Kid-Free? Finally!

It’s an idea that is long overdue.

The Sushi Bar, a restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, has declared itself kid-free, advising potential patrons that no one under the age of eighteen will be permitted to dine.

And I say hallelujah.

But judging from the torrent of outrage, you’d think the government announced it was going to begin confiscating personal property.

First off, let’s get one thing straight: I’m not a kid hater.

But in the overheated, finger-pointing hysteria that passes for civilization here in the United States (and perhaps where you live as well), children have attained an almost god-like status.

And those who don’t buy into the idea that everything must be sacrificed for their benefit all the time are regarded with suspicion. It’s kind of like being a communist in the McCarthy era.

I ask you: what’s wrong with the idea of kid-free? Is there something intrinsically evil about the concept of stores or restaurants free of hyperactive/tired/poorly-behaved children and their inattentive and exhausted parents?

Not a thing.

Everyone—childless or not—can cite an experience impacted by a child shoehorned into a setting in which it didn’t belong. Concert halls. Weddings. Slow-food restaurants. Movie theaters. And those are just the beginning.

All, with the occasional exception of a movie theater, are kid-inappropriate.

Whatever presumed selfishness I possess by remaining childless is dwarfed by parents who seem to feel that if they must suffer their children’s tantrums, then by god you shall, too.

There are always plenty of excuses: babysitters are child-molesters, I can’t find one, I can’t afford one, I don't have time, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

The currently-embraced psychological fashion says that everything is a choice. And there isn’t an option—Cosmopolitan magazine to the contrary—that allows you to have it all.

Having kids means you might have to sacrifice a visit to the symphony to hear Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major when a sitter can’t be found. Just as not having kids means you’ll have to do without the joy found in a child’s first words.

No one gets everything all the time.

An old expression says crying children are like good intentions—they should be carried out.

With parents who understand where children do—and don’t—belong, and without kids forced to endure events which hold absolutely no interest for them, we might find the market for kid-free zones diminished. If not eliminated entirely.

The Grand Illusion

At this stage of the game, I’ve come to understand that retail is theater. It’s a dramatic production, complete with set, director, cast, crew and backstage theatrics.

It has a script. A set of words that, in addition to bringing uniformity to employee-customer exchanges, will hopefully distinguish this production from the others currently being staged.

But even as one production works to separate itself from another, they invariably end up being indistinguishable. They unfailingly adopt identical twists and wrinkles, like teen-agers embracing the same fad even as they seek to establish their individuality.

Case in point is the reluctance of business to write or speak any word or phrase which imparts the faintest inference of ‘no’.

I recently wrote a letter to a frozen pizza manufacturer, bemoaning the sudden disappearance of my favorite variety. Instead of receiving a simple confirmation, I received several paragraphs of public relations froth extolling the virtues of its replacement.

At no point was my query addressed, presumably because it meant acknowledging that my life was now bereft of my favorite frozen pizza, and they were to blame.

Despite my deep and abiding love of this pizza, I can promise with absolute certainty that life would have continued even had this company possessed the clarity and intestinal fortitude to address my question with a simple “We’re sorry. The pizza you inquired about didn’t meet sales projections, and as a result has been replaced by another variety. Thank you for your interest in Home Run Inn pizza.”

Then there was the live, in-person example I received at my place of underemployment.

A man had been waiting at our contractor’s desk. Manning the register nearest this desk, I approached and asked if I could help. After hearing the reason for his visit, I informed him the desk was closed weekends and was on the verge of directing him to the people who could help when our new store manager swooped in.

After informing me in tones an aggrieved teacher would use with an errant pupil that the desk is “never” closed, she escorted the customer to the department I was directing him to in the first place.

I stood and pondered our contractor’s desk. Despite it lacking any of the five employees who normally populated it and the attendant bustle of activity, I had obviously erred in assuming it was closed.

What was I thinking?

Exactly how does this deception benefit our customer? Then I realized the irreparable damage his psyche would have suffered as a result of hearing our contractor’s desk was, indeed, closed weekends.

So there’s that.

And then there’s the irreversible damage my employer could have suffered had this customer gone online and vented. It’s too horrible to even consider.

Write this down—customers must never hear the word ‘no’. It doesn’t exist. No never happens.

So yes, retail is theater. A carefully-packaged drama where reality is whatever the playwright says it is.

In addition to his more-obvious gifts, who knew Shakespeare’s declaration “All the world’s a stage” would presage twenty-first century business models?

You must excuse me now. I have a matinee at two.

It's All About Me

About two months ago, I wrote something called It’s All About You. In it, I listed the ten posts most-often visited by you, the loyal readers of The Square Peg.

Now, in It’s All About Me, I have done something a little different. I have listed my favorite posts.

But first a little background:

When I first shared my singular brand of humor, cynicism and social commentary on MySpace sometime in 2006, I was immediately celebrated for my keen insight. I was hailed as the world’s most-respected and trenchant observer of American politics and society.

I was soon dining with dignitaries; being asked for my opinion on everything from the Iraq war and campaign finance reform to Tom DeLay and the arrival of a new social media called Twitter.

I was nominated for seats on several prestigious global think tanks and signed a six-million-dollar deal to publish my memoirs.

Crap. I wasn't. And I didn't. Re-write!

OK. The less-interesting truth is I continued to post on MySpace until twitchy tech-obsessives made blogging there a challenge to my sanity. I finally cried “Uncle!” and moved to Blogger in the summer of 2009.

Stupidly, I never backed up the MySpace posts, thinking that despite every other element of MySpace changing by the minute, the blog would somehow remain in perpetuity.

The upshot was that I lost over two-hundred posts. While I didn’t mind losing most of them, there were a few—maybe ten percent—I was proud of and wanted to keep.

Which is just my roundabout and convoluted way of telling you that these are my twenty favorite posts posted on The Square Peg. (I’ve provided links if you care to investigate further.)

Should you ever find yourself climbing out of your skull from boredom, remember these are guaranteed to remove your crampons and confiscate your ice pick lest you become the next You Tube sensation.


La Piazza Gancio’s Guide to Unemployment 10/14/09 here

Got Truck? 11/4/09 here

The CEO Personality Assessment 12/7/09 here

It’s 2018. Do You Know Where Your Democracy Is? 1/29/10 here

Giving Care 3/16/10 here

New Parking Lot 6/9/10 here

Awkward 7/7/10 here

Goodbye, Sir Charlie 9/24/10 here

The Bootleg 11/16/10 here

The Milk of Human Kindness 11/23/10 here

Counter Culture, Pt. 2 12/1/10 here

Wait 12/19/10 here

I Am a Music Magnet 12/27/10 here

The Hamster Wheel 6/8/11 here

Ron Santo 12/6/11 here

Giving It Away 12/13/11 here

Oops!...I Did It Again 1/26/12 here

Shooting of the Month 8/6/12 here

Doing God’s Work 11/29/12 here

Policy 3/4/13 here

Fetus Cult Strikes Again!

North Dakota has suffered population loss for decades. Sitting atop a column of states that comprise the geographic backbone of the lower forty-eight, one possible reason might be that it offers its residents the most extreme weather of any state in the union.

Long, brutal winters and hot, dry summers punish those foolish-enough to attempt eking out a living in the state’s agriculture-based economy. True, the oil shale boom in Williston has brought much-needed revenue, but only a few see this as anything but a temporary spike.

The population density of North Dakota continues to be rivaled only by South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. Oil shale or not, North Dakota is a windswept, lonely place. It’s Scotland without the coastline and single-malt whiskey.

Perhaps this is the reason the state’s legislature has seen fit to enact the nation’s most restrictive abortion legislation. North Dakota is desperate to replace a population that, if it isn’t calling U-Haul, is dying.

Repopulation efforts nonwithstanding, I’m having a hard time reconciling conservative’s fetus obsession with their abject refusal to enact a ban on assault weapons.

Let me get this straight: at six weeks, North Dakota conservatives are according a fertilized egg the rights and stature of a human being, even as congressional conservatives refuse to restrict—in any way—the means available to kill it.

(Abortion excepted, of course.)

But shred that human being with an automatic weapon dispersing 400 rounds a minute? Fine. Great. Have at it.

In fact, conservatives maintain that possessing the means to do so is our most vital constitutional right and needs to be zealously guarded.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I just can’t get my brain around this.

It's obviously too small to be a Republican.

You and Your Job

In my ongoing efforts to supply you, the valued Square Peg reader, with timely and relevant blog content, I offer this highly-scientific profile builder designed to articulate your feelings about work.

It will tell you whether it's time to look for a new job or get measured for a boardroom-ready designer suit. You need only to respond to the statements below to discover if you and your job are just a tawdry one-night hook-up or a bona fide LTR.

Read each of the eleven statements and choose the true or false answer that best matches your feelings. Hint: first responses are usually best.


01. Work is a continual annoyance, like a stone in your shoe which cannot be removed. True or false.

02. Only kidney stones pass more painfully than time at work. True or false.

03. When you exit the building at the end of the day, you look skywards, spread your arms in supplication and beseech an uncaring and spiteful god with the words “What did I ever do?” True or false.

04. You’ve ceased listening to Highway to Hell because it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to your drive to work. True or false.

05. Every day you don’t claw your eyes out in sheer agony is a small, but significant, victory. True or false.

06. Sartre’s concept that hell is your co-workers (admittedly a rough translation) may be truer than anyone suspects. True or false.

07. Only a proctologist sees more assholes than you do. True or false.

08. You understand the significance of the German expression arbeit macht frei, and wonder that your employer hasn’t inscribed it on the walls of the cafeteria. True or false.

09. Horrible Bosses isn’t a comedy, it’s a documentary. True or false.

10. Inducing internal organ failure is becoming an increasingly reasonable alternative to getting up and going to work tomorrow. True or false.

11. You are troubled by recurring dreams of animals chewing off their limbs to escape a trap. True or false.


Scoring:

For each true response, give yourself three points. For each false, zero. Total your points and match the total to the profiles below.

00 – 00 Once, you were upset at work. But you don’t remember why. You wonder why you’re paid, because you’d work for free. Work is fun. Like a puzzle. And you like puzzles. And singing songs. And just having fun. At least until your meds wear off.

03 – 12 Stealing office supplies provides temporary, short-term relief only. It’s not a cure. In other words, when you find yourself in a hole, put down the shovel. It’s time to update the resume and begin the search for new employment.

15 – 21 You regularly experience significant discomfort at work. Ditto the realization that sleep aids and anti-depressants only camouflage symptoms. Time to increase your dosage, find a good therapist and ramp-up your search.

24 – 33 Elvis isn’t the only one who’s left the building, is he? Let’s face it: at this point, quitting is just a formality. Like our favorite besotted and jump-suited singer, you left the building a long time ago.

Policy

Eighty-seven year-old Lorraine Bayless lived in the Glenwood Gardens senior care facility in Bakersfield, CA. She was there because she needed care.

More specifically, due to her advanced age she was vulnerable and there was a great probability she would one day be in immediate need of emergency medical assistance.

That day arrived when Ms. Bayless collapsed last Tuesday.

A nurse at the facility called 9-1-1 and requested an ambulance. After dispatching a medical team, the operator asked the nurse to provide CPR in the interim.

That nurse refused.

The operator, seemingly the only party aware of the severity of the situation, attempted again to get the nurse to perform CPR. And again the nurse refused.

With her increasingly-desperate entreaties falling on deaf ears, the operator asked if there was someone—anyone—at the facility who would be willing to perform CPR.

The nurse's cold-blooded response was “Not at this time.”

The nurse cited corporate policy which states that in such instances, on-site personnel only call 9-1-1 and wait with the afflicted resident until emergency personnel arrive.

Which means there would never be a time when someone would be willing to perform CPR on Ms. Bayless.

The heartless, barren reality of this incident is that Ms. Bayless could have collapsed alone in a cheap apartment with the same result.

But with assisted living facilities often costing over a hundred-thousand dollars a year, shouldn’t people like Ms. Bayless have expected something more than “I’ll call 9-1-1”?

Like a little CPR if you drop, unconscious, to the floor?

The enormous sums of cash that collect where medicine and health care are practiced make these so-called providers popular targets for law suits—both legitimate and illegitimate.

And that concern is no doubt responsible for Glenwood Gardens’ “hands off” policy, which is best described as if we don’t touch her—they can’t sue.

Anyone still feel American business is being smothered by excessive government regulation?

It's All About You

I’m in the habit of making lists, and frequently post ones containing my favorite this or my favorite that. But that changes today. Today, the focus of attention is you.

Maybe it’s because the cable TV is on the fritz. Perhaps a boss is in a protracted meeting. It could be simple boredom. But whatever the reason, people just like you distractedly stumble across this blog like unmarked stairs in a strip club.

And sometimes, you even stay.

Music-centric posts enjoy the widest readership, while my rants about unemployment, politics, guns and big business inexplicably fare less well. (Which goes a long way towards explaining why I'm not earning a living contributing to a big city newspaper's Op-Ed page.)

The staff here at The Square Peg deeply appreciates your attentions and hopes at some point you found a kindred spirit, amusement or even a momentary distraction from yet another office e-mail marked 'urgent'.

That said, here are your ten favorite posts as of the afternoon of February 18, 2013, followed by the date of their posting. Views range from over four-hundred for number-one to just short of a hundred for number-ten.


01. Goodbye, Sir Charlie 9/24/10

02. My Favorite Concerts 1/28/11

03. The File Host as Cop 8/21/12

04. My Favorite CDs of 2010 1/4/11

05. The Bootleg 11/16/10

06. Jimmy Page Made Me A Beer Snob! 10/30/10

07. Oops!...I Did It Again 1/26/12

08. How Tea Baggers Inspired Me to Bridge the Enthusiasm Gap 10/12/10

09. My Favorite CDs of 2012 1/21/13

10. An Appreciation of the X-Files 12/30/11