Tell It To COACHIE

The HP is many things: a dedicated patriot, and fun and loving daddy, a wonderful friend and husband. He is also a full-blown disaster in the laundry room. One of his first acts while home on leave this summer was to put his uniform in the wash with a pen in the pocket. The pen broke open and ruined clothing for each member of the family (except him - the uniform was fine fortunately since it is many times more expensive than everything else that was in the laundry that day).

The new Army uniform is something to behold. It’s got big pockets, little pockets, secret pockets, pockets for pens and pockets that fasten. It is also 75 percent velcro, so now soldiers can move their patches from uniform to uniform when they wash it or when they change jobs or rank (I don’t know what the Army has against all those older Korean women who used to make a living sewing on patches).

Last Friday, the HP came home and we were discussing our day as he ripped (develcroed) patches off from all over his uniform and took things out of the pockets. I had the laundry baskets lined up in the hallway awaiting my return on Monday, so he helpfully put his uniform in with the dark colors after he had changed for our trip. On Monday, I did all the laundry, and on the last load, as I was moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer, a small metal clip fell out onto the floor. It was obviously the metal clip from a pen, and I looked at it briefly, suspiciously. Then I figured, given the “pen in the uniform” incident from the summer and given that I watched him take apart his uniform before he put it in the wash, that the broken pen clip was innocuous.

When will I learn? When I started to fold that last load of laundry, I found pens still securely in their little pen holders in the sleeve of his uniform (I know, but my annoyance prevents me from coming up with a suitable sarcastic pocket protector comment). One pen had leaked onto the sleeve of his uniform, but I didn’t notice damage to other clothes, mainly out of willful obliviousness. Fortunately the uniform was in with a lot of black shirts and sweatpants and dark jeans.

Hey, accidents happen, and this one would have escaped the blog if not for the following exchange we had the next morning:

Me: There were pens in the uniform you put in the laundry on Friday.

HP: I know. I meant to call you and warn you about it but I forgot.

He knew? He knowingly put a uniform full of pens in the laundry basket? Indeed, that’s what happened.

However, I managed to look at the big picture and contain my rage at this incident because he has banked a little credit since he got home. Not only does he now share the covers and sleep in a less tornado-like manner (a transformation that seemed truly impossible given how long he has been sleeping like a tornado) but he has rinsed his whiskers out of the sink just about every morning without once being asked.

So I’d call the whole episode a wash, but I’m afraid he might put a pen in it (rimshot).

A Lame Explanation for My Unexpected Hiatus: After suffering through what I thought was the worst of the mouth and jaw pain, I finally went back to the dentist. By then I had concluded that the bite guard was what was causing my jaw pain, but the dentist would have none of it. She told me that my new filling was making my whole head hurt, and if my jaw was hurting too, I should wear the bite guard more.

By Christmastime, I was a full-blown Advil junkie, and although my tooth felt better, my jaw was much worse. I abandoned the bite guard, but the whole episode came to a head (ha!) when I bit on some extra crunchy Chex mix that set off a chain reaction in my entire jaw from, ear to ear, that left me almost completely unable to eat or sleep for 24 hours. I found myself taking a quick break from our winter holiday to attend an emergency appointment in the Coast Guard clinic in Cape May. I was given the big Motrin (oh, how I love love love the big Motrin) for the daytime and vicoden for the nighttime. Fortunately, the vicoden mixed with many a Christmas cocktail allowed me to sleep during the holidays. I’ve never been on a narcotic of any kind before, and honestly, it didn’t do much for me, so I guess I won’t be chronicling my descent into the poppy underworld.

After the holidays the pain gradually subsided, but I never went back to my dentist. She was so sure that my tooth was the problem, I knew she’d give me a root canal to fix my jaw. Tonight I even ate baby carrots without a problem, so hopefully the worst is behind me.

If anyone is interested in a malfunctioning, pain-inducing, Little-Shop-of-Horrors worthy bite guard, e-mail me.

Law and Order: Arbor Victims Unit: After spending a few sunny afternoons out in the neighborhood, I realized that all the pin oaks have some version of the Joan of Arc kindling. I feel bad that something I said may have triggered this plague of self-loathing among the pin oaks, so I’m going to take it all back. Sure the leaves are small and annoying, but so are my children sometimes, and I wouldn’t set them on fire. So cheer up pin oaks. And then clean up your area.

Lessons Learned: By my calculations, I wanted to see at least 9 people dead in the ER follow up episode. But today I saw a commercial that said only one of them was going to die. If I hear that it was the punk kid who slapped his grandmother, I may sometime in the future watch another episode. If it is anyone else, even Forrest Whitaker who is more than likely dying to be killed (ha!), ER will be dead to me for all eternity.

Coachie’s New Year: In keeping with the blog improvement resolution, the “about” button is now activated. Since all of you already know me, it is not exactly a wealth of eye-opening information, but it is a start. Kind of like when you start cleaning your kitchen by putting away everything that’s clean. It requires little effort, but you can still claim progress.

Today I saw Reuben from American Idol singing the ABCs with Elmo. I was pretty impressed and surprised at what a good singer he was, because unlike my fellow countrymen, I’ve never watched American Idol. I know things about it from seeing the winners and losers on other shows or reading articles about them, but I could never bring myself to watch the show. It wasn’t the judges (although straight up now tell me do you really think Paula Abdul should critiquing other people’s singing talent?) and it wasn’t the cringe factor. I can’t watch it because it moves so slowly that I can almost feel time starting to run backwards.

Worse than American Idol, however, are the game shows. Each round in Deal or No Deal could be neatly compressed into one minute – 20 seconds for the contestant to pick a suitcase and the trixie to open it, 20 seconds of Howie Mandel’s insightful yet suspenseful repartee, and 20 seconds for the deal to be offered and the contestant to take it or reject it. Instead, each 60 seconds of action is neatly compressed into 10 minutes of television that is so boring, it may be illegal. I could never stand Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for the same reason. The only person who played that game the right way was Norm Macdonald (where are you?) on the celebrity edition who refused to blather on about why he wasn’t picking one thing or another. He just said “B, final answer,” much to Regis’ chagrin.

Worse still than the game shows are the soap operas. I have a good friend from college who has been a writer on One Life to Live for nine years (I’m so cool), and although every once in a while I’ll watch the credits to see his name roll by, I’ll never be able to watch his show. When soap operas go to break, you always know what will come after the commercial - a rehashing of the scene you saw before the commercial. Maybe soap operas started out moving slowly so that if a loyal watcher missed a day, she wouldn’t get lost in the story line. But now that she can watch and rewatch episodes on Tivo or the soap opera channel, I don’t know why the writers don’t speed it up. Perhaps the wardrobe budget would be prohibitive if the characters had to change clothes more than once every three weeks.

Many a drug manufacturer would be happy to know that I don’t usually flip away from a show during commercials, except on the rare occasions that I’m trying to keep up with two shows at once. If I’m watching a show that I enjoy, I’ll usually just sit there are think about what just happened or what I think might happen next (I never claimed to be a cool girl…oh wait, yes I did). But on shows like American Idol, almost nothing happens between commercials. I’ve got nothing to ponder so I find the commercial interruptions excruciating and always flip away. Invariably, by the time I flip back, the five seconds of action have passed and it’s back to more blah, blah, blah.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I enjoy TV like every other red-blooded American? Between my slow-paced TV allergy and my inability to decipher the TV listings, I am missing out on all the shows that make America great and am rapidly losing my ability to relate to my fellow citizens. But I do have some hope that maybe there is a cure out there for my problem (TVADD?), and I can find it if I just start watching those drug commercials more closely.

A few weeks ago George Will wrote a column where he stated that the minimum wage in America should be $0 an hour because labor is a commodity that should be decided by the market. He laments that this is a “good idea whose time will never come again.” I never took economics and I’m not sure if I missed some nuance of the argument, but I’m forced to conclude that it might be one of the stupidest, most unrealistic things I’ve ever read. I don’t think the average American should be subject to the whimsical good will of his employer (and those ever-present altruistic shareholders). What else should we bring back? Company script? (I can think of a rather large store that would probably sign up for that in a heartbeat.)

However, it might make Mr. Will happy to know that there is a group of people right here on post who demonstrate how the $0 an hour concept works – the grocery baggers at the Commissary. All around the checkout lines are signs stating “Commissary Baggers Work for Tips Only.” From what I have observed, anyone can be hired as a grocery bagger, and then each bagger must find a way to ingratiate him/herself with the shoppers to get paid.

Every commissary has a few super-baggers that quickly pack the groceries and expertly put them in the car. They are always incredibly friendly and helpful, always willing to gently place the eggs and bread on the front seat for safety, or to wedge your watermelon between the heavier bags so it won’t roll around. They note your license plate and ask questions about the sports teams from your home state. They are gifted at making small talk about the weather and are always ready to toss a compliment at your cranky children. In Mr. Will’s world, the super-baggers are proof that $0 an hour minimum wage could work. By doing their job so well, they probably earn more money an hour than the checkout clerks. But they have other tricks up their sleeves too. They can remember and spot the big tippers and manipulate the bagger assignment system to miraculously find themselves next in line when the big tippers are ready to check out. Eventually, they introduce themselves to the big tippers and become so familiar that the big tippers start to request them. This is great for the super-baggers, but what about the other ones?

Many of the baggers are Korean spouses or more often, the family members of Korean spouses and as such don’t speak much English. Most of them are older women who, although they obviously work hard, are not particularly strong, swift, or proficient at witty banter. Even if we ignore whatever level of racism or xenophobia that might reduce these women’s tips, chances are they are not encountering the big tippers, because they can’t compete with the machinations of the super-baggers.

Some of the baggers appear to have obsessive compulsive disorder and are forever sorting the groceries that come down the conveyor, trying to find the best combination for each bag. Then when we get to the car, they deliberately arrange and then rearrange and then rearrange the bags in the back. When I encounter these OCD baggers, I always wonder if they started out as normal people, but then realized maybe they would get better tips if they packed the bags better and took the time to make sure they wouldn’t tip over in the car. Now they are paralyzed with trying to perfect the bagging process to optimize tips. Unfortunately, all that sorting and rearranging makes them move more slowly. Slowness is not a good attribute for grocery baggers, and probably leads to a decrease in tips.

From what I’ve observed, this $0 an hour minimum wage can be extremely stressful. There are ways to become successful, but in the end each bagger is subject to the whim of the shopper (and the maneuverings of his fellow employees), just like every employee is more or less subject to the whim of his employer. Under the $0 an hour scheme, would every worker have a contract to guarantee that the hourly wage he agreed to be paid? I doubt it, and while I’d love to live in a land where upstanding business people always did what they promised, unfortunately I live here.

I can grasp that in an economic textbook, labor may indeed be a commodity, but I don’t see how it can work that way outside the book. A case of apples cannot be intimidated. You can tell it to lower its price or it won’t be eaten, but it would be just as happy to rot. A gallon of gas doesn’t have to compromise to hang onto a job because its got a passel of little oil cans at home to worry about. Even in the age of minimum wage, workers can be intimidated and manipulated and employers can try to take advantage, so I hope he is right that time of no minimum wage will not return.

Although if it did, America would need a lot more crusading journalists to expose society’s evils. Maybe then there would be so many job openings even I could get a job as a paid writer…

For now I guess I’m doomed to remain at $0 an hour.

This memory resurfaced this morning as I gazed out the window to determine whether I could get outside in pursuit of Resolution #2, and realized that the dripping I heard was ice melting from the trees.

The streets where I grew up* were lined with huge trees (thank you, Eleanor Roosevelt) and the branches from either side met and formed a canopy, shading the whole neighborhood in the summer. Sometimes on rainy days, you could hurry down the street and not get wet. The downside was that on icy days, the trees, while deceptively beautiful, were coated with ice just waiting to melt and pour all over you like nature’s own water balloon. Every winter without fail, I’d determine that the bad weather was over and head out to the bus stop without a hood a hood or a hat, and at just that moment a burst of wind would shake the branches and send a drenching shower of melted ice down onto my head.

Down one of these tree-lined streets lived my friend Kerry. She aspired to be, and pretty much was, the female version of David Lee Roth (in his Van Halen “Hot For Teacher” days, not his current freak show days). In my high school, almost everyone had relatively short hair (a phenomenon of self-confidence (maybe?) that was unique to all-girls Catholic high schools apparently – every guy we met from public schools remarked on it), and the few girls with long hair wore it straight, curled under at the bottom, maybe with a barrette. Except for Kerry. She wore her hair long, streaky, and for the most part, like David Lee Roth or the singers from Heart. She always wore a lot of make up, even to school, and as few clothes as she could get away with. She was the goalie of our soccer team, and while all of us wore our uniforms and shin guards, she wore a ripped DC101 t-shirt and ankle socks with her cleats.

But the best thing about Kerry was that she was the real deal, the opposite of a poser (whatever that word would be). She was never out of character because she was not playing a character or projecting an image. She looked exactly the way she wanted, listened to the music she wanted, and did whatever she wanted. If she had ever stopped to consider what other people might think of her, she would have concluded that they must think she was the coolest girl they’d ever met.

One thing she never made allowance for was the weather – it just didn’t matter to her. She was not going to change her plans because of it, so she ignored it. Even in the coldest part of the year, she never wore tights under her uniform or anything heavier than a denim jacket. She never attempted to stay dry in the rain, and if it was hot, she just moved onto skimpier clothes.

One sunny morning following an icy evening, after I had the obligatory drenching from above, I approached my friends at school and began, “When I went outside today, I thought it had started raining…”

Kerry turned to me and rolled her eyes with a look of absolute exasperation. She was annoyed enough that I would even talk about the weather but more annoyed that I would say something so stupid about the weather that she was forced to stop and correct me. With a withering look and in a voice that should be reserved for teachers whose students keep eating chalk she informed me, “That’s because it was raining.”

She was always so sure of herself that for a moment, she almost convinced me. But I recovered and said, “No it wasn’t, it was the ice melting and dripping off the trees,” and then I laughed, not because she had been wrong, but from the relief that for once the facts were on my side and I had managed to deflect a full blown smackdown.

To this day, I have never been as self-assured as Kerry, and I have never completely stopped wondering or caring what other people think of me. But at least I can say that on sunny mornings after icy days, I always know whether or not it’s raining.

* Just to be clear, I did not actually grow up “on the streets.”

Also, I know this post is rather lame, but they can’t all be winners (understatement of the century).