Etiquette question:

Take a picture, jot down a few words about your conflicted feelings, give it to your wife and ask her to store the material for use in Coffee Ennui, Volume II.

Good idea...but it will be years before I produce another book.

As it turned out, we went to the store and when we returned it was all taken care of. There were two, junk refrigerators in the alley.

Well, it took years to gather material for the first one, didn't it?

Grab your camera and document the life of the appliances. Tell the story of their struggles with energy efficiency, spoiled milk and spilled soup. Don't let them be forgotten. They deserve better.

Yeah...60 years worth.

Well, I almost did something like that in a way.

I once pull the dead motor out of my old Sears Kenmore washing machine.

I took it with me to a poetry reading and did a spoof poem on the famous Shakespeare soliloquy by Hamlet.

Instead of saying "Alas poor Yorick"

well you get the idea...

It depends. If you're on good terms with your neighbor, it might be necessary to sell your house.

Since he might be robbing you neighbors house, Pull out your caulking gun, and shoot the son of a bitch!

I never saw the guy before, it's a rental

I think you mean shoot the caulk sucker.

Robbers do not put refrigerators in people's houses

although thus is Milwaukee so who knows

HA!

Caulk up another one for the good guys.

You handled it just fine.

Since it's Milwaukee, the guy could be a recovering alcoholic, and someone put a refrigerator FULL OF BEER in his house to get him OFF THE WAGON. After all, isn't there a law that EVERYONE must drink beer in Milwaukee. (The beer that made Milwaukee Famous)! *Which beer is that?*

Shlitz. I heard that Budweiser was changing its name to American for the summer, even though it's owned by some European company.

Two competent people can safely unload a refrigerator from a pickup truck. However, how can you possibly know how competent the truck driver is?

In a situation like this, I'd hide. ;-)

Schlitz kind of implied that

This is Milwaukee and everyone here is a recovering alcoholic (except for the "recovering" part.)

and

yep, my wife and I went shopping and when I returned home I wrote this

Grocery Line Queue

Let's face it, I'm a ruthless asshole and we are all ruthless assholes. Some of us simply know how to behave in public. Most of us try.

So here I am in the grocery store and we all hate that experience. Standing in line behind some ?jerk? who has too many groceries who remembers...after the sale...his coupons. Even Guru Raghavendra is cursing ?that moron? and the cashier who is ?not the brightest bulb? in the economy pack of 100 watters.

And time's a wastin'.

Here we are in a country where any possible food we could want is at our fingertips 24 hours a day and affordable. Half the earth's people will never have this luxury and it may take weeks or months of grueling hard labor just to eke out a few crumbs of sustenance.

?Sorry I'm late dear, it was horrible. I had to stand in line for 15 goddamned minutes! I'll never go to that store again! Disgusting!?

Yesterday, like a million other days was one of the above.

As I finally got my goods on the conveyor, the blank-looking woman asked me the same required and generic question she's been saying by rote 500 times a day for the last 500 years, ?Did you find everything all right??

I was so utterly disgusted by the whole ordeal that I said sarcastically to my wife, ? Did we find everything all right?? Then sarcastically say to the cashier, ?How nice of you to ask.?

Weird. As soon as the words ?how nice? came out of my mouth the sarcasm melted, fell through a crack in the floor and vanished. Really? Oh my, I really meant it by the time my sentence was completed!

As the groceries were being tabulated, my wife efficiently bagged them and the cashier and I chatted about everything under the sun. She closed her line and told the man approaching she was going ?on break.?

When everything was bagged, carted and paid for we continued talking for quite some time. When we bid each other adieu and parted good friends, I saw her running towards the bathroom.

eries who

the brightest bulb? in

castically say

th the sarcasm

While my 4 kids were growing up, I coached and/or assisted with various tea ms in multiple sports. I always informed the parents of my players of the "24 hour" rule.

"If you get upset by something you see on the field, on the benches or in t he stands, and assuming that the situation is not safety related, I ask that y ou wait 24 hours before bringing the situation up with a coach, an umpire, you r child, another parent, etc. If after 24 hours you are still upset by the situation, then by all means contact whoever you think is appropriate."

While it was not a rule that I could actually enforce, it did plant the see d for parents to think about a "cooling off" period before confronting someon e while in a state of anger. I have been told by many parents that it worked for them not only in the "sports world" but in other situations also. During th e "delay" they either had a chance to think about both sides of the situation or realized that the issue wasn't as important as they originally thought.

I often find myself using the 24 rule in my own life. "OK, I'm pissed. Does this have to be dealt with right now or should I calm down first?" Most tim es, I calm down and then I can deal with the situation more rationally or even not deal with it at all.