Au Cochonnet Marin

Housecleaning has never been one of my top priorities.

“If the shelves are dusty and the pots don’t shine,
It’s because I have better things to do with my time.”

How beautifully put! I couldn’t have said it better.

I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. —Joan Rivers

Isn’t this true? What a keen sense of observation Joan.

As you can see, I am not the only one who is not enamored with housecleaning.

First of all, I don’t like living in a sterile environment.
It is not good for you because your immune system must know the enemy to fight it. If it never came across those nasty pathogens it won’t know what to do when it sees them.
If on the other hand, it had a few brawls with them in the past, it will be better prepared to deal with them in a major engagement.
Doesn’t this make sense?

And besides, housecleaning is not stimulating enough for me.
I don’t get any satisfaction polishing pots or dusting furniture.
Somebody said “Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture” and I believe it.
In addition, if you are poetically inclined, you could inscribe a thoughtful haiku on a dust-covered cupboard.
And I don’t want to deprive my cat from the joys of spider stalking.

I don’t mean living in a pigsty, but a little bohemian neglect appeals to me.
But between you and me, I am basically allergic to housecleaning. Just thinking of it gives me the hives.

I can see dusting a few things when receiving unfamiliar guests, but doing this on a regular basis goes doesn’t make sense to me.
I’d rather play pétanque than hunt for a few crumbs on the floor.

Some people though truly enjoy cleaning. It relaxes them they say. That’s OK with me.
If in the future you feel a little tense, give me ring. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll find something for you to scrub.

Alain

“When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.” Elayne Boosler

When I am waiting in line somewhere and when a customer ahead of me starts to chew the fat with the checkout girl, my tachometer starts to rev up alarmingly.
There is a time and a place for everything, and tying up shopping traffic during business hours is neither the time nor the place.

When it is time to pay, pull out your plastic and get out of the #@&*% way.
If a truck gets stuck on a bridge and prevents a convoy from going through, many people would favor kicking the damn thing overboard.

The same thing applies to a gabby customer.
I can picture a giant robotic hand coming out of the celling, picking up the flibbertigibbet (excessively talkative person) and dumping her (men are usually not as verbose) somewhere far from the madding crowd.

Or (I am an accommodating fellow) I could picture three different checkout stations.
The first one would be for plodding customers.
The second one would be for “run of the mill” shoppers.
And the last one would be for no nonsense buyers.

And there would be signs identifying each station.
The first sign would say: Plodders. Take your time; tell me about your family.
The second sign would say: Cruisers: Will it be cash, debit or credit?
And the last one would say: Bruisers: Apple Pay, move it, move it.

Women don’t shop because they need something; they shop for the sake of shopping.
For most men shopping is a chore, and we want to expedite that job as quickly as possible.
Personally, (j’aime joindre l’utile a l’agréable) I like to shop from the comfort of my toilet seat.

So ladies, when you are dream walking in a store keep in mind that “one woman’s joy is another man’s sorrow.”
At the cash register, please keep it snappy!

Alain

I always said that if you are dissatisfied with any kind of service, instead of bitching (and probably doing nothing), put your grievances in writing and send it to the people in charge.

Last case in point.
Whenever I bring my car for service to the Toyota dealership in Novato, I have to cross Vintage Way to get a cup of coffee while waiting.

I have been unhappy for quite a while about the extremely short time span allocated to the traffic light controlling the crossing of that street.
The green light will briefly appear (for about 15 seconds) and go back to red while you are only halfway across the street.
This state of affairs is rather annoying, and dangerous to say the least.

Finally fed up with this problem, I wrote (always politely) to the department that I thought was responsible for this situation.

It took a little while, but somebody finally contacted me to tell me that I was barking at the wrong tree.
The outfit responsible for this they told me, is DC Electric Group, an electrical contractor who takes care among other things of maintenance and repair of traffic signals and streetlights.
They related my message to them.

DC Electric contacted me via e-mail and asked me specifically which traffic signal I was referring to.
Acknowledging my request is already a positive development.

I used Google Earth to send them pictures of the exact location of the traffic light and I am now waiting to see if they are going to do anything about this.

They better do it, because when I start something I am like a flea on a dog. I won’t let go. If I don’t get satisfaction I will keep biting them with letters demanding action and they will get tired of this before I do.

Waiting now to see if action speaks louder than words, or for my Hispanic readers “acciones hablan más que las palabras.”

To be continued…

Alain