The Handyman

Is there an unwritten code among handymen? The reason I ask is because anytime I have hired one to do some work for me around my place, they never stick to their word as far as to when they will show up. It never fails. They never come when they say they will. They are ALWAYS an hour or two or three late! Sometimes they never show up! And when they do show, the job that they were contracted to do, is never the same when they are finished.

I hired someone to do some outside repairs this weekend. I had put it off too long. He solicited the work. The neighbors had told him I had work to be done, and because they recommended him, I decide what the heck. He needed the work; give him the job; 30 years old, wife (who sat in the truck all three days while he was here), and a 10 year old daughter. He had few teeth, smelled of smoke, and had cigarette burns in his sweatshirt. He said he had left school at 16 because he was making good money working on homes; not something you tell someone in Education as I told him. But he did get his GED. Grew up in Georgia, slow talker, as it took him 20 minutes to tell me something that would take most people 5 minutes.

Now everything was fine; explained what I wanted done, price decided upon; until I wrote him a check. At that time, he told me he only accepted cash. Ok, void the check. I don't keep cash on me, so I did not have the down payment he wanted; had to give him some cash and write another check to make up the difference. We decided on a time for him to start the following day, 10:00 AM.

Well, I am up, dressed, and ready by 10:00; which is unusual for me as I am NEVER ready before 12:00 if I can help it. I like to take my time in the morning on my days off. 10:00 came and went, as did 11:00 and 12:00. I am ready to go run some errands when I get the call; wife’s phone not charged, running late, on his way. Now it was about 12:30, figured he would be here within the next 30 minutes. NOT! Another hour!

He got here, and I went to run my errands. He called me to explain something wasn’t going to work; he had to do something different, and to remind me to get cash; I had gotten that the day before after he left, having had to write two different checks for him. He worked another couple of hours, asked for more money for supplies (found something else that needed to be fixed), and off he went, saying he would be back the next day.

The next morning, same thing, I am up and ready by 10:00 AM (I do pretty well after I have my shot of caffeine) and again a no show until the call at 11:30 telling me he is on his way. At least the call was earlier today, but it still took him over 30 minutes to get here. Again, I told him I had errands to run. I would not be here when he got here, would be back in about an hour. I got a call from him about 2 hours later saying he was done and to have cash.

The additional jobs required additional money. I get that, but he said he did the math wrong and didn't charge me enough. Well, guess what? I only had cash for the amount he had told me the night before. So, cash and a check again. He drove off and called. The guy who usually cashed checks for him wasn't working. If I could get some cash for him, he would take less than the amount of the check. Yikes, have to go scrambling around looking for cash. Came up with the right amount of bills and change. What a pain in the neck.

I was surprised he was so disorganized. The neighbors recommended him highly, so I did not expect it. Another neighbor called and asked what I thought of his work. Come to find out, she had hired him before, and he kept finding things that needed to be fixed. I don’t mind being told things need to be fixed when I know they do, but figure the price correctly.

Time will tell if he did a good job. He still needs to come back and finish some painting. He did clean everything up well, so that is a plus.

It is soooo hard to find a handyman. Would I use him again? I don’t know. I did tell him if I did ever use him again, we would have to sit down and have the math worked out even before the job was ever started. I am all set for now. My next big job is replacing my bathroom counters and that will not be done by someone I hire off the street!

Why Do People Do Art Shows?

This is an old draft I finally made the time to sit down and finish. I sometimes have more than one going on at a time, posting none of them. This goes back to November.

I was at dinner the other night when two friends mentioned that I had not put anything new on my blog in awhile. Too true. I have saved stuff to write about but have not gotten around to writing anything. Time! That’s the key; time to do so. I decided today I would try to get something written. (And didn't do so until now, 2 months later!)

In the past two months I have been to a number of Arts Festivals with my friend Nancy. Nancy is a retired elementary school principal. Since retiring, she has been busy with a number of different projects; arts and crafts, stamping, scrapbooking; a regular Martha Stewart! She always has something in the works. Nancy is now into photography. She has taken a number of photography classes. She takes great photos, as she puts it, of things that do not move. She does buildings and objects, not people or animals. She has done shows in the Atlanta area and in South Carolina. I have helped her out a few times. Needless to say, most I have helped her with have either been rainy or cold days. The last one I did I thought I would never warm up, and it was only October. Most of Nancy’s shows are outdoors; one lately was indoors.

Preparation for the shows is a lot of work; which photos to take, framed or just matted, what sizes. I told Nancy one time (she had been out of town, and I had collected her mail for her) I would never know if anyone had broken into her house and disturbed anything because she spreads her stuff out ALL OVER the place!

Setting up for the shows is also a lot of work. Nancy has a tent she puts up and display walls on which to hang her photos. It takes a couple of hours to get everything set up. Nancy plans out how and where everything will be hung. She has a system in place; what photos get hung on the walls, which go in baskets. She has props and displays. She sets her tent up to “draw” in the customers.

That’s another story in itself. Some days there will be a number of visitors to the show and Nancy’s tent, other days few. I don’t know how Nancy does it. I think I would go nuts; being there all day waiting for people not only to come into my tent, but to also buy something. To me it would be very discouraging to have people look through my photography, tell me how good it was, then walk away without buying a thing. Not Nancy. At Chastain, one guy came back at least three times; even brought his cousin back with him; to look at a scene from Sullivan’s Island, and he still did not buy the photo. Nancy just kept smiling and having conversations with him. Nancy does not get discouraged. She will be ready for the next show, around the next corner.

It is also interesting to see which photos attract people at the different shows; at one show it was scenes from the Atlanta area, at another show photos taken in Europe, at a third show beach photos. Every show attracts a number of different types of people. Interesting!

Nancy makes friends at all her shows. She befriends the people set up beside her. At the Chastain show the photographer beside her gave her a lot of advice; price the photos higher, no posters, make the mats herself. He was very friendly; as was his girlfriend; and he wanted Nancy to be successful. He had no trouble sharing his advice with her; good advice at that.

Nancy is always planning; the next shot, the next project, the next show. She is off for awhile now, so she will have lots of ideas by the time the next show rolls around!

No wonder no one wants to learn English...

You think English is easy???

1)The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the row of oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with ‘quick’? You lovers of the English language might enjoy this. There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.' We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special. And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it's stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP for now my time is UP, so... it is time to shut UP! (reprinted from an email)

Clueless in Seattle - YIKES!!!

In a Seattle Washington college classroom, they were discussing the qualifications to be President of the United States. It was pretty simple the candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age.

However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair was the requirement to be a natural born citizen. In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant, but everyone's jaw hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating, 'What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?'

Yep, these are the young people that just voted for the President of the United States. These are our future leaders,

I think we are in deep trouble.
ID10T
(reprinted from an email)

In Memoriam

I went to a funeral today; Nancy Faye Tribble. Tribble was 55 years old; a year older than me. Too young! Tribble had been battling pancreatic cancer for 11 years. Two weeks ago she lost the fight; July 23. And what a fight it was. She did everything in her power to keep going. I was able to visit with her last April, during Spring Break, while she was living in Macon with friends. I am glad I got the opportunity to do so.

I did not know her as well as others did; did not grow up with her, did not go to school with her, did not teach with her, but did socialize a little with her in years gone by. I met her through a mutual friend; another Nancy. As the years passed, I might see Tribble maybe once or twice a year. We went to the opening of the movie “We Are Marshall” a few years back; to find Nancy in the movie; and many times I would see her at Nancy’s house. I knew a lot about Tribble through Nancy and learned more about her today as one of her brothers spoke about her. He tried to put her whole life into a couple of hours of time. She was a generous person, full of life, and very much a fighter.

It is at times like this you see how small a world it is. There were people at the funeral I knew. I work with a friend of hers; they went to college together. I had worked many years ago with another friend of hers; they taught on the same team in middle school. I recognized a retired teacher who teaches professional learning classes in the county where I work. I have worked and still work with other colleagues of hers, and they all speak very highly of her. She touched a lot of people’s lives.

As I was sitting there today listening to Tribble’s friends sing, and her friends and brother share their memories of her, all I could think was that whenever I met her, no matter what the circumstances (not only was she fighting cancer, but she also had MS), she always made me laugh. That is what I will always remember about her – she always made me laugh. Her sense of humor was incredible, and many of the stories told today were how she shared that laughter with everyone she knew and came in contact with throughout her life.

Nancy Faye Tribble will be missed by many; her personality, her jokes, her drive. I feel lucky to have known her to some degree and to have shared in her laughter.

Our mutual friend, Nancy, did the program for Tribble today. She did an excellent job. The picture is from that program. Nancy has a blog and will probably put into words, a lot better than I have, a tribute to Tribble, but I felt the need to say something.

Girls of '73

As mentioned in my
“Summer Vacation” blog, while I was in Dover, I got together with some old friends. There are a number of us who get together whenever I get up to Dover. We all went to junior high and high school together, and some of us were in elementary school together. In junior high and high school we were regionalized, two towns together, so this group in compiled of two groups; those who grew up in Dover and those who grew up in Sherborn; hence the name Dover-Sherborn Regional High School. I thought there were about 150 in our graduating class. I was told there were 120. Guess there seemed like more at the time.

As said, a number of us get together; not necessarily the same people all the time. Everyone is contacted, and those who can make it do so. Some live in the Dover/Sherborn area, others live in the western part of the state, and others, like me, live out of state.

This summer ten of us were able to get together; two of us from out of state. I make it home more frequently than some; every Christmas and usually in the summer if no other trips are planned. One friend brought her mother as she had driven up from Cape Cod and didn't want to do the ride back by herself.

It is a good group of women. We all do something different as far as work. Some have college degrees, some do not. Some have kids (they share their pictures and their lives), some are married, some are divorced, some are single (and get bombarded with questions about dating), and some have different sexual preferences, but we all get along. This year we celebrated a birthday.

We meet at the Sherborn Inn and catch up on the year and gossip or reminisce about times gone by. We tell stories about others or about each other. Even though we are mature women, many times we revert back to high school, maybe even junior high, ways. This time we laughed so hard, our sides hurt!

We have met at different restaurants in the past, but the Sherborn Inn has won out the past couple of times. It is very nice. It has a tavern and a dining room. We were told the dining room would be closed, but because we were a large group, they opened it for us.

The Sherborn Inn is an old house. It dates back to 1758, but it used to be a private home. We graduated with a guy who lived there. Don’t know what happened to the family, but he is now living on the Cape. It is celebrating its 20th anniversary as an inn this year. I have heard mixed reviews about it, but have always enjoyed going there; either with family or friends.

I enjoy these times with these women. It is fun to get together with them and cut up. It was a very enjoyable night, and I look forward to more to come.

My Summer Vacation

I just spent 7 days on vacation in Dover, Massachusetts. My sister bought the house we grew up in, so I stay with her when I visit. It amazes me how 2 adults and 6 kids lived in the house when I was a kid. My parents did build two additions, and I guess we did not realize how small it was at the time. My sister has 3 kids. She and her husband have done a lot of renovations, including taking down part of a wall and adding a detached garage. She, however, does not have a guest bedroom, so every time I visit I have to put someone out of their room. This visit it was my nephew Gregory’s turn. Gregory didn’t care. He got to sleep in the “cave”, the basement room with the TV and all the video games.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit home. It started out rainy and cold; I had left 97 degrees in Atlanta; but it eventually stopped raining and warmed up. I was able to actually get a tan line, which I have not done in a long time, as it is not comfortable to sit out in Atlanta. We were able to spend time outdoors. I discovered this was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. I got to sit outside all day and either visit with my sister or just read. I finished two books in 3 days. In Atlanta, it is much too hot to do this unless you have a pool you can jump into frequently.

Because of the rain, we spent a couple of days shopping; didn’t buy anything. Spent another rainy day visiting my mother on Cape Cod; a 2 hour ride took us over 3 hours because of the rain and flooding. The ride home was ok; dry; but it was a good thing we were heading off the Cape, as this was July 3 and the holiday traffic had already begun by 4:00 in the afternoon. There was a five mile backup getting over the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges; the bridges that go over the Cape Cod Canal. This is not unusual for weekend and/or holiday traffic. People have to plan to leave either really early or really late to get onto the Cape. And rain doesn’t help. The same is true for Sundays when people are leaving the Cape to get back to work for Monday.

Spent that night eating my favorite meal – lobster, mussels, steamers (a southerner asked me what these were, didn’t realize someone might not know; they are clams, as opposed to cherry stones which are small quahogs), boiled shrimp, and raw oysters. Pigged out! Ate every bit of everything! When I bought the lobsters, 1 ¼ pounds each, I thought there would probably be leftovers for lunch the next day. NOT! Absolutely nothing left over except for the empty shells. Then we went on to make "somemores" on the outdoor fire pit. YUM!!!

Another part I enjoyed was getting together with old friends. There are a number of us who get together whenever I get up to Dover. We all went to junior high and high school together, and some of us were in elementary school together. We meet at the Sherborn Inn and catch up on the year and gossip or reminisce about times gone by. But that’s going to be another blog.

Needless to say I had a great visit home. My last day it was raining again, so I figured that was a good sign to leave. Now I just wish they would send a little rain down here!

Catching up On Blogs

I have been writing ideas down as I come upon them. Before school was out I came upon two I thought would be perfect for the blog as they had to do with I D 10 T.

I am a Math Coach. I work at two schools. Didn’t like having two schools at the beginning of the year but in the end I can live with it; like both schools, principals, and faculty.

It is interesting to see how the two schools are different and how they are similar. At one school the faculty works very well together at their grade levels, and they actually teach. At the other school, there are some who come to school just to get the pay check. Both schools break some rules to their advantage, which is fine because it benefits the teachers in some way.

We give a state mandated test every year in April. It is a pass/fail test in 3rd Grade for Reading and 5th Grade for Math and Reading; though parents can appeal the retainment and the students are passed on. In some schools this is recommended, so no student is ever retained.

At one of my schools a grade level did not do as well on the Math portion as it has in the past because of one classroom. I was quite concerned about the results and the teacher. I was very surprised. I had thought this class would do well. Come to find out, only 41% of her class finished the test. They are given 70 minutes to take the test, which is more than enough time. I proctored in a classroom that had no trouble finishing the test in this amount of time. The teacher made her students use their scratch paper (GREAT! they need to use it), but she never updated the amount of time left for the test, so many of her students were unable to finish. And then she justified it by saying a number of them wouldn’t have done well anyway. Yikes!!! 59% of her class did not pass the test! I would be in tears if something like that happened when I was teaching. Needless to say the principal was very upset, though the teacher had warned her as soon as the Math portion was finished that her class hadn’t finished. She’s a veteran teacher. She has been giving this test since it was put into place. What was she thinking!? Obviously, she wasn’t? Plus side, it was not a pass/fail grade.

The county implemented new Math assessments this year. One such assessment was a Performance Task at the end of every nine weeks. A teacher at my other school was concerned with the scoring of them as they are scored with a rubric, so she asked me to come in and help her score them. No problem. We scored about 5 performance tasks at one time about a week before school was out. The teacher commented on how poorly her students had done on all of them. My comment to her was, “If you had been doing them all along, at the end of each 9 week period, instead of doing them all at once, they would have gotten used to them and done a lot better. “ Her response, “Oh.”

It amazes me how some people think or don’t sometimes!

Catch of the Day

At The Register by John Fischer

Chandler and I have a new yogurt spot we like to frequent after I pick him up from school. It's one of those places where you serve yourself the flavor of soft yogurt you want from a row of wall dispensers and then you choose from a number of toppings and finally you pay for everything by the ounce.

One day recently my bill came to $6.63. I gave the young girl behind the register a ten-dollar bill and, as is my custom, I searched my pocket for change. If I have the $.63 in coin, I like to get rid of the change in my pocket instead of adding to it. So I pulled out my change and found I had $.62—a penny short. "Will you take $.62?" I asked. The girl nodded, took my $.62 and I waited, fully expecting four dollars back. Instead, she fished out exactly $3.99 and counted it all out into my hand.

"I don't want this," I said. "The whole idea was to get rid of change, not add to it." She looked at me like she didn't know what I was talking about. I opened my mouth to try and explain, but one look in her face told me it was useless.

"Here," I said holding out the $3.99. "I'll give you back this and we can start over. Just give me change for a ten."

"Can't do that," she said. "The drawer is closed."

Why would I bother giving someone $10.62 so they could give me $3.99 back? It defied logic, but then again, she was just doing her job… recording what I gave her into the computer and giving me back what the computer told her.

I walked away realizing I was not going to get anywhere with this and finally able to laugh over it. The temptation was to call her something dumb in my head, but that wasn't going to help anything. Further reflection led me to realize this happens a lot when people don't understand each other. They are both seeing the same thing in a different way. It's not that one is right and the other is wrong; they simply have two different perspectives on the same thing.

I've realized from this that I need to not always try and get someone to understand my point of view. Maybe I need to put forth a little extra effort and try and understand theirs.

End of the Year

I have been absent from blogging for quite a while; got caught up in the end of the year work for Math and then Social Studies. Even though I am out for the summer, I have continued with my “second” job, helping out the S.S. coordinator. Now I don’t mind helping the man out; in fact he is one of a few people I cannot say no to when he asks for the help; but I never know what I am getting myself into when I do say yes. And yes, the extra money does help. Friends say stop bitching because I do get paid for it, but …. need to vent over the time it took, so I am bitching away!

At the beginning of the year he came to me and asked if I would give him a hand with Social Studies as he didn’t have any school specialist personnel like the Math and Reading Departments. He said he would pay me an extra $500 a month, total $5000 for the year. I, of course, said yes, and as they say, the rest is history; except one of the powers that be decided to change the way we would get paid, so I have not yet seen what was agreed upon. Hmm, maybe this month.

Back to venting. I have spent more time on the computer than ever before. I can’t type. I hen pick! A friend did give me a typing program to learn to type, and I told myself I would do it this summer. So far, it is still in the box. I have spent the whole year writing tests, going to meetings, S.S. fairs, and now rewriting the curriculum guide. Another person working on the guides asked me not too long ago if I was aware we were going to rewrite the whole thing. No! At the time he had only mentioned Unit 1 because he was not happy with it. Not a problem. I can do that! Then we hear he wants them all done, and by the end of the month as he is going on vacation. Me, too; so for the past 2 weeks I have been rewriting the 4th Grade Social Studies framework and curriculum guide for the county.

Now as I said before, I don’t type. I can cut and paste, but I am not necessarily good with formatting; give me the format, and I can almost work with it without too many problems, but when you tell me what you want without a template, I break out in a cold sweat!

I took the old 4th Grade curriculum guide and rewrote it the way he wanted it. It was a lot of work. Now keep in mind, I was on the committee to write these last year. I was on the 5th Grade committee, and I know we did a lot of work on it. He wasn’t happy with some grades, so everything is getting redone.

Since I am out of the classroom and working in Math, I do not know the 4th Grade S.S. curriculum. I had to go through the TEs with a fine tooth comb to make sure everything he wanted was in the guide; not only the core materials, but any additional materials, too; novels, teaching guides, websites; anything extra the teachers could use. The teacher working on the 1st Grade guide emailed me recently and asked if her hours were reasonable; 40 hours for only half the units; I emailed her back, “Yes”, I put in over 70 hours for the 8 units I did.

Ok, back to my typing. I know it slows me down, but so did the formatting; bullets for this, bullets for that, margins so wide, outside boarder (how?), take out text box (how? ). I did finally get brave at one meeting and admit I was not technologically savvy. He laughed because he knows I know more about it than he does! He laughed because he is getting a Blackberry; which does everything; and he won’t have a clue as to how to use it.

I did finish the 4th Grade Social Studies guides Thursday, sent them to him Friday, am meeting with him Monday, and going on vacation Tuesday. Let’s hope nothing more needs to be done!!!!!

IDOT SIGHTINGS

Just a little humor to pass along. Enjoy!

We had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a 'large' enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, 'Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.' I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, 'NO, it's not.' Four is larger than two..
We haven't used Sears repair since.

My daughter and I went through the McDonald's take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, 'you gave me too much money.' I said, 'Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back. She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request. I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said 'We're sorry but we could not do that kind of thing.' The clerk then proceeded to give me back $1 and 75 cents in change..
Do not confuse the clerks at McDonald's.

I live in a semi rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road. The reason: 'Too many deer are being hit by cars out here!' I don't think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.'
From Kingman , KS .

My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for 'minimal lettuce.' He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg lettuce.
From Kansas City

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, 'Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?' To which I replied, 'If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?' He smiled knowingly and nodded, 'That's why we ask.'Happened in Birmingham , Ala.

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it's safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, 'What on earth are blind people doing driving?!'
She was a probation officer in Wichita , KS

At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker. She was leaving the company due to 'downsizing.' Our manager commented cheerfully, 'This is fun. We should do this more often.' Not another word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare.This was a lunch at Texas Instruments.

I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the sake of her life, couldn't understand why her system would not turn on.
A deputy with the Dallas County sheriff’s office, no less.

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. 'Hey,' I announced to the technician, 'It's open!' His reply, 'I know. I already got that side.'
This was at the Ford dealership in Canton , MS

STAY ALERT! They walk among us... and they VOTE and they REPRODUCE