A week in Hell

Beth and I went to Bowman's beach a few days ago and this young woman sat down in a large pile of shells right behind us to start playing.  Sanibel has truckloads of shells washed up on shore every day.  There are more than anyone could imagine.  This island is known as a shell collector's mecca.

This woman was thrilled with the shells.  I commented to Beth that she reminded me of a teeny bopper sitting on the floor with all of her 45's strewn around her.  Beth said that she agreed, that woman DID look like little Bethy did at thirteen years old.

I went off into the water to collect some Lightning Welks, Lettered Olives, Flame Augers, and Lace Murex.  During my hunting expedition the couple behind Beth left the beach.  Beth said that the woman didn't want to go, but the guy left for the car and she eventually followed.

Five hours later Leslie, Beth, and I were walking along our beach when I noticed a pretty thin woman with little shorts standing at the edge of the surf excitedly cupping two hands worth of shells and letting the sand and water fall out while wiggling her fingers to filter the "perfect shell" from the rest.  It is a common technique around here.  

There is the "Sanibel Stoop" which is walking along with your head hanging forward scanning the sand and holding a plastic supermarket bag in one hand.  People are in such a trance looking at the dazzling array of shells under their feet that we have seen porpoises swimming right offshore from a "sheller" and they never even notice.

There are the petite collectors, that walk with a black plastic bag from a jewelry store and only select the finest of the finest.

I myself use the harvesting technique.  My pockets bulge out like the cheeks of a chipmunk from all of the shells that Beth and I put in them.  They get  sorted later.

This excited young woman was using the "lift and filter" technique.  If you stand in one spot, enough shells are removed and deposited at your feet with every wave that you can bend over and pick up another fresh batch every ten seconds or so.

This woman was going to check out every batch.  She seemed a little too excited.

She would jump up and down while waiting for the shells to expose themselves, then she would dump out what was left in her hands and scoop up another batch, hold them up at eye level and bounce in anticipation.

Her guy was trying to distract her so that they could move on.  It wasn't going to happen.

She was going to be planted there until the ocean stopped giving her shells.

If he tried to get too close to her to convince her to move on, she would move her arms out in the universal "keep away, I am busy" sign language, and then bend over and scoop.  She would attempt to get him to help find "the perfect shell" and he would look around a little and then go back to staring at the horizon.  This was a busy day on the beach so there were people walking by finishing up their beach combing before the spectacular sunset would signal the official end of shelling for the day.  This guy was going to be there for a while.

When I went by him the second time he was staring at the horizon and clenching his teeth.  He did not seem like he was having a good time at all.  The waves were splashing his knees while his very cute lady was almost hysterical at the joy of shell shopping.

Don't ever ever bring your O.C.D. girlfriend/wife to a beach that is known for shelling.

Much later as the sun was going down, you could see her silhouette far away, bending over, hold em' up, bending over.

Can you imagine him describing his vacation to people at work when they ask if he had a good time?  "Yeah everything was fine until she found the freakin' shells!"  

"All week long, those freeeeeakin' shells!"

Chemistry minus-101

I saw something the other day that was so amazing.

It was a person that either had discovered a loophole in the laws of chemistry or was an incredibly stupid person.

I was in a drugstore buying some useless item. The person in the checkout line in front of me was a larger sized boxy woman with a VFW voice². She had an armload of trinkets and when it was her turn she dumped her load and proceeded to order four packs each of two different types of cigarettes. She paid and left the store.

I checked out and walked to my car. I was sitting in my car writing down an idea that had popped up when the lady with the VFW voice waddled up and heaved herself up into the pickup truck next to me.

This was the same pickup truck that I had noticed during my slow stroll to my car (my stroll was obviously much faster than Miss VFW). I had noticed the truck because the tired looking driver was sitting there with one of those oxygen tubes strung across his face.

I don't know why, but the couple did not drive away. I was in the middle of trying to grasp the concept of going to buy cigarettes by getting a ride from a person on oxygen.

My intense pondering was interrupted by an act that amazed me. The VFW gal lit up a cigarette. She was actually smoking in the closed cab of a truck where oxygen was being used!

Note: Oxygen mixed with a match creates an annoying ball of fire, and if that ball of fire is enclosed in a finite space (like the cab of a pickup truck), the ball of fire can be accompanied by large shards of metal, glass, and people parts.

I drove away as fast as I could. I did take a quick look through the smoke filled cab to confirm that the tired looking man was still wearing his nose-hose, he was, but the inside of the truck looked like a bong.

I am confused about what I saw...

...on so many levels.

---

Note 2: VFW Voice: The easily recognizable sound emanating from a person that has been smoking 'a little' since the age of fourteen, usually consumed simultaneously with beer or coffee. Cause: Beer and coffee seem to act as a catalyst that reacts with the smoke to modify vocal cords from their natural flexible condition into extra crispy with an efficacy rate of more than 98%.

Symptoms: When you hear a 35 year old gal with the interesting voice of Lead Belly, Rod Stewart, or George C. Scott, then that is a VFW voice.

The Voice of Reason.

I was recently listening to a lady named Leddy Hammock telling a story about a difficult time that she had with a shopkeeper. The shopkeeper was in a foul mood, the customer quickly got into a foul mood and they had a blowout. The customer stomped out, and long story short, after determining that this store was the only store that had what she wanted, she had to return to the store and apologize. The shopkeeper apologized, and everybody lived happily ever after.

I learned this lesson a long time ago from an unlikely source.
Now to make a short story long again.

I was working at a small company of about 35 employees. There were two owners (the grownups), a large group of 18 to 25 year olds (the kids), and then four of us that played the role of day to day management (the teenagers).
We were inexperienced but we were constantly trying to improve ourselves.

There was something that Paul was doing on a regular basis that concerned me.
No big deal, just using his signature to give his favorite kids more leeway than the others.
Paul and I were having a discussion when I happened to voice my opinion that I felt that he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. We delved into it further.
I explained to him why what he was doing was inherently wrong. He surprised me by explaining that there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, it was MY problem.
The discussion continued for a very long time. I was up in my office and he was standing in my doorway. While our discussion was happening everybody else in the company had gone home and we were the only two left. He usually opened the place up and I usually closed it, so he was losing his steam. He had to go.
We ended our “dialog” with both us stating our beliefs on the subject. He holding firmly to his knuckle headed concept that it was no big deal, and me stating from my all-knowing pedestal that what he was doing was no less than stealing. And I meant it too.

I didn't sleep well that night.
I didn't want to go to work the next morning.
Paul and I worked very closely every day. We disagreed on a lot of little things and we had no problem telling each other. We would adjust our thinking to the side of whomever presented the best logic. Paul was big on logic, the big knuckle head was just on the wrong side of ethics with this issue. I was on the correct side, and he was wrong. I couldn't apologize because when you are arguing about ethics and you are on the right side, to apologize would step over to the wrong side. This sucked. I saw no way out. It's tough being right.

The next morning I was out in the shop fixing a problem on a Mazak. My stomach was churning, I was cranky, I didn't want to be there. Paul was late.
The control panel on this Mazak hung from a high swinging arm so to program this particular machine, you had to perch yourself up on a very tall stool that was on top of the operator's platform. You looked like a British schoolmaster looking down at the kids when you were working up there poking at the keyboard. Or a dunce sitting on a stool.

Paul eventually came in. I kept typing.
I was cringing as Paul Reason came up to me that morning. Paul is a big guy, six and half feet or so and twice as wide as me. He marched right up to me on my little wobbly stool, looked up and said “Hi Warren, It's a new day!”
I shook his hand and said “Yes it is, isn't it.”
The anxiety was gone, I felt better. We never mentioned that subject again.
Time to get a snack.

I still remember that experience. The feeling of relief, the feeling of forgiveness, the reminder that differences of opinion are just a puff of smoke from a skidding tire. It should be forgotten by the next lap. If you keep creating puffs at the same spot on every lap, then it is up to you to tweak your approach, or speed, or do whatever you have to to avoid repeating the same mistake the next time around.
I have used Paul Reason's technique MANY times. It has made my life easier to forgive and TRULY forget, and to do it as quickly as possible.
It has certainly made life a little bit more pleasant for some of those that I have exchanged “viewpoints” with in the past.
I hear that Paul lives in Brattleboro Vermont now. He still is having a good time working at the same place with most of the same “kids” who have grown up now.
I ran into Paul a couple of years ago and we snapped right back into the same warped sense of humor that allowed us to connect when we worked together.

Now when I have a conversation that ends in a way that should be “corrected”, I always try to listen to “The Voice of Reason”, and clear the air as soon as I can.
Forget the ego, do what's right, none of it is important, it really isn't.

Mr. Reason, if someone tells you about this article, I would like to say “Thank You.”
Be sure to say hi to the gang of misfits for me.