Fun Times With Stupid People

I was out to lunch with my daughter the other day and was sharply reminded that stupid people come in all sizes, shapes, colors and ages.

There were two well-over-55-years-old women in front of us at the restaurant. They were staring at the hostess stand as if they'd never seen one before. They stood well back from it, lest the hostess leap over and attack. My daughter waited a bit, then moved around them and put our name in. Then and only then did the women approach the hostess to put their names in. They did it in clear English, so they weren't foreign visitors.

Okay, I know what you're thinking -- they just weren't sure if they wanted to eat there, right? That's what I thought. I mean, they looked like any other set of older ladies, and they didn't have a handler with them, so one assumes they dressed themselves and drove themselves to the restaurant.

I didn't give them another thought...until I went to the bathroom.

While on my way, I passed one of the women. The restaurant owners have pictures of famous and semi-famous people who've eaten there on the walls. The woman was looking at them. I walked right by her, and she looked straight at me, and the ONLY place I could go once past her was either the women's room or the men's. Period. The pictures are literally outside the bathrooms. One step away from the pictures puts you at the restroom doors.

There were two stalls, one was occupied, I took the other. Said woman wanders in after me.

NOW. She's SEEN me go past, so she KNOWS at least one person is in here. But we're being rather quiet. So she sort of pushes on the doors. They don't budge. At this point, a normal person says to themselves, "Both taken, I'll wait. Or look under the doors for feet. Or listen for the sound of flushing." But not this woman.

Another woman comes in, and the woman says to her, "I can't tell if there are any stalls here." She's standing in front of them, mind you, and has already pushed on the doors. The new occupant shares that, look, there are stalls. Mrs. Idiot then says, "Well, there's no sounds and the doors won't open." The other woman shares that, perhaps, just maybe, there are women IN the stalls already and they aren't having gastrointestinal problems so are being quiet. Mrs. Idiot replies, "Oh, I don't know how that could be."

Really? It must be nice to live in a world where you never have to wait for a bathroom stall, EVER. I don't live there, but apparently on Planet Stupido, they have a no waiting policy.

At this point, the other toilet flushes, and shortly thereafter, the occupant leaves. At which point Mrs. Idiot says, "Oh! Is there only one stall and it just fills the whole place?"

Keep in mind, this woman SAW ME GO IN and had NOT seen me go OUT. I'm fairly positive my doppelganger wasn't in the next stall and, sadly, I'm not some tiny wisp of a thing no one would ever notice. Therefore, why would she assume there was only one stall? Where did I go, where was I? France? In the plumbing? Lurking at the back of the "extendo-stall" she apparently decided this was? In the men's room? I'm clearly a girl, so that one's out, too.

The other occupant says, "No, there are two stalls. Two doors, two stalls." Mrs. Idiot says, "Oh, but I didn't hear anything and I couldn't open either one." The other occupant says, "Yes. Because people were and are in them." She chose not to deal with the sound comment -- I was awed by her restraint.

Mrs. Idiot is still remarking on this phenomenon as she enters the stall, I flush mine, and so forth The woman waiting for my stall gave me the universal look for, "what an idiot" and waggled her eyebrows at the other stall. I nodded. No words needed to be said.

But, here's my question. How do you reach AARP age in a big city in the USA without understanding the basic concepts of hostess stands and bathrooms while at the same time having no apparent major learning disorders?

Has this woman's life been SO charmed that she has never, EVER, had to wait for something, not even a bathroom stall? Has the concept of telling someone you'd like to be seated never been one she's had to pay attention to? She didn't look like some former celebrity, if she's part of any royal family they need to stop inbreeding immediately, and no one was acting like her picture needed to be added onto the Wall of Fame by the bathrooms.

Which leaves me with this conclusion: I'm really glad I was in the stalls BEFORE her and got out before she did whatever it is that she does that would alert the world to her stall being occupied.

It's the little things you cherish, after all.

TGC

A Flash in the Can

I was at my massage spa yesterday. Now, before you get any ideas, this is the nice, legitimate kind and I was a client, not earning extra money by using the pseudonym "Mistress VaVaVoom" or something. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

It's a small, well-run, sparkling clean, beautifully appointed place. Great management and staff and, since I'm one of them, fabulous clientele.

There are two things that are a given when you get a massage. You're going to feel better leaving than you did arriving, and your hair is going to look insanely bad until you can fix it up in the bathroom. And you have to fix it up in the bathroom before you leave or bring a baseball cap, and I always forget to bring a baseball cap.

While I'm getting my massage, my therapist mentions that she has a 16-year-old boy coming in right after me. I'm thinking this has to be the smartest kid in the world. He's 16 and has already figured out that massage is great for his physical and mental well-being. I'm thinking that a kid this smart, a kid who's using his or his parents' cash for massage instead of video games or porno mags, he could be President some day.

We finish up and I head for one of the two bathrooms. Neither is marked Men or Women, just Rest Room, since a) it's a small place, and b) there are only two of them. It seems logical to me. And I can read, which clears up any mysteries -- two bathrooms, for whoever gets there first. And, two modern bathrooms, I must stress, with locks on the doors.

Bathroom 1 is clearly occupied. I can tell by the light on and the fact that the door is locked. So I head for Bathroom 2, because I'm not stepping past the bathrooms until my hair is fixed up. The door opens without issue because it IS NOT LOCKED.

I stressed those last words because, of course, you know what's coming and who's in there. Right. Our 16-year-old future President, standing there, doing what males do. With an O-face on that has nothing to do with enjoyment and everything to do with "OHMYGOD".

To my credit, I didn't look down (not that there appeared much to see, but, again, I wasn't actually trying to take a gander). I merely took in the scene, saw his look of complete surprise mingled with horror, said, "Oh, sorry!", and backed out. My therapist and the wife half of the ownership team were standing there, looking at me with that, "Are you kidding me?" look. I, in turn was standing there trying not to laugh like a hyena.

Our future Pres comes out, apologizing profusely to ME. As if seeing a flash of baby wieney was going to psychologically affect me. I have no idea how he felt -- with three grown women, two of whom were absolutely old enough to be his mother, all looking at him, clearly trying not to laugh --but I'll wager it wasn't good.

I went in and of course, of COURSE, I had the worst, most amazingly scary-looking, massage hair ever. I looked at myself and wondered how the kid had not screamed when he saw me coming in. Self-control and the ability to keep hold of one's head (insert your bad joke here) during a crisis is a good Presidential trait.

All the adults had a good laugh about this once I was out and the inner sanctum door was closed, myself in particular. I suggested they check the kid for emotional scarring, and also suggest that, since he's 16, not 6, perhaps we should learn to lock Mr. Door before we take Mr. PeePee in public. I also requested that, the next time they were going to set me up for a cheap thrill, I wanted an adult male in the can, preferably a Chippendale's or Thunder from Down Under guy. If you're gonna play, PLAY.

I also told them to add a couple of bucks to my tip and give it to the kid. I can see nudity any time I want - I'm married and have internet access. But a laugh like this one is hard to come by.

TGC

600 Days

At the end of January I reached a milestone. I hit 600 Days with Club 100.

What's Club 100, you ask? It's a commitment group, started by a romance writer, where you make a commitment to write 100 words a day for 100 days. If you miss a day, you have to start back the next day on Day 1 -- even if you missed a day on Day 99.

My first few attempts at Club 100 were abject failures. My daughter was in speech & debate in HS and I was a speech mom and every other weekend I was judging for an entire Saturday (up before dawn, in bed well past setting sun) and spent all Sunday recouperating. And I work full time and had other things going on as well. I'd crash and burn, despite all efforts. But I kept on starting back at Day 1 and persevering.

Finally, I realized I needed to give myself blackout and floater days -- blackouts were days I just didn't expect to write (Christmas, as an example), and needed to be planned ahead. Floaters meant I got (in my case) 2 days a week where if I just couldn't write, well then, I didn't and it counted as a floater. Voila! I was in business, and able to actually get past 14 days (my prior record after about 6 attempts) that way.

Because I joined Club 100 with two completed novels, one finished novella, and a variety of short stories, I needed to do more than just write and fortunately the rules are clear -- you set up your goals before you start and can't change them until you hit 100 or crash out and begin again.

I set up my goals for this go-round (and all subsequent ones) to include things that moved my writing career forward. So, for any one day, if I did one of the following, I met my Club 100 goal -- writing 100 words or more in any WIP; editing at least 20 pages of a WIP or one short story; in-depth research (among others, I write historicals); writing one query letter to an agent; one submission of a short story or query sent to an agent; in-depth beta/crit feedback; agent research of more than 30 minutes; or one crafted blog (my blogs support my pen names, so have to be in voice and also be relevant, versus stream-of-consciousness). I found that rarely did I only do one of these per day; some days I did all of them, because doing one put me on a roll for doing more.

For my first time hitting 100 days, I counted my floaters and blackouts. I made it about 114 days, if I recall, and then went on vacation and stopped. Back from vacation, I started again -- this time, not allowing myself to count any day I didn't write in my total (ergo, if I wrote on Sunday/Day 12, floated on Monday, and wrote on Tuesday, Tuesday was Day 13). Somewhere along in this next set of 100 days, the real habit kicked in. For the majority of these past 600 days, while I *could* still take a floater or blackout day, I haven't. It's become a massive point of pride to keep my days going without a break. Yes, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, amazingly, even the day I had surgery.

At Day 400 I added in working on my website or business-related activities as legitimate Club 100 marks, as well as speaking engagements, agent consultations, and conference attendance. Why?

Because in this time, I sold my first humor pieces, got an agent, sold my first two-book deal, sold some other shorts, and have a variety of novels being shopped by said agent, and more. And, as far as I'm concerned, I owe it all to Club 100. It helps that there are others there, doing the same thing, logging in their 100+ words a day, hitting their goals, or missing and starting over, again and again. Proves you're not alone and gives you others to run with.

I still mark down what I do in the same little red book I started with. If I don't mark it down daily, I won't do it. After all this time, I still need to have that book sitting on my desk, reminding me that I haven't done anything to forward my writing career today. I doubt that I'll ever stop doing Club 100. My goal now is 700 days, and then 800, and so on. 100 days at a time :-D.

I firmly believe that this is the simplest and best thing anyone can do for their writing career. And I KNOW that if I can do it, you ALL can do it. For writing or whatever else you want to do and do well.

So, you know...why not do it?

http://www.bethpattillo.com/id8.html
To subscribe, send an email to: Club100writers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

TGC

Welcome All Who Managed to Find Me Here

Yes, yes, I know. Yet ANOTHER blog I may or may not update on a semi-regular basis. I know what you're thinking...but why? Was there a reason? At least a rhyme? Something that makes a modicum of sense?

Well...sorta.

See, there's this rumor that where else I blog might be on life support. And I know people who love it over here. And I can have artwork over here. And, you know, new year, new blog! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

So, welcome, new and old, to the New and Improved Log of the Great Corrupter! Promising some kind of humor on some kind of regular basis, whether you need it or not.

TGC