The Best Laid Schemes

Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop. Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop.

"Where is that noise coming from?" I thought to myself as I sat down at the computer.

It sounds like it's coming from upstairs. Is it the furnace? Why is the furnace making that noise?

Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop. Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop.

-

I've never tried, but I'll bet it's difficult to make a living as a poet.
That's probably why Robert Burns spent so much time working as a farmer.

One day in November of 1785, Robert and his friend were plowing a field near their home in Scotland. As they worked their way up and down the rows, they inadvertently dug up a mouse's nest.

The mouse dashed away and Robert's friend pursued, intent on killing it with his plow-scraper.

Robert stopped him and told him to let the mouse go on its way. The friend argued and wondered why anyone would care so much for what was obviously a pest.

They went back to work, but Robert continued thinking about the incident. That night he sat down and expressed his feelings in the poem "To a mouse".

It begins with him explaining to the mouse that he means no harm.

Wee, sleek, cowering, timorous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need not start away so hasty
With bickering brattle!
I would be loath to run an' chase thee,
With murdering paddle.

He apologizes for destroying the mouse's home.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

In the next few verses Robert explains how he didn't really mind the mouse taking some of his corn now and then. And he regrets that the mouse will have a hard time building a new home since it will be winter soon and all of the grass is gone.

And then come some of the most well-known lines of all of Burns' poetry.

But Mousie, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us naught but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still thou art blessed, compared with me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

We all have our problems in life. Some are big, some are small.
But at least that little mouse only worries about the present.

-

Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop. Scuffle-scuffle, whoosh, plop.

It seems that the noise is coming from my office. Tempted by the remains of yesterday's lunch, a mouse has gotten into my wastepaper basket and can't jump high enough to get himself out.

You have to admire the fact that he hasn't given up.

But I still tipped the whole thing into the dumpster.

Bandit

Just look at what followed me home last night! And when I say "followed" I mean "rode in the back seat of the car all the way from Grantsville."

He's a border collie and we're going to call him Bandit. Hopefully he'll be a good dog because the plan is that he will come to the shop with me during the day.

It's been almost twelve years since we got our current dog, Ranger, and he was already full-grown when we brought him home. This is kind of a new experience for us. Diane made sure she had an ample supply of earplugs and I bought some extra-strength stain remover.

So far, so good.

He didn't really like the nice little spot that I cleaned up for him with a blanket and his toys and food dish. But, he did like this shelf on the back side of my sales counter. He's sleeping there right now.

Good boy, Bandit.

Free Will

My friend Will is an exhibitionist. He was arrested for it a couple of nights ago. Of course, he thought he was just minding his own business, driving home in his car.

Imagine his surprise when Officer Bigshot pulled him over and told him he was an exhibitionist. A driving exhibitionist. At least that's what the paperwork said.

He was charged with "exhibition driving".

Maybe you are wondering what exactly is "exhibition driving"?

I wondered, so I looked it up.

41-6a-606 (1) A person may not engage in any motor vehicle speed contest or exhibition of speed on a highway.

You may not engage in an exhibition of speed on a highway. That's the whole description. Not very specific, is it? They just leave it up to the police officer to decide.

What kinds of things are considered and exhibition of speed? In Will's case, he stepped on the gas when the light turned green.

His car is pretty fast. And it's pretty loud. But he didn't break the speed limit. He didn't spin his tires. He wasn't racing anyone. He just went faster than the officer thought he should.

The officer that remembered Will because he gave him a ticket for speeding three or four years ago was now going to teach Will a lesson.

What is the penalty for "exhibition of speed"?

Class B misdemeanor. And you lose your license for 60 days. And they impound your car.

So he handcuffed Will and took him to the county lock-up. Because he took off kind of fast when the light turned green.

Will had to post bail and he had to pay to get his car out of impound. At a hearing tomorrow he will plead not guilty and the judge will set a date for trial. Maximum sentence is $750 and 90 days in jail.

Will is looking for a lawyer. Hopefully he can find a good one.

The whole thing makes me a little nervous. Could my driving be considered "exhibition of speed"?

A speeding ticket that you don't think you deserve is one thing. I've had a few of those. A criminal record is a whole different matter. And no way do I want to spend time in jail.

What do you think? Is this overkill?

Have you ever enjoyed a little "spirited" driving? And if so, do you consider yourself a criminal?

What's Your Handle?

"Do you have twenty-seven cents you could give me?" asked the bum standing behind us as we watched the parade. Cameron was closest to him, so he turned around, puzzled by such a specific request.

"Why are you asking for twenty-seven cents?"

"Because if I asked you for a dollar you wouldn't give it to me."

"What makes you think I'm going to give you twenty-seven cents?"

"I don't know."

Cameron dug in his pocket and found two quarters. He put them in the man's hand and told him to have a nice day. We were getting a little tired of the parade anyway, so we started to walk away.

"You're a good man!" shouted the bum. We were a little afraid that he would try and follow us, but he stopped after a few steps. "I mean that, a good man!"

We had to practically step over another bum at the next intersection. This one was just talking to himself, though, not asking for money.

"Why are there so many of them in Salt Lake?" whispered Charly. She was still adjusting since moving here from suburban Arizona. "And stop talking to them," she jabbed Cameron in the ribs with her elbow.

"I was just trying to be nice," he replied.

Bums

Transients

Panhandlers

"The homeless"

What is your attitude toward people who live on the street? Do you feel sorry for them? Are you afraid of them? Do you ignore them?

We were coming out of a restaurant in downtown Ogden a few years ago and a man asked us if we had an insulin "rig" because his "friend" was going to go into shock if he didn't get his shot. I knew what he really wanted the needle for, and I couldn't believe he was approaching families on the street to ask for one. I told him to go into the restaurant and call 911.

I like to think I'll help someone out if I can. I don't usually carry change with me. And I'm not sure it's good to encourage panhandling. In some places it's against the law.

But I won't turn someone down if they want my twenty-seven cents.

Sew What?

Years ago I worked with a guy named Tim. He had a problem. Actually, he had a lot of problems. But the problem I'm talking about today was his pants.

Tim and I worked on cars. And like most guys that work on cars, we would wear mechanic uniforms. Ours were striped blue shirts with navy pants. And the pants always gave Tim trouble.

Every time the clean uniforms were delivered, Tim would complain because for some reason his pants were "made wrong". Specifically, the button on the waist was in the wrong spot.

Even though he would order his pants in the "right size", the incorrect button placement would prevent him from being able to do them up. Occasionally it prevented the button from being able to remain attached to the pants. He claimed this was due to the poor quality of the button-sewing thread. He would sometimes have to poke a hole where the button used to be and then hold the waistband together with a plastic zip tie.

(Note: Do not try this. It is VERY inconvenient when you have to use the bathroom in a hurry and you can't find your wire cutters. And your coworkers won't tell you where they are because they're too busy laughing.)

If only Tim knew how to sew, maybe he could have fixed his pants. He could have put those buttons right where they needed to be and he would never have had to come to grips with his actual waist size.

Anyway, after helping Diane with a sewing project the other day, I realized why men don't sew. It isn't because it isn't fun or that they wouldn't be good at it. It's all the strange little sewing terms.

I had to look up a few in a sewing dictionary. Then I had to watch a YouTube video showing how to do one of the things so I could explain it to Diane. Eventually we figured it out.

But, just so I still seem like a man after talking so much about sewing, here's what else I found in the sewing dictionary. My Top Ten list of sewing terms that sound dirty even though they aren't:

10- "Threading your needle"

9- "Bar tacking"

8- "Piping"

7- "Warp and weft"

6- "Lower the feed dog"

5- "Fusible interfacing"

4- "Duct tape double"

3- "Finger pressing"

2- "Hong Kong finish"

And, finally, the number one sewing term that sounds dirty even though it isn't:

1- "Stitch in the ditch"

Good Sports

In an attempt to make us all feel like his $500 salary isn't a complete waste of good money, the mayor of our little town writes an article in the monthly newsletter that gets stuffed in with your water bill. This month's article was about his kid playing Junior Jazz basketball.

It seems there's a little kid in town that's quite a bit more little than the average kid should be. In fact, he's so little that they usually won't let him play on the basketball team with kids his own age. He's in the fourth grade and he's about half the size of the other kids.

Well, for some reason, this year he did play basketball with the other fourth grade kids, including the mayor's son. And he didn't do so well. He never got to shoot. He never got to dribble. He never got the ball. Except one time when he got accidentally hit in the face.

The other kids on the team felt bad for him. They tried to give him a chance, he just wasn't very good. After a while, the kids on the opposite team felt bad for him too, so they basically moved out of the way and let him shoot until he made a few baskets.

The game ended and everyone was so proud. There were "high fives" all around. The little kid's parents had tears in their eyes. The coach congratulated the team on their "good sportsmanship". And the mayor thought that our town's Junior Jazz program must be the best Junior Jazz program in the whole world.

Except that it's all a bunch of baloney.

Good sportsmanship is about playing fair and following the rules and doing your best. It isn't about pretending that a really short kid is a good basketball player.

I played sports when I was a kid. And I wasn't any good. And we lost a lot of games. But sometimes we won. And I learned that it feels better to win.

It doesn't feel like anything when someone hands you a trophy and says, "Here, you won this just for showing up."

Don't get me wrong, I think it was nice that the team let the little kid make a few baskets. Just like I think it would be nice if they let me take a few laps at the Daytona 500 in my Monza. It just wouldn't mean that I'm ready to be a NASCAR driver.

If you're playing a game just for fun, then let everyone have a turn and don't keep score. If you're playing a game to see who is the best, you have to do your best. Sometimes that means the little kids have to play down a grade or two.

Maybe nine years old is too little for competition. Maybe I'm still bitter because I broke my hand playing softball when I was eleven and had to spend half the summer with a cast on my arm. Or maybe we worry too much about self-esteem and not enough about accomplishment.

What do you think?

Weekend Review

Well, here we are, back at work on Monday morning. How was your weekend? Here are a few highlights from mine:

Fish and chips at Big Jim's for dinner on Friday night. Sure, the place is looking more and more strange with all of the paintings and decorations, but the food is good and it's really close to the shop.

Had a nice soak at Crystal Springs. It wasn't as crowded with kids as it usually is, because of a dance party that was going on upstairs. However, there were more than the usual number of lesbians giving each other back rubs.

Got to relax and sleep in a little bit on Saturday morning, while Diane went to the dentist. Then I was not relaxed when she came home and told me she needs $1000 for another crown.

Later on Saturday morning I was able to participate in the much-anticipated MOLE REMOVAL. Diane has been stressing herself out about getting a mole removed for at least ten years. She finally had the guts to make the appointment and I wasn't sure she was going to survive the procedure without some heavy medication. My favorite part? Diane mentioned that she'd had the mole since she was a kid. As the nurse was walking out of the room she stopped, held up the removed mole in a little jar to send to the lab, turned to Diane and asked, "Did you want to say goodbye?"

One of my favorite new shows, Doc Marten, was not on on Saturday night like it usually is, thanks to a PBS special on the 25th anniversary of Les Mis. So we watched "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry". Not exactly high culture, I know.

Sunday was mostly about church, as usual. I taught Diane's Sunday School class for her so she could stay home and nurse her wounded behind. The kids didn't seem to notice the difference. We have some kind of an old-people church dance coming up on Saturday, to celebrate marriage. I'm thinking I probably won't go. They had one a couple of years ago where a retired couple gave a talk and sang a song about "celebrate your differences" that had to much innuendo even for me.

We had a nice ham dinner at Mom's after church. Then we spent some time looking at different dog breeds on her iPad. According to Stanley Coren, the most intelligent dog breed is the Border Collie and the least intelligent is the Afghan Hound. (Check him out on Wikipedia and see where your dog ranks.)

And, to wrap up the weekend I helped Diane figure out how to do the pleats on a skirt she's trying to sew during the commercials while watching Amazing Race. Obviously, since I sometimes wear a kilt and kilts are pleated, I should be able to read and follow the instructions on a fairly easy sewing pattern.

Sorry there are no pictures. I know some blogs are all about pictures. To be honest, the only pictures I took this weekend were of that mole and I guarantee you don't want to see that. Maybe I'll have some pictures next weekend. I know the suspense will keep you riveted to your computer screen.

Part One

Once upon a time there was an old man. He was so old that no one could even remember a time when he wasn't around. He was also very wise and very rich. He was so wise that he knew the answer to anything anyone asked him. And he was so rich that he owned basically the entire town.

The old man had two step-children, a young man and a young woman. They lived in the woods at the edge of town. They didn't consider themselves "hippies", but that would describe them pretty well. Neither one of them had a job. They spent most days just growing and eating organic vegetables and sampling the various "herbs" that they found. And sometimes they would run through the woods naked.

Even though they were both raised by their step-father, they weren't technically brother and sister. And so one day they decided to get married. They didn't want a fancy church wedding, just a simple ceremony there in the woods. They didn't plan on having any children, at least not right away. But there were plenty of birds and animals to keep them company. The young man wanted to be a biologist someday. He would spend part of each day cataloging the names of all the animals he observed.

One day a very bad man came to the woods to meet the young couple. He flattered them and said he liked their free-spirited lifestyle. He talked to them for a while and then tried to get them to do some very bad things, things that even hippies would be ashamed to do.

One of the things he said was that there was a special plant that grew in the woods. If you ate the plant you would experience a higher level of consciousness. At first they told the bad man that they wouldn't try the plant. They were afraid of the consequences. They were pretty sure they had heard somewhere that the plant was bad for you.

He was a REALLY persuasive bad man, though, and soon he had talked them into trying it.

It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to the young couple. Suddenly they had a new awareness. The air smelled better, the woods seemed more colorful, and they were both very hungry. They sat and talked and enjoyed the plant for some time. They couldn't imagine how something so great could possibly be bad for them.

After a while things went back to normal. Well, not really. Things were worse than normal. The young couple didn't feel so good. They had aches and pains that they had never felt before. They were very tired. They started to get the feeling that someone was watching them all the time. And they didn't want anyone to find out what they had done.

The very bad man gave them an idea. "Why don't you wrap yourselves in leaves and hide in these bushes over here?" he said. "Sounds good to us," they said.

And that's how he found them when the step-father came to visit a short while later. He called to them and when they finally stepped out into the open they were both sweating and visibly nervous. "What's been going on here?" the old man asked.

The couple remembered who it was that had told them NOT to try the plant.

"We're really sorry," they said. "That guy talked us into it."

The old man was very upset. "Didn't I warn you that stuff would mess you up?" he scolded them. "You've really gone too far this time. I want you to take off those ridiculous leaves, put on some normal clothes, and first thing Monday morning you're both going to have to start looking for jobs."

"Bummer," said the young man.

"I think these leaves are giving me a rash," said the young woman.

The old man just turned and walked away. He still kept an eye on the young couple, but after this experience he started visiting them less and less.

The Casserole

3 cups rice
1 lb. hamburger, browned
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

Mix in a casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
At some point, sprinkle the top with crunchy Chinese noodles and serve with as much soy sauce as your system can handle.


When I was a kid this recipe came to be known as "Tony's Favorite Casserole."
My wife's family used the same recipe, except they left off the Chinese noodles and called it "Prison Food."

I'm not really sure when my mom started calling it my favorite casserole. But I do know it was the winner by default. The competition included: Tuna Noodle Casserole (with crunched up potato chips on top), Shepherds Pie, Tamale Pie, some kind of Beef Stroganoff, and a few others that I have blotted from my memory.

My mom was a perfectly fine cook, I just don't care to have my foods touching each other and a casserole is the exact opposite of that. I hate casserole. But I do like soy sauce and the Chinese noodles aren't too bad, so with this recipe I could make it through at least one casserole night without starving.

Winning by default. The thing you dislike the least becomes your Favorite. That's the metaphor of the casserole.

My life is like that sometimes. I don't deal well with disappointment, so sometimes I just settle for the lowest acceptable outcome. It's easier and less risky than actually trying. Of course, you end up eating a lot of metaphorical casserole.

Well, this year is going to be different. Here's an example. We're thinking about getting a new dog. So this time I think I will save up and get a nice little puppy from a breed that has desirable characteristics. Instead of just going to the pound with 35 bucks and picking out the only one that doesn't seem to be barking himself silly, which is how we got Ranger. Apparently he didn't have time to bark because he was too busy listening to all of the voices in his head. (It has not been an easy twelve years. That's 84 dog years, by the way.)

No more settling. Good enough is not really good enough. Unless you actually made a conscious decision that good enough is what you wanted. Then it's perfectly fine. I'm not here to judge.

Tell me then, is there anything you'd like to change this year? Are you tired of casserole? Or is it your best comfort food?

(Also, don't actually try to use that recipe. I have no idea how to make casserole, I just made it up so that it would look like a recipe. For more information, consult Betty Crocker.)

Bad Economy

I wouldn't say we were poor when I was growing up. I mean, I didn't HAVE to share underwear with my two brothers. It just made things easier if you weren't too picky when it was getting close to laundry day.

Mostly I didn't think we were poor because we had about as much money as everyone around us. That's what happens when you live a peaceful little community where the biggest industry is growing sugar beets. There isn't a lot of opportunity to make money.

However, my mom did a good job of providing us with a few ways to supplement our allowance. Once in a while we could get paid to help with the ironing. The going rate was ten cents for a pillowcase and two handkerchiefs for a nickel.

(For the record, I've been married for twenty years and I'm not sure my wife knows it's POSSIBLE to iron either pillowcases or handkerchiefs. Occasionally she will touch up one of my wrinkle-resistant shirts.)

Anyway, we could've had a handkerchief in every pocket and you still wouldn't have enough money to buy anything really good. If you wanted the big money you had to wait until Fall and go to the county fair.

At the fair you could display all of your best hand-made kid junk and hopefully win a ribbon (which you didn't care about) and a cash prize (which you would think about constantly while looking through mail-order toy catalogs). A white ribbon paid $1, a red ribbon paid $3, and best of all was the blue ribbon, worth $5. If you prepared carefully and hauled enough of your priceless treasures down there, you could come home with the equivalent of over 100 ironed pillowcases.

What kind of things did we take to the fair? Sometimes it was paint-by-numbers "art". Once it was a batch of snickerdoodles (when my mom was teaching a 4-H cooking class, story for another day). But most of the time it was models.

Model cars, model airplanes, model ships. If it was some kind of vehicle and required a LOT of assembly, we wanted it. My older brother once built a model of the original Starship Enterprise. (He wouldn't let us touch it, but we were allowed supervised looking.)

When you're building models with an eye toward the blue ribbon, you really have to pay attention to the details. That means no glue smeared across the windshield and don't skimp on the paint. By the time I got to junior high I had a whole box full of tiny Testors paint bottles. The highlight of any trip to the drugstore was finding a really cool paint color, like metallic blue or metallic red or even metallic green. You could never go wrong with metallic.

So basically, our goal as a kid was to spend five or six bucks on a model kit, color it up with ten different bottles of paint, and stick it together with a fresh tube of glue because your last one dried up under your bed. And if it turned out really really good then the county fair people would pay you five dollars, which you would probably put toward buying your next model.

The end came for me when I saved up for six months to buy the best model ever, a Kenworth eighteen-wheeler. It must have had five hundred pieces. It was almost two feet long. I worked on it for months and only got the frame assembled. It was too much model. Eventually I just gave up. I think it's still in the box, somewhere in my parents' garage, unfinished.