My sister-in-law Sarah Jane had an astounding realization: every time my dad leaves the house, my brother John plays the song "Agony" from Into the Woods. Every time. Apparently he even played it in the car today.
(Pet Store | WY, USA)
(An irate customer comes flying through the door and slams a soaking wet, dead hamster on the counter. I recognize her as a woman I had sold a hamster to an hour ago.)
Me: “Oh my goodness what happened?!”
Customer: “I took this hamster home and he didn’t even live 10 minutes!”
Me: “Why is he all wet?”
Customer: “From being in the aquarium! He swam for awhile, but then he just dropped dead!
Me: “I’m sorry, are you telling me you put him in an aquarium full of water?”
Customer: “You told me hamsters can live in aquariums! You said I didn’t need to buy a cage specifically for hamsters!”
Me: “Hamsters can live in an aquarium, but not in water! When you were picking him out didn’t you notice the others are in empty aquariums with bedding?”
Customer: “You told me he could live in an aquarium! I demand a new hamster! One that is alive!”
Me: “I really don’t think any of our animals are going to work out for you.”
"(Call Center | Victoria, BC, Canada)
(A customer calls in to report his cellphone as stolen 3 weeks earlier while he was on vacation in Vietnam. He had just received a bill for a few thousand dollars for international usage. I asked if I could put him on hold while I checked into his problem. I used the time to confirm the billed calls from Vietnam were to numbers from previous bills; numbers he called all the time. I looked up his to see where the phone was currently registering and was unsurprised to find it registered to a US cell tower. I decided to call it.)
Me: “Hello sir, this is [name] from [service provider]. We were just having a conversation about this phone being lost on your other line. You do realize that what you are attempting to do is fraud? Given the amount of money involved it would be considered a felony.”
Customer Cell Phone: *click*
Landline: *click*
(I dialed into his voicemail and left a very detailed message about prompt payment and made copious notes on the account. The account was paid in full and on time.)
"(Bookstore | PA, USA)
(It is December and Christmas decorations have been recently put up throughout town. I recognize our town manager, in the store. She is responsible for all the towns’ decorations.)
Me: *as I am ringing up her books* “I love all the lights downtown!”
Town Manager: “Thank you!”
Me: “My favorite is the reindeer topiary garden!”
Town Manager: *scowling* “Well they do look nice, but unfortunately the children like them too.
Me: *confused* “Excuse me?”
Town Manager: “The children! They are always trying to touch the reindeer.”
Me: “I’m sure they’re very excited about Christmas, and hearing all about Rudolph.”
Town Manager: “The decorations are for looking at! Not for touching! I suggested electricity but no one liked that idea.”
Me: “You suggested what?”
Town Manager: “Just a light jolt, to discourage the children!”
(I am stunned and silent.)
Town Manager: “No, no one else liked that idea either.”
Me: “Here are your books! Happy holidays!”
"
"
- There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
(Tech Support | Riverside, CA, USA)
Customer: “I’m having issues with my Outlook.”
Me: “Show me the problem you’re having so I can see if I can fix it for you.”
(She has six passwords each over twenty characters long, Bios password, Windows password, Zone Alarm Password, Outlook Password, etc…)
Me: “You don’t need to have your passwords that long for security’s sake.”
Customer: “I read on the internet that sniffers give up if the password is too long.”
Me: “I’m happy you did your research, but you don’t have to have it longer then 15 characters long.”
Customer: “Well I’m afraid if someone steals my laptop, the programs that can recover passwords can’t detect past twenty letters.”
Me: “That’s true, but no one really does that anymore. In this business we have customers coming in all the time to have us remove the password for them because they forgot it. For instance, I can get into your laptop in less then 2 – 3 minutes without your help.”
Customer: “No way. I’ve made precautions.”
Me: “I will be more then happy to show you that I can. But I would have to charge you a half hour fee and you would have to sign the work order giving me permission to.”
Customer: “And if you can’t? ”
Me: “Then I will be more then happy to refund you the money and you would have won this war.”
(Customer then pays the fee and signs the work order.)
Me: “Give me a moment.”
(A minute later.)
Me: “Here you go, I’m logged in to your Outlook.”
Customer: “Oh my God! How did you do that?”
Me: “If your really worried about someone stealing your laptop, you shouldn’t have laminated your passwords to the laptop.”
(Military | Richmond, VA, USA)
(Canadian Army Reservists go to Fort Pickett in Virginia to train with the National Guard. I am in the last flight out of the U.S. and back to Nova Scotia. I am in my uniform, waiting for to be processed through security when a fellow traveler approaches me.)
Traveler: “Thank you so much for protecting us! We are so proud of the bravery of soldiers defending the United States!”
Me: “Thank you ma’am, but I’m not an American. I’m from the Canadian Army.”
(She looks confused, so I point to the small Canadian flag on my shoulder.)
Me: “You know, your friendly neighbours to the north?”
Traveler: “Oh! Mexico!”
Related:
Yukon Not Believe This Juan
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| The Three Joes. My dad, brother and grandfather. |
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| No, this is not an old picture of me and John. |
Jeffrey has a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, which we call "autism" for convenience. So here's my dilemma: Jeffrey doesn't have any understanding of Communion. Zero. He's not even baptized, and in fact, he had recently summarized his theology for me as, "At the end of the Bible, Jesus finally gets to come down from the cross."Most weeks, my son John goes to church with me, and he is very welcomed there.
So, I defer. But the next week he springs up again, as if "The gifts of God for the people of God" were spoken to him personally. He doesn't know about the historical controversy over Transubstantiation, he doesn't know that the Early Church believed that if you took Communion in the wrong way or with the wrong attitude, in the words of a local pastor, "God could freaking kill you."
Most of all, he doesn't understand my conflict with Communion. It is so laden with expectations, with the trappings of human authority, with a presentation that emphasizes transaction, with quid pro quo. Do this and get that. It can and often does feel forced.
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| Victoria and Will - June 2010. |
Emily just sent this photo, what a great shot! She and James are getting very good at this.
Researchers at the Autism Genome Project have released the biggest study to date on the genetics of autism, comparing the genes of 996 people on the autism spectrum with those of 1,287 people without the disorder. They found that people with certain genetic variations (CNVs) were 20 percent more likely to be autistic than people without them, but also that "most people with autism are probably genetically quite unique, each having their own genetic form of autism." The study was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists believe that as many as 300 genes may be implicated in connection to autism and that the targeted genes are linked to cell formation and nervous system development. "These are not random hits in the genome," a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory told Science Now. Still, "only 1 percent of the genetic defects were shared among the study participants," AOL News says, and very few were inherited from parents. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 110 children is on the autism spectrum, and the "the prevalence of autism among eight-year-olds has increased 57 percent from 2002 to 2006." The Guardian writes that uncovering the genetic basis of autism could "help further allay parents' fears of a sinister environmental cause" and assist in developing treatments for other diseases linked to CNVs, including learning disabilities, mental disorders, and epilepsy. In the meantime, scientists have enlisted 1,500 new participants to finish sequencing the whole genome.
Read original story in Discover | Thursday, June 10, 2010
