Privacy, please

Yesterday our block hosted an enormous garage sale. You wouldn't believe how excited this made me. Garage sales were an important part of my youth. Unfortunately, I have difficulty getting rid of stuff; and when I was younger I would often decide, midway through the sale, that I actually wanted to keep various items.

So my parents instituted a rule: Nothing that leaves the house can go back in the house. It worked.

Well, Mrs. Gerbil and I made a small wad yesterday. But the tragedy of it all was that I had to go to work after a few hours. I would much rather have been sitting out in the driveway than telling callers that I honestly do not have their claims information. Alas.

But before I went to work, I found myself with a little dilemma. Mrs. Gerbil and I live three blocks from a clean and sober house, approximately half of whose residents were my clients at my previous job. I've run into them at bus stops, in downtown Berkeley, in restaurants, and even in the corner liquor store (where they buy cigarettes and snacks, and we buy milk and Ben & Jerry's). It doesn't really bother me, and it certainly did not bother me while they were my clients.

Yet yesterday, I was pre-emptively bothered. I saw one of them walking down the street, then walking back up the street with some garage sale loot. Our building is set back from, and perpendicular to, the street; and there's a privacy fence around the driveway. Thus: I could see him, but he couldn't see me.

I started wondering: What if he comes to check out our wares? Not that he would buy any of our girly stuff, but what if he strikes up a conversation with Mrs. Gerbil and me? How would I introduce him? Should I introduce him? And is it a bad thing if he finds out where I live, even though I haven't worked with him in months?

(Mrs. Gerbil and I have already discussed what might happen if one of my former clients approaches both of us. The agreement: She is not to ask me from whence I know this person, as "I can't tell you" is fundamentally the same as "That's my client.")

My worst fears, however, were not realized. A short while later, he zoomed back up the street, garage sale loot in hand, without so much of a glance up our drive.

I still wonder what might have happened, had he checked out our stuff. It's hard to observe the "I'll acknowledge you only if you acknowledge me" rule when the person is literally at your doorstep. And what if he'd bought something? Would I have felt weird taking his quarter for one of Mrs. Gerbil's sci-fi/fantasy novels?

Signs point to "yes."

Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Gerbil went off to Walgreens to retrieve a prescription of mine. The staff at our Walgreens generally does a terrific job of authenticating their customers, even those whom they recognize (such as yours truly). However, Mrs. Gerbil reports that the pharmacy tech tried really, really hard to give her someone else's prescription.

Apparently the tech asked dutifully for my name and address--and then proceeded to hand Mrs. Gerbil the bag directly behind mine. Mrs. Gerbil protested, "That's not the right one!" The tech said something to the effect of "Did you move? It looks like we have the wrong address on file."

Mrs. Gerbil pointed out that not only have we not moved, but the name on the bag was not mine. They went back and forth about this for a bit before the proverbial light bulb came on, and the correct bag made it to Mrs. Gerbil's little paws.

I'm not even going to begin on that one. Hip-hip-HIPAA, dudes.

The price of convenience

According to the newsletter Mrs. Gerbil received the other day, the Alameda Green Party is congratulating itself over preventing the construction of some cell phone tower somewhere. I don't know where the tower was supposed to be, as Mrs. Gerbil has already recycled the newsletter and the link which should lead to the newsletter doesn't actually yield anything of use.

But this will not stop my snark. Oh, children, my snark cannot be stopped.

I will concede that cell towers are ugly. I'll also concede that I had no idea that there were so many ways to disguise cell towers. But it's not just aesthetics (or lack thereof) that fuel protests against cell tower construction. It's the possibility of a health hazard. It's the intrusion of commercial activity into non-commercial zones. Oh, and it's the principle of the thing.

Now, I'm all for preservation and good planning and all that, but there's a fundamental problem with cell tower nimbyism: No cell tower, no cell service.

Many people have no land line because their cell phones are their primary phones. That's great for people who know they can always get reception. Mrs. Gerbil and I each have a cell phone, but we also have a land line because cell phones aren't 100% reliable. On our landline we have a cordless phone and an old-school phone with a 25' cord. (Why the ancient model? Because we can't use the cordless to notify PG&E that the power is out.)

If cell tower construction is restricted, then existing towers may get overwhelmed--and then we'll all bang our heads on the wall to the tune of "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."

When I decided to get a cell phone about five and a half years ago, I chose my company based on local coverage. The best coverage in my area came from Verizon or Sprint, but it was well known that there was no Sprint reception on Coventry Road. Coventry is full of all kinds of fun shops, and as I lived about a quarter mile away, I was there all the time. Needless to say, I chose Verizon. Verizon, however, does not have such great reception in our bedroom in Berkeley. But this doesn't bother me. I can put up with the lack of reception in our bedroom, because the only way to fix this is to put up a cell tower on the bed. And that's just plain silly.

However, I also don't subscribe to the belief that cell phone ownership equals constant accessibility. So I suppose it's okay to support the restriction of cell tower construction if you don't mind not being able to use your cell phone everywhere and all the time. But if your cell phone is necessary for your survival, then cell towers are your necessary evil.

Gee, your armpits smell terrific!

Well, I had planned to blog about a Celebrity Deathmatch that isn't, but should be:



but it seems I am not as original as I'd thought.

I would have probably spent an evening moping about this, if not for last night's Target run with my best friend, R.

When R and I go shopping, we are a force with which to be reckoned. Even Mrs. Gerbil thinks so--which is why she tends not to come along. But last night, Mrs. Gerbil had to work late; and so R and I made like teenagers and spent the night at the mall.

We each needed various items from the health and personal care section. Alas, this took a lot longer than it should have, as there are just way too many choices these days. There must be 57 varieties or Crest toothpaste, and it's getting harder to find good old cool mint gel. And really, how many different cartoons need to be festooned on band-aids? R and I find this all very amusing.

And then we spotted the best varietal of all:


R put her astonishment this way: "Dude. The point of deodorant is to make your armpits not smell."

I put mine this way: "Dude. No one's armpits should smell like Starbucks."

I suppose it's possible that R and I, hip as we are, have missed some important new trend in accessorizing--the one that dictates that your underarms must match your hot beverage.

"No" means NO.

One of the unfortunate things about my job is that I cannot do a single thing about claims. I cannot tell anyone the status of a claim. I cannot reprocess a claim. I cannot even say whether a claim has been received. This is because I am not in the claims department.

My department never closes. The claims department does. When the claims department is open, I can transfer callers to a real live person over there. When the claims department is closed, not a single real live person is there to receive the transfer. And the only thing I can do is say to wait until the next business day--which can be a tall order if it's 7pm on a Friday night.

I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that I can't view their claims information. I get at least three calls per day that go like this:

caller: I am calling about a claim that my doctor submitted three months ago.
me: I'm sorry, I can't see any of your claims information. The claims department is open Monday through Friday, from...
caller: But my doctor sent in this claim three months ago and it hasn't been paid yet.
me: I apologize for the delay, but as I said I do not have access to any information about your claims.
caller: What do I have to say to get you to pay my therapist?
me: Please call back when our claims department is open and they will be happy to assist you.
caller: But why can't you help me with my claims?
me: Because I am not in the department that handles claims. That department is closed right now.
caller: Oh. Okay then, bye.

As you can imagine, I get very tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again. I probably say "I can't see any information about your claims" in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm David Spade in that one commercial, except I'm not saying "NOOOOooooo!" for the passive-aggressive hell of it.

Mrs. Gerbil suggested that I come up with fun, creative ways to impart this information. Last night we came up with a whole slew while we were supposed to be sleeping.

Some of them were inspired by cheesy martial arts movies:

~ Your claims information is silent, like the ninja.
~ Your claims information is as the first crocus of spring, but it is still December.
~ Your claims information is as a deer, deep within in the forest.
~ Your claims information is as concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River.

Some of them were inspired by television:

~ In the world of managed care, claims information is considered especially valuable. In this company, claims are handled by an elite squad known as the claims department. These are their hours...

Some of them were inspired by folk songs:
I cannot give you your claims status
I cannot do squat about claims
That's done by another department
So why are you talking to me, to me?
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six AM
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six.

And some of them were inspired by nursery rhymes:

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, but I don't have any of your claims information.

The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich;
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
From eating your claims information.

Old MacDonald had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he did not have your claims information.

Alas, I don't think this would qualify as good customer service.

2007 Report on My Balls

Mrs. Gerbil convinced me last night to make matzo ball soup for dinner. I had suggested matzo pizza (slather matzo with spaghetti sauce, top with shredded mozzarella, microwave 45 seconds), with promise of matzo ball soup tonight, but Mrs. Gerbil reminded me that she wouldn't be home for dinner tonight on account of her Maundy Thursday service. So I agreed to make matzo ball soup last night instead.

Well, I am happy to say that my balls are quite delicious this year. Their texture is midway between fluffy and dense, and the salty liquid in which they are bathed also has some carrots in it this year.

I gotta tell you, Mrs. Gerbil is a big fan of my balls.

A word to the wise

After many, many months of under-employment, I finally found gainful work a few months ago. In the words of Mrs. Gerbil, having a real job is "totally crazy like whoa."

Since late February I have been working the swing shift (including weekends) in the call center of a humongous behavioral health insurance company. Mostly I'm quoting benefits, issuing authorizations, and pre-certifying inpatient stays. But occasionally I get crisis calls, which are always interesting.

In addition to rather sizable paychecks, this job has provided some perspective in my quest to Fix The World By Complaining. I'm now a lot nicer to call center representatives whom I contact in my personal life--because I know now that they can't change a whole lot of anything, no matter how angry I get about it.

I've also learned that every call is documented, or at least should be documented. Details of your calls to your health insurance are considered part of your medical record--which means you can request to see those data at any time. I would hate to see the notes our former health and dental plans have on me.

And I have learned about the mute button.

The mute button is the best way to put callers on hold without actually putting them on hold. It's weird and uncomfortable to be on the phone with a stranger while neither of you is saying anything, right? and it's so much better to be on hold, right?

Okay, maybe not. But in any case: If you don't hear the hold music, you are probably not on hold. You are likely on mute. Which means that the call center representative can hear everything you are saying.

So hold thy tongue, knave.

The nanny state

There is much kerfuffle out here in California over so-called "nanny state" legislation. Members of the state senate and assembly have come up with a number of fantastically intrusive proposals in recent months, including bans on

1) incandescent light bulbs;
2) spanking;
3) children under 4'9" in the front seat of the car;
4) children under 4'9" in the back seat of the car without a booster seat; and
5) smoking in the car while children are present.

The state senate is to hold hearings on smoking in cars in the very near future. Now, I do believe that smoking is a public health issue. Smoking is prohibited in a lot of places in California, including restaurants, hospital entrances, and Berkeley bus stops, although citizens like myself are left to enforce the latter with varying degrees of success. Several months ago, at the Hayward BART station, I had the following exchange with a woman who meandered into my personal space with a lit cigarette:

me: Excuse me, would you mind smoking somewhere else? This is a no-smoking zone.
smoker: What the hell? I just came over here. I can smoke if I want to.
me: I have been sitting here for a while, and I don't mind if you smoke elsewhere. Just not here.
woman: What the hell?
me: Thank you for respecting the needs of a person with asthma.
woman: Oh, respecting your needs? What about mine?
me: I don't mind if you smoke somewhere else. But it's against the law to smoke right here, and I have asthma. Thank you for respecting my health.
woman: [wandering away, talking loudly into her cell phone] Sorry, some white bitch says I can't smoke near her ass. Oh, wait, that white bitch don't HAVE no ass.

So yes, smoking is a public health issue. But there's something about this no-smoking-in-your-personal-vehicle thing that really gets to me. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that one's car is an extension of one's residence. It's a private space. But the boundaries between private and public are a lot blurrier in the car because, unless your ride is pimped out with tinted windows (which are heavily regulated in this state anyway), everyone can see what you're doing, all the time.

If you smoke in the car with the windows up, your car smells like an ashtray. If you smoke in your house with the windows closed, your house smells like an ashtray. Anyone in a closed car will inhale second-hand smoke--but so can anyone in a closed room. Is it really worse to be in the car than in the house? I'd be willing to bet that kids spend a lot more time in houses full of second-hand smoke than in cars. So why target cars?

I think the answer is that it's a lot easier to enforce a ban on smoking in the car. The police can obtain immediate evidence that someone's smoking in the car--no need to justify a search warrant if you can see the crime in progress.

But you know, there are many other things in California which pose health hazards to children and other living things. There's pollution, crime, poverty, homelessness, abuse, disease, neonatal drug addiction, abysmal public education, gang violence... all of which are much harder to solve with a single piece of legislation.

If this bill passes, I hope someone will be able to sleep better, knowing that parents will be fined for lighting up while driving their children to school--in a district where less than 50% will receive a diploma and where gangs have more power than the principal.

Public transit story #18: Saving it for later

I admit: I have a very poor sense of smell.

For most of my life my nasal passages were completely clogged by allergies. It's only been in the past few years that I've been able to breathe through my nose. Say what you will about mouth-breathers--I've heard it all before.

Now there is a whole olfactory world out there with which I must become acquainted. I can smell lots of things now, but I have no idea what they are. I'm really good at identifying things like natural gas, peanut butter, baked goods, vanilla, popcorn and sulfur. But I tend to label vaguely unpleasant odors as one of the following:

1) tuna fish;
2) toast;
3) burning motor oil; or
4) pee.

You'd be surprised at how often I think Berkeley smells like tuna fish or toast. But then there was one morning when our entire neighborhood smelled to me like nasty stir-fry. The culprit turned out to be the garbage truck, which is powered by vegetable oil. Kitchen waste + hot vegetable oil = nasty stir-fry, indeed.

Mrs. Gerbil has the sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying task of helping me identify odors. Sometimes I need assistance telling burning motor oil from hot engine; but most of the time it's pot versus skunk. I know skunk very well, as I grew up in skunk country and have experienced live skunk under the house, dead skunk under the house, and of course dead skunk in the middle of the road. During my senior year of high school, a skunk crawled under the house, died, and perfumed all of my clothes. I was definitely not the most popular kid in school the next day. But I digress.

Pot versus skunk is tough. Mrs. Gerbil admits that pot smells like skunk, but her rule of thumb is that skunk travels, whereas pot does not. Sometimes, while we're driving on the highway, I'll yell "SKUNK!" and Mrs. Gerbil will say, "No, honey, that's pot." Which begs the question: why does the highway smell like pot, or rather, who's driving while stoned?

BART trains often smell like pot/skunk. (I'd rather people take transit while stoned than drive while stoned, but then I'd really prefer they sit in another car.) I'm reasonably certain that no one gets on BART after being sprayed by a skunk, and also reasonably certain that a whole lot of people in the Bay Area get stoned with great frequency. Most of the time it's teenagers who fragrance BART, but occasionally there's a middle-aged ex-hippie providing the aromatherapy.

On Tuesday an elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman sat down in front of me, and at that moment my world began to smell like a head shop. A lot of teenagers had boarded at the same time, so I gave in to stereotyping and figured one of them was high.

Then I saw the last little bit of a joint tucked behind this man's rather sizable ear.

I was proud of myself for correctly identifying pot, but I was even more impressed by this guy's storage facilities.

Ya think?

This entry is in memory of my grandmother, who passed away suddenly last week at the age of 90. I owe much of my sense of humor to her influence.

Last weekend, Mrs. Gerbil and I found ourselves taking an unexpected trip to Philadelphia. It was a strange, strange time.

We flew Southwest, so of course we were each presented with the famed Box of Carbs during the flight. Happily, Mrs. Gerbil and I are both carb monsters.

We also received several little packages of peanuts.


Now, I appreciate allergy warnings as much as the next person. I have food sensitivities, but I have to read ingredient lists because no one prints handy warnings for things like echinacea, bananas, and flowers.

Mrs. Gerbil, however, is allergic to peanuts. She's not allergic to the extent that she has to avoid things processed in facilities which also process peanuts. But even if she were that allergic, I would hope that she wouldn't need to check the back of the little package to find out whether her peanuts were produced in a facility that processes... peanuts.

Public transit story #17: Private lives

Mrs. Gerbil and I took the bus into town over the weekend, in order to accomplish various and sundry activities such as paying the rent. We were among only a handful of people headed into town on that particular line at that particular time, which should have meant a nice, quiet 5-minute ride.

But no.

Also on the bus was a girl about our age who was engaged in an extremely loud pre-break-up conversation. The presumably-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend was not on the bus, however, but on the other end of her cell phone connection. Mrs. Gerbil and I heard far more than we wanted to about this girl's life, her burgeoning self-confidence, and his infidelities. And about how "the punk-rock world is very small."

The awful thing was that there was really no way not to overhear. Mrs. Gerbil and I tried in vain to hold our own conversation at normal volume, but this girl was just so incredibly loud (possibly because of the volume at which the small punk-rock world plays its music) that we kept getting derailed. We tried really hard not to laugh, but that didn't work so well either.

She was still having words with her soon-to-be-ex as she got off the bus. I turned to Mrs. Gerbil and said, "There are some phone conversations that you just shouldn't have on the bus." Mrs. Gerbil agreed.

I mean, the punk-rock world is awfully small. There might only be two degrees of separation between you and the bus driver.

In sickness and in health

Mrs. Gerbil and I have been thinking (perhaps obsessively) about little gerbs. Conveniently, I've just begun a new job that will not only help fund the production of little gerbs, but also provides much more affordable and comprehensive health benefits. This job is very pregnancy-friendly, and at the moment there are several pregnant or recently post-partum people on site. This is all very good news for the two-member Committee on Gerb Production.

Our new health package includes full coverage for preventive care. Fantastic, I thought, because prenatal care is, by its very nature, largely preventive. But then I asked someone whether prenatal care is covered as preventive care, and I was sorely disappointed to hear that it is not. And then it dawned on me: Like most other health plans, our shiny new one considers pregnancy a sickness.

To be a covered "sickness," pregnancy must have its own diagnostic code, at least for purposes of billing. In the ICD-9 (the current US standard), the diagnostic code for normal pregnancy is V22.2. Anything diagnosable is de facto abnormal, and thus normal pregnancy is abnormal.

("Okay, okay," you are saying, "pregnancy is a departure from normal bodily functioning, so isn't this diagnosable sickness thing warranted?" But humor me here.)

Sickness is by definition bad. Nothing good can come directly of sickness. Sure, you might have a renewed appreciation for life if you survive a serious illness or injury; but the most positive direct result of sickness that I can think of is that once you've had the chicken pox, you are almost guaranteed not to have a repeat performance.

And yet every single human being that ever was is the result of pregnancy. Perhaps you are a cynic and believe that human beings are no good. But hey--you wouldn't be around to hate your fellow human beings if not for pregnancy. Which, I hasten to add, is diagnosable.

Now I shall blow your mind some more with my, well, mind-blowing logic. Even in our enlightened times, women are expected to want to have children. Those who do not want to have children are, at least in some circles, considered abnormal.

Thus: In order to be considered normal, you have to be considered abnormal.

I rest my case.

This will BLOW YOUR MIND.

The human female is born with all the ova she will ever have in her lifetime.

Therefore, the ovum which eventually became you was once inside your maternal grandmother.

(Credit for the blowing of my own mind goes to Toni Weschler.)

Parking lot rage: The evil fraternal twin of road rage

Pop quiz!

When entering a rather full parking lot, you should
(a) drive slowly around the parking lot until you find an available space.
(b) sit in the middle of the aisle, in the most inconvenient fashion possible, and be a spot vulture until someone parked in your general vicinity exits the store, gets in the car, and vacates the space.
(c) say "the hell with it" and look for street parking.
(d) say "the hell with it" and go to another store.

If you answered (a), (c), or (d), you are a person after my own heart. If you answered (b), you probably shop at the Berkeley Bowl.

In fact, if you answered (b), chances are pretty good that you drove your hybrid to the Berkeley Bowl this past Sunday afternoon--and that you attempted to get in a tiff with me over a parking space.

Mind you, I almost never drive to the Berkeley Bowl--I hardly ever go to the Berkeley Bowl, on account of the teeming obnoxiousness--and this past Sunday I wasn't driving, either. I was, however, in someone else's car.

You might take a moment now to note that the Berkeley Bowl advises its customers to "be patient and always drive carefully." Alas, you weren't thinking about politeness on Sunday, and you were massively ill-prepared for my interpersonal jujitsu...

You were sitting in the middle of the aisle in your hybrid, which while motionless is silent like the (possibly also motionless) ninja. No one was doing anything to the cars around you, and you weren't doing anything to your car either, namely operating its turn signal. You were within a few feet of the entrance to the store, so perhaps you were waiting for your shopping companion. So we passed you. And we went not even fifteen feet before a spot opened up right in front of us. And we took it.

You began yelling at us. At the same moment, another spot opened up, and you took it. You strode over to us and continued yelling. "THAT'S REAL CLASSY," you barked. "YOU DON'T JUST PASS SOMEONE AND THEN TAKE A PARKING SPOT."

My companion attempted to ignore you, but not I. I smiled sweetly up at you. "I'm sorry, sir," I replied calmly, "but we can't read your mind in the parking lot."

You (a good head taller and thirty years older than I) grew red in the face. "YOU CAN READ EVERYONE'S MIND IN THIS PARKING LOT!" you blustered.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, still sweet as agave nectar, "there isn't a single person in this world whose mind I can read. But I'm glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!"

You continued to bluster a little more. "BUT YOU---YOU DON'T JUST DO THAT!" you insisted.

"I really am glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!" I repeated, still smiling. Unable to think of a better retort, you stormed off into the store.

Had you stayed outside a little longer, you would have heard a woman about your age say, "Jeez! It's just a parking spot! Give it up!" as she pulled the bags from her cart. You would have seen me shrug my shoulders. And you would have heard her add, "The rest of that guy's life must be really awful, if he's getting that worked up over a parking spot."

I hope, for your sake, that you were just having a bad day. But whether or not this was an isolated incident, I encourage you please to remember two things:
1) It's bad form to try to intimidate a young lady.
2) No one likes a spot vulture.

Half-baked ideas

I like baking. I even wrote a parody about it once.

I'm generally pretty exact about my baking, although occasionally I will experiment with ingredients. Usually this is out of necessity--for example, once I was making a quick bread which called for prune preserves, and I neither had nor wanted to obtain said. Ah, but I had unsweetened applesauce! The same recipe also called for buttermilk, which I didn't have either; and so I stank up the house with vinegar and milk. And everything was really quite fine in the end.

Last night's substitution adventure was also out of necessity. I had everything to make Cheerio cookies... except for the Cheerios. But I had Kashi Mighty Bites. So I thought, hey, Mighty Bites are pretty much the same as Cheerios, except for their shape; why not use those instead?

Well, it worked, although I probably should have decreased the sugar somewhat on account of the lightly sweetened nature of the Mighty Bites. However, extra-sweet or not, the finished product was just a little on the disturbing side.

You see, Mighty Bites are shaped like little people. And my cookies came out looking like the ruins of Pompeii.


But as volcanic disaster cookies go, I have to say these are mighty tasty.

Public Transit Story #16: So what?

Oh boy! A public transit story and a customer service story all in one handy package!

I called to register a complaint today. Usually I do this online, but even though I always check the little box to request an email reply, I've never received so much as a "Thank you for submitting a comment." So I called, thinking it would be less complicated and more conducive to immediate gratification. Of course, I was wrong.

Me: I'd like to register a complaint about a driver.
Representative: Okay, what happened?
Me: This has happened before with the same driver and I've complained before. The driver arrives several minutes late, leaves the bus running and the door open, and goes to buy a snack. Then I have to run for a connection that should have several minutes of overlap.
Representative: But you said the bus is already late.
Me: Yes. I'm not calling because the bus is late. I'm calling because the driver leaves the bus running while buying a snack--when the bus is full of passengers!
Representative: [silence]
Me: The driver leaves a running bus for two or three minutes, while it's full of passengers.
Representative: So it's an unauthorized stop, then.
Me: It's my actual bus stop. We all get on the bus and then the driver gets off. I'm concerned because someone could just drive the bus off.
Representative: Oh. That is a problem, isn't it.

I've been sick for the past few days, but as Mrs. Gerbil says, it's a sure sign that I'm better when I start rectifying things again.

Public Transit Story #15: Bad hair day

Okay, I know it's impolite to stare. I try not to stare, even when I'm people-watching. However, it's really hard to watch people subtly, especially when your job involves watching a whole group of people for 50 minutes at a stretch, so that you can write up little notes later about how they "presented." Whenever I'm in a large group of people--outside work, mind you--I find myself observing like crazy. As with the Therapist Clock, I just can't shut my Observing Self off.

But this is a public transit story.

Yesterday I observed an older gentleman on the bus. He had the longest nose hairs I've ever seen. They were yellowish-white and extended at least half an inch beyond his nostrils. As if this weren't odd enough, he spent much of the bus ride twirling his nose hairs.

It was really, really hard for me not to stare. And I don't think I would have had such difficulty if had he not been playing with them.

Heckling the passersby

While I was returning some library books yesterday, a minorly scruffy man said a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction. I wasn't sure whether he was talking to me, so I decided to err on the side of shyness and did not respond. He continued to say a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction as I headed to the bus stop. Still, I wasn't sure if I was the intended target of his ramblings--until he said, quite lucidly, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"That's okay," I said. Haven't we all been mistaken for someone else at least once in our lives? I plopped myself down on the bench and busied myself with a book.

The man came wandering toward the bus stop, wanting to know if any of us there had "anything to share." None of us did. But this guy would not, or could not, accept "no" for an answer. He enumerate all of the things we could share with him. Nope. Then another fellow happened by.

"Hey, do you--" began the first guy.

"Go away!" said the second guy, hurrying past.

This obviously pushed some button deep in the first guy's psyche, for he began to spew a whole lot of strange invectives: "Hey! Who's your costume designer? Do you have a casting agent? Who's your casting agent? JAYWALKER! Are you an asshole, or just an arrogant person? HEY!"

And then he wandered off, presumably to engage in ineffective conversation with someone else.

I swear, Officer, it's not mine!

Mrs. Gerbil and I went to Kohl's yesterday, in hot pursuit of random items of clothing and accessories. I find Kohl's to be rather hit-or-miss. It's almost always a miss when I'm in search of pants, as they don't carry small enough sizes. (Go ahead, hate me now.) But yesterday, when I was not in need of pants, it was a hit. For just under $35 we acquired three shirts, two pairs of socks, and three pairs of earrings. Pretty darn good, if you ask me.

The cashier handed me a very familiar-looking pen with which to sign the charge slip.

"Hey," I said, "I thought that looked an awful lot like a Seroquel pen!"

The cashier replied, a little too quickly, "Oh, that's not mine. Someone must have left it here. I don't know where it came from."

I guess the stigma of mental illness extends even to abandoned pharmaceutical swag.

Face validity

I just received a piece of spam from "Deceitfulness C. Upfront."

Oh well, at least they're honest about something.

There oughta be a law

(Dude! This is my 100th post!)

I received a jury summons today, for the end of this month. I was very upset, for I'd received a jury summons last year, and I'm supposed to be off the hook for 12 months.

(I didn't actually serve on a jury last year. I didn't even have to report to the courthouse to find this out, as I'd had to do in Massachusetts about eight years ago. California jurors call after 5pm the day before to find out their status: report the next day as summoned, don't report at all, or call back after 11am for possible afternoon service. One's jury obligation is considered fulfilled regardless of whether one actually has to show up.)

So, yes, I received my jury summons, and I was pissed. But I have a poor concept of time out here. I'm used to gauging the passage of time with the help of seasons--by which I mean spring, summer, fall, and winter, not "wet" and "dry." Obviously, I couldn't figure this one out via memories of crimson foliage, drifting snow, muddy slush, or godawful humidity. I had to do some major detective work as to the date of my previous service:

1) It was during a period of semi-dryness, when it wasn't quite warm enough for short sleeves, but not quite cold enough for a hat and gloves.
Therefore, it must have been in October, November, February, March, or early April.

2) I know where I was working at the time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between November and July; combining this with #1, it must have been in November, February, March, or early April.

3) I was working more than half-time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between January and July; combining this with #2, it must have been between February and early April.

I then consulted last year's planner. If my service had been in March or April, I would have to make a most unpleasant call to the Superior Court of California...

...and guess when my service was?

That's right. The beginning of February.

They sure don't waste any time, do they?