Ok, now that I weeded out those not interested, let’s begin with Sunday morning. We’d just finished off a nice breakfast together. A big storm was coming up and we didn’t have any big plans. It was looking like a pretty uneventful and peaceful day. I finished off my pot of coffee and headed upstairs to take care of some business. I don’t know how else to say it, so there it is. The bathroom off the master bedroom is ‘my’ bathroom. It’s smaller than the main 2nd floor one, so I think that’s how I ended up with it. I have a nice candle and collection of magazines and books. I have the radio tuned to the sports station. It’s even heated, which M’s bathroom is not. It can be a comfortable place sometimes and when I get the chance to, I can linger, especially on weekends. This was one such day. After a little bit, I decided to do a mid-term flush. This serves two purposes. One, it makes everything generally more pleasant. Second it’s a preventative measure against catastrophes, of which there has been one already. Our house is newer, so it is filled with wimpy low flow plumbing and tends to get a little slow when taxed. No worries, I would take an appropriate break and prevent this from happening. Wrong. After the big whoosh and gurgle, I waited to hear the pleasant bubbling noise that means it’s time for round 2. No pleasant bubbling, only a tired and slightly-higher-than-usual level. I decided this could be trouble, so I ceased operations and went into troubleshooting mode. There still needed to be a final flush, so I waited for the water to go down to normal levels and fired away. Big mistake. Not only did the added water not push the rest down, it filled up much faster than I anticipated. I did calculate that the makers of the commode had to plan on the bowl holding enough water for a full tank in addition to whatever the water in the bottom of the bowl is called, so I was reasonably comfortable that it wasn’t going to overflow. Except it was going to. Higher and higher and higher the water rose. My first move was to yank up the bath mat and anything that would absorb copious amounts of overflow. Next was to quickly check if there were any gaps in the baseboards and floor, and it seems like the construction was sound there. Next I had to evaluate what I was going to use as a bailing device. I had 3 options. First was the coffee mug I use to drink out of after I brush my teeth. It’s a souvenir mug from a trip I took to a Buffalo farm back when I first moved to Boston. I really didn’t want to use that. Next was the plastic bowl that I use to mix my shaving cream with. That would have probably worked, except it is shallow and lacked a handle. Last was the trashcan. That looked to be the best, although I needed to dump out the contents of the can first and I was doubtful that the can would even fit in the bowl. Keep in mind I did these mental gymnastics all in 3 seconds while yelling profanities at the bowl, hoping it would stop. To her credit, M did come to check on me and I heard a pleasant “Everything alright in there??” through the door. I assured her I was fine, but only after the water peaked at a level slightly higher than the rim of the bowl. I believe the scientific explanation is that surface tension keeps the meniscus of the water from overflowing, even though it is higher than the lip. If you slowly fill a cup with water you can observe this yourself sometime. So now I have an overfull bowl and no exit strategy. Luckily I could hear the glorious sounds of slow trickling, i.e draining from the bowl. Once I had some room to work with I took out the plunger and suddenly realized it was woefully inadequate to the task. I remember scoffing at the $20 plunger and buying the $6 one instead, thinking that so much money for what you’re using it for was ridiculous. Turns out I was right. Until I needed a $20 plunger. With several failed attempts at resolution, I left the offending plunger in situ and went downstairs to amend our shopping list for the day. Upon our return with the $16 model ($20 is still ridiculous) I was rewarded with several deep glugs as the new soldier stepped into battle brilliantly.
I don’t think anyone has ever told me not to cheap out on a plunger. I already knew you couldn’t cheap out on mayonnaise, toothpaste, T-shirts, shoes, laundry detergent, sushi and plastic surgery. I used to have razor blades in that category, but once I learned the “Gillette uses decommissioned battleships for its razor steel” story was a myth, the extreme price of the Mach XII ultra turbo 6 blade was a little too extreme. I tried some cheapo disposables and I’m happily disposing my way to my 500kg yearly trash allotment. 500kg, that’s right, over 1000 lbs of trash per year, per person in the wealthy west. I read a very interesting article about trash in the next century and that’s what the data show. You know why you see plastic bags blowing everywhere in 3rd world countries? Because that’s the only thing people in those places can’t recycle. There aren’t many municipal trash services, so without mass-scale recycling there would be mountains of rotting trash everywhere. I didn’t see Slumdog Millionaire, but I heard there were some nasty garbage scenes, so I am not claiming that 100% of the trash is actually recycled in these places, only that it could be much much worse. I didn’t believe that I produced half a ton of trash every year, but at the end of the week we have a decent pile to go out to the dumpster. It’s entirely possible. I bet the people with kids bump up this number, so it evens out.
I play the lottery occasionally. But only when it’s over $100 million and only with my own money. I didn’t do so well in math, so the scale of the odds against me actually winning don’t have much of an impact on me. I suppose that’s why lotteries have so much success. I mean 1,000-1 or 1,000,000-1 odds don’t mean a whole lot to most people. A coin toss? That’s 50-50 but I don’t expect to win a coin toss very often. For some reason I always think I’m going to be the one who beats the odds that are way worse than my chances of being hit by lightning or a meteor or crashing in a plane or being eaten by a rabid bobcat. So this past Tuesday a group of 10 workers won a little over $200 million in the Mega Millions drawing. If they take the cash option, after taxes they’ll each take home a little less than $10 million. That’s not quite enough to go out and start buying racing yachts, but if you invest $7m in tax-free municipal bonds, even at an atrocious 3% rate, you get $210,000 a year, tax free. That’s enough to quit your job and live a comfortable existence. Any better rate or more money and you can really do damage. But what happens to that office where these people worked? If my team all quit tomorrow, that would be a catastrophe for my employer. It’s hard enough to find someone new when we have an opening. I’ve been there 4 years and seen about a 50% retention rate on new hires. Granted, I work in a fairly esoteric little niche, but these people worked for Chubb Insurance. Chubb insures works of art, rare cars, athletes’ body parts. This is not your nana’s annuity we’re talking about. There has to be some expertise and on the job experience that goes into underwriting that sort of stuff. I feel bad for their boss, having to replace all those people. Unless they’re halfwit slackers with born to lose tattoos, then good riddance.
Wednesday, I stepped out of the train station and started my daily people-weave to get across the street before traffic plays bowling ball with me. Usually this is an exciting and possibly rewarding event, as there are hawkers out there distributing free samples or political pamphlets. It’s a great spot, with thousands of employed, ostensibly educated people reliably pouring out the station every 15 minutes for several hours. I was more than excited to see a young man standing in the crowd with people eagerly accepting free samples of what he was handing out. It looked like a big sample, too. Sometimes the kids grab handfuls of the gum or mints and stuff them into the awaiting hands. This guy was handing out only single samples, so this had to be good. Even better, it was in a can, so it was possibly fresh or could be eaten with a spoon. I shoved my through and took my sample. What gold did I get?
Science Diet Culinary Creations Roasted Chicken Dinner with Savory Gravy. Seriously? Cat food? Who the &^$%$ wants a can of cat food at 8 in the morning? What are they going to do with it, carry it around all day in case they see a homeless cat? Toss it in the microwave for a quick snack? I was livid. I can only imagine what the guy handing it out felt like when he got that assignment. “Nice. Maybe I get to hand out some candy bars or gum that people will really like. What? Cat Food? This sucks. People are going to hate me. God I wish I’d majored in a science.” I know these people went to college. They’re always bright and clean and eager. They probably all work for a marketing company that gets hired by Science Diet to come up with a way to get buzz about their new Culinary Creations line. They have hopes and dreams of coming up with the next “Just Do It” or “Where’s the Beef”, but instead they get sent out to do street marketing and hand out cans of cat food. Go get ‘em.
