Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 552

Gratitude journal: Perfect behavior

As if she knew that it was my birthday, my daughter's behavior was angelic last night. With my wife in class, Clara and I went to dinner with friends at a local restaurant, and she was damn near perfect for the entire time.

She played with her toys, chatted with my friends, charmed the waiter and ate all her food without complaint.

Then we came home and she happily got into her pajamas, joyously brushed her teeth, and screamed with excitement when it was time to go into her bedroom and read books.

Clara is normally a well behaved child, but I have honestly have never seen her so agreeable, easy going and enthusiastic about things that she does not normally like.

Tonight I am grateful for my daughter. She gave me the best birthday present that I could imagine. 

And the only one, by the way. My wife went shopping for me this afternoon and came home with a maternity blouse for herself and nothing for me.

But she says she's still working on it, so there's hope.

I went to see The Descendants like night and found myself sitting beside two morons and their baby.

Elysha and I went to the movie last night for Valentines Day.  We saw a 7:35 PM showing of The Descendants, which we liked a lot.

We arrived to the theater at 7:15 PM and were the first people to enter the theater.  We had the luxury of choosing our favorite seats.  It's so nice when you and your spouse agree on the optimal view location in a movie theater. 

Slowly the theater began to fill up.  At 7:35 PM the movie began. 

At 7:50 PM a couple walked in and sat one seat to my left.  The woman, who was sitting closest to me, leaned over and asked how much they had missed.

"Not much," I said, and it was true.  They had missed the movie trailers and about five or ten minutes of the actual film. Still, don't walk in late and disturb someone who managed to arrive on time. 

Then she extracted her six-month old baby from the baby carrier strapped to her chest and placed it on her knee.

Yes. A baby.

The baby began making baby sounds almost immediately.  Coos and whines and the occasional whimper.  Once or twice the baby began to fuss and actually cry.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman, with the baby still sitting on her lap, learned over and asked me to clarify a plot point.

Two minutes later she asked for another clarification.   

Five minutes after that, she began changing the baby's diaper with the help of the husband/boyfriend/lunatic moron sitting beside her. Then she began to nurse the baby.  

Five minutes later, Elysha and I finally ceded our optimal seating and moved to the back, away from the baby. 

Twice during the film, the baby began seriously crying and had to be removed from the theater. Both times the woman returned with the baby after a few minutes.

My wife and I debated saying something during or after the film. I have frequently confronted people in theaters who are talking on phones, texting or talking to their companions.  Once I forced a band of wandering teenagers to leave the theater and find another movie under threat of violence.

So I am not averse to confrontation. Nor is my wife.

Had these selfish, stupid, criminally negligent parents entered the theater on time, I would have told them to leave. Had they refused, I would have insisted that management remove them.  

Had they entered the theater during the trailers or even one minute into the film, I would have done the same thing.

But they entered ten minutes into the film, which left me with few options.

If you are willing to bring a six month old baby into a 7:35 PM showing of a rated R film on Valentines Day, you are clearly beyond reason. Arguing with them, debating with them or telling them how incredibly selfish and stupid they were would have been pointless. 

Satisfying, but pointless.

Most important, it might have resulted in a full blown altercation, thus compromising the viewing of the movie for myself and those around me. 

It's different than telling a jackass to get off his phone. He can be easily be shamed into turning off his phone and watching the film.  But you can't turn off a baby.  The only solution is to leave the theater, and convincing selfish, stupid people to do this is considerably more difficult. 

I could have exited the theater, found a manager, explained the situation and had the parents removed, but doing so would have also compromised my viewing of the film. There is no pause button in the movie theater. I would have missed significant portions of the movie in an effort to have these selfish morons and their baby tossed from the theater, and even then, there was no guarantee that management would have sided with me.  

There is a solution to this problem, and it is a simple one:

Movie theaters should not allow babies into films like The Descendants.

In fact, movie theaters should not allow babies into any film that are not rated G and made specifically for children.

Actually, I don't think that infants belong in a movie theater at all.  If your child is not old enough to sit up in his or her own seat, then your child does not belong in a movie theater.

But I'm willing to let this rule slide for rate G films.   

Seems like an obvious solution, and yet these two selfish morons were allowed to purchase tickets and enter the theater with a baby, thus diminishing the movie-going experience for the fifty people around them.  

And before you try to tell me that this is a once-in-a-lifetime problem, it's not. My wife and I once found ourselves sitting next to a couple and their infant while watching Cloverfield, a PG-13 monster movie that was so violent that Elysha was worried about our daughter being exposed to the film from inside the womb. In that instance, the movie was so loud and so terrifying that the morons sitting next to us managed to activate enough brain cells to realize that bringing their baby to a monster movie was not a good idea and left.

Last night's couple not only failed to come to this realization, but they also had the audacity to ask me questions during the movie, change a diaper and breast feed.

Best of all, when I arrived home that night, I handed $50 over to our babysitter, because we decided to leave our three-year old at home on Valentines Day rather than drag her into the movie theater. These jackasses compromised the enjoyment of everyone around them and avoided the expense of a babysitter as well. 

I have decided in the course of writing this post to call the theater this afternoon and speak to a manager. I will explain what happened last night and ask for the company policy on bringing babies into films like The Descendants.

Basically, I want to know if this couple snuck their baby into the film or were allowed to enter with it.    

If the couple snuck their baby into the film, so be it. There is nothing that the movie theater could do absent frisking every person who enters, but even that would be fine by me. I am frisked every time I enter Gillette Stadium to watch the Patriots play and would be more than willing to submit to a search at the movie theater as well.

But if there is no company policy regarding bringing babies into a film like The Descendants, then I don't know what I am going to say. 

But it should be interesting. 

I'll keep you updated.

Gratitude journal: Tupperware

Tonight I am grateful for the arrival of our new set of Tupperware.

Few things make me happier than disposing of mismatched plastic containers and lids and replacing them with a brand new, fully matched set.

And no, it wasn't a bad day for me.  I had other things that I could have been grateful for.  I just really like Tupperware.

The problem with karma and my proposed solution

This is the problem with karma:

It offers no confirmation that the people who have wronged you in the past have been paid back sufficiently.

There are people in the world who deserve exceedingly harsh treatment from karma based upon actions they took against me in the past, and even though karma may have punished them already, I have no way of knowing. 

Instead, I am left hoping that they were punished while I continue to plot my revenge.

I am a very patient man. 

In addition, my oppressors have no way of connecting karma's punishment to the crime. When their house burns down or they inexplicably gain 90 pounds, they have no way of knowing that these unfortunate occurrences are the result of their past treatment of me.

This kind of satisfaction is essential when getting even with someone, yet karma offers no mechanism for this to take place.  

What we need is a machine in every household that issues a receipt when karma has evened a score.  A slip of paper with the date, time, reason, and description of the punishment.

My receipt would let me know that karma has gotten even for me.  It would be something tangible that I could stick on my refrigerator and enjoy every time I reach in for a glass of milk or a piece of fruit.

My oppressors' receipt would let them know that their suffering had been handed down by me via proxy. It would serve as a tangible reminder of their cowardly, underhanded and despicable actions and would make that all-important punishment-crime connection clear.

That would be the kind of karma that I could support.        

Gratitude journal: The awfulness snuck up on me and now it is over

Tonight I am grateful that my dentist appointment is behind me. 

I had a small cavity in need of filling that required three shots of Novocain.  Being a person pathologically afraid of needles, this was quite an ordeal for me, so I am incredibly relieved that it is over.

Even better, I had completely forgotten about my dentist appointment until an hour before it was to take place. I received a text message at 3:00 today, reminding me that I had an appointment at 4:00. This required a bit of scrambling about in order to cover an after-school class that I was scheduled to teach, but it also meant that I did not worry about the appointment all day long, as I most assuredly would have if I had remembered to put the appointment in my calendar.   

Yes, it was a jerky thing to do, but it made me happy and she deserved it.

Perhaps you had to be there to enjoy this as much as I did, but this was the highlight of my day:

I was returning home from the gym when I came to a stoplight.  Several cars filled the lanes ahead of me, and I noticed that the woman driving the last car in the right lane was speaking on her phone.  She had the actual phone jammed against her ear with her left hand while her right hand rested on the steering wheel.

I realize that it is never a good idea to speak on the phone when driving (and I rarely do so), but in this world in which every phone has speakerphone capabilities and Bluetooth devices are inexpensive and ubiquitous, I cannot remember the last time I actually saw someone using their phone in a car in this traditional, most dangerous way.

I decided to do something.

I pulled my car ahead into the left lane and crept forward until the hood of my car was even with the woman's body. Then I blasted my horn for three solid seconds.

The horn startled the woman so badly that she dropped the phone onto the floor of her car as she spun around in order to see the source of the noise.

I was able to offer her a smile as I pulled past her and on my way. I watched as she fumbled around with one hand for her phone as the stoplight changed and she was forced to begin driving again. 

Yeah, I know. It was a little jerky, and it was unlikely to change the woman's behavior, but it felt good. It made me laugh. It made me feel like I did my part to make the roads a little less kind and a little less welcoming to those who would make them a slightly more dangerous place for the rest of us.

The world is a difficult place to change. Sometimes the best you can do is punish the wicked.

At least it's oftentimes amusing when done right.

Do you ever cross your fingers anymore?

I just wrote the phrase "Fingers crossed!" in an email to my editor. 

I used the phrase to signal that I was hoping for good luck, but when was the last time anyone actually crossed their fingers in real life?

I can't remember the last time when I did.  Nor can I recall a time when someone crossed their fingers in my presence.   

Is it possible that the physical gesture of crossing one's fingers for good luck no longer exists in real life, and all that is left is the verbal expression of the gesture?

 

Gratitude journal: Possibility

I am forever grateful for the endless possibility that exists in my life. 

Perhaps I will always be a slightly-less-than-midlist author who publishes a fairly well reviewed novel every year or two, and if that is the case, I will be a happy man. 

I am doing what I love. 

I have often said that I would like to someday write for a living and teach for pleasure, and while I am certainly not ready or able to give up my teaching salary salary, I am closer to this dream than I ever thought imaginable.

Really, really far away, too, but still closer than I ever thought possible.  

But with every book comes the possibility for greater success.  A larger readership. An opportunity for more prolific career. The dream of a best seller.   

In short, possibility.

In addition, all three of my books have been optioned for film or television.  This does not mean that anything will ever happen with any of them, but once again, it represents possibility.

Then there is a rock opera that I have co-written, a small business that I run, and another business opportunity that looms on the horizon.

My life is filled with many unlikely ways to make my fortune. Retire young. Travel the world.  Give my family everything they want.

None of this will probably never happen, and that is okay. I love my job and my students, and I feel incredibly lucky about the life I lead.

But I feel blessed with the ability to genuinely hope for so much more when so many cannot. 

This is what I am thankful for tonight.

5 rules to follow when you find or steal a wallet or handbag

In an ideal world, wallets and purses would never be stolen and lost wallets and purses would always be returned to their owners in perfect order.  Sadly, we do not live in an ideal world. Wallets and purses are routinely stolen and frequently lost. 

With this in mind, I would like to broker a compromise between the thieves of the world who steal these items and the Good Samaritans who find and return them.  This is not an ideal nor entirely moral solution to the problem, but it is one that I feel like everyone can agree to.  My goal is to arrive at a point in which a person could lose a wallet or purse and be reasonably satisfied in terms of getting some of the contents back.   

To this end, I have created a list of five rules that I believe would achieve this goal.  They are rules to which thieves and Good Samaritans could both abide without much trouble, and they would leave all parties involved fairly satisfied with the outcome. 

In the event you find or steal a wallet or purse, these are the five steps that all people should follow:     

The cash is automatically yours regardless of who you are or how much there is. Keep it all.  It is the last thing a person is concerned about when his or her wallet or purse turns up missing and the most tempting thing to keep when a wallet is found or stolen.  if you are a thief, consider it your profit.  If you are a Good Samaritan, consider it your reward.   
If you want to use the lost or stolen credit cards in order to purchase flat screen televisions and train tickets to Florida, you may do so, but keep in mind that you risk prosecution in the process. Thankfully, credit card companies protect consumers from the majority of these losses and they are exceptionally efficient at issuing new cards and getting them into the hands of consumers in record time. 
Keep the wallet or purse if you so desire.  Though I realize that some handbags can cost thousands of dollars, you have to be a crazy person to spend that much on a handbag in the first place, and you have to be even crazier to allow it to be lost or stolon. You don't deserve to get it back. Let this unfortunate incident serve as a lesson to you:  Spending thousands of dollars on handbag might garner the attention of similarly insane individuals, but it also serves as a clear indication of the depth of the pool in which you swim.        
    Leave the debit card behind. Even though you will never be able to guess the PIN in order to access the cash, the rightful owner will still have to close their old checking account and open a new one, just to be safe.  This is annoying since it necessitates a trip to the bank and requires the owner to forget an old checking account number and memorize a new one.  Not an easy task.    
  Return everything else contained within the wallet or purse by either dropping it off in a US Postal Service mailbox or handing it over to the police.  Driver's license, passport, library card, gym membership card, AAA card, customer loyalty cards, photographs and anything else one might find in a wallet or handbag.  While cash and credit cards are technically the most valuable items that you are likely to find, it's the other items found in a wallet or purse that are most difficult (and sometimes impossible) to replace.

Think of it this way:

If your wallet or purse were stolen today and I could guarantee the safe return of everything inside except for the cash, credit cards, and wallet or purse itself within two business days, would you take that deal?

I think most people would. 

We either agree to abide by my rules or you risk losing everything.

Gratitude journal: Uploading to Google Docs

Tonight I am grateful for the ability to now upload entire documents to Google Docs rather than cutting and pasting from one program to another.

I know. It doesn't sound like something worthy of a gratitude journal. But for a writer who uses Google Docs all the time and is constantly losing paragraphing and formatting while cutting and pasting, this is a big deal.

I'd say that it's about time, but Google Docs is a free service, so it's hard to complain if it lacks a feature that I might need.

Still, it's about time.