How to Register a Complaint

There was roadwork about two hundred yards from our home. They used a pile driver every night from about midnight to four AM. We contacted the D.O.T. to ask “Why?!” It wasn’t actually a traffic issue. They said that if they used the pile driver during the day, it disturbed people.

That lasted a couple of weeks. Then, later that year, we went on a brief vacation, and found that our hotel was across the street from a construction site where they were using a pile driver during the night.

I like to think that someday we will laugh about it, but we aren’t there yet, and it’s been a decade or so, but we will get there.

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How to Contemplate Your Past Decisions

At one point I was seriously working toward becoming a concierge at one of the deluxe Walt Disney World resorts. That lasted until I got a good look at what the job actually entails. At the time, the Disney concierge position was essentially a cashier who sold restaurant and tour reservations. I wanted to be like Monsieur Gustave H. of the Grand Budapest Hotel (in Nebelsbad), not Judy the Time Life Operator, who is standing by to take your order.

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How to Get to the Truth of the Matter

I forgot Gordon Ramsay in my list of rude Englishmen who Americans like. No doubt, he would call me a donkey and accuse me of having no passion for my work.

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How to Explain What Happened

I started taking daily walks for my health, and within two weeks I was walking with a limp because of the injury described here. A tiny dog nipped at me and I strained myself trying to jump away.

Later, after that injury healed, I had to change my walking route because every single day I would get attacked by a crow.  In retrospect, it probably wasn’t me the crow was attacking, but my black hat. In my defense, when a crow attacks a hat while you’re wearing that hat, the distinction between it attacking your hat and it attacking you is pretty thin.

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How to Recognize and Understand Change

This comic about misinformation on cable news channels was written seven years ago. If that isn’t proof that if you don’t deal with a problem it just gets worse, I don’t know what is.

I’m not saying that I know what to do about the problem, just that we didn’t do anything and it got worse.

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How to Disagree with Someone Else's Deeply Held Beliefs

Yet another one based on a real conversation. Someone told me that Windows 8 was “not a functional operating system.” I said that I had a computer running Windows 8, and that it copied and moved files, opened and closed programs, and otherwise fulfilled all the functions of an operating system.

He said, “Not well.”

I pointed out that that wasn’t the point, after all? He wasn’t arguing with me well, but he was still entitled to be called an arguer. My logic didn’t seem to sway him.

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How to Deal with Momentary Self Doubt

“Less Bad is Good Enough” could make an effective political slogan. Either party would find it sadly accurate.

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How to Deal with a Problem

The difficult thing about making up ridiculous superheroes as a joke is that it’s next to impossible to out-ridiculous the actual comic book industry.

I picked the name “Legion of Superheroes” thinking it was far too clunky to have ever been used for real, but it was, by DC. According to Wikipedia, “Lightning Boy, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy, were members of a "super-hero club" called the Legion of Super-Heroes.”

You have to wonder why they went with “Cosmic Boy,” over “Cosmic Kid.”

Later members included Bouncing Boy and Matter-Eater Lad. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Image Source

Image Source

The Knifeketeer doesn’t look so silly now, does he?

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How to Explain Your Tastes

Here’s an interesting fact! The Kingdome opened in 1976 and was demolished in 2000, 24 years later.

Safeco Field, Seattle’s “new” ball field, opened in 1999. It is now 2021, 22 years later.

In 2 years, Safeco Field will be as old as the Kingdome was! Isn’t that interesting? (I find that horrifying reminders of the passage of time and my own growing decrepitude tend to be “interesting.”)

Of course, the Kingdome was, and I say this with the fondness of a born and raised Washingtonian, awful. People said it looked like a rusty hubcap on a dusty old tire. The men’s rooms consisted of cinderblock room with a few toilets and two stainless steel troughs, one for washing your hands and the other not for washing your hands. Seahawks fans used to brag that it was the loudest stadium in the NFL. They pretended it was because of fan enthusiasm, but we all knew it was due to inadequate sound deadening on the inside of the concrete roof.

The day they imploded the Kingdome I was flying home from a week at a comedy club in Minneapolis. The pilot pointed out that the rubble and cloud were clearly visible out the right side of the plane. I was seated on the left side of the plane. I got a great view of people on the right side’s butts as they crowded against the window and talk about how amazing it was.

Even in death, the Kingdome disappointed me.

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How to Understand the Smartphone Market

I’ve come to the realization that nobody is impressed by how nice a smartphone you have.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy a nice phone and enjoy it. Just that you shouldn’t expect anyone to be impressed. You especially shouldn’t point your phone out to them and explain to them at length why they should be impressed.

A good rule of thumb is, “If you need to tell them they should be impressed, they won’t be.”

I wish I could tell you that piece of wisdom didn’t come from bitter experience.

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