If you were to judge this post based on the title, you’re probably thinking this is going to be me ranting about some crappy service I received from some crappy company that I need to vent about.  Wrong.  I am feeling the need to rant about crappy jobs in customer service, of which I have held my fair share.

You hear “business gurus” lament constantly about how poor customer service can destroy a company.  I do not disagree.  The gurus preach of the importance of customer service skills for every employee who could potentially come in any sort of contact with a customer or potential customer.  Amen!  The gurus don’t seem to understand why so many companies can’t provide quality customer service.  I think I can help answer this question with one word: money.

Oh, I know, money isn’t everything; job satisfaction isn’t reliant on money alone; there are numerous ways to motivate employees other than with money; blah… blah… blah.  The people who come up with these unrealistic views of the importance of money in employment have listened to the gurus for far too long!  Money is the reason that most people go to work every morning.  If you don’t believe me, think of it this way: if you won the lottery and would never have to work again for financial reasons, would you go to your current job every day and do it for free?  If you would, you are either a very lucky person who has found your calling and are able to utilize your inherent gifts and talents in a satisfying manner or… you’re an idiot.

So, back to customer service.  I am going to use my recent employment experience with an unnamed cellular telephone company for demonstrative purposes.  The unnamed cellular telephone company was Alltel.

For anyone who has ever had to wait in line at  a cell phone store to have an issue resolved, I feel for you.  For anyone who has had to wait in line at a cell phone store to have an issue resolved and then took out your frustration on the person who finally waits on you… go pound sand!  You have a problem; you would like that problem fixed; you’re mad because you’ve been in line for 45 minutes or so; so you yell at or cop an attitude with the person who you expect is going to fix your problem… seriously?!?  Remember, this person who you are yelling at has probably already had half-a-dozen other nincompoops yell at him or her and your yelling is getting pretty close to the straw that is going to break the camel’s back.  Do you want help or not?  If so, please remain calm and speak the way you would like to be spoken to.  If getting your problem resolved is not the true reason for your 45 minute wait in line and you really just want to yell at someone and make a donkey-butt out of yourself by causing a big scene to prove to everyone within a 4-block radius of the retail store exactly mad you really are… keep yelling, sap-sucker, ’cause when you finally finish your little tirade, you are most likely going to be told that your problem is unsolvable: “So sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to GO POUND SAND!”  And it’s not that your problem is really unsolvable… it’s just that  you have  caused such a commotion and made such an… uh, to put it in acceptable English/slang/cockney format… “arse” out of yourself that you are beyond help.  If your problem is actually fixed, a precedent is being set that people who throw a temper tantrum and behave like an arse get their way just to shut them up… and that is a precedent that is not going to be set.  Why, you may ask, is that precedent not going to be set?  Why will the squeaky wheel not get the grease?  What is going through the head of the customer service representative at that crucial moment when he or she makes that uber-important decision not to help you resolve your problem?  I can tell you in one succinct sentence exactly what is going through the mind of that representative: THEY DON”T PAY ME ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THIS.  And Mr. and Ms. business guru, all of a sudden monetary reward is important to get people to perform in menial jobs!

“Well, if current employees won’t get the job done, fire them and hire people who will!”

While I put in my time at Alltel, the turnover rate was over 30%.  What that meant was that for every 10 people hired, more than 3 people quit… and this was at a time when Alltel was striving for aggressive growth!  Finding someone who is willing to deal with belligerent customers all day (and actually not making any real money unless selling to said belligerent customers) takes more than $8 to $12 dollars per hour, especially when the rules that are put in place to actually take care of a ripped-off customer are ignored by all levels of management from store management to regional management… and rules that actually benefit the customer are few and far between!  Let’s look at an example from my personal portfolio of the crappy-life files:

A friend was having trouble with his cell phone.  I had recently quit Alltel, but I was still the “go to” guy for friends’ and family’s cell phone questions.  The friend had trouble with his cell phone ever since he first got it.  He was on his third replacement phone (”replacement phones”, by the way, are often refurbished pieces of crap… as are “insurance” phones).  His original new phone and three refurbished phones all froze up.  He was about a two-weeks past his original one-year warranty, but he had received his last replacement less than a month previously.

I wasn’t a vast clearinghouse of knowledge for every rule and regulation of Alltel while I worked there.  However, I did know every policy and procedure that was beneficial to our customers as far as receiving a POS phone (and there were a lot of POS phones) and what extents could be gone to in an effort to make a pissed-off customer happy.  I explained to my friend that, although he was past the original one-year warranty on the phone, each replacement phone (exchange by mail phone, or XBM) came with it’s own warranty above and beyond the original manufacturers’ warranty.   It has been over three years since I worked at Alltel, so I don’t remember if that warranty was 30, 60 or 90 days, but I remember that my friend’s was well within the XBM warranty period.  I told him that, at the very least, he should be able to get another POS XBM phone.  However, since he and had been through three replacements, there was a “lemon policy” that the store manager could apply which would result in a brand-spanking new replacement phone of like value.  I told him to go to his local store, to be “nice”, not cause a big stink, and ask politely for the manager if the customer service rep wouldn’t help him. I stressed the “be nice.”

Well, he called me a couple of days later and told me that no one there was willing to help him.  The rep and manager who helped her both said that I didn’t know what I was talking about.  They told him that the XBM phones had no warranty of their own and since he was past his original warranty, he was out of luck.  Pretty much, he got a big, “Sorry, sucks to be you!”

I was furious!  I was ready to get on the phone with that stupid manager and give her a piece of my mind… and then I was going to call the district manager and let him know what had happened!  Then, in a flashback,  remembered what it was like to work at Alltel.

“Did you remain calm and stay nice?” I asked.

“Well… I started out nice.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I said.  “Did you remain calm and nice throughout the conversation?”

“Well… no… but they weren’t willing to help me!”

“Did you yell?” I asked.

“A little.”

“Did you personally attack the person helping you?” I asked.

“Well… she was being a bitch!”

Now, I know that this friend can be a little demanding as a customer.  He is the sort of person who will hold up a line at Walmart for 15 minutes arguing about a 25 cent perceived difference in the advertised price and the price that rings up at the register… even when he is wrong.

“Yeah, maybe I was wrong about that XBM policy thing,” I concluded.  I was not wrong.

When I worked at Alltel, I never screwed a customer just because they treated me like crap, and employees who did abuse their “power” really pissed me off.  However, I can think back to what it was like to be treated like complete garbage by an abusive customer.  It wasn’t fun… and I tend to blame most of my current stress-issues on the two years I spent at Alltel.  Every time I deal with just about any stranger in just about any potentially confrontational situation, I am braced for the worst… which is stressful.  I couldn’t handle it, so I quit (and remain scarred from the experience).  For those who can stick it out… if they need to screw-over the occasional asshole just to keep their sanity (and keep working there), more power to ‘em.

By being the guy who always did everything in his power to take care of the customer, I developed a reputation as being the guy to go to if you had a problem.  People would wait an extra half-hour in line just to see me with their problems, which was fine.  The problem I had, with the Alltel gig being commission-based, was that those same people weren’t nearly as willing to wait for me when it came to making an actual commission-earning purchase… they went to the first available rep… and those were the straws that finally shattered the spine of the hump-backed mammal… because the money wasn’t there.  The district manager told me, when I informed him that I was quitting, that if I just stuck around for four or five more years, I would start to see that loyalty from the problem-solving start to turn into sales.  I told him that I would be dead of a heart attack before I would ever reap those benefits.

And you know what’s strange?  I really think that if the money had been significantly better, I wouldn’t have minded dealing with the crap quite as much.  It’s harder to get stressed about a situation when they actually are paying you enough to deal with it.

I’m a happily married dude.  I am about to embark on, most-likely, a once in a lifetime adventure with my family: a cruise to the Bahamas.  However, when I discovered that almost a third of the guests on Royal Caribbean’s  Majesty of the Sea were attendees of some sort of fraternity leadership conference that Royal Caribbean was happily ($$$) hosting, the wind in my sails diminished just a little.  Even though I’m happily married, I am not dead.  I had some preconceived notions of what the view around the pool on that cruise ship was going to look like.

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My “notions” were quickly replaced by reality.

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Yeah.  Disappointing, to say the least.  Anywho, now I can try to focus on actually enjoying the family time, right?

The ship is amazing.  It’s like 14-stories tall, and it travels across the ocean; this in and of itself is utterly amazing to me.  There are two formal dining halls, a buffet, a pizza place, a deli, and a burger joint.  Everything except the burger joint is included in the cost of the cruise (you have to pay an entrance fee of like $5 to get into Johnny Rockets).  There was a full-fledged casino, two or three lounges, an awesome weight room with a spectacular view of the ocean (which I promised myself I would use… but never did), a teen hang-out area, a little kid hang-out area, two small swimming pools (constantly full of frat boys), two hot tubs (constantly full of frat boys), a basketball court, a climbing wall, a ping-pong table, and the Chorus Line theater which had nightly live entertainment.  The center of the ship was kind of like a mall, with various stores selling various expensive items: a Caribou Coffee, a jewelry store, a liquor store, a gift shop and the like.  Each day, in the area between the stores, they were selling different garbage that looked expensive and was ridiculously inexpensive.  The wife and youngest son each got a watch for like $10 each, and they looked like they were worth much more.  We’ll see how long they actually last :)  Needless to say, the ship itself was pretty cool.  Our room, on the other hand, not so much.

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Standard rooms on a cruise ship are extremely small.  I cannot stress enough how small these stinking rooms are.  It’s a good thing you pretty much just sleep in the rooms, because, in a family of four, someone would end up dead if you had to spend too much time together in those stinking rooms.

So, we check in on the ship and go through a “muster drill”.

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A muster drill is where they make everyone get outside by the lifeboats and tell you what to do to avoid dying if the ship starts to sink.  Great!  Now that we are all now terrified, let the fun begin.

We spent the first night at sea and just enjoyed the boat and tried to avoid the drunk, potty-mouthed frat boys.  Man, when the frats were sober, they were bearable, but once they got liquored-up, we pretty much had to walk with our hands over our sons’ ears to block the f-bombs.  Thanks, Royal Caribbean!  Thanks for not warning us our cruise was going to be a floating college party full of frat boys with no chicas for them to concentrate their alcohol-fueled, testosterone-driven horn-doggedness on.  I actually overheard a frat boy talking to a girl who appeared to be about 16-years-old, and he was trying to talk her into going to one of the lounges with him.  She kept shaking her head, looking around for someone to rescue her, and I heard him say, “I keep forgetting you’re under age.”  Man, that girl’s parents (as well as almost every parent with a daughter on that cruise) had to be loving Royal Caribbean for that week.

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The next day, we ported in the Nassau.  Pretty cool, if you could look past the poverty that was prevalent everywhere.  We got off the ship and were immediately accosted by numerous people trying to get us to take a taxi or go on a tour or buy stupid toy turtles.  One old guy even asked me if I needed something to smoke, and when I told him I didn’t, he got pissed and stormed off.  We walked around the streets of Nassau.  Me loving people the way I do quickly grew tired of the people constantly in our faces, and we returned to the ship after a short time.

Later that afternoon, we went on a snorkeling tour.  We got on a boat and left the port area to an area where we could check out the corral.  We boated past a lot of really nice houses and the tour guide dropped a few names while cruising past these mansions.  Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan had houses there, along with a bunch of other people whose names I don’t remember.  Can’t imagine owning a mansion of such incredible grandeur surrounded by such intense poverty.  Nothing like rubbing it in the face of the locals, huh?

The snorkeling was kind of lame.  On the way, they warned us that people had seen lion fish in the area we were going to, and lion fish are apparently quite poisonous.  Coolest thing about snorkeling was that I actually found a lion fish.

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I got both of my boys and the wife to see it before one of the tour divers discovered it and scared it away.  Bastard!

That was pretty much the day in Nassau.  The next day, we relaxed on the beaches of Royal Caribbean’s private island, Coco Cay.  This was, by far, the most relaxing day of our adventure.

Swimming in the ocean…

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… playing with the conch…

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…tearing it up at the water park

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… avoiding the killer seagulls…

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… or hanging out in the hammocks…

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…oops, I forgot… stinking frat boys…

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Overall, a very good day.  Then, back to the boat for a relaxing evening and lots of eating.

The next day, we ported in Key West, FL.  Can you say “tourist trap?”  Of course you can. I really felt for all of the foreign (non-US) guests on the Majesty of the Sea when we ported in Key West.  Every single one of them had to take part of their day to go through US Immigration, whether they were getting off the boat in Key West or not.  The immigration officers apparently set-up shop in the theater and the lines were horrendous of families waiting for immigration’s approval.  I imagine those vacationers wasted hours of the last day of the cruise waiting for US Immigration to check them out.  Honest to God, it’s no wonder why so much of the rest of the world hates the United States.  Sometimes, our laws are just retarded.  I really thought it was cool how there were different people from all over the world on this cruise and, except for the frat boys, we all got along just splendidly… up until “Homeland Security” kicked in and the US made sure there wasn’t someone vacationing from Japan or France setting off a dirty bomb in Key West (or someone who has just spent thousands of dollars on a vacation trying to sneak into the country… if they can make that kind of money, they have brains and a good work ethic… let ‘em in!) by making every man, woman and child go through an immigration checkpoint.  I didn’t feel safe, I felt embarrassed for our country.  Why not allow these people to enjoy the last day of their vacation and check them out after the cruise in Miami?  I didn’t have to go through immigration in the Bahamas… and I could of been planning to buy some crack from that dude who wanted to know if I needed a “smoke”… or something!!!

Anyway, back to the non-crappy part of the Key West visit.  We did a little sight seeing

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… did a little shopping…

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… ate some conch fritters…

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… enjoyed frozen chocolate-covered Key Lime pie on a stick…

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and overall had a touristerrific, sunshiny day!

Then, back on the ship for the last time.  We had a wonderful evening of eating lots of food and swimming with the frat boys… and then eating some more.  I crap you not, I gained 10# on that stinking cruise!

When we woke up the next morning, we were in Miami.  Up and at ‘em and off the ship.  We spent an entire day at Miami International Airport (’cause we had to watch our luggage… we could have “checked” it at this storage place, but they want to rape you and kill your first born as payment for that, so we said “screw it, airports are fun”).  We discovered that Miami isn’t too exciting when experienced from the airport, so airports aren’t really that fun.  Didn’t even get to see Tubbs, let alone Crockett

Finally, a turbulent flight back to Denver, a late-night hotel stop on the way home, and finally back to the Craphandle.  And then, back to work with another year until the next real vacation.

Crap man… I just realized how much I miss my ΣAE buddies…

I haven’t been to a dentist since I was 18-years-old.  I’m now 41-years-old.  For those of you bad at math, I haven’t been to a dentist in 23 years.  The last time I went was at the urging of my parents before I went off to college.  I was still on my parents insurance and they paid for the whole shebang.  I remember it being painful, full of screeching drills and the smell of smoking teeth.  I remember shots (notice the plural) in my mouth that didn’t seem to numb everything the way they were supposed to.  I remember thinking to myself that the dentist was a skinny little preppy dude, and my 18-year-old body, fresh out of four years of high school football, could kick this jerk’s ass.  I’m pretty sure that dentist was about one drill insertion away from having a little dental work done himself… at no charge.  That was then.

This is now.  I no longer fear the pain.  The thought of having some dude sticking his hairy fingers in my mouth is unsettling, but it doesn’t prevent me from having my oral orifice examined.  I don’t go to the dentist for the same reason that I don’t see a psychiatrist (of which I am plenty in need of seeing), I don’t go to a chiropractor, I forgo the use of an attorney, and I seldom set foot in a doctor’s office;  I hate senators and school superintendents and city managers and CEOs and Hollywood actors and rock stars and successful entrepreneurs.

I have a severe case of class envy.

I hate people who are successful and make a lot of money.  I don’t hate them for what they have… I hate them for making me realize what I do not have.  I don’t hate them for their outgoing personalities and successful traits… I hate them for making me realize how low my self-esteem is and how my traits all suck.  I don’t hate their money… I just do everything I can to not add to their wealth by sacrificing any of my lower-middle-class income to them.  That’s one of the main reasons I hate paying taxes… because I know part of what I pay goes into those $150,000 salaries of those morons in Washington who can’t pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to do what’s right for the country.

I remember when I first moved to Scottsbluff, NE.  I was in my early 20s and pretty fresh out of college.  I was an assistant manager at Sherwin-Williams… you know… the paint store.  That’s right… first job out of college was in retail management.  Explains a lot about why I think life sucks, huh?  I remember my college professors all warning about jobs in retail.  ”Once you go into retail, it’s very hard to get out… or to do any better.”  I was hesitant to go into retail, but after sending out hundreds of resumes with only a handful of resulting interviews and only one actual job offer, I didn’t feel I had much choice.  I took what was offered.  So, I end up in Scottsbluff, NE making a salary of like $17,000/year working 45 to 55 hours per week.  I knew this wasn’t a lot of money, but I could afford a crappy, mildew covered, bug infested little basement apartment, and I could pay my bills and put food on the table.  Not good food, mind you, but food.  I was also able to keep up on the repayment of the thousands of dollars in student loans I had accumulated.  College… funny huh?  You spend thousands of dollars on an education that never really seems to pay for itself.  Where’s the ROI on a stupid business degree?  I guess if you’re a doctor or lawyer, you must finally realize some return on that investment, huh?  Anyways, even though I was making pretty crappy money for a college graduate, I was still pretty naive and felt that life might still work out and that hard work would provide it’s benefits in the future.  In other words, I was still stupid

I can remember when my attitude started to change… when I experienced my “awakening”.  I was driving in downtown Scottsbluff (it’s about five blocks long, so it was a short drive), when I was passed by a car.  This was not just any car, this was a fancy little BMW sportster.  You know, a silver little two-seater convertible jobbie.  And it had vanity plates.

Vanity plates.

And guess what vanity was expressed on those stinking license plates?

“DRTOOTH”

I crap you not.  Some dentist was driving around town in a $40,000-plus sports car and was letting everyone know that he bought that car through the cavities of the little children.  That is the exact moment that I decided that I was never going to go to a dentist again.  I was never going to help some arrogant SOB buy his next Mercedes or Beemer or country club membership or vacation condo in Las Vegas or Miami.  Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid that doesn’t sound like the kind of party I’m interested in attending.  Gather your wealth through the teeth of some other miserable assistant manager at some other crappy retail establishment, I’m gonna peace-out on this one.

And I have been peaced-out ever since.  My teeth, of course, are falling apart.  They are stained and cracked and filled with cavities.  I don’t think there is much enamel left, because sometimes too hot or too cold makes them hurt.  One of my back teeth that was filled decades ago when I last visited a dentist has had a huge crack down the side of it for almost 15 years.  Finally, a couple of nights ago while eating spaghetti (spaghetti, for crying out loud), that back half of the cracked tooth just disappeared.  I must have swallowed it.  Better I use it as roughage then let some dentist charge me hundreds of dollars to fix.  I have a wisdom tooth that has been trying to come in for the past 20 years, and it’s growing out of the side of my jaw.  It gets a little sore and leaks a little pus from time to time (I originally wrote that “my tooth gets a little pusy from time to time”, but I originally thought “pus” had two s’s… and that sentence made me laugh for longer than was appropriate, so I changed it… and then I pointed it out again here, because… damn it, it’s just funny).

The strange thing is, my mouth never really hurts.  Aside from the occasional sensitivity issues, and the wisdom tooth acting up on occasion, I feel little pain.  I know there have to be tons of cavities in that sucker.  I know all of the crack and chips should probably cause some discomfort, but they don’t.  Even when that stupid wisdom tooth starts acting up, I just gargle with some peroxide, and it feels better.  I brush at least twice a day, and I floss… I floss on occasion (special occassions, like Christmas and Martin Luther King’s birthday).

I know that I should probably go to see a dentist.  Modern dentistry is what sets us apart from neanderthals… like the British.  I know I could probably extend my miserable existence (oh yeah) by taking better care of my teeth.  I can just picture the look on the dentist’s face the first time he gets a gander inside my mouth.  You know how in cartoons the eyes roll like slots into dollar signs?  Well, my dentists eye’s are gonna roll into Beemers.  I just know it.

Remember when you were a kid and you had all kinds of friends?  Well, unless you were the kid who accidentally pooped the pants in 3rd grade during math and everyone knew about it; then you maybe didn’t have so many friends.  Maybe you were the girl who had her first “Carrie” moment during 6th grade English, and none of the kids understood why you left school early,  upset and crying; until someone spotted the evidence of the early dismissal on the seat of your chair… your adolescence may have been a little rough.  Or you were the boy who got caught enjoying Baywatch just a little too much when you thought no one watching… you may have had a few rough years.  But aside from those few sad instances indicative of the cruelty of other children, many kids have lots of friends.  And as you grow from adolescence into high school and up through college, you make more and more friends.  By the time you get out of college, you probably have tons of friends… and I’m not just talking acquaintances, but real friends… you know, the kind of people you wouldn’t hesitate to call if you needed a good bailing out of jail.

At this point, we’re set!  We have a plethora of friends and a brand-spanking new education just waiting to be developed into a life-long career of happiness!  Guess what happens to many of us then.  We pack up our belongings and move half-way across the country and start completely fresh in a community where we don’t know a single soul!  Sounds exciting, right?  Sounds like a true adventure, doesn’t it?  Yeah… not really.  It sucks, and years later, you will find yourself pretty much friendless as you roll through mid-life.

When I first moved to the panhandle of Nebraska (almost 20 years ago), I figured I would fast make new friends.  And right out of the gate, I met a few people my age and we became buddies.  Considering that the people in this community are very cliquish (which is something I didn’t discover until later), I was lucky.  One of these buddies actually introduced me to the woman who is now my wife.  So, yeah, I thought I was on a roll.  Now see, where the problem comes into play in my example is the fact that I moved to a community where the young people are anxiously leaving in droves.  In the small town of Glasgow, MT where I grew up, all of the kids always talked about how they wanted to get the hell out of Glasgow and actually do something with their lives.  Scottsbluff and Gering Nebraska are much the same.  Kids see what their parents have accomplished living here, and the kids want nothing to do with it.  The kids want to actually find some measure of success in their lives, so they bail on the communities at pretty much the first available opportunity.  My problem: I moved in as everyone else my age was trying to get the hell out.  I escaped from one community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away to another community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away.  The destination of my escape was another destination from which to seek escape.  Most of those original friends that I made when I moved here have long since found more fruitful paths in other areas of the country.  There are still a couple in the area, and I really enjoy hanging out with them, but the second thing to come along and disrupt the friendship cycle is kids, and I’ve got them.

Having children is one of the most rewarding things that a person can do.  I don’t want to make it seem otherwise.  However, having kids puts a huge crimp in any sort of social life that you may desire.  You aren’t able to go out in public nearly as much once you have kids, especially while they are young.  You’re at home trying to catch some sort of rest and instill in your kids the basics of being a functioning member of society.

Then the kids hit school, and through school and other extra-curricular activities, you are forced to confront other parent of other kids who are pretty much in the same boat as you.  Once again, you start forming some relationships.  Maybe you find a church or other civic organization, and you begin attending regularly, and you form some relationships there as well.These relationships, however, are more along the lines of “strong acquaintanceships” than they are the true friendships you had  in your youth.  In other words, these are people who are fun to hang out with while the kids are off playing and whatnot, but these aren’t people you would feel comfortable calling to bail you out of the joint.

Even these strong acquaintanceships you have developed through the parents of your kids’ friends and through your civic activities (and maybe even co-workers from your job) soon seem to slightly dissipate as your kids grow even older and their activities seem to encapsulate more and more of your free-time.

My wife is from the panhandle.  Once she finished college, she really never had a strong desire to leave.  However, neither does she have a strong desire to stay.  She is constantly telling me that if I can find us a life somewhere outside of the panhandle that would make me less… uh, “grumpy” would be a polite way to put it, I guess… she would be more than happy to make a move.   She, however, actually has some of the friends from her past here.  Not many (most moved away), but she is occasionally able to have a “girls night out” or get together for coffee with a friend or two.  I still have a lot of really good friends, but, for the most part, they are spread out all over the nation.  If it weren’t for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t even know where most of them are.  They sure in the hell aren’t close enough to bail me out of jail, if the need were to arise.

So, what’s next?  You got me.  My kids actually have some true friendships, and they are doing well in the local schools (even though the schools tend to piss me off from time to time).  I’d hate to disrupt their potential growth in a selfish effort to find some sort of friendship or contentment in my life, so moving isn’t the most attractive option at this point.  Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, just means it’s not the most attractive option.  I try to keep in touch with the friends of my youth… at least those on Facebook.

I’m guessing that once my kids have joined the mass exodus of young people who leave the panhandle of Nebraska to better themselves in different areas of the country, the options for the wife and I will increase.  We will be free to move wherever on God’s green earth we want to live.  We will be short two mouths to feed as our college-educated boys head out into the world to try to figure out how in the hell they are ever going to repay all of those student loans.  Of course, our bodies will have deteriorated even further, and God only knows what the status of our health will actually be in 10 or 15 years.  I’m guessing that will be the next point in the cycle where new friends are made.  We will probably find them at the clinics and doctor’s offices and pharmacies and, later, in the retirement communities.  We will all sit around and reminisce about our kids, about the friends of our youth, and about all of the opportunities we probably missed by living in the panhandle of Nebraska.

Stinking Google.  I recently wrote a post about stupid Google and how they were giving away free netbooks for people to test their new Chrome OS operating system.  Well, I never received my netbook.  Apparently I’m not the kind of person that Google felt was right to test their netbook.  I am, however, the kind of person that Google feels is right to purchase the new Samsung Chromebook.  I believe Google may be mistaken.

I received an email from Google that read as follows:

Be the first to get a Chromebook.

Since we announced the Chrome Notebook Pilot Program back in December, we’ve been humbled by the amount of interest that we’ve received from users like you.

We’re excited about the brand-new Samsung Chromebook that goes on sale on June 15. Fortunately, we’ve managed to get our hands on a few machines a little earlier, and we’d like to make these available to you, our biggest enthusiasts.

When you buy your Chromebook, you’ll also be getting a limited edition, custom-fit Chrome sleeve designed by Rickshaw so you can carry your new Chromebook in style.

Our good friends over at Gilt, the premier invitation-only shopping site, have agreed to put these Chromebooks up for sale — but only for a very limited time.

These will go fast. See you over at Gilt.

Cheers,

The Chrome Team

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A few months back, you asked to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS, which is why we sent you this one-time notice. You will not be emailed again regarding the availability of Chrome OS.

I don’t remember asking to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS.  I remember wanting a free netbook.  I don’t want to buy anything.  Nonetheless, I figured I’d check out Google’s friends over at Gilt to see what’s up.  In the back of my mind, I’m thinking a Chromebook may be pretty reasonably priced.  After all, I don’t believe the computer is able to run non-web-based software… everything is stored in “the cloud”.  You can’t download software to the computer (like an office suite or accounting software or publishing software or anything like that).  There’s not even a CD or DVD drive on this sucker, so forget having the kids watch a movie while you’re driving across the Nebraska interstate.  Sure, there are some decent free online aps that can be used online, but I like to have a hard copy of some files and applications on my computer so I can access them when I don’t have Internet access or 3G coverage (remember… this is Nebraska).  I’m thinking that I should be able to pick up a web-only Chromebook for a couple hundred bucks.

Do you know how much these stinking Chromebooks are selling for?  The Samsung Chromebooks were selling for like $500!  Seriously!!!  I could get a decent real laptop for $500… why in the hell would I buy a web-only Chromebook for that price?  I’m thinking Google and Samsung may have a little bit of crack-smoking going on at their corporate offices. Plus, now I’m getting all kinds of stupid spam from Google’s friends at Gilt (notice how close that is to guilt… and jilt?).  note to self: unsubscribe from Jilt Gilt…

Of course… who knows… maybe these Chromebooks do some pretty amazing stuff.  If they did, I’d be able to go on and on about how great Chromebooks are.  But in order to rave about them, I’d actually have to try a Chrome OS machine out… and I’m not going to drop 500 hard-earned bills just to see if a Chromebook is actually worth $500 hard-earned bills (which I highly doubt).  If only Google would have sent me my free stinking netbook when I applied for it…

I just noticed on a recent edition of the local newspaper an article.  ”United Way in need of volunteers”, the headline proclaimed.  Ahh, volunteering!  What a wonderful way to give back to your community.  I’ve been volunteering for the past several years, and it is a great way to give of yourself when giving a lot of money is not an option… unless you are a volunteer for Boy Scouts of America, in which you can give your time and lots of money, ’cause, you know, there’s actually people who make money doing this scout stuff for a living, and we gotta get their salaries paid somehow.

I volunteer as an adult leader for both Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts.  I started with my oldest son’s cub scout den, and progressed with him to Boy Scouts.  Now, my youngest has started Cub Scouts, so I’m helping there too.  I am also a deacon at the church I attend.  I have a little under a year left on a four-year term, then I have to take a couple of years off.  I enjoy all of the positions to which I volunteer my time, but one thing I’ve learned about volunteering is that sometimes, you need a break.

I am looking forward to the completion of my term as a deacon.  I have really enjoyed serving the members of our church and getting to know them better, but it is a time commitment that will be nice to see go away for awhile.

I was really hoping that I was about done with scouts.  I always figured that if I could get my oldest son through Cub Scouts and into Boy Scouts, he could take it from there.  I was wrong.  Some how I was conned into helping there too.  Come on!  Can’t I finally be one of the parents who always just drops the kids off for someone else to entertain?  And I did everything I could think of to keep the younger son from wanting to join scouts.

“They eat puppy dogs on camp outs,” I said to the little guy.

“But Brother did it, so I want to too,” he replied.

“Yep, barbecued puppy dog with fried spiders,” I said.  ”It’s pretty gross, and you have to eat it really fast so the smell doesn’t attract the vampires.  You can hear the vampires searching for blood outside your tent at night.”

“But, I really want to be a scout like Brother, Dad,” he said, crying now but trying to be brave and hold back the tears.

I really think I could have talked him out of it.  I was about to go into the poisonous snakes that like to crawl into the sleeping bags with the scouts at night when the wife walked in and put a stop to it.  She then proceeded to lecture me on the fact that it is only fair that we support the younger son’s decision to participate in an activity that has been such a big part of his older brother’s life.

Crap.

So, I agreed if the wife agreed to be the den leader… at least to start.  She agreed, if I agreed to be involved and do the camping thing.  I reluctantly agreed.  I love camping… in a camper with heat and air conditioning and a refrigerator and a toilet and a BED.  Any form of camping that involves a tent and sleeping on the ground is for those fortunate enough to be under the age of 40.

The wife volunteers even more than me.  She is more active in the younger son’s Cub Scout pack, serving as den leader and holding a position or two on the board.  She is also active on our younger son’s elementary school booster club.  She has volunteered for other organizations in the past, including a local MOPS chapter, our church’s AWANA club, serving on the board of a local investment club.  She is also volunteering for stuff any time the schools ask for parents to help with this or that.

Volunteering can be very fulfilling… or so I’m told.  One thing that volunteering has taught me personally is that if you aren’t willing to donate your time to a worthwhile cause, you have no right to complain about much of ANYTHING!

“But I’m just way too busy.”

What a load of CRAP!  Every single person that I know has enough free time to volunteer for something.  If someone tells you that they are to busy to volunteer, what they are really saying is, “I am very selfish and my free time means way too much to me to give it up for something bigger than my own life.”  I really want to believe that there is some sort of cosmic feng shui crap that is going to bite these selfish bastards in the ass some day, but I don’t think there is.

What really twists my tighty whiteys all up-in-a-knot is those who don’t volunteer, but who somehow think they have some sort of right to complain about how those who do volunteer are doing things.   You know, like the parent who never comes to the planning meetings and then throws a hissy fit because we planned the scout banquet for a night her son can’t come.  Or the parent who is torked off that we aren’t having the scouts participate in some parade or another, but wasn’t willing to help as an adult leader at the parade… and the only reason we didn’t do it is because we couldn’t get enough adult volunteers.

Youth baseball is one of the areas where non-volunteering parents seem to think that because they were born with a mouth, they are entitled to open it without first engaging their brains.  At my 7-year-old’s first game, the coaches were pitching.  It is supposed to be a pitching-machine league, but somebody forgot to unlock the shed with the machines before the game.  I’m not going to bitch, however, because I’m sure the person who forgot was a volunteer.  Anyway, coaches aren’t always exactly the best pitchers.  Not a big deal.  These guys volunteer their time to teach our sons how to play a fun game.  some of them take 7 and 8-year-old baseball a little too serious, and some of them take it not serious enough.  I figure, as long as the kids learn something and have a good time, it’s all good.  One of the boy’s dad on the opposite team apparently didn’t agree with me.  His kid got up to bat and the coach started throwing balls to him.  The pitches weren’t perfect.  The coach kept trying and the kid kept swinging.  Finally, the dad started to let his frustration show.  He started hollering.

“C’mon, Timmy,” he yelled after his kid once again missed the ball.  ”Don’t worry about it.”

This parent and his kid were on my son’s t-ball team last year, and I remember this particular dad being overly vocal.

“Maybe if the coach could actually get one across the plate, you could hit it,” the red-faced father yelled.  ”Sooner or later he’s got to throw you one you can actually hit!”

Seriously?!?  The coach is looking embarrassed and a little upset.   Finally, little Timmy connects, and his dinkweed-of-a-father erupts into cheers and applause.  Jackwads like this dad are one of the reasons I don’t volunteer for sports.  There are too many parents who I would end up telling to “go to hell” in front of a bunch of kids, and that’s not pleasant for anyone.  Meanwhile Mr. I-like-to-degrade-the-coach-in-front-of-all-the-kids-and-their-parents: why don’t you shut your pie hole and volunteer your time?  I’m guessing because you think your “too busy” and you have too many other “very important things” to do that prevent you from putting your actions where your mouth is rampantly running.  It’s just to bad that “business” and those “important things” don’t keep you away from the games as well…

So yes, in the world of volunteering (just like in the work-a-day world), you are going to be confronted with morons.  The world is full of them.

To all of you who volunteer… thank you.  Your sacrifice is not unappreciated, although at times it feels like it is

To all you too indifferent or selfish (I just don’t have the time) to volunteer… grow up and grow a set.  As much as I bitch about it, volunteering is worthwhile, fulfilling, and proves to the world that you are not a vain, self-serving idiot.

To all of you who refuse to volunteer but like to complain when a volunteer organization doesn’t do exactly what you want when you want it… go suck a lemon, jerkwad!

WARNING!!!

Recent high school or college graduates, please don’t read this post.  I don’t want to be held responsible for harshing your mellow at this time of great accomplishment in your lives.  As you travel the road of life ahead, you will have plenty of time to discover the truths held in my words for yourself.

The wife and I took our boys to our niece’s high school graduation this past weekend in North Platte, NE.  So, we spent a weekend watching young people being recognized for their accomplishments. This all got me to thinking… thinking how much people could accomplish with their lives if the stinking real-world didn’t have to come along and jack everything up.

I remember graduating from high school feeling like the whole world was out there waiting for me to conquer it. I remember having the same delusions at my graduation from college. At my niece’s graduation, I could read the same thoughts in the faces of all of those graduates. They were imagining their futures filled with limitless opportunities. Give them a few years. They will find the limits. Actually, the limits will hunt them down and stomp many of them into the ground.  I know.  The graduating class speaker was a well spoken young woman who reminded the graduates that they were solely responsible for their own futures. Graduates and school administrators say that kind of stuff at graduations. Graduates and school administrators believe that kind of stuff at graduations.  Now, with graduates being young and naive, such dreams are expected.  School administrators, on the other hand, should know better but are extremely biased in their perception of the true value of “education.”  Aside from the field of education, I can’t think of a single line of work in the United States of America where further education guarantees higher earnings, seniority, and advancement.  A large percentage of people employed in the field of education seem to have lost touch with what it is actually like outside of the field of education, and those people probably should not be allowed to speak at commencement ceremonies; they paint an unrealistically-rosy picture.
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Well, I guess we want to give these young people hope for the future, right?  No need having them give up when a very small percentage of them are going to accomplish those dreams.  As for those who will not accomplish their dreams, they will have plenty of time to figure out what their futures hold.

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Soon enough, most of these optimistic young people will be just like the rest of us… wondering why everyone misled us about how bright our futures were.  For the kiddos, when someone tells you that you may need to set “new goals” or dream “new dreams”, this is them gently telling your dreams and goals are unrealistic (see, they lied to you at graduation… you can’t accomplish anything you want).  Pick something less-hard to accomplish, or maybe just settle for what you have.  Less hard and settling are what most of us do on a daily basis…

You ever get the feeling that everyone and their dog is out to piss you off?  I’m sure I’m not the only one to have those kinds of days on occasion.  Well, several days over the last couple of weeks have gone that way for me.

To start things out, the administration and board of Scottsbluff Public Schools seem to have recently inserted their heads squarely into their butts.  I understand that times are tough and schools have to reign-in spending and all of that garbage.  Still, cutting positions on the front line of education (i.e. teachers) doesn’t seem to make sense.

Scottsbluff Public Schools is the only school district in the panhandle of Nebraska to offer an orchestra program.  Well, it looks like the school administration plans on cutting that program.  There has been a full-time orchestra teacher in the program for years, and the program has been available to kids beginning in 4th grade.  The teaching position is being cut to part-time, is only available to those in middle school or higher, and they are considering getting rid of concerts for the students completely.  Okay, so by cutting out the 4th and 5th grade participation, they are cutting off feeding the program.  By cutting out the concerts, they will be cutting back on interest from students, parents and the community.  Administration will not admit it, and they think we are too stupid to figure it our for ourselves, but it seems obvious that the orchestra program is being phased out.  Just too darn expensive.  Did I mention that our superintendent of schools makes $160,000/year?  This is almost the same pay that the superintendent of the North Platte Public Schools makes, and North Platte has a much larger student and staff population to manage.  I can’t figure out what exactly makes our school district so difficult that we would have to pay a superintendent the same as someone managing a much larger district in the same state.  I have my own opinions about why it sucks around here, but none of the reasons have much to do with the schools.  I guess it must have something to do with how much it just sucks to live here.  We gotta pay top dollar just to get someone to live here.  The last superintendent, upon retiring, immediately moved the hell away from the panhandle.  He apparently hated it here and we had to pay out the wazoo to keep him while we could. He was kind of a pompous ass anyway (which seems to be the status quo for school superintendents), so the community is probably better off with his departure.

The second (more severe) cut that is really pissing me off is the board and administration screwing up the HALs program.  HALs stands for High Ability Learners and is a program for students who aren’t challenged enough with regular classroom learning.  We have had a coordinator for our HALs program and she has done an outstanding job.  Her name is Merry Witzki, and she is not a normal “teacher”.  Merry knows how kids learn.  Her focus hasn’t been only on math, science and language arts (which seems to comprise the focus of our education system).  Merry mentors the kids (high ability, normal ability, and low ability) she works with and focuses on creative thinking skills.  She challenges the kids to think outside the box and the kids gain skills that will actually help them create a positive impact on the workforce once they join.  I mean, it’s great to know that a water molecule has two hydrogen atoms and a single atom of oxygen, but how many people are going to have a career where that information is relevant.  Good basic knowledge, but critical thinking skills and learning how to lead and be part of a team and all of the other things that Mrs. Witzki focused on were real-world skills that the kids weren’t getting anywhere else.  Well, apparently the school district doesn’t believe real-world skills are important.  Mrs. Witzki’s position has been eliminated.  She will be a grade teacher.  The HALs program will still be in place, but it doesn’t sound like the HALs kids will meet with their peers anymore for monthly workshops and yearly conferences.  Instead, they will be assigned a “special teacher” who will visit them in their existing classrooms and make sure they are being challenged in their classes.    What, make sure they are getting a little harder math homework in their math class than the other students are taking home?  That isn’t going to encourage the HAL students.  It may challenge, but it won’t encourage.  What a crock of crap!  The National Association of Gifted Students recommends this protocol, but our school district doesn’t want to follow this advice. The HALs program has been something that the HALs students look forward to: a fun and creative experience that helps them grow.  I have a strong feeling that the HALs program is about to take a nosedive straight into the toilet.  But whatever.  At least the superintendent is still making $160,000/year.  Hmmm… I wonder if the HALs program could still have a coordinator if the superintendent made what the average superintendent in a school district our size makes?  Or if we didn’t decide that we need to hire a teacher to teach the Chinese language?  Well, I guess since the US is pretty much owned by the Chinese now, we should probably start teaching our future national language.

One thing that really kills me is how the school board defends some of the stupid decisions it makes with, “If parents really cared more and came to the school board meetings, they could make their voices heard before we make decisions.”  The school board meets normally once a month on Monday.  Does the school board have any idea how many other groups meet on Monday night?  My wife is on a booster club for an elementary school, and they meet on Mondays.  I am at Boy Scout troop meetings every Monday throughout the school year.  I guess if we all stopped volunteering in the community, we could monitor the school board that we put in office to help them make the decisions that we elected them to make in our students’ best interests.  I know that I’m probably being a little hard on the school board, but I cannot for the life of me grasp why a group of educated adults would make a decision that is going to potentially have such a negative impact on our brightest students.  I guess, for some children, being left behind is acceptable…

Alright, so those in power on school boards and school administration piss me off, but they aren’t the only ones.  Other people with perceptions of power and authority piss me off as well.  I know I have discussed my aversion to local politicians (especially small town mayors) before, but I keep coming back, don’t I?  You know the types: county commissioners whose asses everyone kisses because of the hellfire of economic ruin said commissioners will rain down upon those who openly oppose them (or who don’t hook them up with free crap just because they are commissioners).  Also, higher-ups in economic development-type organizations can be real jerks.  Some of these people see themselves as “elite”, and I’m getting too far along in age to be talked down to by some jerk on a power trip.  What really gets me is that the people who are supposed to be all about developing the local economy are the people you never see out supporting local businesses.  If they actually do support local businesses, they constantly throw in your face how much your service “sucks” and how much better off they would be going with a non-local business, but they are supporting your business so you better do whatever in the hell they want you to do to make them happy.  They are the kind of people who call in to complain that their toaster stopped working… and your business has nothing to do with the sale or service of toasters… and they want you to fix their broken toaster, because, “all of my smart friends tell me that I need to buy my products or get my service from someone other than you, but I keep my money going to you, so you better get someone out here to fix my toaster!”  And, of course, you fix the stinking toaster.

I have never really held a position with any kind of real power, and I probably never will.  People in positions of power will always talk down to me and make decisions that affect me or those I care about directly, and these decisions will continue to piss me off.  There really isn’t anything I can do about any of this.  Oh sure, I could always come up with an elaborate, diabolical plan to remove these pains-in-the-ass people from my realm of existence, but that sounds kind of messy.  Besides, with my luck, I’d get caught.  I have a feeling that the people on power trips in prison might make my life noticeably more miserable than the elitist jerks I have to deal with on the “outside”. Intimate relations with a tattooed child molester named Bubba, or a similar relationship with local people of “power”. I guess the figurative is better that the literal in this situation…

We have a local YMCA here in Scottsbluff, NE.  I didn’t have access to a Y growing up in rural Montana.  In fact, the Y here is the first one I had ever been to.  I had heard of the YMCA as a kid, and I thought of the Y as kind of a place where a fellow who was down on his luck could get a cheap (or even free) room until he got back on his feet.  Apparently, this isn’t what the modern YMCA offers (at least not in the USA).

Scottsbluff has a country club for the wealthy.

The Scotts Bluff Country Club is the kind of place where the rich can go to get away from the common filth of society (you know, the rest of us) and surround themselves with fellow rich people with whom to golf and dine and talk about what rich people talk about.  I’m not rich, so I don’t know exactly what they talk about, but I’m assuming they talk about money… and how much those of us without a lot of money suck.  At least, that’s what I’d talk about if I was rich.

The YMCA here in Scottsbluff is kind of like a country club for the middle class.  Oh sure, they have some sort of reduced-rate program for those at a lower income level, they just don’t advertise it very prominently… and they don’t really tell you what it is.  I guess you have to go in and ask so they can look down at you to convince you that you really don’t belong at the Scottsbluff Family YMCA.

My family has a membership to the Y; not because we can afford it, but because it is a benefit my employer offers.  Hell, it’s almost $500 a year for a family membership.  I don’t know if I could afford that on my own.  Not only do they get you on the membership fees, they charge for everything extra that the Y provides.  Want to have your kid play t-ball?  Only $12 if you are a member.  How about you and the wife doing the co-ed volleyball?  Only $15 per person… if you are members.  Yeah, I grew up thinking the Y was a place where those without a lot of money could socialize and get fit.  I was wrong.  The Y is a country club for those who can’t quite afford the real country club.

I go to our YMCA almost daily.  I have done this for a few years now.  I go and I get on an elliptical and I sweat and breath really heavy for about 30 minutes.  I started doing this in an attempt to control my blood pressure and to lose a little weight. I burn 500 to 600 calories and get my heart rate up to around 170 beats per minute almost every day.  I have not lost a single pound, and my blood pressure was 170/130 when medical people put me on blood pressure medication a few weeks ago.  So, it looks like I go to the Y for nothing.  Well, nothing except to see all of the skinny people and steroid-heads walk around looking at themselves in the multitude of mirrors that surround the circuit room.  I hate these people.  With a passion.  Here I am, sweating my ass off (in theory, not in reality) and bringing myself to the verge of a heart attack almost every day for the past three years in an attempt to squeeze a couple more years out of my miserable existence, and I’m surrounded by skinny people in their designer work-out gear

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and steroid-filled muscle-heads in their… well, their muscles and crap!

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Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of fatties like me sweating at the Y as well, but why in the hell would I waste time looking at them.

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If I wanted to look at a fattie all day, I could stay home and look in the mirror.  No, I want to create the most severe case on envy imaginable.  I want to look at the people who I will never resemble.  I want to make myself feel as worthless and insignificant as possible.  After all, hate is what drives me, so the more hate I harbor, the worse I feel, and the more I feel like I’m accomplishing what I was put on this earth to do… whatever that is.

Man, if being surrounded by the fit middle-class at the YMCA can make me feel this crappy, imagine what being surrounded by the snotty rich at the actual country club would make me feel like?  Especially if I was in a position where the rich snotties could really talk down to me?  Maybe like a dishwasher… or a janitorial position? Yeah, that’s it.

Some rich doctor would run into me in the hall and he’d be all like, “Boy, there appears to be a toilet clogged in the men’s room.  Get on it, post-haste.  Cheerio!”

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And I, of course, would get right on Dr. Snotty’s clogged toilet!

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And the hate would grow!

Man, I wonder if they are hiring?  I put my current level of mid-life-crisis misery on par with about the 5th ring of hell.  A servitude-type position at the country club could move me all the way up to the 9th ring, and the crisis could be complete!

You know how you think that Boy Scouts would be just a slight cut above their peers?  Maybe a little more respectful, a little more clean?  I mean, c’mon, the Scout Law is as follows:

A Scout is:

• Trustworthy,
• Loyal,
• Helpful,
• Friendly,
• Courteous,
• Kind,
• Obedient,
• Cheerful,
• Thrifty,
• Brave,
• Clean,
• and Reverent.

Did you see “Clean” on there?  Of course you did, ’cause it’s right there between “Brave” and “Reverent”… in the LAW.  Yeah, you would think that Scouts would be just a small cut above their peers.  You would think that… until you go on a camp-out with them.

I have been on many camp-outs with many different Scouts, and I can say without a doubt that they are filthy little creatures.  Oh sure, not all of them.  Some of them actually follow the Scout Law… even the “Clean” part.  But a large percentage of them are dirty little grime-covered insects.  They remind me of cockroaches.  Don’t believe me?  Go on a Scout camp-out where there is a latrine or port-a-potties and call me a liar.

I went on a Scout camp-out this past weekend.  It was the annual tree plant at Fort Robinson.  This is a great service project that Long’s Peak Council has been committed to for many years.   There was a massive forest fire in this area in 1989.  It’s Nebraska, so there wasn’t much forest to begin with.  Scouting has tried to help ensure that Nebraska doesn’t turn into a desert.  Funny how the “Arbor Day State” has so few trees, isn’t it?  Well, that’s a subject for another post.

Now, this was a two-night camp.  We arrived Friday evening, set up camp, and went to bed.  The next morning, we got up at the butt-crack of dawn (which is the norm on a Scout camp-out).  I guess we get up so early to try to teach the boys something.  I have no idea what it is we are trying to teach them, but my best guess would be it has something to do with some kind of mental torture.  We are trying to break their will and make them pathetic, crabby, miserable little boys before we start building them back up to help them with their self-confidence, turning them into men… or something.  It’s kind of like basic training in the military, except for they’re just kids and not really men yet… and we can’t make them drop and give us twenty when they get all kinds of mouthy because they are in a bad mood because we made them get up so early.  I know that the early mornings are about the only part of Scout activities that I detest.  Well, the early mornings… and the inability to take a healthy poop.

After watching the stupid sunrise while trying to get Scouts out of their tents and making breakfast, we all stumble groggily over to a flag ceremony.  We watch a demonstration on how to plant trees.  We drive out over a bunch of rutted, washboardie roads to the middle of nowhere, park the cars, and then hike for like a half -mile to get some small trees to plant.  With bags of trees and these spades that weigh like 200 pounds, we start hiking and planting trees.  Several hours and a moderately severe case of spring sunburn later, we head back to camp for lunch.  We mess around most of the afternoon, and then head over to a building for a group supper.  By this time, I start to realize that I haven’t pooped since back in Terrytown the previous day.  I’ve got yesterday’s supper in me, along with breakfast, lunch and diner from today.  I’m starting to feel “the urge”.

Now, Long’s Peak Council has thought of everything.  We have port-a-potty galore.  There are a ton of those things scattered throughout the designated camping area.  Well, maybe Long’s Peak Council hasn’t thought of quite everything.  They apparently haven’t thought of the fact that a bunch of mostly 11 to 14-year-old boys are going to make a pretty big mess of every single stinking port-a-potty within hours of setting up camp.  Even though port-a-potties have little plastic urinals mounted on the inside, many of the boys are going to pee directly into the pooper; and a large portion of these boys are going to pee all over the seat.  These boys should be punished.  I want to go to each and every one of these boys’ houses and pee all over their toilet seats.  And then I want to make them sit in it… many times… over and over again.  I think this is going to be about the only way to break them out of the habit of peeing all over toilet seats.  If they are learning it from their fathers, those fathers need to be punished as well.  This goes for any boy or man who has ever peed in a public restroom without lifting the seat.  Each and every one of you should be forced to clean public restrooms.  For every peeing offense, that is one entire restroom you must clean… with a toothbrush… your toothbrush… and then you should be forced to brush your teeth with your toothbrush.  Seriously.

I know that you may be thinking to yourself, “I’m never going to poop on this toilet, so who cares if I pee on it?”  Well, every person who may be in need of pooping on that toilet cares.  Think of someone other than yourself, you smug jerkwad.

Or maybe you’re thinking, “I’m a really good aimer.  I can get it all in the toilet bowl without touching the seat!”  You are insane.  When dealing with something that may touch another man’s (or woman’s) butt, now is not the time for delusions of grandeur.  Lift the stinking seat.

Okay, so I have checked out almost every porta-a-potty at the camp.  Those without poop or pee all over the seat that are actually clean enough to use are out of toilet paper.  Wow, there is still all of tonight and tomorrow morning to go, and they are out of toilet paper.  Then I remember that there is actually a heated restroom up by the building where we ate supper.  So, I take the hike to the heated restroom and go inside.  There is mud and water and (I’m almost positive) pee all over the floor.  I immediately want to wash my hands just from touching the door… but both sinks are occupied by young Scouts feverishly washing their hands (a couple of those who obey the Scout Law, I presume) and there are no paper towels in sight.  There are two toilets in the restroom, and one has a line going almost out the door.  The second is empty with no line.  Now, I know that there is something about that second toilet that is keeping everyone else away from it.  There is no way all of these Scouts and Scout leaders are standing in line for one toilet if there is a second toilet that is perfectly fine.  So I get in line… and I stare at the door to that empty stall.

The person sitting in the first stall is making all kinds of strange noises.  There would be a low moan, and then a grunt, and then a little plfft noise.  Just a little tiny noise.  The younger Scouts in line would giggle.  The older Scouts would roll their eyes and elbow the younger Scouts.  I was making a mental note to make sure I didn’t moan or grunt when my time arrived.  This continued for minute after minute: moan, grunt, plfft… moan, grunt, plfft. The poor dude on the toilet was making little progress, and the audience, once amused at his efforts, was becoming annoyed.  Several of the boys were actually squeezing their butt cheeks together with their hands.  One of the boys near the front of the line got an awful look on his face.  His face got all squinchy, and I heard his stomach rumble.  He squeezed his knees together and his hands went to his belly. His whole body tensed, he let out a soft “oh no”, and then he relaxed.  His face burned bright red and he refused to meet the eyes of any of the other line-waiters.  He slowly slipped past all of us, taking small, calculated steps,  and made his way out the door.

No one said a thing.  We all just bowed our heads in a moment of silence for the soldier who fell before us.

Not able to take any of this any longer, I went to the second stall.  I didn’t care how bad that toilet was, I was bound and determined to…

FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING SACRED AND HOLY!!!

Oh dear sweet Jesus, how could You let something so hideous come into Your creation?  The toilet was plugged.  No big deal, right?  I mean, we’ve all seen plugged toilets.  Of course, this isn’t your standard “plugged toilet”.  This sucker is filled to the brim with poop and pee and toilet paper.  This sucker has been flushed so many times that part of the contents of the toilet bowl have spewed over the side and onto the floor.  I quickly realized two things: that I was right about part of the wetness on the floor being pee, and that I was wrong about the brown muck on the floor being mud. With the slight taste of vomit in my mouth, I looked closer.  There, sitting on the seat, was a lone pile of poo.  It resembled the top of an ice cream cone, perfectly twisted up to a little point on top.

“How in the hell…,” I thought to myself, and then it hit me.  Some poor soul  had been so desperate that he had tried to use that plugged toilet.  In an effort to avoid getting the mess from within the bowl on his hiney, he tried using the “hover method”.  The “hover method” is… well, I think you can figure that out on your own.  Apparently, he “hovered” just fine, but his aim was a little off.  Instead of plopping his goods down into the filthy murk of the bowl, he laid it neatly on the toilet seat, ice-cream-cone-style, for all to see.

I turned from the horror in front of me and walked directly out of the restroom.  I went back to camp, crawled in my tent, crawled in my sleeping bag and went to sleep.  I dreamed of being chased across inescapably wet floors by monstrous brown ice cream cones.  The next morning, we packed up camp and headed home.

Well, here we are now, several days after the camp out.  I still haven’t pooped.  Apparently, holding that stuff in makes it kind of… I don’t know… compress and back-up or something.  It’s kind of neat, ’cause I have hardly any appetite.  If I could poop, I’d almost bet that I’ve lost weight!  But I haven’t pooped, so I have actually gained weight.

Anyway, back to my original point.   Cockroaches are filthy creatures.  They eat almost anything, they hide in dark, damp places, and they leave their feces all over the place in disgusting manners.  Scouts truly are like cockroaches.