200 WORDS OR LESS:

THE CLINTON LEGACY

Today's question is from Great Questions of History:

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Could Clinton be a successful leader despite his private conduct?

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Taking the question literally, I'm inclined to say, "no". However, as Bill himself taught us, words have many definitions, and answers depend on what each word means. So let's assume:

Could - as in "monkeys could fly out my butt"

Clinton - a small town in Wisconsin

be - a form of "is" - could mean anything

a - is a

successful - not destroying all human life

leader - the first two inches of non-magnetized tape on an audiocassette

despite - not to be confused with "despot"

his - a sexist term, ignore this word

private - not in the sense of "private parts", which are naughty

conduct - moving electricity from hither to yon

So "Will humanity will be destroyed by a small town in Wisconsin as non-despotic flying butt-monkeys (not penises) move electricity around a piece of non-magnetized plastic tape?"

Hmmm... I guess the answer is still "no".

WHAT TIME IS IT?

Susie (who is, rumor has it, the best thing to happen to movie theaters since Michelle Pfeiffer in a cat-suit), has a post where she ruminates on how stupid people show up to buy movie tickets, i.e. 6:58 for a 7pm show. As she points out, by the time you get your drinks & popcorn, you're going to miss part of the movie. Yet people do it regularly, and then blame her for their lack of foresight.

I've noticed a somewhat similar (or perhaps opposite) punctuality problem at our bank. We open at 9am, as we have done for the 40 years that we've been at our current location. Yet almost daily, we'll have someone pull up at 8:55, walk up to the door, tug on it, check our "hours of operation" sign, check their watch, and then pace fitfully back and forth until the doors are unlocked. All too often, my door-unlocking is greeted with a grumbled "about time."

I wouldn't complain about this, except that these are often regular customers, and we have a 20 FOOT HIGH SIGN WITH THE CURRENT TIME IN 3 FOOT HIGH NUMBERS.

Our clock is set to network TV time, so I don't think we're to blame here.

But, if nothing else, my clock is bigger than your clock, therefore, I'm right

NYAH!

Anyone else in the customer service industry have a customer punctuality problem?

STRAY NOTE: Susie's interview is up at Sanity's Edge. No cat-suit pics (drat!), but plenty of intelligent conversation and gratuitous man-lust.

LISTENING TO WHISPERS

As a horrid overgeneralization, men speak to offer solutions to problems. Women speak to express their emotions. One of the things I love best about my wife is that she's much less emotional than typical females. But she still has her Spock's mom "sick to death of your logic" moments.

Over the years, I've learned that when she lashes out, it's usually a request for love, support, or attention, and I've learned to talk with her, patiently and understandingly, until we discover her real need.

In those same years, I've also discovered that, more often than not, when I'm angry with my beloved wife, the real cause of my frustration is that  there's some unaccomplished task whose nagging undoneness makes me feel like I'm not sufficiently in control of my life. Being more like Spock than his mother, I fix this by sitting quietly and thinking until I discover the loose thread in question. Once spotted, I can take a metaphorical pair of scissors to it & I feel better.

David, over at Sketches of Strain phrases it most aptly:

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When I get bees in my head (or bats, or shit-throwing monkeys, or whatever), I do my best to try and figure out what they want. Most of the time, they want me to write something. Sometimes they're just telling me that I need to eat. Or sleep. Or stop obsessing about whatever it is that's making me grind my teeth in my sleep and either fix it or accept that I can't.

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It's a nice piece, and well worth a read, if for no other reason than that warm, comforting, "I'm not alone" feeling.