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That Crazy Little Thing Called “That Thing”

“Sore throat?”

“Yes.”

“Coughing?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“That’s it.”

“Feel tired and cranky?”

“Yes, dammit!”

Stan, in his long white jacket, nods knowingly. He already has seen many, many cases like mine this morning. If only he were a doctor and not my butcher I would feel better. “It’s the same thing Bob has,” he pronounces. With no urine sample, no chest X-ray, no stethoscope, Stan the butcher has done what Ben Casey couldn’t. Would Stan be offended if I got a second opinion from the guy down at H & R Block who does my taxes?

“It’s your life,” says Stan. “If you want to throw it away on some quack, be my guest. He’ll tell you the same thing, it’ll just cost you more.”

“For once Stan is right,” says Charlie the tax preparer. “You’ve got the same thing Bob has. We’re seeing a lot of that this year. But I can’t believe you went to Stan before you came to me. Stan’s an idiot. He tried to do his own taxes one year. He took deductions even Willie Nelson wouldn’t try to get away with. When are you guys ever going to learn?”

“So that’s the diagnosis? I have that thing that’s going around? How long does it last?”

“We don’t know. Bob’s still got it. It’s been almost a month.”

“He’s still got it? But he was at our house for dinner just last Sunday. Don’t you think Bob should stay away from people until he’s feeling better? Do you really think it’s smart for him to go out while he’s still sick?” Was Typhoid Bob going around town spreading this on purpose? Didn’t this thing hit me Monday or Tuesday, right after we saw him?

Julie, the high school French teacher, also thought I might have that thing that’s going around.

“Drink plenty of fluids and watch
The Young and the Restless
,” she told me.

“Why should I watch
The Young and the Restless
?”

“You don’t have to, but it always makes me feel better. No matter how bad things are going in my life, I can always be sure that it’s going worse for the people on that show.”

It’s sad that despite all the advances we’ve made in butchering, accounting, and French lessons over the years, there is still no cure for that thing that’s going around. What’s worse, I’m not really sure Stan, Charlie, and Julie are even
working
on a cure.

I suppose I could go to a real doctor and sit around a waiting room full of coughing, sneezing, sick people, but I’m afraid I’ll catch something new. If I start drinking green tea and taking echinacea it should go away. Or should I try Western medicine? We’ve got plenty of that lying around the house.

At the bottom of the bathroom drawer I found three foil-backed sheets of pills, half used, each sheet with pills a different color. There were no instructions, no clue as to exactly what they were supposed to cure. Were these for allergies or for nasal congestion? Or were they for those achy, flu-like symptoms? Is this an anti-histamine? What is histamine, anyway, and should I be against it? What if I’m pro-histamine? I also found many half-used bottles of various cough medicines, some for daytime, some for night. They all said not to drive while taking the stuff because it will make you drowsy. Not drowsy enough to sleep, just drowsy enough so that you can’t drive. After a couple of drowsy but sleepless cough-filled nights, it finally hits me that maybe I should try sleeping in my car.

Sue had made that very same suggestion days ago. She doesn’t really care if I get any sleep, she just doesn’t want to catch that thing that’s going around.

Office Memo Re: Girl Scout Cookies

To: All Employees

R
epresentatives of my daughter Merlot will be in the office today selling Girl Scout cookies. Of course, no one should feel any pressure to buy from her just because she’s the boss’s daughter. I know there’s a rumor going around that Roberts was fired last year for not placing an order, but it’s not true. He was fired for wearing a suit on casual Friday.

When one of Merlot’s designated representatives knocks on your cubicle, just pretend it’s one of the kids in your neighborhood. After you fill out the order form, Jeanine from my office will collect them, because Merlot has ADD and we don’t want a repeat of last year’s problems.

I didn’t find out until months later that none of you had gotten your cookies. Someone should have told me. It wasn’t until Roberts mentioned it that I became aware of the problem and by then it was too late to do anything about it. I asked Merlot what happened and she said, “Whatever. It’s just some cookies, what’s the big deal?” And then she stomped out of the room.

And that’s why selling Girl Scout cookies is such a wonderful thing. It’s teaching young women like Merlot life lessons: how to present themselves, how to get along with people, how to get along in the real world, the value of hard work, and how to be an entrepreneur—all the things Merlot knows nothing about and really needs to learn. I’m hoping she will learn when she comes back from Paris and gets a briefing from our department heads on the cookie sales. Merlot had to go to Paris for a second fitting of her Brownie uniform and to pick up some of that perfume she likes, so she won’t actually be seeing any of you in person, but she’ll know how much you care by how many boxes of cookies you buy.

For the sake of convenience, Merlot is not taking any orders of less than six boxes apiece this year, so let’s keep it simple, people. Some of you should just order six boxes of Thin Mints, others six boxes of Shortbread, and others six boxes of Lemon Pastry Cremes and then you can trade amongst yourselves when they arrive. Of course you can order more than six boxes, but who’s counting?

Shortly before that ugly casual Friday incident, Roberts said the strangest thing to me. “Wouldn’t it be easier if the Girl Scouts just asked me for ten bucks outright instead of trying to get me to buy twenty dollars worth of cookies I don’t need and don’t want?” he asked. “They wouldn’t have to make them and bake them and box them and ship them. They’re full of hydrogenated oil and sugar and no one should be eating them, much less pushing them. Then the Girl Scouts wouldn’t have to account for them; they wouldn’t have to fill out order forms. Why don’t we just donate some money to the Girl Scouts and forget the cookies?”

The poor deluded crank. I hope he never has children. Can you imagine how they’d turn out?

I won’t waste your time sending Merlot around to say “Thank You” because after all, time is money and I’m not sure we should be wasting time on personal stuff like that, so I’ll say “Thank You” for her. But you should thank yourselves, too. Someday, when Merlot is running this company, you can all look at one another and know that you helped teach her all the skills she will need to get ahead in business.

Daddy Dearest

T
he model in the fancy department store ad looks as if he is eighteen or twenty. His thick blond hair is cut just so, his chiseled chin is tilted slightly down, his tapered body is perfectly proportioned. He probably did a few hundred push-ups while waiting for the photographer’s assistant to set up the lights for this particular shot. He is wearing the latest in trendy weekend clothes for the young, rich man—a $350 designer shirt that looks like something Brad Pitt might wear to pitch meetings with Hollywood producers. Casually expensive, hugging his perfect, sculpted body. The ad, of course, is for Father’s Day.

It doesn’t look like the male model is thinking of his children. It looks more like he’s thinking of the Victoria’s Secret model that he’ll be taking nightclubbing tonight. Trying to picture my 83-year-old Dad in such an expensive, trendy outfit makes me a tad queasy. Not only would he never speak to me again for spending $350 on a shirt, but it would look ridiculous on him. After a certain age there is no point trying to dress men up. It’s like putting clothes on a dog. No one’s going to thank you and the dog looks uncomfortable. Besides, Dad’s a flannel guy all the way. I would sooner get him to wear opera hose, a black leather lace-up bustier and carry a whip before I’d get him into a $350 designer shirt.

I try to picture other dads I know in this outfit and it doesn’t work, either. For some reason they just don’t have the time to dote on fashion they way they did before they were fathers. Instead of going to the health club for a couple hours each day, it seems they would rather spend that time at work trying to make some extra money for their kids’ college fund. Instead of spending forty dollars on a hair stylist, they would rather spend it on their children’s orthodontist. Face it, dads tend let themselves go. Where are their priorities?

And I wonder: where would most dads wear a fancy $350 shirt? A soccer game? A school play? A Chuck E. Cheese birthday party? Walking the dog their kids promised to take care of? The other dads would laugh at him. The moms would think he’s getting a divorce or having an affair.

Dads and fashion don’t mix. A lot of dads forget to ask themselves some basic fashion questions before leaving the house. Does the black neoprene knee brace go with the plaid shorts? What’s the right color of old dirty, disgusting sweatpants to wear to the supermarket? Are the young kids still wearing suspenders? Will that rabbit-skin hat with the big earflaps be warm enough?

Despite the advertising, even the department stores know that dads are a lost cause. Walk into any department store and you will find eight floors of women’s clothing and one-eighth of a floor of men’s clothing. These people know that the Y chromosome contains a defective shopping gene. If they depended on male shoppers to make a living, they’d be out of business. If it doesn’t involve beer, cars, or sports, why buy it?

It doesn’t help that the older men get, the cheaper they get. They can’t believe how much more things cost now than when they were kids. If I ever want to push my Dad’s buttons, all I have to do is tell him how much I spent on a new car or how much I owe on my credit cards, or how much I spend renting an apartment. Then he will tell me, for the thousandth time, that he bought his first house for what I was paying a year in rent, and that being in debt was like stealing from yourself. If I really want to drive him crazy, all I have to say is, “You know, for only six bucks, it’s not a bad cup of coffee.”

“Six dollars! For a cup of coffee!” And he will tell me, once again, how his father had to work six long days on the back of a horse to make six dollars. Everyone in my family can tell you exactly what the price of a gallon of milk and the price of a dozen eggs was in 1933. We all know what his first job paid in 1937 and how much it cost for a gallon of gas. He’d never hire anyone to do something he could do just as well. Until they became metric and computerized, he’d do all the car repairs himself. “Hire a roofer to put on a new roof? When I can do it myself?” “Hire a painter to paint the house? When I can paint it myself?” “Hire an electrician to rewire the house? When I can do it myself?” If he ever spent money on a plumber or a carpenter or a mason, I never heard about it. He saved a lot, but the roof always leaked, the paint always peeled, and we learned to wear rubber-soled shoes when we turned on the lights.

The $350 shirt is not going to work for Dad, so let’s see what else they’re pushing for Father’s Day. Oh, here’s an ad for a watch. A nice $6,000 watch. But can I afford the stroke he would have when he learns the price?

Riding the Mechanic’s Bull

M
y “Check Engine” light is on again. So I unlatched the hood and took a look. Sure enough, it was still there. It looked good, too. Right where it’s supposed to be. In the middle. Lots of hoses and wires and belts all over the place. They were a little dirty, but hey, I live on a dirty street. You have to expect a little dirt might get under the hood. That was enough checking for me. I slammed down the hood but still, the light wouldn’t go out. Where’s the “OK, I checked it” button?

Of course, there is no such thing; that would be too easy. I’ve fallen into the “Check Engine” scam and there’s no escaping it.

“What could cause the ‘Check Engine’ light to go on?” I asked Roger, my mechanic.

“Oh, lots of things—my Junior starting college, Betsy buying new living room furniture, that vacation we want to take to Orlando, my daughter deciding to marry that bonehead she’s been seeing—it all depends. You’d have to bring it in.”

“Is it OK for me to keep driving it?”

“Sure, I don’t need the money that fast.”

“I meant would it be
safe
for me to drive it or do I need to have you look at it right away?”

“I never thought of it that way. Let me think. I’m sure it’s safe. What’s the worst that could possibly happen? Your car suddenly stops dead on the Interstate while an eighteen-wheeler full of steel girders going sixty-five is tailgating you? Don’t be such a worry wart, you wouldn’t even feel it. By the way, have you filled out that donor card on the back of your license? Not that there’d be many good parts left, but what’s left of your skin could still be used to help many, many people. Don’t be selfish.”

“Thanks for the concern, but what could make the light go on?”

“A thousand things, from something as simple as a loose gas cap to a leaky head gasket. I’m guessing leaky head gasket because we just bought a condo in Boca, but I hate to get into the hypothetical. It could mean so many things: it could mean that your car is no longer under warranty, it could mean you’re late for an oil change, it could mean that you should bring it back to the dealer so he can show you all the new stuff in his showroom that will make that piece of junk you’re driving now look like a Third World jitney, it could mean that the ‘Check Engine’ light needs to be replaced.”

“So you’re saying it’s just a big scam.”

“Not at all. It’s probably that catalytic thingamajig that reduces emissions. I’m pretty sure you can’t pass inspection if that’s not working.”

“But you’re the inspector.”

“Yeah, it’s funny how that works. It’s almost like I could make up anything I wanted to make that light go off.”

“There’s no way I can check it myself?”

“Please. This takes sophisticated equipment and years of training.”

“A kid at the auto parts store told me he could do it for twenty bucks.”

“Did I say years of training? I meant fifteen minutes. But he can’t fix it.”

“Roger, I’m trying to figure out how much this is going to cost me.”

“What can I tell you? It could run anywhere from a day at the spa for Betsy to a new ATV for our summer place. Somewhere in that range. But don’t worry, I won’t do any work unless you approve it.”

“Maybe it’d be cheaper to buy a new car than to keep throwing money at this one. Eight hundred here, six hundred there, it’s starting to add up. Haven’t you replaced everything on this car at least once?”

“You’ve still got the original back seat. And the ashtray and cup holders work fine. Are you sure you want to take such a drastic step? Keep it another year. Junior’s been begging me for that Guitar Hero game.”