Author: Thomas Walters

“I need to send this back.” Words that strike fear in every waitperson’s heart.  It means they need to explain to the chef why the order didn’t fly, and it sometimes means the waiter’s tip just spiraled downward from 20% to “whatever”.  It’s a death sentence for the food.  That entrée has already been on the table.  Once it goes back to the kitchen, no reprieve.  It’s on a one-way ride to the dumpster out back.  Some may survive to be a snack or a take-home for a staff member, but most are garbage. The waitperson therefore feels compelled to ask deeply probing questions about the cause of said return.  There are several possible scenarios at work here. Continue reading “The Art of Returning”

We’ve all watched the Super Bowl commercials, thinking how much creative thinking and imagination has gone into those that we’ll see once or twice, then they go into the vault forever. What we’re left with is often truly forgettable, and to compound the problem, we’ll see them once, twice, three times a half hour.  Here are a few of my nominations for the “You Shouldn’t Have Bothered” Ad Awards. Continue reading “More Commercials (that shouldn’t have been made)”

Last September, I celebrated two years on the air – well, not really on the air but more over whatever the internet is.  I can keep track easily because the host site contacts me for more money.  It’s our symbiotic relationship.  I  keep writing, and they  charge my credit card. Continue reading “Pre-Ode to Fall, or August Lament”

You, my faithful readers, are quite right. This will be one of those blogs that lacks my usual light-hearted, deftly humorous touch, because it’s a serious subject.  It needs to be approached seriously. I debated long and hard – in fact I started this when it first came into print.  I started writing, and then turned back, but now the time feels right. Continue reading “Bullying: Let’s Call It What It Is”

Robo-calls.  We all get them, we all ignore them, we try to put them out of our minds.  Every so often, though, it’s a legitimate call that we missed because . . . . . well, it came from a cell phone number we didn’t recognize or a destination that seemed familiar, so maybe we should answer . . . . Continue reading ““We’ve Been Trying to Reach You . . .””

We were lying in bed the other night – I peacefully reading my book, when Herself spotted a “bug on the ceiling”.   It turned out to be a small moth.  I’m thinking “no big deal, it will fly away.”  My wife, on the other hand, foresees an Alfred Hitchcock ending in which that moth will give a signal and legions of moths will descend on her.  While I’ve never heard of moths actually attacking humans, particularly as they have only what, one nerve cell and no brain?  So, the chances are pretty slim that they’ll be planning an attack on her in the night, but no matter – it could happen. I sprang into action, going in search of a swatter.  The moth thoughtfully, and unlike most other insects I’ve encountered, stayed in place until I could return and miss it with a truly vibrant swipe.  It wisely flew off and is most likely still hiding behind a bureau wondering what all the fuss was about. Continue reading “Accosted By Nature – My Wife’s Story”

As I was out watering my garden plants this morning, I realized that despite my best efforts, they’re not stagnant.  There’s an ebb and flow.  At moments, they look spectacular, and once I’ve planted some containers, I expect them to stay that way until the fall.  That never happens.  They go through ups and downs, although I water and fertilize them, loosen the soil, pick off the dead blossoms, and do pretty much everything I can to make them look their best.  Occasionally, one or two plants will need to be replaced, and that changes the whole complexion of the container.  Sometimes I like it better, sometimes not quite so much.  My garden is constantly . . . elusive. Continue reading “Life is . . . .elusive”

Ok, my trusted belief system has been shattered.  In June, blogger Elizabeth Newcamp wrote a feature for Slate.com about her family’s House Hunting experience.  Here are the backstories we’re not supposed to know, and I haven’t been this devastated since I found out Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction or that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a cardboard cutout.   Here are some of the items that are leading me to believe that television hasn’t always been fully honest with us viewers.

Disillusion #1  The home buyers have already purchased a place, and the other two properties they see are just decoys.  Some folks have been in their new homes for quite some time. Can you imagine?  Often, the buyers take out their belongings so the house would look vacant, and then bring it back after the filming.  The neighbors watching their stuff go out must be thinking “They were so nice and only here for a short time.  Wonder what happened?”  Clothes left in closets remain behind closed doors, and the director shoots from certain angles so as not to give away the oddity that an empty house has closets full of clothes or kitchen cabinets full of pots and pans.  Must be squatters. And it’s no wonder the perspective buyers know their way around pretty well.  They probably told the camera person to be careful where the bathroom tiles are coming up.  That’s rather a dead giveaway that they’ve been in here before. On the up side, it clears up the mystery of why they were forced to buy one of the three properties, even though none of the really “ticked all the boxes”.  I thought it was in the tv contract – “The buyers are obligated to purchase one of the three houses we pick out for them on pain of prolonged litigation or possible banishment.” Now I know – it’s a safe bet because they’re already the proud owners.  It still doesn’t explain how a professional light bulb changer and a stay-at-home mom with three small children and two large dogs are working with a  $1.2 million budget.

Disillusion #2  Some of the houses the buyers visit aren’t even for sale.  Ms Newcamp revealed that in some tight markets, like their home in The Netherlands, there simply weren’t any similar houses for sale, so what they visited and we saw, besides the house they’d already bought, were Airbnb rentals.  That’s like telling me that “Temptation Island” isn’t really an island. It’s a fake rental beach, with fake sand and villas that are movie set fronts.  Does that mean that nice Canadian couple planning to retire didn’t find a place in Porta Vallarta, and are still stuck in Saskatchewan?  That’s disappointing for me because I’ve invested a lot of time (well, half hour but still . . .) watching them drive all over the place and sip those fancy drinks with the little tiki umbrellas while they tried to make up their minds.

Disillusion #3  Some of the real estate agents aren’t even real estate agents.  One was a neighbor filling in. Others are members of the crew or someone they could get to fill in.  This is outrageous.  They’re talking about the market and market values, architectural styles, so on and so on like they actually know what they’re talking about.  From time to time, they’re standing in front of a Victorian, telling the agent how pleased they are with “this Craftsman”  they were looking for, and I’m thinking . . . . no, it’s not.   Some of these folks try to sound so knowledgeable when the truth is, they wouldn’t know a bungalow from a manor house. They pretty much pick a style out of hat, most likely in the belief that if they say it authoritatively enough, people will believe it.  (“Oh, that’s what a mid-century modern looks like.  They must know more than I do, because they’re on tv.”)  It also explains why our real estate agent from Britain suddenly showed up in Spain one week.  He gave us some line about having a vacation home there and knowing the area, but now I’m suspicious.  Either there aren’t any real estate agents in Spain, or this guy is already under contract and they’re saving a peso or two.

Disillusion #4  I thought some of these couples were just disagreeable, and the marriage wouldn’t last until closing.  Now we know that the show’s producers tell them to be argumentative and confrontational. A number of them have that down pretty well anyway, and they have shrill voices that, to quote Archie Bunker, “go through me like a nail”.  They’re directed to obsess about something – bathtubs, three car garages, yoga rooms. Some make up names for their required spaces.  “I need my Creative Hot Spot”, phrases they repeat endlessly until we want to push them off the roof deck. One thing they all seem to need is room to entertain.  I often wonder, if they’re fighting all the time, do they have many people that can stand to be around them, much less to entertain? Those gatherings at the end must be the wrap party with the cast and crew, and that large deck will never be used again.

In the final disillusion, even the parents’ basements or the sibling’s house where the perspective home buyers are staying while they look are staged.  The writer tells us that pictures were taken in a bogus hotel room, meant to imply that they’d been living there for quite some time during the house hunt. This really blew me away.  That means that when home buyers “need lots of room for their things in the new place”, are all those piles of crap real, or did they fill up at Goodwill on the way over and, in reality they could make do with a tree house?  Now I find out it’s all part of the act.  All these years, I’ve been happily watching people find vacation homes they shouldn’t be able to afford, assuming they’d been preapproved by the Bank of Fantasy Island, or seen them as they’ve given up their jobs, sold all their possessions and moved to Fiji to prep for “Survivor”.  I should have known when they needed extra bedrooms for all the friends and family that would be coming to visit.  If they move to Fiji, they’re on their own – a sleeping bag should suffice.  It’s no more real than “Jersey Shore”.  I know exactly how Snooki and The Situation felt in season 2 when they found out that . . . . . ok, I won’t spoil it for you.

Now, it seems that perfect vintage home number three is actually a bed and breakfast in Billings, Montana. It’s no more real than a Kardashian child’s name. Is it possible that the Lottery Dream Home winners haven’t won more than two bucks, and that dream doublewide they picked in Iowa is a fake farm, with a fake tractor out front? Some of those folks, if I’m totally honest, don’t really look like lottery winners.  They’re just a bit too friendly and folksy. Next thing we’ll find out is that America’s Top Models aren’t real models, or that only about half of the people on Dancing With The Stars aren’t really dancers. Is it possible that the Bachelorette is also staged, and these aren’t legitimate dating opportunities?  That said, I have had my doubts about a couple of designers on Project Runway this season, particularly that quirky one with the funny hair and Elton John glasses.  Bribery is the only explanation for her to make it to the finals.

I feel so betrayed, so deceived, yet in a way relieved that Ms Newcamp has set us straight and revealed the truth.  “In House Hunters We Trust” ought to be removed immediately from all HGTV currency. We the viewers have been totally manipulated.  We now realize that a life-changing event like a home purchase has been subverted and distorted by television producers, directors, and – get this – the people in marketing. I shudder to think what other falsehoods have been broadcast that we innocents are to have believed. Maybe Jonathan can’t even operate a power saw, or that Drew just drives around all day wearing those skinny ties and waiting for someone to call him.  (Hmmmm, now that I think about it, we never have seen him in an actual office writing up the paperwork.) Maybe Chip and Joanna are just the new Brady Bunch, and those kids are all actors from a temp agency. No, that can’t be – I’ve seen her design magazine, and we all know that magazine publishers wouldn’t mislead us, would they?   All this is just so disappointing.  I’m starting to doubt everything – gasoline prices, food expiration dates, presidential campaign promises, a bounce back in the coal industry, Donald Trump’s golf handicap or that Don Junior can run the business, the Game of Thrones finale, everything.  Oh, No . . . . . . . . . My world is crumbling.

 

I was in the store the other day, needing to pick up laundry detergent among other things.  Just so you’ll know, I like to keep one or two back-ups so that I don’t run out mid-washing cycle.  I know, it’s a bit compulsive, but I’m that way with bars of soap, boxes of tissues, tubes of toothpaste, etcetera, etcetera.  There is a chance that I may be increasingly CDO – that’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, but with the letters in the correct . . . . oh, never mind.  Anyhow, I found the detergent, but somehow the bottle felt small and a little light. I usually buy the smaller ones, “33 loads”, because it’s easy to lift down from the shelf.  Now, they’ve replaced the “33 loads” bottle with a new one: “26 loads”.  Surprisingly, the price was the same as the old “33 loads”. You’re probably shocked, as I was. Continue reading “The Incredible Shrinking . . . Groceries”

Have you ever noticed that what advertisers say, and what they truly mean, are two entirely different things?  While we beg for truth and transparency – in our government, in our families, in our daily lives, our country’s entire economy is built on mild to wild fabrications, and we’re buying into and adapting it.   Continue reading “What They’re Really Saying Is . . . . . . .”