You're Doing It Wrong

Last night at about 9:30 I went into the garage to put something into recycling and one of my hubcaps was gone.

I stood there gnashing my teeth for a few minutes while my brain reeled off scenarios, first for how it came to be missing, like maybe it was stolen or what stupid thing did I do now?

And then, what sort of giant clusterfark was it going to take to replace it? Searching hubcapsяus.com or a trip to Toyota where a grim-faced employee would explain that the stock hubcap for a 2001 Camry is now a collector’s item and better liquidate your 401k so we can get this process started.

Then I thought, why not just live without it. Who cares?

Except I do. I take good care of my things and every time I went out to my car and saw that it would make me mad.

Then I remembered that when I stopped at the dry cleaners earlier, I had taken that curb pretty hard. Maybe I should hop in the car and drive over there and see if my hubcap was sitting in the grass. I didn’t want to leave it until the next day.

Then I also remembered that driving home from exercise class I had heard a weird scraping noise. I figured it was a branch or something and did not investigate further.

“Bob! You have to help me find my hubcap.”

I found some flashlights. My husband, who was on his way to bed, went and put on his shoes. We walked toward the area where I’d heard the weird noise. Luckily it was on our street.

And there it was in the middle of the street waiting for me.

Finally, something went right.

Remember my story about using a gift card and needing help to do a return? This was all the stuff it took to mail me a new gift card for the balance. Sometimes the presentation for gift cards blows my mind. I guess I can understand that there are high maintenance people that think handing off a simple gift card seems too pitiful. But to me it seems wasteful to have to have a box and a envelope and another envelope and padding and another envelope. That seems like trying too hard.

I watched a movie called Gone Baby Gone this week which I recommend. It’s a good movie anyway but it’s a complex story. I don’t want to be spoiler-y so I will be vague. It does a good job of creating questions about what is doing the right thing. Also, it’s good movie to study characterization. Everything is shown by the way people act and how they speak. I’m still thinking about it days later.

I was downtown at Noon and saw flashing lights and heard drumming and I assumed it was another stupid protest.

Nope! It was Portland’s Christmas tree on its way to the Courthouse Square.

There was a band and a baton twirler and a few random vehicles and a guy dressed up like a pig. (Your guess is as good as mine.)

And look who else?

I know it’s blurry. That’s my specialty.

The internet tells me it’s a 75 foot Douglas Fir.

I had no idea there was a Christmas tree parade. I miss all this stuff because I hide in my office.

Everyone is doing it wrong. I am overwhelmed by the number of people/entities I am dealing with right now that are doing it all wrong. I don’t understand how they could be in business and not have a clue how wrong they are doing it. I have jetted off numerous helpful notes intended to assist these people and entities in identifying their doing it wrongness. No doubt they are sorting through my nuggets of wisdom and quickly implementing fixes so that I can do more productive things with my time.

I don’t want to explain it all now because it will get me all worked up or else it would be inappropriate. But here are a few of the companies that I am schooling right now: Apple, Fred Meyer, Paypal, LexisNexis and [redacted].

When things start working better, you will have me to thank.

Meanwhile, I’ve been noticing lately that in movies and TV shows where a person gets bad news or a big shock and they often drop either a vase filled with flowers or a mug or sometimes a glass. Do people really drop things because of surprising news? Whenever you see a person carrying a giant vase you know bad news is on the way because it’s going to make a great slow motion shot when it crashes to the floor. When it’s a drink it’s usually either a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. You never see anyone drop a mug of root beer or a brandy snifter. Well sometimes the Mom has poured the kid a glass of milk. Dropping the glass of milk conveys oodles of dramatic information.

Leaf on the roof of the bus stop.

I’m starting a list of subjects that go volatile in online discussions.

Not the obvious things like politics, sports, MAC v PC, or XBox v Playstation.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a rager about juicers. Meaning a kitchen gadget that squishes up produce and turns it into liquid.

I think the thread had about 300 comments on it. I couldn’t believe how intense people were about juicers. When people are all frothy-mouthed and dogmatic it makes me want to burn their house down. See? Now nobody gets a juicer. I can’t imagine caring that much about what juicers total strangers are buying.

Go buy any juicer you want or don’t buy one at all. You have my blessing.