...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Today, I am on my way to a meeting for work two hours or more away from my everyday workplace. A few coworkers and I are carpooling in a minivan...a minivan that has the odor of spoiled milk and children unfamiliar with the concept of a bath. Right now seems like the perfect time to utilize the blogging app on my phone. I have a lot of time to kill and I am hoping it will help me ignore the foul stench of misbehaved adolescents. Probably not, but a man can hope. It's either that or I listen to these guys talk about food. I love food, don't get me wrong...it's just not something I can discuss for two hours while maintaining my sanity. Listening to my iPod is also helping, so I think I'll survive.

These men represent America so well.

So before I tell everyone this story, I'd like to preface it by saying that when it comes to gifts, I have been, am and always will be appreciative of everything I am given, no matter the size or cost. I truly value the thought behind each gift more than anything else. Now this may sound contradictory, but I also believe that it is 'common courtesy' that when somebody does a favor or task for another person, especially one that spans several days and extra attention, that person should be rewarded for their effort. Again, I want to emphasize that it is not owed to the person, but everyone likes to know that their work is appreciated, and one way of doing that is to give something more than a handshake and a thank you. Anytime someone assists me in some way, I always find a way to make it up to them in return, whether it be paying for a lunch or dinner, a case of beer...whatever it may be, AND they will always have the promise from me that I will be glad to help them if and when they need it in the future. I want them to know that I am grateful for their service and I always will be.

Having said that, I'm gonna take you way back...back to when I was an adolescent. I don't recall exactly what age I was - likely in my preteen years - but that's only somewhat relevant to the story. My mom had a friend of hers that worked for an animal hospital/shelter back home in New York and any time they had an overflow of cats at the shelter, she would agree to take them home with her. Some of these cats required special medical attention, so she had no problem taking them in and giving them the necessary care from home. I'll get to the cat head count shortly, so brace yourself. She also had two dogs, both of which only had three legs. I can't make this shit up. This woman and her husband go to the NASCAR race in Daytona every February, and they needed someone to come by twice a day to feed and take care of the animals for a little over a week. The ones that needed medicine were left with pretty simple yet detailed instructions. They asked my mom if I could do it, and I said sure, no problem. That was a bit of a mistake.

So I get to this house, which I had been to before but had only been in the first floor, and I start to do the feeding and litter box changing and whatever other tasks were required to be done. That's when all the cats came out. One after another running down the stairs, coming out of a bedroom, wherever they were hiding. Then I went upstairs to the special room that had all the sick and poorly behaved cats in it. Some of them wouldn't come out from hiding out of fear and some were sick enough that they couldn't come out. Altogether, I estimated there were about forty to forty-five cats in this house. So lets roll with forty...FORTY F'N CATS!! FORTY!! You want to talk about the proverbial cat-lady? This woman was, is and always will be the cat-lady.

It was something along these lines. Plus the two three-legged dogs.

So after the first two visits, I got into a bit of a routine, and what took me about an hour and a half those first couple times took merely thirty to forty-five minutes for the remaining visits. If I remember correctly, they were gone for either eight or nine days. That's eight or nine days of:

• Dry cat food - refilling empty bowls and cleaning the scattered bits
• Wet cat food - old stuff uneaten cleaned out, refilling with new stuff that smells like fishy vomit, adding any liquid medicine where necessary
• Cat litter - scooping what wasn't super full and gross, changing whole litter bags out when they made it a minefield of cat turds
• Cat vomit - the only thing positive here was they had hard wood floors, made for easier cleanup
• Dog maintenance - they were easy...let them out, refilled the food and water, no cleanup indoors (possible result of minimized motivation due to lack of a fourth limb...just sayin')

That's a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a kid. At the time, I didn't mind so much. I do enjoy animals and taking care of them (forty is a bit extreme for me, but I dealt with it), so I did what I had to do.

Hell, the dogs were so easy to handle, if they had four legs,
they'd probably be doing this as well...impressive.

Then they came back from Daytona Beach, and my mom and I went to welcome them home and to return the keys. We dropped in, talked to them for a short time, and then got ready to get up and leave when they handed me a plastic bag. I waited to open it until after we left (part of me felt awkward opening it right in front of them, I don't know...) but made sure to thank them before leaving. Again, I want to emphasize I am always grateful for what is given to me, big or small. That 'thank you' I said to them was sincere, especially since I didn't know what it was until I had already left. Alright...I open the bag (your typical blank plastic shopping bag, either from a gift shop or an airport magazine shop) and I pull out a black t-shirt. Even at this point I'm still anxious to see what was on the shirt, so I open it up and it read "Daytona Beach" in faded yellow/tan.

That's when disappointment sunk in. There wasn't much thought put into what they got me; it felt more like they felt obligated to get something or they forgot until the last day of the trip and grabbed the first shirt they saw. In my mind, I was thinking that I would never half-ass taking care of her pets, whether she had four or forty...doesn't matter. I put honest effort into each step I needed to take to make sure that when I walked out the door, they were all fed and not left with a mountain of poop in their litter boxes. They thought enough to buy me a generic shirt out of what they felt to be an obligation. My only theory is they figured I was so young that I would be happy with any tangible gift and that I didn't understand the value of thoughtfulness.

Yummyyy...

Here are some facts for you to know after hearing this story:

• I still wear the shirt to this day. It no longer has sleeves because I washed it so many times, it began to tear at the pits, but it still exists.
• I still visited their home when my mom went over there and didn't act any differently toward them.
• This became a major reason I always put tons of thought behind each gift I give. I try to get creative and original because I never want to disappoint anyone with a gift I give them.

Some of you may think I'm an ungrateful asshole no matter what because of this story...you're entitled to your opinion. Before that day, this blog's title was simply a phrase to me. Then it became a reality. Come to think of it...if they had gotten me a shirt that said "I went to Daytona Beach and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" and that would have been hysterical to me. Oh well. Maybe you can sympathize. Then perhaps you're an asshole just like me.

At least you're in good company.

D.

Trial & Error Of Human Life

I like to think about the broader spectrum of many subjects. It's always interesting to figure out the origin of certain things, whether they came about on purpose or by accident, and at what cost. By cost, you can argue financial or some other means of value...such as human life. That's right...some things we have, know and understand nowadays came as the result of using humans as test subjects. Obviously there are now laws that prevent this from being a current research method, at least when they're not in a completely controlled atmosphere. Not everything was regulated way back when, though. Even certain controlled experimentation was shady and controversial, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I'll give you a few examples that crossed my mind.

First, poisonous berries growing on various vegetation. Something that crossed my mind is how we came to realize they were poisonous. You have to figure that the earliest of our descendants were willing to give just about anything a try in order to maintain an adequate level of sustenance. In other words, they were looking for ways to survive, by any means necessary. These individuals saw something that was potentially edible, so they figured, "eh...what the hell, why not?" Except it likely sounded more like a series of grunts and clicks, because the English language likely hadn't caught on by then, contrary to whatever Hollywood may portray in certain movies. So they pluck a few berries, pop them in their mouths like skittles, then mysteriously...they get terminally ill and die. How many of them did this before the colony or group of people decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea to be eating these things? Perhaps after Prometheus devoured a handful and passed away only days later, it's possible they thought that Prometheus may have just been a weak link in the clan and that they wouldn't experience the same fate. So they went ahead, had some anyway and died faster than he did. I wonder how many of them died before they definitively decided that they were no good and made it clear to others not to eat them...unless they really really didn't like a certain someone...then they fed them a whole meal of them. It's only logical to assume that several of these curious and hungry souls had to die to figure this out, and to a certain extent, I am personally curious how many. Maybe that's morbid, but hey...you know now not to just eat random berries in the wild. Why? Because they did...and for that you should thank them.

I'm honestly curious if even though they are poisonous, that they are
delicious as well. Only then would I understand why they ate them.

How about shark attacks? If you really think about it, the saying goes, "there's a first time for everything," right? Well there had to be a first shark attack at some point in history. Previous to that one occurrence, I'm guessing people figured there was no harm in bobbing around in the water for whatever reason: cooling off, exercise, fishing, peeing...you get the drill. Then one day, Jimbo goes out into the water to relieve himself and either he came back to shore with two arms, a leg and a nub or he didn't come back at all. If he was alone, this didn't raise a red flag to anyone and it required witnesses during the next occasion for someone to stop aimlessly drifting out into the water. It's possible the first sighting of a shark fin was thought to be a harmless dolphin, and that's only if they knew at that point what dolphins were and that they were in fact harmless. It's entirely possible that they had never seen one from either creature and, once again, curiosity took over rather than fear. They wanted a closer look instead of avoiding an otherwise unknown potential risky situation. Another popular phrase comes to mind here: "Once bitten, twice shy." I highly suspect this was the event of origin for that one. It's interesting to think of how many buffoons suffered an awful fate before the rest of these people decided to be more aware of fins protruding from the water's surface. Clearly it hasn't eliminated these attacks from happening, but that's unrealistic to even consider. All I can say is I remain cautious and aware when I am out I the ocean. I ain't trying to be an hors d'oeuvre for Jaws, you know what I mean?

He clearly didn't hear the "duh-nuh...duh-nuh........duh-nuh duh-nuh"
background noise, otherwise he would have seen this coming.

Ever wonder how they figured out that you shouldn't drink bleach? They do have warnings on the labels so that you know not to ingest it. I highly doubt that they came up with this conclusion without someone first taking a sip and finding out how tragic it can be. Isn't that the main reason they have these warnings on labels in the first place? They wouldn't tell you not to drink it if someone hadn't already made that fatal mistake. The first person...what a jackass. It smells horrible (which is enough for me not to even debate it) and if that person saw what that chemical can do to everyday objects (discolor, disinfect, distort, disintegrate), what makes them think that those effects will not occur inside their body? I could delve further into the humors of warning labels, but that could be for another entry. I think the more interesting thing about these instances I'm mentioning today are that they can't possible be isolated. There is no way possible that only one person has eaten poisonous berries. As we all know, there have been tons of documented shark attacks. So to think that one person was the direct cause for a "Do Not Drink" warning on bleach is illogical. I'm more interested in how many of these morons decided to have a Clorox cocktail and died from it. I don't know that I see it as a total negative, though. They are weeding out some of the weaker elements of the gene pool, so it's not all bad.

Bleach has also been known to cause terrible dye-jobs.
With locks like that, I'd rather drink it, personally.

I'm sure I'll think of more that are worth mentioning, but those are just a few that immediately came to mind. Until then, I'll be headed to the beach, where I'll be drinking Clorox and poison berry smoothies as I ride the waves where some tiger sharks may roam. Sounds fun, right? I thought so too.

D.