Just like a Slattery

Here are questions we don’t ask others:

1. How much money do you make?
2. How much did that cost?
3. How can you afford that?
4. Have you lost weight?
5. Who did you vote for?
6. Are you saved?
7. Why is your baby so small?
8. What’s wrong with your baby?
9. Was your baby premature?

I bring up the last three items because my friends Lynn and Pete have a brand new, perfect baby girl named Petra. She is tiny and beautiful. She is tiny because she is a baby.

Yet people – people who are adult strangers – like to approach Lynn – also an adult – and ask her why her baby is so small and if she was premature.

In fact, Petra was not premature, and she is not undersized. But that’s not their business anyway.

The only appropriate thing to say to a mother about her baby is “What a beautiful baby!” That’s all. Just say it and stop talking, unless you want to add that you love that sweet little outfit.

I’m not going.

I’m specifically not going because I think it’s somehow wrong to take a family holiday away from an entire segment of the population that makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 an hour.

More and more stores are opening on Thanksgiving evening.

It’s ridiculous enough that they want to open at 4 in the morning on Friday and that people sleep in minivans to be the first in the door to get a deal on a pair of fuzzy slippers made in China.

Retailers are saying, “People want to shop, we have to be there for them.”

I call bullshit.

The merchandise will be there the next day.

Their reasoning is that they can still have early dinner with their families and then come to work.

I used to work overnight. You can’t be up all day and then work all night. The body is not built that way. You need to sleep before you go to work for a full shift.

Some people say well, they should have chosen a better job.

This is what I have to say about that: we do not live in a time in which there are better jobs to choose.

I do understand that nurses and firefighters and police officers also have to work on holidays. However, running a cash register is not a life-saving function.

It’s all just ridiculous. I proclaim it so.

Hand to my heart, someone posted this to an etiquette board:

Yes, you dumbass, it would be rude.

Honestly, when the over-the-internet dopeslap is invented, I’m downloading it immediately.

Yesterday I had to make an appointment for my mother to see a specialist here in Atlanta. Before seeing the specialist, she has to have an MRI. Take my word for it that I am fully authorized to make these appointments and go through these gyrations for her.

Making the first appointment was a piece of cake – I called, they made the appointment; in fact, they would have seen her as soon as today. Lest you think they’re not busy, they are. It happens to be with a group who I see and the receptionists like me – they do things for me.

I asked if the MRI could be done where my mother lives, so as to cut down on the backing and forthing between there and here for them, and they said sure, no problem, and even gave me the name and number of the place.

Of course, they can’t write the orders for it because they haven’t seen her yet, but that’s no big deal, of course, because her Primary Care Physician, who has her medical history, can write those orders. I know they have them, because I have bent over backwards making sure they do. They also have the reports from the visit that has caused this need to see a high-dollar specialist.

And besides, she’s going to see them today and will ask for them for it.

Or at least that’s how I think it should work.

But I call ahead anyway to brief them on the situation, just in case, and I am told we won’t do that.

I beg your pardon? You won’t do that? What do you mean you won’t do that?

I explained that the specialist, see, is here, and my mother lives there, and I’d like to minimalize the travel time. And the specialist can’t order the film because he hasn’t seen her yet.

The woman on the phone said, “Well, we’ve only seen her once.”

Which I understand and all, but they’ve only just moved there. And the office does have all the records. And the reports.

And it’s not like I’m going to use the CD for recreational purposes.

She eventually “expressed” that she was unsure why she had to talk to me.

I did not “express” back that it was because it’s her damn job to talk to me, nor did I “express” back an interest in knowing who signs her paycheck.

I’m not interested in no, I’m not interested in being thwarted, I’m not interested in getting anybody in trouble.

I have worked with customers of one sort of another for a quarter of a century; I have been a customer for longer than that.

I am interested in getting to yes, whether I’m giving service or getting it.

Don’t tell me we won’t do that. Tell me who can do it and who will do it. Tell me what you can do. Tell me what steps I have to take to get where I need to be. Do I need to speak with the doctor directly? Do you need to talk to the doctor who needs the film? Do you need to see me in person, with my picture ID? Do I need to get you a notarized letter from someone? I can make all that and more happen.

There are few things I hate more than willfulness in someone whose job it is to help.

I just booked a room in Rome.

Now I just need a great fare to get me there.

I am feeling so pulled to go somewhere that I’ve signed myself up for notifications from airlines for good rates.

I’m just waiting for one to pounce on.

I’ve made a hotel reservation I can cancel in Rome, but I’m not married to the idea of going there if I can get a better airfare elsewhere, and in fact, I think I’d rather go to London.

I’m really hoping someone will say, “Hey! I want to go too, but I’m resigned to the idea of going alone.”

I just need to get out of the country next spring.

I need to go somewhere.

On a plane.

Where the people don’t sound like I do.

And the food is different.

There’s a sale on tickets to Ireland.

I’ve never been there, and according to ancestry.com, I might have relatives there. Not that I’d expect to stay with them, you understand, but it might be interesting to meet them.

I also need to go back to Rome, because I threw the coins in the fountain and all. And I need to go to London because there’s so much more to see yet.

Best start saving my pennies and watching the airline sales.

Occupy Atlanta is still going on. It has been going on since October 7, which, if you’re counting is 17 days of urban camping.

I can’t seem to make heads nor tails of what it is these particular occupiers are protesting, but if they want to hang out down there and pee in the bushes, I guess that’s their business.

I did listen to an interview on the radio with two of them, which went sort of like this:

Q: What is it you want?
A: Freedom.
Q: You are free. Nobody’s making you leave. What do you want to be free from?
A: Working for a large corporation.
Q: You don’t have to work for a large corporation. Are you opposed to other people making a lot of money working for, say, Coke?
A: No.

You can see where I’d be confused.

Actually, I’m not that naive. I know what they’re protesting, sort of. They want corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, and they want the wealthy to pay their fair share. I’m down with that.

I make considerably more money than a good many people, and I should be in a higher tax bracket than those people. I am proud of where I have gotten to, and I am proud to pay my taxes; I think people who cheat on their taxes are thieves.

However, I think if you really want to see change, to quote my friend Janea, then you need to develop yourself a serious set of skills and either work for those corporations and change things from within, or start your own corporation. I don’t think hanging out in a park and sleeping on cold pavement until you have hemorrhoids will force change as effectively as working your fingers to the bone will.

Tonight the mayor, Kasim Reed, announced that he will move that deadline up. It seems that Saturday a concert was held in the park without the proper permitting, and thus proper security. That event cost the city $100,000, and Atlanta is not rolling in the dough as it is.

And here is the heart of the issue, for me at least: The protesters have a back-up plan, which is to go to the homeless shelter at Peachtree and Pine.

The homeless shelter at Peachtree and Pine is for actual homeless people, and it is already over-crowded, especially as the weather grows cold. That particular shelter is also in danger of closing as it is.

I don’t give a fat rat’s ass if the protesters leave and come back, but I do care if they displace people who quite literally have no place else to go.

I looked at the pictures. Of course I did.

He looks shocked to be dead, like he genuinely never expected to die.

I guess maybe when you’re Qaddafi, you don’t expect to die.

Through no fault of my own, my kitchen cabinets are finally the color I really want them to be, which is to say black. My brother painted them for me and they look great.

And the pulls are on them.

If you’re keeping score, this is their third (and final) paint job.

Now I want new counter tops. I want honed marble. I want a jetpack too, though.