One year ago today: August 15, 2017, my damaged hardwood floor./
Five years ago today: August 15, 2013, I like licorice.
Nine years ago today: August 15, 2009, early bingo calling reference.
Random years ago today: August 15, 2007, try a little Texas therapy.
Me at the used book store. Hey, they aren’t going to read themselves. This is the Goodwill that specializes in textbooks, in the sense they have several shelves full set to one side. That gets me in there and browsing at least. I didn’t buy this particular book because I spent my book money on a K-cup coffee maker. It’s just a single cup unit, but in addition to coffee being bland these days, my prescriptions tend to deaden those particular taste buds. So coffee for me can sometimes be just a ritual. I don’t have three refills like I used to. This store also has DVDs, but they charge $3 each so I can’t get out of there without spending $30. Then I find this great train book and my scanner batteries were dead.
I have the most recent statement from my administrator. My plan has over $4.5 billion in assets and only $3.5 billion in obligations. So rich they’ve granted an annual increase every year since 2012. It’s around 3%, but it beats the hell out of Enron. It’s the galloping 20% inflation around the corner that is the wild card. My pension is as secure as they get, but inflation particularly erodes things like pension worth. It is the upcoming 2019 statement that will determine how well things will be if I live another ten years. It’s a good thing this morning the coffee, donuts, and bacon cheese wrap were free. For me, I mean.
Teamwork.
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I’ve given up trying to repair the old burner unit, I’ve found something with the right dimensions that I’ll order as soon as I find somebody with a credit card. What a pity you can’t just pay for things at a store and go pick it up. Now they want your ID even to accept cash, and I ain’t that dumb. When I pay cash, I don’t think it is Visa’s business who I am or what I buy, simple as that. Here is the unit, I have to order it in from Michigan or something. This also means I may have to make some structural changes, and possibly replace the firebox. But let this be another lesson learned.
The spec sheet says it has slightly smaller dimensions all around, which will at least allow it to fit into the existing cavity. It will lack the chrome finish, but it’s likely going to work the first time. I watched a video of several side-by-side comparisons and chose this unit.
Something about me that was true fifty years ago is still a fact to this day. While there is nothing wrong with the way I treat and regard most women, there is a marked contrast with the way I behave towards the ones I find attractive. The reaction most women get from me is selective indifference. Yes, yes, I know the theories on character and maturity, and those who apply them too harshly should also consider the evil done by shallow people who pretend to be nice to everyone. Most of the times I’m so-so around women is because I’m responding in kind. The question is, what brought this on today?
Well, two gals walked in where I happened to be on two occasions today. They be all dolled up, which I like. Not because it’s fashion, but that I appreciate the extra effort. Not too much effort, mind you, I’m still a fan of natural, wholesome good looks. They just happened to be doing it right. My reputation is well-known, women are aware they can let me buy them a drink without expecting anything in return, even a thank you. I got this way from observing how weak men try to buy their way in. So I do the opposite, I don’t hit on the gals. Instead, I wait for them to hit on me. Works like a hot-damn.
But not tonight. Well, hey, no system is perfect. Then, on the way home, I stop for gas and run across one of the brothers. Did I know, he asks, that they had phoned ahead to see if I was there? And that they had a bet going they could get me to approach them? That’s interesting. And they lost the bet.
ADDENDUM
Here’s your next $12 article. If this same junk was in PopSci, that’s what it would cost you. The difference it, entertainment-wise, my articles will amuse, infuriate, squelch, and grind on you. It’s the old saying that men won’t ask for directions. It’s lost in the volume of print here, but I did say I’d eventually give my thoughts on this one. First off, consider the source. Who is saying this thing? It is mostly women and they repeat it so often that it has become a stock phrase for some men. But does it hold water? Here is where experience plays a major role. Begin with a background that will piss some people off.
I claim my observational skills rank up there all but the top university researchers. You don’t have to read Skeptic magazine long to realize the average ‘scientist’ out there these days is a dodo. Thusforth, in some ways, my views may be superior because my brain is not conditioned to please some exam marker or to sell this blog. And my fifteen years at the phone company in a building full of women taught me a truth or two. One is that assertiveness, popularity, and cooperation are shallow concerns. Most women can pick any two. And they will scatter like chickens at the first sign of any real crisis. Why is that important?
Because once the honeymoon and/or high school is over, many men realize concepts like popularity are a joke, that you won’t get anywhere being concerned with what everybody thinks of you, the best you can hope for is a slight majority. The theory goes that men compete out there hunting the mastodon while women cooperate around the campfire. So if I hear a phrase that women are saying, I question whether it has been studied deeply, or is it idle chit-chat? Are you with me here? Did these women take an in-depth look, or are they putting on some artificial “let’s all get along” face? Let’s now look deeper.
Think of the couple in the car when the man won’t ask for directions. Have you got the picture? Freeze it. Now ask who was the individual not asked for directions. Aha, in your mind, whether you be male or female, you both knew the stranger would be a man. Why? Because if you want the local fishing hole, library, or courthouse, you probably don’t think of asking some fat lady pushing a shopping cart. Like it or not, I would have won that bet. Still, let’s look even deeper.
If you ask a man, is he ever going to lose face and admit he does not know where the library is? Of course not, he is going to lie rather than admit he doesn’t read much. Don’t read, can’t read, same thing in this TV-addicted society. Now think, (you too phone company ladies), once the husband has been handed baloney a few times, is he going to continue asking directions on the likelihood that the next hick on the street might be the mayor with a city map in his back pocket? Aha, now we are getting somewhere. Let’s stop at this stage and boil it down.
What’s really happened is men and women have different settings on their bullshit detectors. Men’s are always set on maximum. But women? It varies. I’ve watched for years how the single women at work come in Monday morning with tales of the new man they just met. He’s an astronaut billionaire rock star finishing medical school. How do they know all this? Because he told them so. Wait, I have two more vexing observations. Women are so swayed by being wanted to be liked, even by strangers, that they will counsel others to be as equally foolish. And, they will continue to listen to the bull longer in the vain hopes that something will come of it. Am I right, or am I right? Conclusion: it is equally derogatory to say women ask for directions as it is to say men don’t. Both waste time, so it is a matter of whether you can admit when you waste time or blame it on somebody else.
Take a look at the search result on articles about why men don’t ask for direction. All of them miss the point, using words like insecurity, threatened, admitting defeat, powerless, primitive, pigheadedness,
Emily Peck, Exec. Editor Business & Technology
Linda Sapadin, psychologist
Anne Gagliano, wife of firefighter (seriously, that’s how she bills herself)
Sandra Blakeslee, NYT columnist
Karen Hopkin, Journal of Consumer Marketing
Sarah Griffins, Duke U.
I think we can all spot the pattern there. FYI, Duke U. estimates the average man wastes 276 miles per year not asking for directions. Duke, a university that charges some $54,000 per year in tuition, is silent on how many hours he wastes per year because he follows bad directions. Hey, narrow-based research is a hallmark of the contemporary tuition-based American university corporation. That's why you can't sign up for single courses any more.
Return in a while for my treatise on a new “category” of stranger that has appeared to the detriment of mankind. We have a new expert at never admitting he doesn’t know, but now relies on technology to disguise that fact. Can you guess who this is?
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