Category: cranky

Daily Agenda

Sleep.

Wake to alarm.

Curse.

Rise. Eat. Dress. Leave.

Work.

Meeting.

Work.

Meeting.

Meeting.

“Karen, take the action to…”

Meeting.

Work.

Email. Lots of email.

Work.

Late Lunch (if lucky).

Manage someone’s complaint.

Work.

Meeting.

Deal with someone’s mess up.

Work.

Sleepy. Yawn.

Two hours left.

Email.

Meeting.

Work.

Leave work.

Home. Food. Scritch chins of boy and Feline.

Sleep.

And then…..

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

These are the days they never told you about when you were twelve and wanted nothing more than to be a grownup.

That Ain’t Right

Today I have a follow up to last week’s The Great Dr. Pepper Incident.

A reader suggested to me that since the cost of that taste-tested Dr. Pepper was free, and since free is good, didn’t all the no-cost make that nasty Dr. Pepper taste better?

And heck, my readers are brilliant, so of course I considered this to be a good point.

Then I decided to embark upon an experiment.

I would try other sodas in the for-free cooler and see how they fared in the “tastes better cuz it’s free” hypothesis.

First up in my research was a Mountain Dew.

I decanted the Dew into a cup thoughtfully provided by my employers.

Now. Um. That’s not a nice color.

That looks a lot like the last time I tried taking a multi-vitamin supplement. My pee turned that color. WHY IN THE HELL would I want to ingest something the color of vitamin-tainted pee?

That said, I forged ahead. I was able to get through a good deal of the Dew before I gacked out and had to pour it down the nearest drain.

Twenty minutes later, I remembered why, besides color, I don’t drink frapping Mountain Dew.

The caffeine.

I had heart palpitations the rest of the day.

Yeah. Free. So not worth it.

Not one to be easily dissuaded…

…Or, as my father used to say, not smart enough to come in out of the rain…

The next day I plunged back into the challenge.

This time, I made sure I took on something caffeine free.

After checking the entire line of Pepsi products in the cooler, that left only Orange Crush.

Also, I’m going to have to say, that’s not a color I’d generally like my food to be. Not even the orangest of foods, say carrots or pumpkin is that shade of neon orange.

It haunts me.

The taste was even worse. I couldn’t get more than two sips through the Crush before it went right down the drain.

Experiment terminated. The lab rat can’t take it any more.

Conclusion: Free doesn’t actually make a crappy beverage taste better.

Sacrifice, all for the good of science.

Now I must go drink three gallons of water to get all that artificial color out of my liver.

Gah!

The Loneliest Decaf Drinker in the Office

It’s been a while since I was working in an corporate office atmosphere. Well, not that long, but less than a year, and it is amazing how fast you develop new habits.

Don’t get me wrong, working from home was great.

But other than The Feline, I didn’t have any coworkers to render their opinions on my style. Or quirks. Or the number of times I have to use the bathroom in a day.

And I didn’t have to suffer the politics of the break room.

When you get to buy your own coffee, you buy the *really* good coffee. And you make it in a Bialetti. Or a melitta. You make a strong aromatic brew. And you have real half & half on hand.

You enjoy the time and the inclination to savor a cuppa before you dive into the day’s work.

I’m here to tell you, I believe I have found the world’s repository for the absolute worst coffee in the world.

Made from one of those typical office makers that’s seen better days, it’s weak, usually burnt and really sort of dull.

Add to the equation that I can’t tolerate large doses of caffeine, so I am the ONLY person drinking decaf, thus I am the only person making up the orange topped pot. I get strange side looks like “why bother” as I make up the dull brown water.

But today I found a partner in crime. I was making up a crappy pot of decaf with a packet of coffee that is god only knows old (since, seriously, nobody drinks decaf), and one of my new coworkers happened by the break room.

“That really is terrible coffee, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, not wanting to be too complainy on my first week of work.

“You know the coffee bar downstairs serves Peets, don’t you?”

Wha?

My head tilted like a dog who just heard kibble drop in the distant bowl.

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“Yeah. Right downstairs. Behind the elevators. Peets.” I could tell he used small words since I was making it clear I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the corporate sign.

“Wow, I didn’t know. Thank you,” I said.

He left the breakroom.

I dumped the freshly poured cup of decaf with fake creamer in it (gack) down the drain.

I RAN down stairs and found this coffee bar of which he spoke. I bowed as a worshipper honoring their god and ordered a latte.

Oh sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you.

The Great Dr. Pepper Incident

One of the perks of my new gig is that they make a large selection of soft drinks available for free to employees.

Now, this would be nice, except….

Several years ago, I gave up all soft drinks, both regular and diet.

They’re just not good fer the ol’ rig, ya know? Bad stuff, lots of chemicals, extra calories and such.

So except for a splash of ginger ale now and again to float a shot of Maker’s Mark, I don’t drink sodas.

But I have to say, free is pretty tempting, right?

I noted in the cooler, there were some chilled to perfection Dr. Peppers looking at me like the last puppy in the pet store.

When I was a kid, I adored Dr. Pepper. To me, it was nectar of the gods.

So yesterday, day two of the new job, I decided to cave and have myself a free Dr. Pepper.

Well.

Yuck.

I mean, p’tooie, bleah, barf, YUCK!

I took two sips and poured the rest out.

It didn’t taste good. I’m sure some of that is due to the fact I just don’t drink sodas anymore.

But you know what? I think A LOT of my reaction was that stuff from my childhood just doesn’t taste the same or even good anymore.

Over this past weekend, I tried a Little Debbie Star Crunch.

That also tasted not at all like I’d wanted it to.

You know what I blame?

Corn syrup.

Ok, this isn’t going to be a rant about corn syrup and how bad it is for you. It could be, but it isn’t.

I’m just going to say this. Good ol’ fashioned delicious cane sugar and corn syrup are NOT the same thing. The taste, the texture, the consistency, NOT THE SAME.

I blame corn syrup, which is in EVERYTHING these days, for the fact that none of the foods and beverages that I so loved in my youth taste like they should.

One could argue that as I have aged, my taste buds have changed, and there is some validity to that.

But that doesn’t let pesky corn syrup off the hook.

Nope.

Then, just to add insult to injury, after I took two drinks of a Dr. Pepper and threw it out, I had heartburn for the rest of the day.

It just ain’t right.

That Pesky Spell Check

I was rereading a few of my text messages the other day on my iPhone. I was looking for a bit of information a friend had given me, so I had the chance to read what I’d written.

I was a little bit embarrassed. Oh the violations of Funk and Wagnalls I’ve committed and sent out to the universe.

Since I have a full keyboard to use for texting, I tend to shy away from the internet approved shortened word uses. It’s a point of pride to write in full sentence form.

I don’t know why, it just is.

However…that very aggressive auto correct on the phone does tend to trip me up.

That got me to thinking about how much I rely on spell check and auto correct these days, which is bad. Spell check isn’t perfect. A 100% spell checked document could still have mistakes.

Gah!

There are a LOT of words that when spelled wrong, are actually still a word. But ya still look kinda silly using the wrong word.

Also, plenty of times, spell check suggests the wrong word entirely.

I see these misused but correctly spelled quite a bit online, in email and of course, on places like Facebook and Twitter.

You can find a few examples here:

10 Common Errors “Spell Check” Won’t Catch

(I’ll ignore the blatant use of unnecessary quotes in that headline)

Yeah, I’ve either seen or made (or both) all of the errors in the article.

There’s a few that get me that aren’t on that list…like:

Rein, meaning how you steer a horse and;

Reign, meaning how you rule a kingdom.

Right, as in I get to have it, and;

Rite, as in I get to dance under the moon about it.

Also troublsome…

To, too and two. I tend to put too many o’s in there at the wrong time. It’s hard to tell the two apart.

And one that makes me bonkers is lose and loose. I see a LOT of posts on support boards about “if I could only loose ten pounds.” It’s a pet peeve.

The article lists through versus threw. However…that’s not where my language and typing skills break down. Nope, I struggle with

Through, as in, I’m past it and;

Thorough, as in I did a complete job.

I even struggled typing that sentence. Gah!

I’ve noticed lately that even publishing houses, once the very model of correct spelling and grammar, are also slacking off in this department. The last four books I’ve read, all recent publications, have had typos, as many as six in one case.

And internet news articles! Ugh!

It seems no one is watching the chicken coop any more on spelling and grammar. Despite trying really hard not to slip, even I’m guilty as charged.

I fret that as our language continues to evolve, misspelling and bad grammar will become appropriate. English teachers of the world, unite!