Know Your Place

On February 4^th I received the following email from everyone’s favorite energy company, PG&E, titled PGE Bill Adjustment.

 

Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to let you know about a billing issue affecting your PG&E account number listed above. Your account was underbilled by $-1875.00. As part of our process, we review our billing operations to ensure that our customers are billed correctly, and during those reviews, we sometimes find a billing exception that may result in a bill adjustment.

 

If you recall – as my wife surely does – this summer I neglected to realize that our solar panel system breaker had tripped, causing our giant solar array to be nothing more than the world’s ugliest home improvement project for the hottest two and a half months of the year – possibly of the decade. This wonderful learning experience caused us to get a true-up bill this year that is so large it can be seen from space.

While PG&E is not willing to do anything crazy like print in bold at the top of your August bill, “HEY! YOU DIDN’T PRODUCE A SINGLE kWh LAST MONTH!”, they are willing to “work with you” after the fact in these breaker-tripping situations. They are graciously allowing me to pay them the true-up sum equal to the gross national product of Cuba in twelve equal payments with no interest.

Now, even though they know that they agreed to let me pay it over twelve months, they still list the gargantuan remaining total as my “bill amount” each month, as if I was in charge of lighting up lower Manhattan for the last thirty days.

So, since I’m used to seeing big numbers – numbers that don’t always fit on only one line of the bill – from them, when I received the above email, I didn’t fall directly out of my chair. I actually scoffed a little under my breath, like, “Is that all you got?”

Then I read it again and had to ask – myself, of course, not customer service… I mean, who can get a hold of those people? – what do you mean you “underbilled” my account by a negative number? Is that just a cute way of saying you overbilled me because you don’t want to actually say that?

And which is worse? Admitting you underbilled me or overbilled me? On the one hand, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing, but at least you get to take more of my money while I get even more frustrated and disappointed with you. On the other hand, you still look like an idiot, but I’m happier, but you have to give me money back. Tough call, there.

Then I thought about it more and laughed at myself for even thinking that through. This is PG&E. There’s no way they would ever admit they overbilled me! Ha ha ha. So silly.

Their nice email went on to say:

 

We have corrected the issue, and a bill adjustment will be reflected on your next statement. We apologize, and we are working to improve our billing system to prevent issues like this from affecting you in the future. You do not need to take any action at this time.

 

I guess you don’t HAVE to take any action at this time, but if your heart stopped working, or simply blew right out of your chest when you read their email, you may WANT to take some action involving dialing 9-1-1.

Anyway… on February 5^th – a whole day later – I received another email from them, entitled Correction to Previous eMail- PGE Bill Adjustment

 

Please disregard the previous email you received on February 4th 2025, regarding this bill adjustment.  The amount as stated was incorrect.  This notification contains the corrected bill adjustment for your account.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to let you know about a billing issue affecting your PG&E account number listed above. Your account was underbilled by $-18.75. As part of our process, we review our billing operations to ensure that our customers are billed correctly, and during those reviews, we sometimes find a billing exception that may result in a bill adjustment.

We have corrected the issue, and a bill adjustment will be reflected on your next statement. We apologize, and we are working to improve our billing system to prevent issues like this from affecting you in the future. You do not need to take any action at this time.

 

So, let me get this straight, PG&E… You are working to improve your billing system, but you just sent out an email to, I’m assuming, a crap-ton of people, with a cardiac-event-inducing decimal place error? I mean, decimal place is second-grade stuff, fellas! Sounds like things are going great with the billing system improvement project.

Also, PG&E, just so you all know, the fact that you are having large-scale decimal place errors in a large-scale bill adjustment process does NOT give us, your customers, a sense of security that you are correctly tallying up all the kilowatts we’re using and sending you.

In fact, it really makes me wonder why you’re so willing to extend me the grace of a no-interest payment plan. Is that because you’re just not 100% sure I really owe you all that money in the first place?

Maybe it’s time to get the State of California in there to check up on you guys and sort this all out? Getting the government involved should clear things right up, right?

Ha! Oh, man, I crack myself up sometimes!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2025 Marc Schmatjen

 

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My Passport To and From Frustration

I am writing today to remind you, once again, that the people governing us are ridiculous. I’m not sure you needed that reminder so close after election season, but better safe than sorry.

I come to you today with a prime example of bureaucratic idiocracy, from the US Department of State – those fine folks in charge of our passports. If you are a long-time reader of this column, you may recall that this is not the first time I’ve been amazed by the Department of State. My issues go back as far as 2009, when they required us to have a passport for our baby.

I’ll ask again, passport geniuses, – if any child, regardless of age, is required to have a passport, how do you propose I get a passport for a baby under six weeks old? That’s right, I can’t.

Anyway… fast forward to last month and there we were – my sons (they are much taller now) and I (same height but different weight – I don’t want to talk about it) – at the City of Roseville passport office, getting the whole family renewed. My wife didn’t need to be there, because she and I were doing an “adult, existing passport renewal” which just requires new, incredibly flattering pictures and a ton of money, but can be done via mail.

The boys, on the other hand, were required to renew in person, because they were all going from five-year children’s passports to ten-year (praise the Lord) adult passports, even though Son Number Three is only sixteen. Trust me when I tell you I’m not even thinking about that part of this process that doesn’t make logical sense, because all of them having ten-year passports means that last month was the last time I will ever be involved in obtaining or paying for their passports again. I repeat, praise the Lord!

So, there we were, sliding all our paperwork under the bullet- and Covid-proof glass windows to our nice clerk, when she said, “and I’ll need ID’s for the two boys that are over 18.”

Now, as a rational human adult, I responded, “Yes, their old passports are there.”

We were in the office on December 20^th, 2024, renewing passports that had expired on December 9^th, 2024.

She informed me that they needed to provide a driver’s license or similar ID because expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

… I stared through the glass for a few seconds…

When she didn’t say, “Just kidding,” I pointed out (in my head) that she was about to mail those same expired passports to that same Department of State as proof that the person on that expired passport exists and is allowed to have another non-expired passport, and that new non-expired passport that they would then send him would be accepted around the globe as the penultimate form of identification.

What I said out loud was, “Hmm, we might have an issue then, because Son Number Two didn't bring his wallet." She re-informed me that expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

Now, keep in mind, they did not want to see Son Number Three’s driver’s license, even though he had it with him, because we wasn’t over 18. Instead, they needed to see me and his birth certificate – a document that does not have a picture of him.

When I asked if I could simply vouch for the fact that Son Number Two also belonged to me and was who he said he was, exactly like we were doing with Son Number Three, she informed me that she fully understood the situation, and that expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

Anyway…

With some emergency calls and quick work by his mother, Son Number Two’s state-issued driver’s license, which will soon not be accepted as sufficient identification to get on an airplane, arrived and was used as proof that his expired passport was… something.

I honestly don’t know what.

All this being said, I will hand it to the Department of State for one thing. Our new passports are already here. It was pretty fast, by government standards.

All THAT being said, they arrived in a envelope with this return address:

U.S. Department of State

San Francisco Passport Agency

44132 Mercure Cir

PO Box 1143

Sterling, VA 20166-1143

 

Read that address as many times as you need to.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2025 Marc Schmatjen

 

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You'd Better Self-Check Yourself

We have memberships to both Costco and Sam’s Club. When I say “we,” I mean my wife and mother-in-law share a membership to Costco, and I’m not legally allowed to go there by myself.

But I do all the grocery shopping, so my wife recently agreed to let me into Sam’s Club. I’m honestly not sure if she trusts me more now, or if she just got tired of having to make special trips when we needed toilet paper or paper towels.

Sam’s Club has the only self-checkout system I’ve seen to-date that actually works well. It’s called “Scan & Go” and you scan your own stuff into the cart with your phone as you travel around the store loading up your cart.

It’s very user friendly, and even has a running total on the screen so you know when to cry, because you’re only a third of the way down your list. When you’re done shopping and woefully over budget, you just push your cart to the exit. A clerk scans the checkout code on your phone, then beeps a few things in your cart, and you’re out the door. You never unload your cart until you get to the car.

I’m here today to urge all stores in the United States to adopt this wonderful technology, or stop having “self-checkout” at your stores. Your version of self-checkout doesn’t work. It may be “checkout,” but it’s not “self.”

Let’s start with the bagging area. Why is there always an unexpected item there? What exactly were you expecting? I don’t know what you thought was supposed to happen in the bagging area, but I do know what always does happen – the whole checkout process comes to a halt and the screen informs me that “Assistance is Needed.”

No, assistance is not needed. Not ever. I know how to scan something and then put it in a bag. I’m over the age of two, and I drove myself here. Any time assistance is needed, this just stopped being self-checkout, and turned into team-checkout, where both teammates are annoyed.

Expecting an item in the bagging area hasn’t worked from Day One, Minute One of self-checkout. Figure it out!

And no, you haven’t figured it out with your handy “Skip Bagging” button. First of all, it’s an extra button I have to push after each scan, when I shouldn’t have to be pushing any buttons at all. Secondly, it seems to only allow me to skip bagging about two to three times in a row before “Assistance is Needed.”

Again, team-checkout.

There are a few of you stores out there that have it mostly figured out. You have a hand scanner that works and you have successfully abandoned any concerns about my bagging process. But you guys seem to think you’re Costco.

Costco has a person stationed at the door to check your receipt on the way out. They always have. That’s because after checkout, on your way out of Costco, you could grab a 72” TV, a Persian rug, a refrigerator, or any number of other high-value items between the food court and the door.

The rest of you are not Costco. There’s nothing – or at least, nothing of any substantial value – between the checkout and the door, so stop acting like you’re a security guard at a bank.

If I have already unloaded and reloaded my cart when I checked out – either from one of your regular checkers, or under the watchful eye of the self-checkout assistance-giver – I am not interested in going through another line before leaving so you can glance at my receipt and tell me to have a nice day.

If you want to sit there and tell me to have a nice day, go nuts. I’ll wish you a great day right back. But I’m not standing in another line and getting the receipt back out of my wallet.

You want to check my receipt? Get Scan & Go.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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TP is Getting to Me

I normally lean toward the Libertarian side of things, but I firmly believe the federal government needs to step in and get some sanity back into the toilet paper industry.

We normally just buy the Kirkland Signature “2-Ply Bath Tissue” at Costco. It comes in a large bundle that will last a standard family the better part of a month or more, or a family with teenagers for about three days. We had some poor planning recently, and ran the supplies down below restocking levels.

I would have just gone to Costco and bought more. I mean, it’s not like it’s 2020. I’m sure they have a mountain of it on those pallets next to the paper towels. I couldn’t though, since I was taken off of the family Costco account years ago in a successful coup by my wife and mother-in-law. My wife cited some trumped-up accusations about uncontrolled spending in the tool aisle, but my arguing was futile. My card was revoked.

My wife didn’t have time to get to Costco, and the situation was getting almost 2020-type grim, so I was forced to buy toilet paper at our regular grocery store. Standing in that aisle, reading the brightly-colored rolls, trying to make sense of Charmin’s toilet paper math, it became clear that we need a governing body to regulate this nonsense.

Toilet paper math has apparently become like tent math. Come to think of it, I don’t know why the federal government hasn’t stepped in and done something about the tent makers’ capacity claims either. If beds were advertised like tents, a queen mattress would sleep twenty-six adults comfortably.

Angel Soft caught my eye right away, boasting an impressive 9 = 36, when comparing their mega rolls to “regular” rolls. I don’t know what constitutes a regular roll, but I’m quite certain it is not my standard Kirkland roll. I was almost sold on 9 = 36 until I saw that Charmin Ultra Soft Mega had 12 = 48. Then they threw me another wrench, because on the Charmin Ultra Soft Family Mega, 18 = 90. I couldn’t do the comparative math in my head, so I didn’t know if that just meant there were more of the same rolls in the bigger package, or if the Family rolls had a higher multiplier.

Then I saw Cottonelle Ultra Comfort 12 Super Mega = 72 regular, which was smacking the hell out of Charmin Ultra Soft Mega non-family pack, but Cottonelle was advertising 3X more absorbency, and I wasn’t sure if the absorbency multiplier was baked into the roll math or not.

Just as I started to get really confused, Scott threw a new dimension in, claiming 36 rolls = 39,600 sheets. They have apparently increased the sheets per roll from their old crossed-out 1000 number to an impressively larger 1100. (Larger in both quantity and font size.) I went back to try and figure out what Cottonelle and Charmin were rockin’ in the sheet count game when I realized all of these had different ply and texture ratings.

Why the hell are we messing around with different plies, thicknesses, and levels of softness? The human ass is fairly universal, and no one on the planet is looking for sandpaper to wipe with. Cut the nonsense - all toilet paper should feel exactly like our regular Kirkland Signature 2-Ply Bath Tissue.

And don’t even get me started on single-ply scented bamboo toilet paper!

Anyway, I settled on Charmin something or other, with a mega roll to regular roll to package price ratio I could live with.

I got them home, opened a package, and began to stack them behind the toilet next to the two remaining Kirkland rolls. That’s when I realized these TP SOB’s are playing with more than just the marketing math. They actually made the rolls skinnier! Meaning, the center cardboard toilet paper roll is about half an inch shorter than the Kirkland one.

They are busy touting all their ridiculous roll and sheet math, all the while making the sheets physically smaller. That’s a bunch of what toilet paper is used to clean up!

Big TP has run amok and governance is clearly needed. This whole thing is really starting to chap my ass. Literally, and figuratively.

I really need my wife to go to Costco.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Speaking of Barbie...

It’s an amazing time to be a kid! Back when I was young, Barbie was only a doll with a pink house, and a pink Corvette, a pink-accented boyfriend, and later, a pink RV.

I personally didn’t care about any of the Barbie stuff when I was a kid because she didn’t come with explosives, projectiles, or slime, but I knew plenty of girls who loved to brush her hair and push her around in her dream car on dates with Ken. Barbie always drove, presumably because Ken was an alcoholic lush.

Kids today have access to a much larger Barbie franchise, including her new diverse friend group of dolls, waaay more accessories, rehabbed Ken, and a new movie. They even have a real live woman, Valeria Lukyanova, who has undergone hundreds of thousands of dollars in plastic surgery to become a human Barbie. Regrettably, she will never be able to blink again, and will no doubt need to spend thousands more on therapy, in addition to her staggeringly large Amazon subscription for Refresh Tears eye drops.

But the most amazing part about the current Barbie experience? It’s not any of those things. It’s the Fisher Price Power Wheels Barbie Corvette for kids. That sweet pink one-seater about the size of a coffee table that no family in the world has a good place to park when their kids are not driving it dangerously into oncoming street traffic.

I don’t think those came out until I was in my teens or twenties, but the first models were nothing to write home about. The tires were hard plastic with absolutely no grip, the steering was sketchy at best, and the whole thing was powered by what looked like one of those square 12-volt lantern batteries. You had a max payload of nine pounds, a run time of forty-five seconds, and a recharge time of two days.

Well, kids, welcome to 2023, where unregulated e-bike technology is running rampant! Children’s bikes at this point have basically become Tesla motorcycles with skinnier tires. I saw a kid on a BMX-style bike yesterday, in traffic, chasing a Prius and keeping up with it at probably thirty or forty miles per hour, while never pedaling once. Like I said, it’s an amazing time to be a kid!

I saw this coming the minute they started putting electric motors on kid’s Razor scooters, years ago. Apparently, not a single soul at the Department of Transportation did, though, so now we have unlicensed, untrained, unskilled, and unbelievably reckless kids riding e-powered contraptions that have torque profiles and top speeds Harley and/or Davidson would have killed someone for when they were building their first motorcycle.  

What does this mean for Barbie’s personal Power Wheels dream car? It means it’s no longer really a toy. It’s now a miniature unlicensed e-Corvette that can do 50 in a 25. Now’s the time, kids. At some point people are going to wake up and realize that children’s toys have become electrically weaponized, so don’t delay.

Beg and plead with your parents. Tell them you’ll do the grocery store runs now. Offer to take over elementary school carpool. You’ll have the horsepower. Steal an adult’s social security number and apply for a Barbie car loan online. Whatever it takes to get that wind in your hair. These are amazing times. Take advantage!

And Ken, if you happen to fall off the wagon and get sauced at the Malibu Barbie Beach Bar and Grill, have no fear. You don’t have to call Barbie and confess, or waste good drinkin’ money on an Uber. Just get yourself a little pink Power Wheels Corvette. You can swerve that bad boy home in the same amount of time it would take you in your F150, and what are the cops going to charge you with? Operating a toy under the influence?

That’s not illegal, buddy. Rock on!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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An Open Letter to Carnival Cruise Lines

Dear Carnival Cruise Lines,

I have recently returned from my first cruise ship experience, which was on your gigantic new boat, the Celebration. I have some thoughts…

Since this was my first cruise, I had no previous experience with how people normally get on the ship to begin their cruise, and I still don’t, because we did not get on the ship normally. We didn’t even get on the ship safely.

As you are aware, an overnight boating accident with fatalities closed the entrance to the Port of Miami for a majority of the day that we were supposed to be getting on the boat. While the Celebration waited offshore, we waited on Miami Beach and at our hotel.

There was obviously nothing you could do about the 32-foot Scorpion high performance speed boat slamming into the 146-foot ferry at 3:30 in the morning. I mean, we get it. It’s Miami, and the cocaine doesn’t just move itself around. We understand that you have to have guys hauling ass in blacked-out boats at night all jacked up on Mezcal and Columbian blow. It’s just how it works, and sometimes they don’t see the enormous, well-lit, massive, literally bigger than a house, ferry boat. Whatcha gonna do?

You had no control over Captain Coke’s ability to navigate, or the Coast Guard’s ability to recover his boat and its precious cargo, but what you did have control over was your own ship and the instructions you gave to us, the people waiting to get on.

Now as you know, a long time ago we were all required to log on and choose our embarkation time slot. You use time slots to make sure the embarkation processes is smooth and controlled, and you use words like “embarkation” because boat language is weird. Right before they closed down the port entrance for a whole day, the cocaine mules probably yelled, “Oh, no, we are about to strike the starboard aft hull of that enormous, well-lit, house-sized transport vessel, with the forward quarter of our pleasure craft. The purser will keelhaul us for losing the cargo we stowed in the forward bulkheads!”

Anyway, you wisely gave us timeslots in which to board. Those timeslots obviously came and went with no ship to board, but once you were able to get into port late in the day, you needed to let us know how to proceed.

I’ll pause here. Since this is an open letter, I’ll let the readers that aren’t affiliated with Carnival give answers as to how this could be handled, knowing that all passengers have already been divided up into boarding groups.

But wait, I don’t want you, the reader, to come up with the answer. I want you to go outside and find a four-year-old and ask them for the answer.

We’ll wait.

OK, you’re back. What did the four-year-old come up with? Yes, that’s correct. A simple chart emailed to us that said, “If your original boarding time was X, your new boarding time is now Y.”

Now Carnival, I really want you to let that sink in (boat humor). Every four-year-old polled came up with the same simple, logical answer. The simple, logical solution that escaped you.

What did you do?

You said, “The ship is here. Be at the port between 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm to embark. Everyone must be on the ship by 11:00 pm.”

Keep in mind, the original boarding time slots were spread out over six hours. Also keep in mind the Celebration holds 6500 passengers. You read that correctly, in case you forgot. Six thousand, five hundred people.

Folks, don’t bother trying to find your four-year-old to get their opinion on this boarding plan. They will just tell you it’s the dumbest, most irresponsible, and possibly criminally actionable in a court of law plan that anyone could have come up with.

Carnival Cruise Lines, by definition, you know “cruise people.” (Readers, if you have been on a cruise, you know what I’m talking about. And if you’ve been on a cruise and don’t know what I mean by “cruise people,” then you are one. If you haven’t been on a cruise, think: Loud amusement park family of twelve, wearing all the amusement park clothing and souvenirs, dripping amusement park food and drinks all over themselves and passersby, and no one can find Bobby anywhere.)

Carnival, you have met millions of cruise people over the years. They are literally the only people you deal with. And that being the case, you actually made it sound like the ship would leave without them at 11:00 pm.

There is no possible scenario that exists in the cruise people universe where that doesn’t become a train wreck. There was no better way to make sure 6500 people all showed up at the same time than what you did. But you weren’t satisfied with handling it only that poorly. You had more bad decisions to make and you nailed every one of them.

You abandoned the time slot system, so it must have also made sense to you to abandon any form of crowd control in front of the cruise terminal building. In the stifling Miami heat and humidity, among the literally thousands of people bunched up in a wad in front of the building, I watched multiple fire trucks and emergency vehicles arrive to cart out older cruise people from the center of the mob who had been overcome by the collective heat.

I watched pizzas being delivered through the crowd to cruise people who had been at the terminal building all day, instead of waiting somewhere else in Miami, foolishly assuming they would be the first to board.

Lack of line ropes to form any type of entrance pathway or order? Check.

Lack of police or security guards or even uniformed Carnival personnel to provide direction and crowd control of any kind for 6500 people? Check.

Lack of signs or loudspeaker announcements to even tell people what to do, where to go, or even what was going on? Check.

Expecting 6500 people with their luggage to magically and orderly file one by one through the SINGLE DOORWAY into the cruise terminal. Check.

I’m not making that up.

Carnival Cruise Lines, you are a mystery to me. The sheer logistics of running even one of your ships must be mind boggling, yet you do it all the time. But with this one tiny hiccup that could have so easily been managed in a minute on the back of a cocktail napkin, you chose the worst and most dangerous option available.

It was, quite simply, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, and that’s really saying something, because I’m raising teenage boys.

Your Captain should be keelhauled.

Do better,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Trick Waterpik

We have a problem with our Waterpik. The main problem is that I can’t seem to live without my Waterpik anymore.

I guess I should be clear and tell you it’s not really an actual Waterpik brand device. I guess the technical name for it would be “cordless water flosser,” or “oral irrigator,” or “flossing irrigator,” but I don’t call it that.

That would be like asking my wife, “Honey, where do we keep the cotton swabs?” She would ask if I was trying to perform surgery. “Where are the Q-tips?” is going to be a much straighter path to the location of our off-brand cotton swabs.

Anyway, back to our off-brand oral irrigator. Turns out Waterpiks are a lot like streaming television or smartphones. I was living just fine without it, then I got it, and now it would simply be impossible to live a normal, productive life without it.

The Waterpik is definitely lower on that scale than Hulu and my Samsung Galaxy, but it’s still on the scale.

Hence, my problem. The Waterpik quit working the other day. I charged it all the way up and then it wouldn’t start when I pushed the button. Nada. Just me hovering over the sink with the business end of a Waterpik in my mouth pushing a button that did nothing at all.

I flossed joylessly and went to bed sad about my oral hygiene situation. Our off-brand irrigator wasn’t too expensive (possible cause of the issue), so I figured I would order another one from Amazon the next day. However, when the next day rolled around it decided to start working again, as if it just needed one night off.

OK, I decided. I’ll chalk that up to a random electrical issue and pretend nothing happened. Now, normally devices that both spray water and go in your mouth are the last devices you want to have random electrical issues with, but it’s all low voltage, so what the heck.

It worked for a few more days with no issues, and then I decided to charge it up again. Wouldn’t you know it – last night, same problem. Push the on button – nothing comes on. But last night I wasn’t OK with giving up. I’d seen this problem before and overcome it somehow. But how did I overcome it? By giving up.

Last night I tried a different approach. I decided to stand at the sink and push the button about a thousand times. Now, this is a completely handheld device where the water reservoir attaches to the bottom of the handle/motor/pump section that has the nozzle on top of it. The water reservoir was empty and not attached while I was furiously pushing the button. I’m not an idiot!

On button push number 1004 the Waterpik sprang to life. Excellent! However, on push 1005, it did not turn off. It didn’t turn off on the subsequent two hundred pushes either.

Hmm… now I have the opposite problem. A Waterpik that won’t turn OFF. Well, I thought, I can at least get one more water flossing in before the battery dies. Don’t want to waste this opportunity, after all…

So, moments later, there I am, with a continuously running Waterpik motor and nozzle in one hand, and a full 300 ml water reservoir in the other. My plan was simple, keep the nozzle in my mouth while I connected the reservoir to the running pump with the easy quarter twist locking system.

Now, I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about what happened next, mainly because I’m still in shock and not too sure. All I know it that I nearly lost and eye, I managed to turbo-waterboard myself with a needle stream of high-pressure pulsing water straight up my nose, and we now have dripping water on our mirror, our ceiling, the dog, inside the light fixture, and somehow, inside the closed medicine cabinet.

Perhaps if I’d bought an actual Waterpik brand, I wouldn’t be having this problem. I’m going to go on Amazon right now and fix that prob… ooh, the off-brand irrigators are a third of the price…

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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Smog 'n Go Faster

I have been noticing a recent phenomenon at Smog ‘n Go. We have five vehicles (yet, because we’re bad at car math, only four current drivers), so I spend my fair share of time at Smog ‘n Go.

For those of you non-Californians, Smog ‘n Go is where we are required to visit to have our gasoline-powered cars blessed every year to be allowed to operate them in the Golden State. If one of our vehicles fails our state’s emissions standards – the strictest in the nation – we are legally required to sell it to someone in Nevada, where it will be revered as the cleanest running automobile in the state.

Anyway, I have been noticing a severe rate increase for Smog ‘n Go’s services.

Now, let me be clear. The price I pay for each vehicle hasn’t increased in years. There is obviously a state price cap on how much they are allowed to charge. But the rate has skyrocketed.

I think Tesla has scared them. Or maybe it was the Nissan Leaf. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, my. Now that we’ve all had a good laugh… I think Tesla has scared them.

Now, this is a strange customer complaint, for sure, but hear me out. Years ago, when I would take my car to Smog n’ Go, they would check me in and then say, “OK, go ahead and have a seat. We should have it finished in about twenty minutes or so.”

The work usually took anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes, and I was on my way. (Except for the time my old Jeep Grand Wagoneer failed the smog test and I had to drive it to the liquor store and buy a flask of Everclear to pour in the tank, and then get it re-tested for the passing grade. That took a little longer, but we don’t ever, ever mention that to the authorities. Ever.)

The $60 that Smog ‘n Go charges, while annoying, still at least seemed like a reasonable hourly rate for an automotive service, even though you never wanted or needed the service.

The last four times I have been there, however, the entire process has taken no more than ten minutes max. On my visit last week with our Suburban, from pulling up to the building to getting back in the car to leave, was no more than four minutes. I am not making that up.

They still charged me $60.

Now, I am a big proponent of businesses getting more efficient in their operations, but this is ridiculous. I mean, I checked in at the desk, and I checked out and paid inside of that four minutes. That means, maximum, they “worked” on my car for two minutes.

Sixty dollars for two minutes of work equates to a rate of $2000/hour. Now, this business has either gone completely off the rails, or they are absolute geniuses.

 

“OK, ladies and gentlemen, we have a huge problem. Our business model relies on people driving gasoline-powered cars, but lots of people aren’t doing that anymore. Plus, California just said that in a few years it would actually be illegal to sell someone a gasoline-powered car in the state, even though that is completely unconstitutional. What should we do?”

“Elect reasonable people into office? Move?”

“I mean what should we do about our business here in California, Jenkins. Keep up with the conversation.”

“Why don’t we just charge more?"

“Stop being an idiot, Jenkins. We aren’t allowed to do that.”

“What if we just work less?”

“Interesting, Johnson. Explain.”

“Well, sir, if we’re losing customers without the hope of getting more, and we can’t charge more for our services, then we could just do less, but charge the same rate, therefore increasing our hourly rate dramatically and making the company billions of dollars.”

“I like where you’re headed, Johnson. But, how would it work?”

“Well, sir, instead of actually measuring emissions and running the vehicle through a series of tests like we do now, we could just pop the hood, wheel a computer up next to the car, note that the car does, in fact, have an engine, then close the hood. The car wouldn’t really even have to be running. We push the PASS button and call it a day. The whole thing probably wouldn’t take more than two minutes. We’d be making about $2000/hour and living the good life, sir.”

“I could finally get that third house in the Caymans. Johnson, you’re a genius! Jenkins, you’re fired. Johnson is taking your office. Let’s celebrate.”

 

You, know, come to think of it, this isn’t a complaint at all. Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, as an owner of gasoline-powered vehicles, I’m actually really happy about this new company direction at Smog ‘n Go.

Carry on, smog check professionals. I’ll see you in a few months.

For about three minutes.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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In the Army Now?

I think my sixteen-year-old son may technically be in the military. Allow me to explain.

A while back, Son Number Two received a nice letter from Kathrine R. Helland, Ph.D., who, as you know, is the Director over at JAMRS.

What’s that? You don’t know what JAMRS is? OK, good, that makes me feel a lot better. I had to Google it, too.

The only other identifying mark on the letter besides the mysterious acronym was a “government seal.” I put that in quotes because it was made up of the standard Great Seal of the United States that you are familiar with – the shielded eagle with the “E pluribus unum” banner in its beak and an olive branch in one claw and spears in the other, signifying that we, as a country, know Latin and are not afraid to harvest fruit trees with weaponry.

Normally the seal is surrounded by the title of whatever department of government is being advertised. This seal looked a little fishy to me, though, because above the eagle it said “U.S. Government” and below the eagle it said “United States of America.”

If it’s not fake, it’s at least poor grammar and style since it essentially says United States twice, but that aside, I don’t think the “government” as a whole has a titled seal. That would simply be the one that only says The United States of America.

Anyway, after I got done grading the letter for official seal accuracy, I looked up the acronym and found out it stands for the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, which is a program run by the United States Department of Defense, which as the seal would accurately suggest, is a part of the U.S. Government.

Unfortunately, the Google search of JAMRS didn’t explain how to pronounce the acronym correctly, so I was left not knowing if I should say “jammers,” “jam-res,” “jammer-ess,” or “ja-missus.”

The letter from Dr. Helland asked my son if he wouldn’t mind spending fifteen minutes of his busy schedule to fill out a survey for JAMRS regarding his future plans and his likelihood of joining a branch of the military. This information would “greatly help public officials make more informed decisions when providing and allocating resources.”

Included with the letter was a return envelope and a crisp, new two-dollar bill.

There was no explanation for the money, however the letter did mention that JAMRS had included a “token of their appreciation.” The letter went on to state that if Son Number Two filled out the survey and returned it in the included envelope, there would be a further “token of their appreciation” for his time and efforts.

Son Number Two enjoys having money almost as much as he enjoys spending it, so he filled out the survey and put it in the mail. Sure enough, Dr. Kathrine sent him back a thank you letter with a five-dollar bill this time. Again, there was no mention of the money specifically, only that JAMRS was presenting him with another “token of appreciation.”

Hmm…

Call it what you want to, Doc, but the United States Department of Defense just paid my sixteen-year-old son seven dollars for fifteen minutes of work. To put it another way, the DoD has hired my son to handle paperwork for twenty-eight dollars an hour.

He’s happy as a clam, but I have a follow-up question…

You never specifically mentioned money changing hands, however the “tokens” were specifically said to be included to show appreciation for his time and effort. You’re from the DoD, but your letterhead has a seal that you appear to have made up in your office specifically to look official but not actually say anything about being from the Department of Defense.

This entire thing reeks of plausible deniability, because you know damned well that you are paying minors to do tasks for you, since apparently not including money up front and the promise of more upon task completion wasn’t getting the job done. No responses back means no data for you to blabber at someone, which means no job for you.

I assume that if you lost your sweet government gig, you might have to resort to the dreaded private sector where potential employers might find out your Ph.D. is in Art History. That would be a shame.

So, here’s my follow-up question – Which would you prefer? Would you like me to pursue a legal case against your department for illegal conscription of a minor into military service, or would you prefer to enroll him into the DoD pension benefits program, since he’s retired from active paperwork duty now?

Your choice.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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No Time to Change - Repost

This column was originally posted on March 16^th of this year, when we once again changed the clocks for “Daylight Saving Time.” We reverted back to “Standard Time” over the weekend, and we’re all screwed up again. Night now officially begins around lunchtime.

Enjoy the column again as a reminder that we need to keep the pressure on Washington. If they can pull through for us, by this time next year we really could be done with this madness.

 

It is entirely possible that the federal government is about to do something that I will like. That rarely happens. And by rarely, I mean never.

I have been saying for my entire adult life that we have enough laws. We have far too many, actually, since there are laws about what kind of light bulbs I can have in my house and how much water is allowed to be in my toilet.

I have also been saying that the federal government should be part time and be paid accordingly. Career politicians are THE problem with any government, and if we could just make it so the lawmakers had to have two or three jobs to support themselves and their families, we would actually get some hardworking, sensible people in there. But alas, no such luck.

There is one more law that needs to be written however, before we drastically revamp how Washington works, and it appears as if it might just be happening now. I am, of course, referring to the abolition of twice-yearly “daylight saving” time changes.

No one likes changing the clocks. Whomever came up with the idea was a complete psycho, and we were (and are) complete morons for continuing to go along it. Our kids get up waaaay too early in November and we need a pneumatic jackhammer to get them out of bed in March. It’s a gigantic pain in my ass having to remember how many clocks I own (garage sprinkler timer, I’m looking at you), not to mention trying to remember how to set the clock on our overly complicated car stereo. But most notably, it messes with my wife’s sleepy time, which is hazardous to everyone’s health.

In short, it’s dangerous and it sucks.

But now, there might be an “extra” hour of sunlight at the end of the long, dark time change tunnel. An unprecedentedly bipartisan bill has passed through the senate this week that would get rid of clock changes nationwide. Currently, it’s a state-by-state decision whether or not to change the clocks, which makes even less sense than changing the clocks in the first place.

I mean, we already have time zones, which although obviously necessary, are still confusing. Just think about those poor people who live and work near the time zone line. If you lived right on the line, how would you ever know store hours, or what time practice starts. How would you ever plan anything?

“I’ll see you at three o’clock.”

“Which three o’clock?”

What if you lived in one time zone and worked in another? That’s my idea of what hell would be like. So, why have we allowed individual states to further complicate things by not changing their clocks when the rest of us had to? It’s absolute madness.

The chaos could be coming to an end on November 20, 2023. The bill – which in true government megalomaniac fashion, they have named the “Sunshine Protection Act,” as if our benevolent leaders on Capitol Hill are somehow actually shepherding the sun for us – would keep the entire country on what we just changed to – Daylight Saving Time.

We can’t just stay on DST now and never touch the clocks again, because airlines and other transportation entities apparently don’t know how to use computers. But if the bill passes – and so help me, House of Representatives, it better – we would only have to endure one more set of ridiculous clock manipulations before everything will finally be logical again.

That is, unless the Association of Early Morning Winter Joggers or some other such group has a powerful, monied lobby. Then the career politicians may be swayed by a series of generous donations to their wife’s brother’s various non-profit organizations, and vote poorly.

I mean, no politician in Washington is dumb enough to actually want to continue changing our clocks, right?

Right?

I’ll be here holding my breath.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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An Open Letter to Uber

Dear Uber,

As you obviously know, I used your service twice this weekend. I have a few issues I’d like to let you know about.

On my Friday morning ride, Dustin picked me up in a Tesla. I thought that was pretty cool. I wondered about the economics behind that, and during our conversation he shed some light on it. Turns out Dustin is renting the Tesla from you guys.

That led to a lot more economic questions, but I kept them to myself because I was pretty sure I already knew the answers. Dustin was a nice guy, a good driver, and his (your) Tesla was nice and comfy. I thanked him for the ride, wished him the best of luck, and gave him five stars..

But then I looked at my bill when you emailed it to me. Along with the Uber Booking Fee of $5.97, the Airport Surcharge of $3.00, and the City Surcharge of $0.50, which were all totally worth it and appreciated, by the way, you hit me with a $0.55 Temporary Fuel Surcharge.

Umm, what?

You know damn well Dustin is driving a Tesla. You wouldn’t be able to pretend you didn’t even if he was the one who owned the thing, because a central part of your service is telling me the make and model of the car to look for. But it’s even worse in this case, because it’s your Tesla. C’mon, fellas! That’s just cheap, and I might actually try to do something about it other than this letter if it weren’t only fifty-five cents, which is exactly why you’ll keep getting away with it, which makes me even crazier.

You are basically looters. Do better.

Now, let’s discuss my Sunday ride. My main man Thanh picked me up in a black Toyota Highlander, that I am assuming he owned. Thanh spoke basically no English at all, so our ride to the airport was quiet, and his Google maps was throwing some crazy-looking words up on the screen, none of which made any sense to me, but apparently Thanh could read it, because we got there.

Thanh’s Highlander was impeccable, but his driving style was obviously imported from his country of origin. He was not a dangerous driver, he just wasn’t a smooth driver. In any way. At all.

I believe he considered gas and brake pedals to function as on/off switches, and his goal with any lane change was to get into the new lane as fast as possible. I think he would have jumped the lane lines if he could have. His goal on any curve was to wait until the last possible second and then do all the steering at once at the end, presumably for efficiency?

The car itself was very comfortable when we were parked. Just not so much whenever we were moving. I would have loved to give him some constructive feedback on his driving, but our communication barrier was simply too tall.

Now, up until Sunday, I really hadn’t paid too much attention to you star rating system. I always just gave the driver, like Dustin for example, five stars. Thanh got me thinking about the rating system for the first time as we jerked to a stop at the airport. As he unloaded my bag from the back, he spoke his first of two memorized English sentences. I am assuming it was something to the effect of “thanks for riding with me,” or “have a good flight,” but he hadn’t memorized it quite right, so I didn’t understand.

English sentence two of two was clear as a bell, however. “You give me five stars.” I don’t know if it was a question, a command, a demand, or a polite request, because Thanh didn’t have English inflection down yet. It just ended flat, but he said it twice, just to make sure I heard him. I just smiled and thanked him for the ride.

Now, like I said, he wasn’t a dangerous driver, just a bad one. As I sat in the airport, I fired up your Uber app and attempted to give him helpful feedback. You have no section for notes, so stars were the only thing available to me. Here’s where I’d like to see some improvement on your end.

Thanh’s driving did not deserve five stars, and I really wanted to give him three, but I was feeling charitable because my neck made it through the ride without hurting so I decided to go with four. I clicked on the fourth star and was immediately presented with a list of secondary choices as to why or how my driver attempted to murder and/or humiliate me.

I had a Dangerous Driving option, a Driver was Rude option, Offensive Language, Offensive Odor, Reckless Endangerment of Children and the Elderly, Threats on my Life or the Lives of my Family and Pets, Offensive Clothing, Excessive or Disturbingly Audible Chewing, Jazz Music, Hit Someone in a Crosswalk and Kept Going, Robbed Me at Knifepoint/Gunpoint, and Participated in a Drive-By Shooting Enroute, just to name a few.

I might be remembering some of those wrong.

The thing was, none of them were anywhere close to what I wanted to convey and there was no way for me to just let the dude know he needs to drive smoother. I certainly didn’t want him to lose his job, so I reluctantly clicked on the fifth star. Amazingly, with the five-star rating, there are no secondary feedback choices.

Basically, you have taken our tried and true, perfectly good five-star system and somehow turned it into a binary driver rating. My driver was either absolutely amazing, or a homicidal maniac.

Please fix that, and for the love of Pete, stop charging people for gas in electric cars.

With three actual stars for Thanh and one star for your star rating system,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge 

Property Mismanagement – Repost

This month marks the third anniversary of us living in a meth-free neighborhood (as far as we know). We have a celebration each year where we barbecue, only we use natural gas instead of lawn mower gas. And we barbecue in the actual barbecue. Allow me to explain – here’s the account of what went down three years ago:

 

We had a neighborhood barbecue a while back. It was on a sunny Sunday afternoon in March, and it was the kind of day just tailor-made for an impromptu get-together out on the street.

We didn’t grill burgers or dogs, though. We cooked a Prius.

Well, I shouldn’t say “we” cooked a Prius, so much as, the meth addict felon who lives down the street cooked his Prius. We just all came out to watch.

That fine afternoon, Sir Meths-a-Lot had somehow caught something in the middle of his driveway on fire. He remedied that situation by intentionally kicking over a large can of gasoline at the top of his driveway, which ran down into the fire and strangely enough, started a much, much larger fire.

By the time I saw the giant plume of black smoke rising above the rooftops, the entire driveway was burning, his Prius, which was parked at the curb in front of the driveway, was ablaze, and a flaming river of gasoline was running down the gutter toward two of his neighbor’s cars.

Good times.

His also-a-meth-head-but-so-far-only-committed-misdemeanors brother managed to get the fiery river put out before any more cars caught on fire, and it wasn’t too much longer before a couple garden hoses had the entire barbecue extinguished and Captain Felony Meth could concentrate on shouting at one of his neighbors to – and I’m not making this up – “mind your own business, bro.”

This fun Sunday afternoon get-together came after at least a year of other amusing antics and shenanigans over at Methtopia, including, but not limited to the following (and keep in mind, I am not making any of this up):

Fights on the front lawn

Homeless lady living in her truck out front and using their potty

Power washing the house/driveway/street at midnight

Throwing two dozen eggs from the side yard onto the neighbor’s house at 3 A.M.

Vacuuming the street with a Hoover upright

Mowing the street with an electric lawnmower

Power washing the lawn

Oh, and a full guns-drawn SWAT team raid on the house

That was all just neighborly fun and games, but apparently I have a limit, and as we found out, that limit is lighting the street on fire.

After the barbecue that no one was invited to, I did some internet research and came up with a few phone numbers. I texted around until I found the property owner and told him that his renters just lit his entire driveway on fire and it was time for them to find other, more suitable accommodations.

He then told me he only managed the property for his son, who owned it, but he would go check things out that day.

When I inquired back about the property visit, he texted back, “Everything looked fine. No problems.”

I decided at that point that an in-person meeting might be appropriate.

At the meeting, which took place at my kitchen table, I informed Roy of all the silly things that have been going on over at his son’s rental property, and that it was definitely time for the renters to fire up the old Prius, as it were, and head on out.

He amazingly tried to make the case that they were really quite nice, but I finally convinced him to give them notice. We settled on a charitable thirty days’ notice, even though three days were all that was required by law, given the many, many drug arrests that had occurred in the home. We shook on it.

The thirty days would have expired sometime in April, but he texted me later that week to tell me he changed his mind and they could stay until the lease ran out on August 31^st.

I texted him back and told him how small claims court works for a landlord operating a nuisance property.

He ignored me.

During the dedicated public servant portion of the barbecue, Mr. Amphetamines-R-Us got popped for felony possession of a weapon while on parole (parole in this case, I’m assuming, meaning the entirety of his twenties and thirties), so he went back to his home away from home.

My first-ever incarceration report search (God bless the internet) turned up the fact that Doctor Now-I-Have-To-Do-Crappy-Jail-Toilet-Meth was scheduled to be in the slammer until after the lease expired, so I let it go.

A For Sale sign went up on the lawn in July, and things were looking promising until Future Eagle Scout Time-Off-For-Good-Behavior came home in mid-August to resume his standard routine of basically living in the front yard and doing absolutely nothing even remotely productive with his life.

I texted Roy. Here’s how that went.

Me: When will they be out?

 

[August 31^st ]

 

Me, On August 31^st: Will your tenants be gone by the end of today?

 

[They will start moving tomorrow hopefully . but not later than Tuesday

They are moving to my other house, other house’s tenant be out till midnight,so don’t worry PL try to help me find a nice buyer]

September 2^nd: [Because holiday,may be we are running behind ( one day)]

 

Me: So, will they be out by Wednesday?

 

[Yes sir (OK hand emoji)]

September 4^th: [They are moving since last night sir]

 

Me on September 5^th: Your tenants are still at the house tonight.

 

[They are moving it may take 3 days to finish,sir]

 

Me on September 10^th: It is Sept 10^th. Your tenants were supposed to be out on August 31^st. They are still in the house, with no signs of being out any time soon. What is your plan to get the felon drug addict who nearly burned your house to the ground out of our neighborhood?

 

At this point, I received a text from the second number I had, which I thought belonged to the owner, Roy’s son.

[This is Bea. Im Roy's daughter. I cant help but get your texts everyday. Are you renting the house or buying the house on plum? Whats really going on?]

 

Me: Sorry to have included you on the text string. I thought you were one of the owners. I'm a neighbor with kids, on a street full of people with children. The tenant is a meth addict, a felon, and the definition of a nuisance. He nearly burned down the house one day, which was when I contacted your dad and told him they needed to go. And I am honestly amazed that he didn't come to that decision on his own! This was after the SWAT team raided the house with guns drawn while my kids were playing in the street, and I don't know how many fights on the front lawn between the felon and his drug addict associates. I met with your dad and he told me in person he would evict them in 30 days. He then went back on that and told me they would be allowed to stay until August 31st. It is now Sept 10th. They need to leave this neighborhood, and I need to know an actual day they will be gone. They are wholly unacceptable, and suing your father for running a nuisance property is the only next step. I already made him aware that each affected family can sue for $5000 per person, including children, which adds up to a conservatively estimated $100,000 lawsuit. Time for them to go, now. That's what's really going on.

 

[First, I d like to thank you for being a concerned neighbor.

Second, if my dad says he will do something. You can mark my words. He is a man of his word.

3rd, My dad raised 3 kids in the same neighborhood. I want you to know things are being taken care of.

I just need to step off the gas pedal a lil bit and know you have been respectfully heard and my family is making it happen.

My dad stays unwell. Please be respectful. Nobody is ignoring you. We are all families in this community

Contact me directly from now on.

The new family thats moving in has their trucks outside being loaded.]

 

Me: I was not aware your dad was unwell. I will contact you from now on, but hopefully that won't be necessary. What do you mean when you say the new family moving in has trucks outside being loaded? As of this minute, the Plum house is still occupied by the old tenants.

 

[Again Marc, I want you to know my dad is under doctor's care and is very fragile. He is a good man. You will be taken care of at any cost. Period.

Have faith and some patience. M working on it too from Chicago as well.

You have our utmost respect n attention. I will personally contact you soon.

I m looking out 4 my dad and his health too. I only got 1 old man.

He dont need threats, your request is enough 4 all of us to step in.

My name is Bea. M his oldest kid. I invite you to be patient with serene calm mind. Universe will return the favor in 10 folds.

Namaste! (prayer hand emoji)]

 

Umm… say what?

Me: I am nice and serene. You didn't answer the question. What do you mean when you say the new family moving in has trucks outside being loaded? Outside where? As of this minute, the Plum house is still occupied by the old tenants.

 

[We have new tenants moving in very soon. Be patient, be kind. Everytime u look towards the house, inhale love n exhale love. Right now, you may not be perceiving things as they are, rather how you see!

No need to be on pins n needles. Cuz I got chu! Relax.

Your request has been received, approved, accepted, sealed, stamped!]

 

What in the actual hell is this idiot talking about? Are there three different people on the other end just grabbing the phone to text random crap at me? Can someone throw the phone to an adult?

Me: What actual date on the calendar will your current tenants be gone?

 

[I will call you tomorrow with that. Im sending my own tenants from my house to shift over there.]

 

Me: Text me. I like to have things in writing. It brings me peace and harmony.

 

[Blessings (double pink and red heart emoji)]

 

They did finally move out, but it took another week. I spent that week wondering if I was perceiving things as they really were, and concentrating on inhaling n exhaling love.

I’m fairly certain I was communicating with Bea’s idiot boyfriend more than half the time during that week, and I’m positive he was inhaling n exhaling something entirely different.

Namaste.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

An Open Letter to the Guy Who Installed My Floor

Dear Captain Staple Gun,

I don’t know who you are, but since my house was built in the early 2000s, I am assuming you are in your mid to late 30s now. You might still work in construction if you managed to get yourself under control. If you did not calm down, I doubt you were able to hold down any sort of real job and are probably reading this from your parent’s basement.

I’m writing you today because I’m in the process of installing laminate flooring in our master bathroom, with which, you are familiar. You, after all, were there about twenty years ago installing the extra sheet of plywood onto the subfloor in the tiny little three-foot by five-foot toilet room.

Your boss, I’m sure, explained to you that the three-eighths plywood was necessary to raise the floor in that room up ever so slightly so the light beige linoleum would match the height of the dark beige carpet in the main bathroom.

In case you were wondering, the key words that identify the need for our new laminate flooring project are ”beige,” “linoleum,” and “bathroom carpet.”

I just want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for not gluing it down. Since the laminate floor will be continuous throughout the bathroom, I needed to pull out your small sheet of riser plywood so the subfloor would all be the same height. I was already on my knees when I discovered it, so I stopped and prayed that it was not glued down.

I’m not sure if you happen to remember which member of your construction crew installed our original hardwood floors downstairs, but if you do, I’d love it if you would do me a favor and set fire to their house.

We had this same laminate flooring installed in the entire downstairs area of our house a few years back, and I decided I would remove the old hardwood floors myself. After all, they were only in the kitchen and foyer. I thought, how hard could it be?

I’ll answer that for you. They were glued down with some substance the Pentagon would love to know about. You could have vaporized all of Placer county with a targeted nuclear strike centered on my home and those floors would have remained securely attached to the concrete slab, somewhere hundreds of miles away.

I had to cut through the hardwood with a Skilsaw, making a cut perpendicular to the board lengths every three inches, and chip the floor off with a giant long-handled scraper. It took our entire family of five a whole week to get the floor out of two rooms. I honestly wished I’d had access to nuclear weapons at the time. I still have a lingering case of PTSD about the whole thing.

So, yes, thank you for not gluing the plywood down, knowing you had access to whatever the hell that stuff was. That being said, this is where my thanks to you stops.

Instead of glue, you used the pneumatic staple gun that shoots two-inch construction staples. Good choice. I would have used that too. And if I was installing the small little piece of plywood to the small little floor of the small little toilet room, I would have used anywhere from twenty to thirty staples total. But that’s because I tend to overdo it a little on my fastener count. I want to know that it’s going to stay nailed down.

Not you, though. No sir. You, my friend, are on an entirely different level. I hammered my prybar under that sheet of plywood and got stopped cold by your first row of staples across the doorway. You had over thirty staples in that first row alone. The door is only twenty-eight inches wide, so you were doing better than one staple per inch. Impressive.

Speaking of staples per inch, or in the regular construction world, inches per staple, it would have been cool if you had some sort of plan or consistency to your work. But you didn’t. In some areas I encountered staples grouped so close together they were actually touching each other. In other places I may have gone a full two inches before I came upon another one of your little projectiles.

There was one spot in the middle where you had a six-inch line of staples so close together it looked like a zipper. A removal project that should have taken me about ten minutes to complete ended up taking me hours. Hours on my hands and knees in a tiny little room doesn’t really work for me anymore. I’m old now. And in more pain now because of your insane rampant stapling.

I just have to ask. What the hell were you doing? Were you hiding from the boss but needed to sound like you were still working? Were you hiding from the crazy hardwood gluer guy? Can’t blame you there. Was it the end of the day and you wanted to milk that project as long as possible so you didn’t have to start something else? I just have to know!

Were you getting paid by the staple instead of by the hour? That would explain why my fifteen-square-foot floor was honestly more staples than actual wood. I’m amazed it didn’t all cave in from the sheer weight of the steel.

Or was it your first day on the job and/or the first time you ever used a nail gun? If that was the case, then I guess I’m glad you had fun at least. And I hope you haven’t lost that childlike enthusiasm for life. I just never want you to do anything like that again.

Ever.

I have to go take more Advil now.

Settle down,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Be Best Life - Repost

A commissioner from the FCC is calling for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. If you are unfamiliar with TikTok (in other words, if you’re really old), chances are it’s the thing that your grandkids are staring at when they are staring at their phones. Which is all the time. Literally, right now. Look at them right now, and they will be watching a TikTok video.

TikTok is a video app where young people record themselves either dancing or hilariously getting “accidentally” hit with something by their friends, and then trillions and trillions of other young people watch those videos in a trance while drooling and forgetting to do their chores and homework.

The FCC has shown, however, that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese government, is illegally data mining off every phone it’s installed on. TikTok is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but rest assured, your teenager doesn’t care, so Apple and Google will keep offering it.

TikTok may be bad, but I’m here to tell you that not everything coming out of China is nefarious. I mean, the copywriting on Chinese products is bad, but it’s hilarious, and only harmful to the sales of those products. Actually, it has an outside chance of being harmful to you, I guess, if you happen to fall over laughing like I did when I got the SUPERSEALER for Christmas.

The SUPERSEALER is a crappy ninety-nine-cent as-seen-on-TV plastic bag sealer that is really hard to operate and works poorly. I could care less about the bag sealer. I am in love with the little cardboard box it came in.

The WORKWONDER SUPERSEALER is made in China by a Chinese company that obviously has two copywriters. One of these people has some background in using the English language. We’ll call him Bob. The other has to be the owner’s son, and after disappointing performances in many different departments, copywriter was the least harmful position his dad could think of to stick him. We’ll assume the owner’s name is Mr. Wang. Mr. Wang doesn’t know any English either. Bob is obviously terrified of Mr. Wang and won’t tell him that Son of Wang partied continuously for four years at the international university in Beijing and knows no English whatsoever.

In a few places on the box, Bob invites me to Just slide SUPERSEALER across bags to seal in freshness!

Son of Wang tells me, Relaxed onepulls, guarantees quality to retain freshness. Based on what we get from Son of Wang in his main paragraph, I guarantee Bob helped him with the last half of that sentence.

Here’s Bob’s effort on selling us on the amazing benefits of the SUPERSEALER:

Finally an inexpensive and easy way to perfectly reseal unused poutions of food. This amazing new SUPERSealer creates an airtight seal that locks in freshness.

You simply slids SUPERSealer along the edge of any bag and it’s sealed airtight. It’s that easy. You’ll not only save on storage bags, but you can save even more buying bulk at warehouse clubs. Just use your SUPERSealer to reseal any unused portions over and over again!

I never claimed that Bob was great. I just said he has some background in English. He’s not the best speller, but I do have to give him credit for using American sayings like, “locks in freshness,” and “it’s that easy.” That would suggest that he has a better than average grasp on American English than your standard WORKWONDER employee.

Here’s what Son of Wang had to offer us. I swear, I am not making any of this up, and keep in mind, folks, this is written on the SAME BOX as Bob’s paragraph.

Have sometimes been able to affect your state of mindbecause of a lot of situation such as damp , becomingmildewed , depraved , water leaking from in the dailylife, have used you feel very vexed , good under this , have had the convenient plastic bag of new model seal implement , have all have made stable , no matter howvexed your nonutility be. Collection such as all food , clothing and other articales of daily use , postage stamp, you have put plastic bag lining inside as long as with them , seal machine has taken form lightly with convenient adheaive tape of new model as soon as the fault , one have protection against the tide , mould proof, the herm etic sealing bag retaining freshness. Such is simple , the simplicity is comfortable, be best life!

After reading the box about a hundred times (and laughing out loud every single time), I have to assume this conversation took place at the WORKWONDERS office prior to printing the box:

“My dad wants you to proofread my copy, Bob. What do you think?”

“This is the most unintelligible thing anyone has ever written. What the hell, Wang?”

“My dad is the owner. I’ll have you fired.”

“Looks great. Let’s print that box!”

 

I mean, am I a little concerned that Communist China will eventually collapse the world’s digital economy by waging a cyber war against us with our own data? Sure I am, but at least Son of Wang provided my family our new motto:

Be best life!

Postage stamp,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge