What Would You Do?

I love to watch the ABC television show “What Would You Do?” with John Quinones. He and a team of actors and hidden-camera operators stage situations and then watch to see the reactions of everyday people like you and me.

The actors usually play out emotionally charged scenes in nice restaurants or upscale retail stores. The real people who happen to be in those locations witness everything from rude behavior to racism, and either step in to try to help or diffuse the situation, or walk away.

What I’ve learned from watching this show is that our population is generally moral, ethical, and compassionate. The other thing I’ve learned from watching this show is that our population needs to take a closer look at its wardrobe.

Pardon my snark, but you never know when or where John Quinones is going to show up to take your moral temperature, so before you go out in public, look in a mirror.

I don’t mean to get all Joan Rivers Fashion Police on you, but if you knew there was even the slightest chance you’d end up on television in ill-fitting, mismatched clothing, and hair the color of nothing found in nature wouldn’t you take more than 24 seconds to choose what you were going to wear?

We’ve all done it. I do it all the time and promise myself I won’t ever do it again because I might run into my mother, of all people, whose first question has always been, “Where’s your lipstick and earrings”?

I know John creeps up on unsuspecting people in the middle of highly charged situations, but we should take a good look at ourselves– and our pride.

I propose a spin-off of “What Would You Do”? This show would feature the every-day people who appeared on-camera in those trendy restaurants and designer-carrying department stores looking like they got dressed during a power outage and ask, “What Were You Thinking”?

Improvised Standup Comedy

I just called a local acting company to sign up for a class. I thought it would be fun to take improv with my father, Norman. Because my dad needs to use a walker I wanted to see if the venue was handicap accessible. I spoke to someone and explained my dad’s needs which were a ramp to get into and out of  the place, and a chair to sit on during class.

The person I spoke with told me that the venue was handicap accessible but that  improv class is very interactive and that my dad might be better off in a standup comedy class. I thought he was kidding. I started to laugh and said, “Did you just say that my father who uses a walker and needs to sit in a chair would be better off in a standup class”? The guy didn’t laugh. The guy didn’t get it. The guy can’t take a joke.

I think I’ll call a different acting company.

The House at Poo(h) Corner

Oh, crap! It happened again. The lower level bathroom/laundry room has become a sewer repository. Water with particles of waste (not just ours! Ewwww!)  material from the sewer line in front of our house has decided it likes our downstairs bathroom loo and shower so much that it has come for an unannounced and uninvited early Memorial Day weekend visit.

Once again we have been left without what has become a luxury in our house: the ability to safely run water, shower, and flush the toilets. Of course Veronica found the puddles of poop just as I was about to leave for work, but because Richard had appointments scheduled  in downtown Chicago all day, I called work and got a sub, and cancelled physical therapy so I could stay home to wait for help.

Luckily, our neighbor and friend Andy owns a heating, cooling, and plumbing shop, but I didn’t want to bother him by calling him on his cell phone. I was going to call his shop. But when I informed Richard about our “pond de poo” he insisted I call Andy to let him know what was happening. Andy came right over and then called the shop to arrange to have Mike come over to rod out our sewer line… again. “It was clean as a whistle the last time I was here,” Andy said. “I put a camera down there and everything.” My gag reflex began to kick in.

Mike was able to rod out the neighbors’ leftovers. All of our toilets flushed, and all the showers drained. He told me that he had rodded out what he described as “soft material” from the line that had probably backed up from the City sewer. He explained that “soft material” was not tree roots, but instead…”

I thought to myself, “Stop it right there, Mike. I get where you’re going with this and I already have a solid, or should I say “soft”, visual in my head of what you’re talking about.”

Ironically, I spent two hours weeding the garden yesterday because Veronica’s boyfriend’s parents are coming over this weekend so we can meet each other for the first time. Today I had a much more potent problem. I didn’t want them to come over for dinner if the house smelled less like BBQ and more like an overflowing outhouse.

I guess it was a bad sign that my weekly cleaning lady ran out of the house right after arriving this morning when I explained in broken Spanish what had happened and that she couldn’t use any running water until the sewer was fixed. She quickly put her shoes back on as she headed for the front door. She wouldn’t even take the check I offered her, and I’m pretty sure I heard her praying in Spanish as she fled the house.

So, now that we are free to let our people go, without the threat of receiving visits from our neighbors’ handouts, I have wrapped myself up like a condom and am ready to decontaminate and sanitize the premises.

Notice my Patricia Locke earrings and super-cute waterproof Bogs boots!pizap.com13692481519551

“Punctuation”?”.

I needed help with punctuation so I turned to my 30-year-old handy-dandy English writing manuals. I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I attempted to use Google to search for some sort of “Punctuation for Dummies” guide, hoping to find an easy way to refresh my memory about all of the rules of punctuation that seem to have disappeared from my brain.

I typed in “Punctuation for Dumies”. It’s going to be a long day.

I Carry a Large Purse

I walked into an office building today, passed by an elderly couple, and pushed the elevator button to go up. The man was in a wheelchair and the woman was standing next to him, probably waiting for a cab. Just as the elevator doors opened and I stepped inside I heard him say, “Good, Lord, Mildred! Is that her purse?”

I’m So Confused!

I think Daylight Savings Time is groovy. I like that it was still light out last night (I can’t say it was still sunny because it was raining) at 7:00 P.M.

I understand it might take me a few days to get used to going to bed earlier because technically 11:00 P.M. is still going to feel like 10:00 P.M. for a few days. But, I think going to bed earlier will be a good habit for me to get in to. When we ”lose an hour” in the fall I tend to stay up too late; sometimes past midnight, which some people say is tomorrow.

Have you ever had a discussion with someone about the whole midnight thing? If you go to bed past midnight and wake up at 8:00 A.M., technically you have slept from earlier in the morning until later the same morning. But if I do that, in the morning I tend to call whatever time I went to sleep “last night” even if it was past midnight. I realize it’s still the same day but, because I slept, I woke up the next morning.

What I don’t understand is why I have been waking up at 3:00 A.M. ever since we set our clocks ahead an hour last Saturday night ready to get my day started, or, since I went to bed after midnight, I guess I should say, “ready to get on with the rest of my day”.

I would be able to understand it if I woke up at 5:00 A.M. if I usually get up around 6:00. That would make perfect sense to me. But waking up several hours before I usually wake up is nuts. I’m sitting here writing a blog post, which, if you think about it, is about a really complicated subject. I’m getting a headache just trying to figure out if what I’m saying makes sense, but I know it totally does!

So, now that it’s 5:00 A.M. and the coffee is a-brewing, I feel as if it is acceptable for me to stay awake. But I’m tired.

If I go back to bed now, after going to bed after midnight last night — or earlier this morning – I’ll start my day later, or I’ll start my day later the same day and feel like I overslept.

I think I’ll just have some coffee and do a load of laundry. My headache is worse from trying to figure out if today has been today from the time I went to bed “last night” and I don’t want to wake up at 8:00 A.M. feeling like I’ve wasted the whole morning of whatever day this is sleeping.

So, top of the morning to you. Or, top of later in the morning to you, depending on how you feel about midnight being last night or the same day.

Oh, and if you really want to be confused, try to figure out the Google Doodle this morning, or later this morning if you went to bed after midnight.

Lazy Fitness

I just realized that the closest I’ve come to working out lately is downloading and printing my gym’s schedule of group exercise classes, reaching  up above my laptop and attaching the schedule to my bulletin board made of some sort of grassy knoll-type sustainable stuff using  a push pin.

That’s just sad.

I am going to the gym. Soon. Probably today.