don’t think my kids have even noticed how obsessed I’ve become. Or maybe they have, and it’s all part of their “plan” to drive me so close to the edge that I don’t care about towels anymore.
If so, they are cleverer than I thought. But I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
In the book Angela’s Ashes, 12 Irish immigrants in a NYC boarding house share TWO towels for an entire week. For hygiene sake they have some complicated rules about “top” use vs. “bottom” use, but somehow they make it work, because that is all they have. And therein lay the answer to my towel problem.
Fewer towels. (Or fewer teenagers, but my husband refuses to consider boarding school.)
So I sorted through my towel collection and kept just two towels per person. I assigned each person a color. I donated the rest. (Most of which were badly fraying anyway.)
If you’ve read Angela’s Ashes, you know that an allotment of two towels per person is downright generous. And the color coding makes it easy to identify the perpetrators of towel crime and punish them by making them dry-off with toilet paper.
Yes, I am both crazy and creative.
My new system was working great for a while. Then my son stopped doing his laundry. He took my husband’s towel; then he took my towel. He stashed said towels in his closet.
We searched for weeks for the towels that my son denied ever touching or seeing. I accepted his argument of plausible deniability since one, we couldn’t find the towels, and two; sleep-deprived teenage boys quite legitimately remember very little.
Meanwhile my husband and I got creative with hand towels.
We eventually found the stolen bath towels at the bottom of a stanky 4 foot pile of laundry in my son’s closet. I ranted; I complained; I whined. Then I took yet another page from Frank McCourt and began to drink, which made me feel much better. Wish I’d thought of it sooner.
But I’m not beaten yet. My NEW idea is for each family member to hide their towels in an undisclosed location to keep them from being pilfered. This seems to be working, though I did not intend to create so much fear and distrust, especially around the holidays.
If this final effort fails, I will buy a case of Vodka. If I can’t win, I might as well not care.
---------------------------------------------------
Get your Weekly Chucle via email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT, USA
scroll down to leave a comment
I’ve been having towel trouble. I know, I know…as problems go this is a relatively minor one, but it is slowly sucking the joy out of my life; making me resentful of my family; and eating away at my normally happy-go-lucky nature.
All I seem to do these days is endless loads of laundry, half of which are towels. Yet the linen closet is nearly always empty. Wiped out.
I thought I could solve this problem by simply buying more towels. Rookie mistake. I learned that the more towels I own, the more towels I wash and the more indescribably annoyed I become.
Then I figured out that problem is not so much the towels as it is the people who use them. An infinite number of towels can be absorbed into the teenage lair. A teenager will choose the towel that is clean and folded over one of the five barely touched towels on their bedroom floor EVERY single time.
Hence the mania.
I honestly don’t think my kids have even noticed how obsessed I’ve become. Or maybe they have, and it’s all part of their “plan” to drive me so close to the edge that I don’t care about towels anymore.
If so, they are cleverer than I thought. But I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
In the book Angela’s Ashes, 12 Irish immigrants in a NYC boarding house share TWO towels for an entire week. For hygiene sake they have some complicated rules about “top” use vs. “bottom” use, but somehow they make it work, because that is all they have. And therein lay the answer to my towel problem.
Fewer towels. (Or fewer teenagers, but my husband refuses to consider boarding school.)
So I sorted through my towel collection and kept just two towels per person. I assigned each person a color. I donated the rest. (Most of which were badly fraying anyway.)
If you’ve read Angela’s Ashes, you know that an allotment of two towels per person is downright generous. And the color coding makes it easy to identify the perpetrators of towel crime and punish them by making them dry-off with toilet paper.
Yes, I am both crazy and creative.
My new system was working great for a while. Then my son stopped doing his laundry. He took my husband’s towel; then he took my towel. He stashed said towels in his closet.
We searched for weeks for the towels that my son denied ever touching or seeing. I accepted his argument of plausible deniability since one, we couldn’t find the towels, and two; sleep-deprived teenage boys quite legitimately remember very little.
Meanwhile my husband and I got creative with hand towels.
We eventually found the stolen bath towels at the bottom of a stanky 4 foot pile of laundry in my son’s closet. I ranted; I complained; I whined. Then I took yet another page from Frank McCourt and began to drink, which made me feel much better. Wish I’d thought of it sooner.
But I’m not beaten yet. My NEW idea is for each family member to hide their towels in an undisclosed location to keep them from being pilfered. This seems to be working, though I did not intend to create so much fear and distrust, especially around the holidays.
If this final effort fails, I will buy a case of Vodka. If I can’t win, I might as well not care.
---------------------------------------------------
Get your Weekly Chucle via email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT, USA
A Perfect Pat-Down is Priceless
Chuckle #432 | December 1st, 2010
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Our federal bureaucracies need to hire more Harvard MBAs. How do I know? Because the Transportation Security Administration could be making a bajillion dollars by offering travelers an “upgraded” security experience - for a hefty fee - and it doesn’t.
For example, if I could choose Sven, the 6 foot Icelandic blond with the rippling forearms to do my pat-down; would I not pay at least 20 extra bucks for the privilege? Especially if standing behind “scary pat-down door number two” was toothless “body-odor Billie Bob” with the unusually sweaty palms.
Now that I can visualize the options, I might even pay $40.
The TSA has a captive, unhappy audience, ripe for a value-added upsell. What they obviously DON’T have is a marketing and sales department.
Our economy is in the dumpster, yet the TSA refuses to cash in on the desires of travelers like myself who would gladly shell out for Sven. Enhanced security fees are a NO-BRAINER, they are like an optional progressive tax, a win win. It’s the kind of revenue stream that Republicans and Democrats have DREAMED of for years– but which I came up with after just two hours in the airport security line.
Let the rich pay for stuff they desperately want. Let the government reap the reward. This country needs new sources of “voluntary” revenue that’s not generated from regressive options like casinos and lotteries.
There’s no need to tax the rich when they’re willing to purchase “security services” at astronomical prices. Why shouldn’t our government monopolies take advantage of their power over the free market? (Just ignore the fact that this might be communism and focus on the money.)
Think about it. Charging “extra” has kept the airline industry afloat for years. Security upgrade fees could do the same for Washington.
Patriotic Americans will NOT complain about having the opportunity to “pimp” their security experience, because most Americans are capitalists and accept that life often includes Pareto optimal outcomes. (In other words, life isn't fair.)
The airlines have paved the way for TSA to make its move. We are already used to paying extra for luggage, for snacks, for movies, for blankets and pillows, for extra leg room, for being fat, and for the air hostess to be extra nice (it’s called First Class). The American Traveler is ripe for the picking.
So how will the TSA bring in the big bucks? For starters, they have to make enhanced pat- downs required for all passengers. Then they have to make the regular security process extremely tedious and unpleasant with really long lines. (Oh wait, they’ve already done that.) All that is left to do is to offer a menu of security experience “upgrades” beyond the current basic offerings.
I suggest the following “Travel Menu” for starters.
“Security Express” - a quicker route through security, AKA authorized cutting.
“Pat-Down Plus” - a more “spa-like” enhanced pat-down room, with plush robes and slippers, changing rooms and a beverage service.
“Pat-Down Choice” – pat-downs by educated, attractive individuals, who offer scintillating conversation as you are felt-up, to help take your mind off (or enhance) the experience.
“Keepsake Scanner Art” – option to purchase a copy of your naked body scanner image as a souvenir or framed art. They make excellent gifts.
People who don’t wish to pay for “upgrades” (or who can’t afford to) can simply keep doing what they are doing now for free. Research shows that people respond very positively to the word “free”.
While security is our first priority, I see no problem with putting a price on public “outrage”.
If I have to get a pat-down, I want the option of getting it from Sven.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Get Your Weekly Chuckle via email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright 2008-2010, LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT, USA
scroll down to leave a comment
Our federal bureaucracies need to hire more Harvard MBAs. How do I know? Because the Transportation Security Administration could be making a bajillion dollars by offering travelers an “upgraded” security experience - for a hefty fee - and it doesn’t.
For example, if I could choose Sven, the 6 foot Icelandic blond with the rippling forearms to do my pat-down; would I not pay at least 20 extra bucks for the privilege? Especially if standing behind “scary pat-down door number two” was toothless “body-odor Billie Bob” with the unusually sweaty palms.
Now that I can visualize the options, I might even pay $40.
The TSA has a captive, unhappy audience, ripe for a value-added upsell. What they obviously DON’T have is a marketing and sales department.
Our economy is in the dumpster, yet the TSA refuses to cash in on the desires of travelers like myself who would gladly shell out for Sven. Enhanced security fees are a NO-BRAINER, they are like an optional progressive tax, a win win. It’s the kind of revenue stream that Republicans and Democrats have DREAMED of for years– but which I came up with after just two hours in the airport security line.
Let the rich pay for stuff they desperately want. Let the government reap the reward. This country needs new sources of “voluntary” revenue that’s not generated from regressive options like casinos and lotteries.
There’s no need to tax the rich when they’re willing to purchase “security services” at astronomical prices. Why shouldn’t our government monopolies take advantage of their power over the free market? (Just ignore the fact that this might be communism and focus on the money.)
Think about it. Charging “extra” has kept the airline industry afloat for years. Security upgrade fees could do the same for Washington.
Patriotic Americans will NOT complain about having the opportunity to “pimp” their security experience, because most Americans are capitalists and accept that life often includes Pareto optimal outcomes. (In other words, life isn't fair.)
The airlines have paved the way for TSA to make its move. We are already used to paying extra for luggage, for snacks, for movies, for blankets and pillows, for extra leg room, for being fat, and for the air hostess to be extra nice (it’s called First Class). The American Traveler is ripe for the picking.
So how will the TSA bring in the big bucks? For starters, they have to make enhanced pat- downs required for all passengers. Then they have to make the regular security process extremely tedious and unpleasant with really long lines. (Oh wait, they’ve already done that.) All that is left to do is to offer a menu of security experience “upgrades” beyond the current basic offerings.
I suggest the following “Travel Menu” for starters.
“Security Express” - a quicker route through security, AKA authorized cutting.
“Pat-Down Plus” - a more “spa-like” enhanced pat-down room, with plush robes and slippers, changing rooms and a beverage service.
“Pat-Down Choice” – pat-downs by educated, attractive individuals, who offer scintillating conversation as you are felt-up, to help take your mind off (or enhance) the experience.
“Keepsake Scanner Art” – option to purchase a copy of your naked body scanner image as a souvenir or framed art. They make excellent gifts.
People who don’t wish to pay for “upgrades” (or who can’t afford to) can simply keep doing what they are doing now for free. Research shows that people respond very positively to the word “free”.
While security is our first priority, I see no problem with putting a price on public “outrage”.
If I have to get a pat-down, I want the option of getting it from Sven.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Get Your Weekly Chuckle via email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright 2008-2010, LOLmom.com, Greenwich CT, USA
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