Everything I Like Causes Cancer

The following exchange is an exact account of a real event.  The scene opens in a small but tastefully decorated office, and I've just placed a call . . .

Receptionist (played by a moron): “Dewey, Cheatem and Howe.”



Me: “Good morning. Is Dick Cheatem available?”


TM: “He’s not in the office.”

*crickets*

(See, this is the place where the moron answering the phone should offer me options, like voice mail or taking a message. BUT SHE DOESN’T. SHE JUST SITS THERE LIKE THE MORON SHE IS. I picture her drooling at her desk while I wait to see what she will do next.)


*if you can believe it, more crickets*


(I’ve been through this routine so many times that I revel in the uncomfortable silence. Usually they can’t take it and say something but this one was particularly thick-headed. I finally break.)


Me: “Okay.  What are my options?”


TM, all snotty now: “He’s out of the country.”


Me: “I get it.  He's not available. Are there alternatives to speaking with him?”


(What I really wanted to say: “Look you fucking moron, taking a message or offering me voice mail is your fucking job, and it isn’t a hard one. Your employer probably didn’t run off to parts unknown assuming that everyone who called his business while he was gone would be turned away.”)


TM: “Hold on.”


(This is where I whisper that she’s a fucking idiot while I’m on hold and hope that she hasn’t sneakily put me on speaker phone.)


TM, still snotty: “If you’re calling about a case you can talk to one of his associates.”


Me: “Now THAT’S an option. Yes, I would like that, please.”

And you know, I wouldn't have devoted 20 minutes of my life to writing out this little exchange and posting it here WITH ALL CAPS PARTS if this were an isolated incident.  It happens ALL THE TIME.  Really, how fucking hard is it to answer a phone, pleasantly communicate with the public, and helpfully transfer calls and take messages?  I assert that it is not hard at all and that exchanges like this should happen much less often than they do, if at all.

*shakes head and clicks publish*

I arrived home late yesterday afternoon from a long-weekend road trip to the Nashville area exhausted.  I did my level best to stay awake, enjoying the serenity of my home and catching up on the TV I missed while away, but lost the battle with my eyelids and fell asleep on the couch at about 10 pm.  I woke at 3 am to find that US Navy Seals, at the direction of our President, had located and eliminated Osama Bin Laden.  While I understood my countrymen's jubilation, I was uncomfortable with some of the very ugly things that were being said and done.  My emotions were conflicting: pride, relief, joy, concern, sadness, disgust, shame.


This morning I watched news coverage, read blogs discussing the event, listened to Secretary of State Clinton's address . . . I spent six hours last night and this morning trying to reconcile my feelings and, in the end, posted this to Facebook:

The world breathes a sigh of relief that the foremost terrorist leader has been eliminated, and rightly so, but let's not lose sight of temperance and grace. This is far from over and the actions we take and the words we speak today will color what happens in the future.

This time of year can really take toll on a person - all the food, all the drink, all the family . . . Thankfully, while at the hardware store earlier this week, I found a product that is much less expensive than that therapist you've been seeing twice a week:

If you don't already know that Tennessee is suffering a major, devastating flood, you live under a rock. Suffice it to say that it's bad and thousands of people are displaced. We won't go into the details of how or why God is mad at them (I kid! I kid!) but what we can talk about is how to help.

Because Cousin T is affiliated with the local Shriner's Hospital, we do a lot of different things for the kids. Mostly we drink for the kids, but we do other stuff, too. Today I'm asking you to click for them.

Colgate-Palmolive and Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation have teamed up again this year to help seriously ill children and their families cope with the pain, fear and isolation of illness. By providing hospital FUN CENTERS, these children can forget about their condition for a moment and remember how to have fun. Using an on-line voting system, they are giving away two fun centers (a mobile game center that can be wheeled into a patient's room) to one hospital in each region nationwide.

In Missouri there are three hospitals in the running, one of which is our local Shriner's orthopedic hospital. Click here to vote for the St. Louis Shriner's Hospital.

Click here for the national map to vote for a hospital in your region.

I understand that Laird Hamilton is a legendary surfer, and I'm all for the message of this PSA, but his delivery is so awkward and rambling that I thought it was a spoof commercial starring Will Forte of SNL fame (pictured left). Especially when he's talking about how bad plastic is and then out of left field says, "It's like plankton."

Their voices and ways of speaking are even similar. If Wil hasn't already spoofed this, he should.

You can read about the result and impact of Blog Action Day here.

The gist is this:

"Measuring an initiative like Blog Action Day is difficult. In 2007 we asked bloggers to register their blogs and a rough count of RSS subscribers. It is worth remembering that RSS subscriber numbers are only one half of the readership of a blog. Many and in some cases all of a blog's readership will simply be visitors to the site. The real reach of Blog Action Day is far greater than the number below.

20,603 Blogs Participated
23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)
14,631,038 RSS Readers"

Good Lord! I didn't realize today is the 15th and I almost failed to meet my Blog Action Day obligation! Props to Jeff and Amy for knowing today's date.

I've had this post about the Freecycle group tumbling about in the bingo cage that is my brain for months. When I read about Blog Action Day I knew I had finally found its outlet. This group is "a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& gettin) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills."

It basically involves giving away what you would normally throw away. Say you've got an old desk. It's not shiny and pretty, but it's still functional. Rather than putting it out for the trash collector, and eventually a landfill, you can post it on the Freecycle group's website where the odds are darn good that another member is looking for a desk. This person replies to your email offer and makes arrangements to come by your house and take it off your hands.

They call it a "worldwide gift economy", a term that I adore. Think about it - you got rid of the desk without having to haul it away, you kept it out of a landfill, AND you gave it to someone in need. Their mission statement sums it up nicely:

"Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community."

Five years ago D&D Marketing partnered with Shriners Hospitals for Children to organize and host the First Annual Cheesefest celebration and fundraiser. I started volunteering the second year and had so much fun that I haven't missed it since.

D&D Marketing donates all proceeds from this event to the St. Louis Shriners Hospital. Shriners Hospitals for Children have been providing state-of-the-art care for more than 80 years. It's network of pediatric specialty hospitals focus on orthopaedic conditions, burn injuries, spinal cord rehabilitation, and cleft lip and palate repair. The St. Louis hospital is an orthopaedic hospital.

The work that Shriners Hospitals do is amazing, but the thing that gets me all verklempt is that they do not charge anyone for the excellent medical care they provide. Let me say that again . . . regardless of the family's financial means, the medical care provided is FREE. And there is an urban legend that you have to know Shriner to obtain care. This is not true.

So, buy your tickets today! The event will be at the 555 Building on Washington Avenue near the Edward Jones Dome on Saturday, November 3rd from 6:00pm until midnight. The cost of admission includes:

This email about the Animal Rescue Site is making its way around the Internets again:

Hi, all you animal lovers. The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on its website in order to meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on the purple "fund food for animals" box. Doing so ensures their corporate sponsors/advertisers will continue to donate food to abandoned and neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

So I'm recycling. And you should, too! C'mon! All the cool kids are doing it!

In fact, for a limited time the City's Refuse Division has grant funds it's using to subsidize its curbside pick-up recycling program. If you live in zip codes 63108, 63110, 63112, 63113, 63116, 63139 or 63147, you are eligible for this awesome program. Send in your check by August 15 and your service will start in no time. And? When I signed up, it was $15. Now it's $11.25. I'm not sure why it's $3.75 cheaper, but I'm also not sure I care as long as you don't miss this opportunity to cheaply be green.

And since I'm already on the soapbox and have your attention, I want to talk about plastic bottles. Manufacturing plastic creates large quantities of chemical pollutants, plastic degrades very slowly, and plastic recycling lags behind all other types - like newspapers and cardboard.

I'm not suggesting you stop buying things in plastic bottles because I love convenience as much as the next guy. But if there's an alternative - like drinking tap in a glass whenever you're at home or at the office - why wouldn't you? Especially since St. Louis is 1 of 5 finalist cities (out of 93!) in the Best Tasting City Water in America contest.

And when there isn't an alternative? Put it out on the curb, baby!