My Neighbor Channels His Inner Trump

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" New pope? Just say nope! Choose a deity who won't be hitting you up for tithes so his priests can wear expensive dresses.

Different topic: We're quite upset here in Johnsonia. I guess it's bound to happen when houses are built too close together. In short, despite the five Harris signs he put on his lawn last fall, my neighbor is straight up a Trump wannabe.

Look at how he has marked the boundary between his regular old New Jersey property and the Independent Republic of Johnsonia!

EXHIBIT A: THE BIG, BEAUTIFUL WALL

A few weeks ago, our next door neighbor told Mr. J that a fence update was in the works. Previously, the fence was a little picket unit, about up to my navel. You know the type. Well, look at what replaced that little picket fence! On the neighbor's side it has decorative planks. On ours, zilch. Neighbor didn't even ask the construction worker to inquire if we wanted decorative planks on our side.

Admittedly, Johnsonia has allowed some emigration. Specimens of common milkweed, for instance. It's native to New Jersey, and it will grow even amongst grass in the lawn (especially if you don't mow your lawn but once a summer, as this neighbor has done in the past). And granted, we have seen mint crossing the border, but come on. Mint! Put it in your iced tea! It's a gift.

About ten years ago, when some kind of critter took my first ripe tomato, snapped a bite out of it, and discarded it, I gave up on gardening. Instead I sowed the garden patch with native plants, like milkweed, goldenrod, and asters. The patch doesn't get a great deal of sun, so these natives do flourish, but they grow tall and rangy. They aren't well-groomed shrubbery.

But when Mr. J apologized to the neighbor for the wildness of our yard, the neighbor said he didn't care about that, it didn't bother him. Why, then, did he pay someone to construct such a monstrosity?

To clarify, fence zoning in Haterfield says that he who fences first fences last. When Mr. J and I moved into Johnsonia, we had fencing on every side, none of it in our control. It's still like that. We can't put up a fence because our neighbors already did, before we even moved in, closing in on 40 years ago.

Who builds a 7-foot wall between themselves and their neighbors, knowing what it will look like on the neighbor's side? My daughter The Fair says she thinks the neighbor is trying to hide something. I'm not going to argue the point. This family used to be sweet and friendly, and we socialized from porch to porch with them. But the dude in particular has gone from chummy to peculiar. The wall is the result.

In contrast, Johnsonia's neighbors on the other side worked with us when they updated their fence.  We even offered to help them pay for it (they never billed us). It looks the same on both sides. Pretty.

EXHIBIT B: JOHNSONIA'S OTHER BORDER

That is also a tall fence, but it's civilized. Neighborly. And yeah, that green mess is what passes for a garden in Johnsonia. I can't bring myself to try to eradicate the wisteria. It was here when I got here. Like the fences.

Reader, I do actually feel like Canada or Mexico. I feel like my next door neighbor has acted in bad faith.

But time is on my side.

This wall is going to look like the rim of Hell for about two years. After that, the abundant Virginia creeper that swathes everything it can crawl onto will have a field day (!) with it. Virginia creeper is also native. I'm constantly pulling it off the sides of Johnsonia's garage. Well, I won't have to pull it off the wall! It will be an improvement.

I do honestly want to hear your opinion on this matter. Why did my neighbor do this? He who has a Pride flag by his door? I don't get it.

Pep Rally

 Ugh, have you ever had to suffer through a pep rally? I don't mean a fun one, like when your NFL team is in the playoffs. I mean a high school one.

For those of you who need a refresher course, high school pep rallies are held to celebrate the sports teams. Twice a year (fall and spring), the entire student body files out and sits on the bleachers to scream and shout for the jocks.

To make an already dreadful celebration worse, students are seated together by grade level. At my school, each grade has a different color, and classes get points based on how many kids wear that color to school on pep rally day.

Then some admin or teacher grabs a mic and whips the students up by grade level, seeing which grade can scream the loudest.

Then the coaches of each sport stand up and introduce every member of every team. This afternoon my school had baseball, softball, boy's volleyball, robotics, and esports. Well, being a nerd who hates noise, I could get behind the robotics and esports clubs. Still, a lot of shy people got introduced for (in my opinion) no good reason.

Then more screaming, because the first time wasn't enough.

Then there are games that pit one grade level against another, again for points. Stuff like tug of war and musical chairs and water balloon toss. Stuff involving a small number of students from each grade, and even then they have to beg ten seniors to participate.

This riveting spectacle invariably falls on an unseasonably hot and humid afternoon when everyone (including the jocks) would rather be inside dozing through the final class period of the day.

Having endured pep rallies as an alienated teenager back in the 1970s, I can't tell you how positively soul-sucking it is to be sitting through two of these things a year at my current age. As a teen I only had to slog through eight of them, total. Now they just stretch into the distance, almost to the horizon. Pep rallies, pep rallies, rah rah rah.

What is it about our species, that we want to be separated into tribes that compete against other tribes, and we want to celebrate our warrior men and women? Why is screaming and stomping on aluminum bleachers more appealing than, say, making a nice craft at a table, in the shade?

It seems to me that the human race spends much too much time screaming and stomping and forming ridiculous tribes.

I can't end this rant without admitting that I, too, am in a tribe -- the Radical Lunatic Left, and we do get together in big groups from time to time. Looks like I'll be joining some peppy little protests in the weeks to come. But to be completely honest here, I'm ready to pivot. I want my craft table in the shade. I want to sit in a circle and talk about my feelings.

*Sigh* Guess I shouldn't sit down to write a blog post an hour after a high school pep rally. Don't worry, though. I'll bounce back. I'm always ready to MAKE. SOME. NOISE.

A Rant about Baseball

 This is "The Gods Are Bored," and I assure you, I love baseball. It's my favorite sport, because I am in constant awe that anyone could hit such a small ball, moving so fast, in such a way that it will fall somewhere in a field. It's amazing. And it's the only sphere (ha ha) of life where being 1/3 good at your job makes you a superstar.

As a child, I went to sleep listening to the Baltimore Orioles on the radio. My parents were Orioles fans, and they would put the game on at night. I can clearly remember wondering how all the players' names were spelled. Sure, Jim Palmer and Brooks and Frank Robinson, easy. But Andy Echebarran? Carl Yazstremski? Mike Cuellar? Woof.

The Orioles were great throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Then they got hot again in 1979, just in time for me to be living six blocks from the stadium through the summer. To sweeten the pot, the Orioles had a student ticket price of $1.75 for upper deck. Yes, the decimal point is in the right place.

I went to every home game that summer.

The way it worked was, I would walk down to the stadium, go to a ticket booth, show my student ID, get a paper ticket, and go to the turnstile. At the turnstile, one of many ushers would tear the ticket in half and give back the stub. Done! Find a seat. Sometimes I sat by myself, sometimes I had friends with me, and sometimes I sat in a section full of rowdies who, like me, went every night.

When I got home from a game, I would take a piece of scotch tape and tape the ticket stub to the wall in my apartment. I didn't start doing this until nearly mid-season, but I'm pretty sure I had more than 50 stubs on that wall.

Good times, good times.

But enough of the great bygone days. Let's look at a modern trip to the ballpark, shall we?

The Orioles were in Philadelphia for a three-game visit. Self, Fair, and Mr. J got seats for the 7/25/23 game, which cutely happened to be "Christmas in July." I am fully aware of how Philadelphia fans treat visiting teams and their fans, but I was determined to wear my bright orange Orioles Hawaiian shirt that The Heir had trash-picked from West Philly. More about that in a moment.

Mr. J purchased the tickets, lower deck on the third base side. They cost $60 apiece, with another $20 for guaranteed parking near the third base entrance. The cost alone is jaw-dropping. But to make matters worse, I had to download an app to access a QR code that was my ticket. Ponder this. Go ahead, I'll give you a moment.

This is Philadelphia, so of course I got trash-talked before even getting within spitting distance of the ballpark. But the Orioles are hot at the moment, and Baltimore is only 100 miles from Philly, so I had plenty of fellow fans in orange to commiserate with. (Mr. J wore neutral colors and Fair, a fan of all things Philadelphia, was decked in home team colors.)

When we got to the entry kiosk, I didn't know how to hold my phone so the stadium could scan the code. Fair had to do it for me. And oh yes, before that step we had to go through a security checkpoint that took an X-ray of the contents of our purses.

Finally in the stadium, $200 out of pocket, and one "go back to Baltimore" so far.

Reader, have you been in one of these modern ballparks? They are as loud as the halls of Hell. It isn't fans cheering, it's the jumbo-trons. DANG you cannot hear the person sitting next to you! (Which, given that I was surrounded by Phillies fans, might have been a good thing.)

Mr. J and I had been determined to eat an early dinner before we went to the ballpark. But one thing led to another, and we didn't. The worst place in the world to be hungry is a modern baseball park. The food is dreadful, and you have to take a second mortgage to purchase it. No exaggeration: a bottle of water is five bucks. I don't know what Mr. J spent on the inedible sandwiches he bought for us, but he tells me they don't take cash at the food stands. Lord love ten thousand fruit flies! I'll bet he paid more for the food and beverages we consumed during that game than we did for the half bushel of large, fat crabs from TL Morris Seafood last week.

The stadium was packed. The fans were loud. The Phillies either trailed or tied until the bottom of the ninth, when they got two outs and then scored and won the game. This exhibit about sums it up.

EXHIBIT A: CITIZENS BANK PARK, 7/25/23

About all I can say is, my shirt is the tits.

I wish I could say I'm done with live baseball for all time, but I already have a ticket to another game in late August. This ticket only cost $40, but then I bought a plus-one for Mr. J, so oh boy. It's possible for us to use mass transit to get to the ballpark, which will maybe save us a whopping $10. But I am going to be like Persephone in Hades and not let a morsel of food or drink pass my lips while there.

Just think of it. I saw a whole damn season of home games in 1979 for less than one game in 2023. And I had something to tape on the wall when I got home.

About the only thing that's stayed the same is my devotion to the Baltimore Orioles. What a great team. Go Birds!

I Can't Fucking Believe I Have To Defend Librarians

 When this blog started, I threw the shade of a sprawling oak over the lunatic fringe better known as the evangelical Christian right. That group is still the lunatic fringe, so how have they seized the nation in their evil iron grip?

Now they're coming for librarians.

Librarians.

You know, those quiet and underpaid people (predominantly women) who check out books and tell you which floor the restroom is on in a whispery voice.

Librarians are being called groomers for showing up at work and checking out books. They are being threatened with firing and physical harm.

Librarians.

I was a bookish kid from the time I could crawl. I've spent countless hours in libraries. I can remember my parents taking me as a toddler. I went just last week to the Haterfield Public Library to ask about the summer reading program.

Sixty years of libraries.

And in all that time, the only librarian who ever offered me books was the one on the Bookmobile that came to my neighborhood in the 1960s. She would have a stack of Dr. Doolittle and Freddy the Pig books for me. Was she grooming me to talk to animals?

I've never known a librarian who was outspoken. I've never known a librarian who tried to befriend her patrons. Librarians are more anonymous than the servant staff of a British estate. If teenagers are paying mind to librarians these days, it really and truly is a whole new world.

But the lunatic fringe is painting this humble profession as a den of vipers, out to turn straight kids gay by having LGBTQ books on the shelves.

I am genuinely curious, readers. How do you choose what book to read? Do you ask a librarian for a recommendation? I literally haven't done that ever. The Bookmobile librarian brought me Freddy the Pig books because my mom recommended them. When I outgrew my mom, I had friends. In 60 years of using libraries, I have never asked a librarian for a recommendation.

But the librarians choose the books that get put on the shelves, right? Well, let's take a look at that task.

There are hundreds of books published each month, and I've never seen a library that didn't have a tight budget. This means that acquisitions librarians (who are even more shy than the ones at the desk) read the trade publications and choose the books that get the best reviews. If these acquisition librarians have any agenda at all, it's to try to stock books in a way that all the readers using the library will find helpful.

So, having conquered abortion rights, having distributed lethal firearms far and wide, now the lunatic fringe is coming for those gentle creatures who check out books, just because the gentle creatures have titles that include all kinds of people, and not just lunatic fringe people.

This is like the fucking Red Scare.

Librarians. It boggles my mind. It's like blaming chipmunks for your cat clawing the furniture.

Shout out to the lunatic fringe: Threaten the librarians, by all means. But don't hesitate to trust that clean-cut youth pastor who wants to build blanket forts for late-night "Bible study." He's all up and up.

Fascist morons.

Another Haterfield Rant: Leaf Blowers

 Ah, beautiful! It's Friday afternoon after a long week, the temperature is a balmy 65, and the sun is beaming down. Bliss?

Sorry, Bamp! Wrong. No bliss. Five o'clock, and my jackass millionaire neighbor has his landscaping crew scouring every inch of his sucky property for the one leaf that the leaf blowers didn't find last fall.

Don't you just fucking hate leaf blowers? I can't think of a tool I despise more. Loud, stinking, and stupid is no way to present yourself to the planet. And yet I smell and hear this pestilential equipment going full bore, just as I sit down on the porch with my mocktail. I deserve better.

Granted, I do not have a very big yard. But I rake it from back to curb a couple of times a year, with a damn rake. All you hear with a rake is scrape scrape scrape, crackle crackle crackle. And you don't smell a thing. I'm 63 and I still rake my yard. My neighbors half my age crank up their leaf blowers dozens of times a year. Yet somehow, I don't have any more leaf litter in my yard than they do.

Many and many a Saturday morning has been marred by the gas-powered blowing menaces. Here I am, biffing out onto my front porch with a steaming cup and the morning paper, and OOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOwwwwOOOOOOOwwwoOOOOOO. The leaf blowers start moaning. Here I am, biffing back inside to the kitchen table.

I hear that California has banned gas-powered leaf blowers. A sound move. Did you know that a leaf blower emits more pollution than a car? Way more. A thousand times noisier too.

Mr. J actually joined the Haterfield Environmental Commission in an effort to get some local leaf blower ordinances going. Ha! He lasted six months. In that six months, the Commission talked endlessly about backyard hens and nary a breath about leaf blowers. "Bad for small businesses, any kind of ban," the town councilman sniffed.

Can you believe that bunch wanted me to write an essay about micro meadows for their "Gold Star Community" checklist? Suck it, Haterfield. I'm not writing squat for you.

So here I am, all ranty and pissy on a Friday afternoon, instead of basking in the glow of spring sunshine.

Is it any wonder I bought four acres of trees? All leaves welcome, all the time.

A Rant about Snow

 I'm Anne Johnson, and I love snow.

I have always loved snow. My fondest childhood memories include feet and feet of the stuff, sledding with my dad, building forts and snowmen, and just watching the fat white flakes fall from the sky.

But that was Appalachia. Now I live in southern New Jersey, 50 miles from the coast.

It's just really great to be able to hop in the car on a whim and drive to the beach in an hour's time. Breakfast ... ZOOM! ... sand under my feet.

But you know what happens in the wintertime? That ocean just 50 miles from my door influences the weather. It almost always feeds warmer air into snowstorms that change the snow over to rain. Or keep the rain from turning to snow. Or, if a storm hugs the coast, it snows like mad on the beach resorts and passes my town by.

DAMN YOU, OCEAN, WITH YOUR 40-DEGREE TEMPERATURE!

You know how frustrating it is to see winter storm warnings for freakin' North Carolina, and rain for New Jersey? Happens all the time.

Take this past weekend for example. The forecasters started their hype days in advance, for a snow event on Sunday night. When the event actually hove into sight, the forecast totals took a swan dive. From 3 - 6 inches we got downsized to 2 - 4. Then, when the precipitation started falling, it snowed beautifully for one hour, turned over to rain, and the rain washed away what little snow had accumulated. Meantime, the Poconos got a swell haul of 6 inches.

A similar scenario reared its head last night. The forecast called for a period of rain to turn to snow and accumulate between 1 - 3 inches. Sure enough, the rain moved in. AND IT STAYED. Around 10:00 it snowed lightly for about an hour, leaving no accumulation. Happens all the time.

Last year was better. We actually had a period of three weeks where there was snow on the ground every day. Unheard of in New Jersey! We actually got snow on top of snow! 

Alas, that was a one-off. This year has brought back the usual hyped-up forecasts that devolve into rainstorms. There's nothing quite so dispiriting as a rainy January afternoon.

You would think that a lady of my age would not want to have to deal with a snow event requiring a shovel. Ha ha! I don't mind shoveling at all! I'll shovel the rare blizzard event with a vim that quite belies my age.

You know what I love? Shaking my fist at the snowplow as it undoes all the shoveling I accomplished. That's my idea of a good time.

The most heart-rending part of this rant is this: A good snowfall means an unscheduled holiday for school teachers and students. O frabjous snow day! Caloo, Callay! Nothing to do but linger over breakfast and shovel.

So far this year we have had zero snow days and zero delayed openings.

Where are the bored deities of snow? Why are they leaving me so rain-soaked this year, when all I ask is a little 3 - 6 inches of white loveliness?

It's the damn ocean. Remind me, next summer when I blithely set out for it with my beach bag, that it ROBS ME OF SNOW.

Free Advice on What Not To Say at Work

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," home of one proficient (not distinguished) teacher. If you're a teacher yourself, you probably know just what I mean.

I totally expected the transition back to full-time teaching to be stressful. How could it not be? Last year I spent most of my days "teaching" from a recliner, while covered by the ample rump of Gamma Cat.

But this transition has been horrible. Worse than anticipation by a country mile.

I won't even go into the standardized testing (seven days out of the first 25, including the past two days). Nor will I dwell upon the fact that the assistant superintendent decided that the AP Lit kids would be better off with a substitute teacher than with me, when their teacher went out for emergency surgery. (Long story)

But what I will dwell upon here is toxic positivity. It's been a problem in my school district ever since I've been there.

Maybe you have this poison in your workplace, too?

"Let's all be positive here! If you just try being positive, you'll feel better!"

When someone says this, here's what I actually hear:

"It really sucks to work here, but don't you dare acknowledge that. Cover it up with a smile, and take whatever drugs you have to in order to keep that smile on your ugly mug."

Today we had another round of standardized testing. I hate using the computer programs and often fuck it up (including today). And yet two administrators tried to coax one of those phony baloney smiles out of me.

I wasn't having it. I'll smile when there's reason to smile, not because I'm told to smile.

But wait. There's more!

At lunchtime I have a paid "duty" in the cafeteria. I enjoy it, actually, because I'm buddies with all the janitors, and we joke around. Today, the new vice principal came in. She asked me how I was doing, and I admitted to being pretty stressed out.

Her response? "Ah, just have a glass of wine when you get home."

Wait. What?

Free advice to my three readers: Never recommend a glass of wine for a stressed-out employee! You might be speaking to an alcoholic.

This is what I mean by "toxic positivity." Instead of recommending a glass of wine, middle managers should be taught how to acknowledge the reality and severity of the stress. Just fucking listen.

OMG INTERRUPTING THIS RANT FOR A WORSE ONE!

William Shatner breaking down in tears because Jeff Bozos sent him into orbit? GAG ME WITH A PLATINUM SPOON.

You know what I'm positive about? I'm positive all billionaires should be eaten. With or without a glass of wine.

Mackenzie Scott Should Read the Bible, or Be Eaten. I Don't Care Which.

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we don't comfort the afflicted ... we afflict the comfortable. Today's comfortable person is Mackenzie Scott, formerly Mrs. Jeff Bezos.

In case you haven't heard, this chewy and nutritious plutocrat has been giving billions of dollars to the charities of her choice.

I found out about this by seeing a Facebook page called "YOU Are Now RBG." This article was posted, followed by dozens of ordinary women, applauding dear Mackenzie's generosity.

When I dared to suggest that someone who has $60 billion giving away $4 billion is laughable, insulting, and grounds to be chopped up for soup, I got scolded. I was (in no specific order):

*anti-feminist

*hard-hearted

* cynical

* a danger to woke society

Several clearly intelligent women seemed to have a complete inability to grasp the fact that giving four dollars away when you have 60 dollars is nice, but giving $4 billion away when you have $60 billion is LAUGHABLE.

"But she has plans to give away half her fortune!" one Karen exclaimed.

Half of 60 dollars is a lot. Half of $60 billion is NOTHING.

This person could give away 99.9 percent of her wealth and still live large. She would still have millions!

Next question: How much did she pay last year in taxes to the government of her native land? The answer is not available, but my guess is, not much. Certainly nowhere near the percentage we common middle class scum pay. And why give money to the U.S. government when you can fund theater projects and colleges? Well, let's start with public fucking schools. And go from there. Did you know that America's senior citizens have to pay the entire cost of hearing aids? And there sits Mackenzie, on a fortune that would buy hearing aids for every damn senior citizen in America.

Final question: How did Mackenzie Scott acquire $60 billion (with a b) dollars? Well, for those of you who do your shopping in stores, there's a company called Amazon that has practically monopolized the purchase and delivery of every item you could ever want. Amazon has done that by creating inhumane conditions for their workforce and by strenuously blocking efforts at unionization of said workforce. It's basically the 21st century's answer to coal mines and shirtwaist factories.

So, to the dear feminists at "YOU are now RBG," I've got to say: This is not about a woman. It's about an owner who exploits workers. Who does Mackenzie Scott think she is? To me she seems like some emperor of old, flinging ducats into the crowds of starving subjects on Festival Day.

EXHIBIT A: FEED HER TO GRITTY

Speaking of Festival Day, this is Juneteenth! Now a federal holiday! I had 12 years of public schooling, then four years of college, then a lifetime of reading and watching the news, and I never heard of Juneteenth until last year. So please allow me to catch up and learn how to celebrate this holiday before I begin to comment on it.

This sermon will end with that rarest of recommendations from "The Gods Are Bored." Mackenzie Scott should read Jesus Christ's advice to the rich man, and then follow it. Same goes for anyone who has more money than they could spend in 100 lifetimes.

An Open Letter to the White Boomer Singers at the Farmer's Market

 Dear White Boomer Singers at the Haterfield Farmer's Market:

What in the name of red-eyed fruit flies are you thinking, daring to cover "What's Goin On?" For the love of all that's holy! Just because you're Boomers with guitars (acoustic), that sure doesn't make you worthy to sing Marvin Gaye! Sweet Jesus in the manger. Here I am, on my first maskless outing since March 13, 2020, and I have to hear some gray-bearded white guy mangle "What's Goin On?" What a buzz kill.

Music is an infrequent topic here at "The Gods Are Bored." I'm not a rock snob. But I do know a bit about music, having written for an American Music reference book for five years. Point of fact, one of the entries I did was on Marvin Gaye.

You can search far and wide through the canon of mid-century American music and not find a more soulful song than "What's Goin On." Or its sister "Mercy Mercy Me." Marvin Gaye went way out on a limb putting together that album. The people at Motown were against it, but he persisted. And thank all the bored Gods he did, because his velvety voice questioning war and brutality and pleading for brotherhood was unparalleled. That is some deeply moving music, there.

I remember when that song first came on the radio. It turned my head. I was always a Motown fan, but this was different. And what made it different in a groundbreaking way was the actual presentation of the song. Marvin owned that music. His voice was like a warm pool he had built himself, and he was swimming around in it.

Maybe he should have taken those songs to the grave with him.

The effrontery of two saggy white people covering that at a farmer's market in a damn near segregated suburb! You cannot sing that well, chumps. Even if you could sing, you couldn't sing that. You can't sing "What's Goin On." Stop. Stop. Stop.

One Saturday morning before the pandemic, I found myself at the Berlin Flea Market, which is quite a different vibe from Haterfield. That market had hired a similarly craggy Boomer dude to provide some music. He sat down on a stool and gave up some high quality Bob Seeger. It was sublime. Then he did a little Gordon Lightfoot, a little Chicago. The man was on safe turf. He was where he should be. No Motown! Dude had some respect.

White people singing at farmer's markets should stick to any damn country song about losing your girl, your dog, your pickup, and your gun. No white person has any business covering Marvin Gaye. Don't do it again, unless and until you wake up some morning and you actually are Marvin Gaye.

Brother brother brother.

In Which I Defend Motherhood as a Profession

 I'm old. I can remember a time and place where the vast majority of women stayed home to care for their families. The women who worked were few and far between, and those who did were either school teachers or secretaries. And a lot of the female school teachers were single.

Television -- all three black-and-white channels -- showed happy homemakers like Donna Reed, dressed to the nines making fragrant meat loaf.

Then came the Women's Movement, which basically said, "Enough with the barefoot and pregnant slavery! We want education, good jobs, and fulfilling careers!"

The oligarchy perked its ears.

So women went into the work force in numbers. They dropped their kids at the child care they could afford by working long hours for less wages than their children's fathers.

Motherhood was looked down on as a form of submission. Which of course it was, considering that stay-at-home women worked long hours for no wages at all.

Just recently, Senator Romney introduced the idea of paying women $350 per month per child (up to a point) to help allay the costs of rearing a human being in our modern society. And the hue and cry against it, once again led by the New York Times, is making me so furious I could dine on penny nails and window panes.

I don't only blame the assholes who are saying that giving women money to stay at home and raise children will encourage them to be lazy. I also hold that early Women's Movement to blame for making motherhood seem like an extraneous duty, instead of the crucial one it is.

Let's address this nonsense.

1. No one who has small children to care for is lazy. Even in these days of video games and 2,000 t.v. channels. Kids need to eat, they need supervision, they need baths, they need stimulation. These are the formative years of a human being's life! And yet moms are paid zero, and day care center workers are paid like they're slinging burgers at Wendy's. Paying people to stay home and perform child care might not result in better-nurtured kids 100 percent of the time. But it would improve American humans exponentially.

2. Motherhood is a sacred profession. Many cultures recognize this. There is no more important job than bonding with and nurturing children. Do we have a Goddess of Cubicle? BAMP! No. But all the enlightened religions have Mother Goddesses. Even Christianity venerates Mary. So why is staying home to raise children looked upon as a life lacking meaning? Because the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s declared it to be that way.

I fully support paying women directly to stay at home with their children. If I was in charge, I would give them a universal basic income of $1500 a month and call it money well spent.

"Well, Anne," the oligarch says, "there are child tax credits."

NOT ENOUGH. (And by the way, oligarch? I'm going to eat you as soon as I finish this column.)

There's a difference between a tax credit and a payment. One is buried in paperwork, the other comes to the door and is tangible.

Women should be paid to do parenting. Or men. I imagine a lot of men would love to stay home with their kids. Parenting should be considered a profession, and a noble one at that.

Notice I'm not saying that parenting should be an obligation. If you want a meaningful career outside the home and still want children, you go girl! That $350 a month will help you pay for excellent child care. If you want a meaningful career and no children, you go girl! One needn't measure meaning entirely through raising kids.

So let's put some weight behind this whole "pay the mom" movement. We would be investing in the very future of the nation. The way things are going now, women work long hours for poverty wages (thanks, oligarchs! Pass the salt.), and then they come home to neglected children. Talk about slavery! Might as well be the damn plantation.

Pay moms to be moms! 

Reply Here

I don't do Twitter. There's a reason. I can't curb my enthusiasm. Inevitably I would get in big trouble, because on Twitter the trolls are everywhere. 

But here, safely ensconced at "The Gods Are Bored," mostly among like-minded -- and therefore highly intelligent and enlightened -- people, I can post tirade after tirade.

So today I'm inaugurating a new recurring motif: Replying Here. When our sorry excuse of a commander in chief tweets some brainless drivel that heightens my ire, I'm going to post it here and then smack the shit out of it. This is my comfort zone, and I need to vent.

Today's Assault on Humanity comes from March 29, 2020.

Real Donald Trump on Twitter:

"Because the 'Ratings' of my New Conferences etc. are so high, "Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers" according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. "Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him." said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!


Anne's Reply:

For real, are you kidding me, you bone-headed, knuckle-dragging insult to everything Neanderthal? Where's your empathy? Oh, wait! I go way back, watching your antics. You lost your extremely limited supply of empathy during a coke binge at Studio 54 in 1978. A janitor sweeping up the next morning dumped it in the trash and didn't even notice, because it was so small.

Empathy is what we need right now. We need a leader who is actually a human being.

EXHIBIT A: IF YOU CAN'T BE EVEN THIS HUMAN, YOU ARE HOPELESS

Nobody's asking you, Donald Trump, to stride in to an emergency room and kiss elderly women on ventilators. But you should be able to express something more than a brag-out about your television ratings! Oh, right. Maybe you did. Maybe there are 42 compassionate tweets that I don't know about. But it doesn't matter, you chimp! One stupid, ridiculous tweet like the above totally cancels out any sympathetic tweets you send.

Trump, you execrable egg-head, you are only as good as your worst tweet. You are president. You should think, and think hard, about the contents of each tweet. And if you can't think (there is abundant evidence of this), you should turn this task over to someone who can. Oh, wait. There's abundant evidence that you have surrounded yourself with toadies who don't think much either, if their wallets aren't in the game.

Repent, clueless tweeter! Take that ridiculous, unprotected cell phone and fling it into the Reflecting Pool. Your boasting has always added insult to injury, but right now it is intolerable.

From Anne Johnson
Citizen

Something Really Important

Okay, so there's an impeachment trial. Trump is going to appear at the Right to Life march. Last year was the second hottest on record, the first being 2016. Billionaires are lining up to influence the presidential election. Important? Not as important as this:

Planters has killed off Mr. Peanut.

Apparently he dies selflessly, saving two actors I've never heard of, and bringing his 104-year-old iconic life to an end.

And of course the Twitter trolls and Facebook fools are all cheering, because with the monocle and top hat and spats, Mr. Peanut apparently is the epitome of the one percent.

Well, fuck Planters! And fuck the haters!

You know what's gonna die, Planters? Your lousy peanuts! There are many other brands of nuts that one can purchase easily. And I'm that one. DAMN! Who kills Mr. Peanut?

Mr. Peanut is particularly beloved in this household. We've always adored food product characters, and Mr. Peanut is one of the oldest. He paved the way for the whole concept of anthropomorphism of foods, cleansers, electricity, auto parts, you name it.

When I first heard about Mr. Peanut's death, I thought to myself, "Mr. Peanut can't be killed. He's an advertising character. Aren't they immortal?"

Nope. As a matter of fact, they aren't. Who remembers the name of this snazzy chap?

And get this. The way I understand it, they are going to have a "Mr. Peanut Funeral" commercial during the Super Bowl!

Fuck you, Planters.

My guess is that a "new" Mr. Peanut will be introduced. Maybe he'll even be Peanut Bro or Ms. Peanut. Why is this necessary? Are sales of peanuts down drastically? I kind of doubt it.

Somewhere, in an upscale conference room overlooking a Manhattan panorama, some advertising executives (no doubt male and white) decided that they needed to update Mr. Peanut ... and then they came up with the brainstorm of killing him and holding a funeral for him! FOR FUCK'S SAKE DON'T BUY PLANTERS, THEY FUNDED THIS TRAVESTY!

All of us reading this blog have grown up with Mr. Peanut. He's been on wrappers and on t.v., on holiday tins and key chains. He's been a kindly part of our landscape. Isn't it bad enough that organic creatures die? Do food product characters have to die too?

I mourned the loss of Lil Bub, but her passing seemed normal and was certainly expected. This destruction of Mr. Peanut was unnecessary and cruel to those of us who loved the debonair legume.

Even if Planters miraculously resuscitates Mr. Peanut and puts him back to work, they have lost my custom. Killing off a well-liked product mascot ... how will children react?

For the love of all that is lovable, may Gritty destroy Planters and scatter its seeds far and wide on the land! This company can go to Hell on a highway of hazel nuts and rot like a skunk in the noonday sun.

I will never stop loving Mr. Peanut.

Mandescending and Mindfulness

You've heard the term "mansplaining," and I really like it. Whoever coined it was pretty smart. The definition is basically a man explaining to a woman something that the woman is either more knowledgeable about because it's her lived reality as a female, or something she has trained to do and knows how to do already.

For instance, my daughter The Fair was filming an event the other night with high-end equipment she is well trained to use, and some dude tried to tell her how to set up the tripod. Really?

I'm going to add a new term of my own: mandescending. This is where a man is condescending to a woman and dismisses her out of hand, even though her concerns are serious, maybe either health- or job-related.

Yesterday my school district had a professional development workshop, and part of it was yet another session on how to use the baffling new web site for which the district spent tons of money to purchase a full package. The web site does a gazillion tasks but is about as user-friendly as a potted cactus. Every time we get a demonstration, the same guy comes. He's yet another of those paid consultants who spent a few years in the classroom, couldn't wait to get out, and saw this web site as a ticket.

Honestly, I'll be the first to admit that if I had trained as a teacher I would have been looking to move into corporate somehow after five to ten years. The teaching profession is poorly-paid, overly scrutinized, underappreciated by the public, and physically and emotionally exhausting.

Part of what makes it exhausting is trying to learn the web site du jour.

To return to my narrative, I was attempting to keep up with the blistering pace of this man's presentation, and as usual I fell a step or two behind. When I asked why my page didn't look like his, he came to my station, flicked a few buttons, and said, "There you are." And sniffed with derision.

I went to the vending machine and bought a Snickers bar. First one I've eaten in two years.

The joy of the Snickers soon abated, but my fury has not.

This country treats its elders with condescension. Or mandescension, you decide.

In the summer of 1979, I was working in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins University. I had a job with a special archive of psychiatric documents that belonged to a prominent Hopkins physician named Adolf Meyer. In order to prepare a documentary list of the voluminous records this man kept (which included extensive correspondence with Freud, Jung, and other psychiatric luminaries), the university purchased a word processor. It was the first one any of us had seen.

A technician wheeled the word processor into our office space and showed the lead archivist how to use it. But then an interesting phenomenon occurred.

One by one, the oldest professors in the Hopkins community dropped by to see the word processor. These were men (of course, it was 1979) who had probably written multiple scholarly tomes, using Royal typewriters or even legal pads. They wanted to see the machine in action. And so did I.

A few years later, I found myself working for a publishing house, preparing copy for encyclopedias. The work was done with pencil and electric typewriters. Then the company bought two word processors, but no one was particularly interested in using them. Having had a little bit of exposure to one, I gladly accepted a spot at the word processor. I got a raise.

I know I should have kept up with computing. I know I should be more capable when it comes to new web sites. Perhaps it shouldn't count that I was the most proficient with technology when certain workshop presenters were probably learning to use the potty.

I know my mental capacity isn't what it once was. I don't even write for this site like I used to. But to be dismissed with such thinly-veiled disdain was a nasty jolt. I'm old. I'm obsolete. I'm female. Thanks for reminding me.

But wait, there's more.

After being humiliated in the web site training, I had to go back into a general faculty meeting for both of the Vo-Tech campuses. When both campuses get together, it's a lot of teachers. A good two hundred plus, I should think. We fill an auditorium.

The rest of the long day was spent in mindfulness training. We had to ground, center, follow our breath, feel our feet on the floor (mine were cold), yada yada yada. Be in the moment, and if your thoughts drift, pull back to breath.

First of all, when I do this practice, it is tied to my religion, which I firmly separate from my work responsibilities. So I deliberately let my thoughts go as haywire as they wanted to. Here's the short list:

1. Wow, that guy is such an asshole! Karma's gonna come for him when he's 60, for sure. I'd like to be there when he gets confused over the communication system between himself and teachers on Mars. He won't have tenure. Maybe he'll get fired! Maybe a woman supervisor will tell him, "You're all washed up. Hit the road!"

2. I wonder where that mindfulness facilitator got her dress. Is that drip-dye, tie-dye or some other process? I like the way it drapes too.

3. Damn, I wonder what's going on with this student teacher I got assigned all of a sudden! Did she flake out on her previous assignment? What's up with that? Why did I even agree to do it?

4. Getting old sucks. I'm so tired all the time. I'm sick of people. I don't want to go out for lunch. I don't want to go to the gym anymore. My body is so weary, and my feet are cold. Why don't they turn on some heat in here? Dammit, I thought about putting foot warmers in my shoes, and I didn't do it! Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

5. I wonder if I should pull back the ivy in the back yard just a foot or two. But grass doesn't grow well, and Mr. J never mows the lawn. Isn't the ivy better? But pulling the ivy would be good exercise. Yeah, but you know how annoying it is working with that English ivy. Yeah, maybe I'll just leave it. But if I had a nice straight line down the back, I could put up a stone border, like a rock wall ... what, am I supposed to be feeling my back against the chair? Fuck that. Fuck this whole thing.

6. I think I'll stop by Woodstock on the way home and see how they're doing. It's sort of on the way. Let's see, if I take Haterfield-Berlin Road to White Horse Road, and then ... that leads right to Springdale. Easy! Because it's such a long slog up Route 73. Oh! Why does everyone have their hand up in the air? Did I miss something? Who cares?

7. I can't believe I'm hungry after wolfing down that Snickers.

8. Donald Trump is an asshole. All powerful men are assholes. Geez, even Bernie Sanders couldn't run a tight ship. But this country will never elect a woman. Women won't vote for a woman. I wonder why that is? But I know it's true.

9. Camping or a hotel? I'm too old for camping! I'm not sleeping in a tent on the ground. But the hotel is so expensive. I could use that money to improve the front porch, so I don't have to look at the disgraceful, hideous house across the street ... Is it time to go yet? FUCK! Another two hours? I can't even. Like, camping isn't as bad as all that. You wake up in the cool morning air ... snap, I would have to buy so much equipment. But then I would have all the equipment, and I could use it again! Yeah, use it again to go camping. I'm done with camping! I spent my whole teenage decade in a tent! You know what else I'm done with? Mindfulness! Just another trendy stupid thing our school district is flirting with. You'd think they would train us on what to do when angry parents start shouting in our faces.

10. Whoa, look at the shop teachers! They are giggling like kids. Welding and mindfulness: perfect together.


If you've gotten this far, I know you get the drift.

Readers, my stats tell me that I have had over a million page views here at "The Gods Are Bored." I think a significant number of those are spammers of the pornographic variety. Still, someone has been reading my drivel. If that is you, do you want me to bake you a pie?

Hot and Hotter

When I was cavorting along the Appalachian Trail as a blithe teenager, I never thought I would someday be a woman of a certain age. But there you are. Blink your eyes, and you're a geezer.

One thing about being a geezer, though: It's possible to remember past decades. In my case, I can vividly remember an entire half century.

This is why I can state with absolute certainty that the climate has warmed.

Where are the motherfuckers who deny this? Oh, snap! I forgot! They're in the White House. It's basically the Orange Menace, his Big Oil baron buddies, and the natural gas and pipeline lobbies. They say global warming is a hoax. I cry bullshit.

The Menace is even older than I am. Can it possibly be that he has forgotten frosty Octobers, when the leaves peaked in color the second week of the month? I've lived in various parts of the Mid-Atlantic most of my life, and I clearly recall that Halloweens in the 20th century were cold affairs, possibly with snow and definitely with skeletal trees that had lost every leaf.

Last fall my sister was photographing autumn colors well into November -- a full four weeks later than it used to be.

I wore a sundress to work today. I had to, because it's in the 80s and my room has no air conditioning, only a scant two plastic fans. My students were miserable. And so was I.

It wasn't only the ungodly heat that made me miserable. It was the thought that my students and my daughters are becoming adults and will live with this ever-hotter world, no matter what we do.

I'm rather baffled that anyone over the age of 50 can be a climate change denier. What about your own four senses? Your own memory?

Then I thought, "Well, maybe the changes aren't as noticeable in other parts of the country." Until I heard from my friend in Detroit, complaining about yet another day in the 80s, last week!

I lived in Michigan for four years in the 1980s. It was crisp and cold by mid-September. The trees were bare by early October. It snowed until May.

Storms! Look at these storms! Do you remember a time when we had year after year of killer hurricanes and superstorms? I. Do. Not.

This November, and every November, you should vote Green. I don't mean Green Party, I mean your vote should be for Planet Earth. For poor dear Gaia, Demeter, sweaty Danu!

One more thing before I conclude my rant and go suck some raw eggs.

I am totally convinced that scientists have developed green energy systems that could be put in place within a decade. But their ideas, their technology, is being squashed by the billionaire oil interests. Let the whole world fry, while they rake in the ducats for themselves and their families.

Just answer me this, Mr. Oil Billionaire: What exactly will your great-grandchildren inherit? Pardon my cheek if I suggest they deserve ebola Zaire.

I don't need to have manners anymore. I'm old. And mad. Where's my bludgeon?

Damned Woman in the Grocery Store!

So there I was, at 5:00 on a Friday evening, standing in line at the Snobville grocery store. It's less than a week until Thanksgiving, and the strain of actually having to cook is already showing on the faces of the kept women of Snobville.

Did these females spend the week trying to keep fractious 14-year-olds from tripping, elbowing, smacking, or pushing each other? Do they have 50 writers' notebooks to read between now and next Wednesday? Are they dealing with angry parents who have stopped blaming themselves for their kids' behavior and are now blaming me? Are they sitting in conference rooms until 9:30 at night trying fruitlessly to negotiate a new contract for their co-workers? No, no, no, and no. You know how they spent their week? Looking for online coupons!

On my feet pretty continuously from 7:00 in the morning, I found myself in a checkout line behind a person who had a $1.50 pie crust that she felt she should get for free, since she had an online store coupon for $1.50 off a pie crust. The cashier was completely flummoxed by the transaction. Why, I don't know. The person had the wrong brand of pie crust, it was clear as the fading daylight. But she insisted that this was the one that was on sale with the coupon!

Feeling herself being stabbed by the white-hot daggers emanating from my bloodshot eyeballs, the disgruntled customer finally said, "Never mind. Just take it off my bill." But then she persisted when the store manager came to clear things up.

Ten minutes later, two store employees and a third checker sent in to mop up the drama determined that the patron had the wrong brand of pie crust, that's why her little phone coupon would not scan.

Did I tell you that my school administration imposed a dress code on teachers this fall? We are not allowed to wear sneakers or running shoes. In other words, my feet were going numb from painful footwear, and I had six items that I had unwisely stacked on the conveyor belt.

What is it with people and online coupons? God damn it! What is more precious than time, lady? Tell me, please! Will your family go without Thanksgiving dessert if you don't get that graham cracker crust for free? We are all mortal, and you just spent almost 15 minutes arguing about a $1.50 pie crust. You may remember this on your death bed and long to go back and snatch that 15 minutes from the bin of squandered time! The worst part is, you stole 15 minutes from me -- and not 15 minutes staring at phone coupons, but 15 minutes in my easy chair, with my cramped toes finally expanding in comfy slippers! That's 15 fewer minutes of being awake, petting my cats, bagging up this week's newspapers, oh! The list goes on and on! You owe me, pie crust lady!

People get on my last nerve. They really do. I'm sick and tired of dealing with anyone who wants to argue about anything. Especially about a pie crust. Pie crust. Not even something decent and wholesome like a bagel, or a bag of Peppermint Patties. No! One of those graham cracker pie crusts encased in foil and plastic, the kind really bad cooks use for slipshod cheesecakes! She just did some group of diners a huge favor by refusing to purchase the item. That's one corner-cutting dessert they won't have to choke down and pretend to like.

Tired of teaching, tired of Snobville, tired of being tired. Tired of the Keystone pipeline rupturing. Yeah. That too.

Bald

The amount of paperwork thrown at teachers during the final weeks of school is incredible.

My printer keeps malfunctioning due to the humidity in the classroom.

My overhead projector is overheating due to same.

Not a single student wants to learn anything. They have cashed out. Their minds have left the building.

When I introduced the summer reading and handed out the books, you would have thought I told them to do 90 minutes of vigorous calisthenics in the hot sun every day for the rest of the summer. Many solemnly swore they would not read the book. At least they took it.

I'm tearing out my hair. Soon I will be bald. I could say I'm looking forward to final exams, but I will have about 300 pages of work to read before June 17.

People who bad-mouth public school teachers ought to have to be one ... for just a few hours.

Then vs. Now

Okay, whippersnappers, lissen up! I'm old Annie the geezer, and I don't like this new century.

Our species has been devising technology to solve problems with ever-accelerating efficiency since the first Australopithecus grabbed a club to scare buzzards off a wildebeest carcass.

We've come to the point of diminishing returns, my precious pets. This moment might have occurred in the 1990s (I'm sure it did), but it has become standard operating procedure. And it sucks. If you are over 50, or near 50, you will agree with me when I bemoan ...

...built-in obsolescence.

You whippersnappers will try to tell me that 8-track tapes and leisure suits had a built-in obsolescence too. I will counter that fashion has always relied on built-in obsolescence, and some inventions work better than others. What I mean by built-in obsolescence is labor-saving devices that are made to break down within eight years and entertainment systems that require a constant outlay of money, always more money, in order to entertain. Oh yes, and let's not forget that we need to get the latest computer gadget every two years, a gadget that becomes dated the minute it leaves the store.

Let me tell you pink-cheeked urchins something. When I was a kid, if you bought a refrigerator, it lasted 30 years. One washing machine and dryer would take a large family of kids into adulthood. Dishwashers never broke down, because they were people who used detergent and sponges. Remember Brillo Pads? I used them. I was a dishwasher. In 1978 I cleaned a whole huge Thanksgiving feast for 14 people, and here it is 2011, and I am still working! I can still scrub a pot!

In 1987, when we moved to Snobville, Mr. Johnson and I had to buy some appliances for our house. We bought a refrigerator. It still works. It's in the basement. When Heir was born, we bought a washer and dryer. They still work, and they've worked damn hard.

When we updated our kitchen in 2003, Mr. J and I bought all new kitchen appliances from Sears. Brand new dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, and microwave. The stove was recalled, the microwave is still working, sort of, the refrigerator has been repaired five times, and the dishwasher (though repaired more than six times) failed about two months ago.

Stubbornly, I insisted that we go back in time to the original dishwasher, AKA me, and I was pecking away at it, but Mr. J. doesn't like dirty dishes sitting around. Last weekend we went to the store I most detest on the planet, Home Depot, and purchased a brand new dishwasher. Do you know what the girl who sold it to us said? I kid you not:

"Dishwashers aren't built to last more than eight years anymore."

To which I replied, "Well, I know a dishwasher that has lasted 45 years without a single repair. Come on, Mr. J, let's go get a water ice."

He insisted that we purchase a new unit. We did, and a delivery date was set.

When I came home from school the day the new dishwasher was installed, I found a pool of water on my kitchen floor. The first time Mr. J used the machine, it leaked. He called the installer, who said the gasket was probably broken. I know what a gasket is, and there was nothing wrong with the gasket on the new machine. In fact, the machine continued to ooze water even when it wasn't running. It hadn't been properly installed. Now we have to wait until Tuesday for a repairman to come, all the while mopping up puddles of water from our hardwood kitchen floor.

Whippersnappers, this would not have happened in 1969. You just have to trust me. You want to know why we haven't sent any more astronauts to the moon? Because nothing is built to work long enough to get the job done.

One last bit to this rant, and then I'm going to go hunt and gather.

In 1969, if you liked a band, you bought their records. Records were plastic disks that you played on a record player. Most record players were affordable, and once you bought one, it worked for years without any further expenditure. Records, if treated gently, were eternal. I don't have to tell you that. You go to the flea market! Point is, you paid for the record once, and then you didn't have to pay for it ever again. You owned it.

My daughter The Spare gave me her MP3 player, and it was a huge hassle getting it to run again, even though we'd been paying $15 a month on it for years without any use. A month or two ago, I was bragging about getting the thing filled up with music before the subscription expired. Because that's what the guy with the thick Indian accent told me I could do: load as much stuff on it without paying as I could in a month.

The month came and went. I loaded 835 tracks. Now a month has gone by again, and the MP3 player would not work, because the "licenses had expired." Just now I spent another 90 minutes chatting with someone on the other side of the planet, and once again he had to hack into my computer to re-up the player. It's working now, I think... but I have a sick feeling in the pit of my gut that I'm going to be billed for every last one of those 835 tracks of music. Not to mention the fact that I have to pay a monthly subscription fee just to use the device at all.

Makes me long for a time when you didn't even need a record player if you had a washboard and a pair of spoons.

There's no moral to this rant. I just want to leave notice here that, should "The Gods Are Bored" suddenly cease all new posts, it's because:

1. The computer malfunctioned.
2. My internet server decides I haven't paid enough to warrant being on the computer.
3. Mr. J gets a bill from Rhapsody for 835 tracks of music and decides no spouse should spend so wantonly.
4. I have no time to post because I'm washing dishes.

Where is Mr. Peabody? I need the Way-Back Machine, and I need it now!

Just Say No to Daylight Savings Time

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," fellow earthlings! And a blessed howdy to any faeries in orbit around us. It's me, Anne, on my netbook. Snark in the park!

I'm usually a bright and cheery person with an unshakably optimistic outlook on life.

Okay. Not buying it, are you?

I'm usually a serene person on an even keel with a calm and collected outlook on life.

Still skeptical? As well you should be.

I'm at core a pessimist and a cynic. I need to force myself to laugh. Otherwise I'd be a female version of Ebenezer Scrooge ... only more generous to the poor.

But today I think I'll cut loose in all my savagery. You know what I hate? This early application of Daylight Savings Time.

I know, I know. Daylight Savings Time gives us a precious extra hour of daylight in the evenings, which is a green savings on energy consumption. That's the whole rationale behind moving Daylight Savings Time to earlier in the spring.

Do I have to like this because I try to be green? I hope not, because it pisses me off. Oh, I'll do it. And save energy too. But I'll complain about it. Complaining is something I don't get to do enough of.

Farmers successfully lobbied against the whole Daylight Savings Time thing until the 20th century. (Remember, it was first proposed by Ben Franklin, who I otherwise like, but this idea sucked.) It seems the growers of our nation's food and the milkers of our nation's cows kind of liked getting up in the daylight a few months of the year.

I like it too.

Just last week the slightest hint of dawn was starting to creep into the world as I heaved my weary body out of the sack. It sure helped to see the sky brightening a bit.

But no. Spring forward! Back into the inky blackness I plunge, as the alarm screams and EVEN THE CAT DOESN'T BUDGE FROM THE BED. Unfair! Unfair, I tell you! I want my dawn!

You needn't remind me that in a few weeks that dawn will re-surface. We're talking heart-of-the-school-year teaching weeks here, people. I do not need to be sitting here feeling like my melatonin level is off the charts.

Sometimes I can't help but feel a bit nostalgic for the era when the Wheel of the Year turned, and people got up with the light and went to bed with the dark. They say we're more civilized now, but when a little electronic device bleets like a foghorn in pitch darkness, and I have to lumber into the false brightness of a bathroom for a hot shower I really don't need, it just makes me wonder how far we've really come.

How about instead of Daylight Savings Time we call it Daylight Spend Wisely Time, and just get up whenever the hell we want to?

I appeal to all you teenagers out there to endorse this modest proposal.

Some Days You've Got To Fight

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Are you a normally peace-loving, live-and-let-live kind of person? I am. But this is the real world, and sometimes I've just got to channel my inner Inanna ... and let fly.

Broken kitchen appliances will bring out the worst in anyone.

I've been without my electric range for two weeks. The repairman was scheduled to come between 8:00 and noon today. At 11:49, I left the house to take The Heir to work. I returned at 1:00. Sure enough, somewhere in that blip of time, the repairman called and found me not at home. I now have to wait another 10 days to use my stove.

And then there's the dishwasher. The dishwasher that has never worked right since the day it was installed. The dishwasher that was just repaired a week ago and is now worse than it was before.

I called Sears. I kept asking for someone who would make this right. Finally I got a lady with a Southern accent who told me if I have to call for service on the dishwasher four times in one year, I get a new dishwasher. Today I logged my third service request. Firmly I told the nice lady that if my dishwasher doesn't make my dishes sparkle and shine perfectly (which it never has before), she will be hearing from me and my bored gods again.

It's always nice to remind these people that the world can be cruel to us all. After asking if the call was being recorded, or my observations in some way preserved, I hastened to tell her that my confidence in Sears has eroded to such an extent that, should I not get satisfaction on the shoddy service and dysfunctional dishwasher, I will most certainly take my custom to a competitor.

The whole reason I took my kitchen appliance needs to Sears in the first place was that I have a Kenmore washer and dryer that are older than The Heir. Neither appliance has ever needed so much as a routine maintenance call. And they have purred like kittens through 21 years and two kids.

Somewhere in that 21 years, the philosophy of appliances changed. Now they are made to break down. So fight back! Your dishwasher, programmed to fail? Make the company give you a new one! If they give enough dishwashers away, they will perhaps re-think the idea of planned obsolescence.

-----begin optional edit------

I am finishing up a final batch of manuscript for Contemporary Authors, the reference book series that was my bread and butter for 20 years. Just as with the appliances, the Contemporary Authors of today is not the Contemporary Authors of yesteryear. In one of the e-research files they sent me last week, the research was duplicated, making the page count appear to be twice as large as it really was. A word count was assigned on the basis of that page count.

I contacted the young fellow at CA (fourth different person in a year ... hmmmmm ... do I get a free reference book?). I told him I couldn't possibly write 600 words on an author with one Publishers Weekly review and a 60-word blurb. He told me to go back to the entries I'd already finished and pad 600 words into them somehow. He kindly pointed out that I didn't have to add all 600 words to one entry. I could put 150 words into each of the other four entries.

The poor schlub. He's right out of college (English major), probably scratching his head and marveling at the good fortune of getting a 30-hour-a-week job. Too bad. I sent him a reality check. In a nutshell, I told him that the product being marketed as Contemporary Authors today is a piece of garbage with standards so shoddy that it absolutely must be riding on its ancient reputation ... for now. I ended my kind but firm diatribe with the suggestion that he might want to keep his resume updated and make some contacts in some other line of work. Funeral homes spring to mind.

---end optional edit---

Nothing works as well as it used to. Nothing lasts as long as it used to. Nothing has the level of quality that it used to. These eroded standards are filtering into the human race, making us under-employed, fat, stressed, sick, and stupid.

We need some bored gods to shake things up. Any nominations for Bored God/Goddess of Quality Control?

Work For Hire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Like so many deities, I'm underemployed. Not under-worked, underemployed. There's a difference.

No matter when you were born, chances are you were on the forefront of some social movement (for better or worse). I have been on the forefront of two.

The first was computer use. When I was a salaried employee at a publishing house back in the mid-1980s, I remember the day when they rolled in the very first word processor. I was the first one to sit down and use it. For a long time it was mine all mine.

The second social change that has influenced my life was the push toward using contract employees instead of salaried workers. I've been an independent contractor since 1987. This was only possible because my husband is a salaried employee at a struggling, but still viable, firm.

If you've never been a contract employee, you probably have great knees. Why? Because contract employees always have to get down on their knees and beg for the check for services rendered.

If I had all the time back that I've spent trying to chase down paychecks, I would have me one hell of a free weekend. Especially in freelance writing, your editor wants the copy on deadline, but he's coldly indifferent to your need for timely compensation.

I worked as an independent contractor for ESPN for two years. And every time I mention it, people say, "Why did you ever leave? Wasn't it a great job?"

Hell no. It was a crappy job. Ridiculous deadlines, keeping me up until 2:00 a.m., 14-hour days five days in a row ... and then ... the check didn't come. Months would pass, and no payment. The payroll guy would never pick up his phone, and if he did he would say, "I never got the invoice." Then he would dodge further phone calls.

This is no way to live. Just ask any bored god who used to get nice fatted calves or whatever, and who now lives on the few and far-between coins tossed in a sacred spring.

The primary reason I sought employment outside the writing world was that I wanted reliable checks that came on the 15th and 30th of the month. So now I'm with the federal government, and guess what? No checkee. I'm now re-engaging the bended knee to a new payroll clerk.

If you get a regular payroll check, I want you to take the next one you get and kiss the print off it. And if you get direct deposit, kiss the bank machine that reveals your paycheck-enhanced balance. Trust me, it's tough as all get-out to run a family budget when the check is always in the mail and never in the mailbox.

I'm Anne Johnson, and I approved this rant.