IS IT JUST A CAR OR A FIRST IMPRESSION …

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The neighbor kid, Jimmy, a scruffy-looking 19-year-old, who seemed to favor faded black T-shirts with numerous holes and well-worn dirty jeans he liked to wear for a couple of weeks before washing, came over to borrow a rake. He couldn’t help but notice again, the care I was giving to detailing my car. At the beginning of every Spring and Autumn, I give my ten-year-old Toyota its biannual spa treatment, inside and out. It may have its car door dings and parking lot scratches, but it still has that showroom shine and no rust. An accomplishment I take a bit a pride in.

And then there’s Jimmy’s car. A prematurely aged ’98 Ford Fiesta, a British import. Dirty, dented and rusting, its cherry red exterior had oxidized to the point that the cherry had abandoned the car a couple of years ago. Jimmy’s idea of taking care of his car was running it through the $2 car wash once a year, at the end of winter, “whether it needs it or not,” he liked to say. This despite the fact that Jimmy works at a car wash.

Jimmy liked to think that people shouldn’t make judgements based on outward appearances. And while I agree that people shouldn’t make judgements only on outward appearances, first impressions are inevitably made on what people, places and things look like.

Jimmy thought it was a waste of time, money and effort keeping my Toyota looking and running as well as I could. I tried previously to explain the value of maintaining an investment but it mostly fell on deaf ears. He kept insisting that a car just gets you from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ and it shouldn’t matter what others thought.

This time I thought I’d try a different approach when he asked me why I work so hard at “keeping up appearances”.

I asked him why he always borrowed his dad’s ’06 Dodge Viper (yes, a red one) when he went out on a date.

“Dude,” he said, “It’s the snake, man. Look at it. Girls love it and I look so good in it.”

“But why not just use your car,” I asked. “All you need is to get from here to there, right?”

“Mr. E, you can’t be serious,” he said. “I’m not gonna impress a girl in a Ford Fiesta. I don’t want her to think I’m a total douche on the first date.”

“So on what date do you want her to think that of you,” I asked.

“None,” Jimmy said emphatically, like I was some kind of nut for even suggesting it.

Suddenly the candle flickered inside his brain, signaling some activity. I think he finally got it.

A couple of days later, he asked if I could give him some tips on “restoring” the finish on his Fiesta.

WARNING: THIS POST TALKS ABOUT THE LANGUAGE OF LOSERS …

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“If only I’d gotten that promotion,” the young man said to his friend. “Man, if I woulda got it I coulda got on that executive fast track. I’m so bummed. I really shoulda got that promotion, you know. Now I’m just stuck with the other losers.”

In about fifteen seconds, this young turk placed himself squarely in the middle of “the other losers.” And not because he didn’t get the promotion.

He did so because he decided to speak the language of losers. He invoked the “if-onlies” along with the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” lament. These are the phrases that tend to lead people down the path of regret, blame, stress and often crisis. Rather than looking forward to the real opportunities ahead, they focus on the perceived lost opportunities behind. They talk about what they’ve lost rather than on what they can gain.

In the battles we fight today for the treasures we seek tomorrow, we need to be mindful of what our focus is and how our words can either obscure or clarify it.

Pursue your purpose. Pitch everything else.

IF YOU ASK A SILLY QUESTION …

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In one of my previous lives, (and no, I don’t mean reincarnation) I worked in a number of prison systems. (And you’d be amazed at how eclectic that was.) And among the many things I wondered about, one of the more silly things I found was the question almost every parole board asked of almost every prisoner up for possible parole.

“Do you feel you have been rehabilitated?”

You’re reading the files of rapists, muggers, killers, burglars, stalkers, ad infinitum, and the best question you can come up with is, do you feel you’ve been rehabilitated?

And I wondered if they ever got any answers like:

“Well Mr. Parole Man, I’m a mean, unrepentant reprobate and if I ever get out of this prison, I’m going to go right out, buy the biggest sledge hammer I can find and commit numerous and heinous acts of vandalism.”

“Rehabittle-bable-liberal-tated? Hell, I can’t even spell the word, so no, I guess not. Can I go back to my cell now?”

“I’m glad you asked that. If you will quickly visit my web site Cut_Me_Loose_Today_Or_I’ll_Cut_You_Up_Tomorrow.com you will find a PowerPoint presentation highlighting the twenty top reasons why I believe I’m rehabilitated.”

“Well golly gee willickers of course I do. Yes, I know I cold-bloodedly murdered and hacked to pieces a baker’s dozen of victims, but I’ve since learned in my years of therapy and group counseling that that is not a constructive way to deal with my issues of people with zits.”

Or maybe the response would be a loud, maniacal laugh that would reverberate down the granite hallways and out into the countryside until the milk curdled inside that cow a mile and a half down the road.

I can think of a number of good ways to determine if someone is likely rehabilitated, but asking a prisoner something like that is no where on the list.

What a silly question.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT HIRING THE WRONG PEOPLE …

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For those who are familiar with the Winnie the Pooh character, Eeyore, this will make a lot more sense. Especially if you’ve heard his voice in the cartoon adaptations of the book. (Yes, there was a book that preceded the animation.)

Eeyore is a somewhat gloomy, despondent, melancholic kind of character. He’s the darkened cloud on your otherwise sunny day. He’s the muddy puddle you step into with your new shoes. He’s the pothole on your freeway of life. He’s also one of the more favorite and beloved characters in the Winnie the Pooh stories. Go figure.

Now imagine the Eeyore personality come to life in the girl who is “serving” you at the checkout counter. From the depressive body language and the eyes that never really make contact to the labored movements and that distinctive Eeyore-type voice, it is an uncomfortable point of customer contact.

That having been said, let me offer some offer some advice to hiring personnel and the people that supervise those hired to be points of customer contact.

STOP IT!

For the sake of all that is good and right in the world, STOP IT!!

Stop hiring people who don’t want to work.

Stop hiring people who think that their best is showing up relatively on time.

Stop hiring people who treat productivity like it’s a naughty four-letter word.

Stop hiring people who act like they hate customers who interrupt their raging acts of nothingness.

And if for some ungodly reason you have to hire at the bottom of the barrel, at least tell them to stop handing customers their receipt, and in that woe-is-me Eeyore voice, say, “Have a nice day.”

Please.

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE END OF YOUR DAY …

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I was on my seventh or eighth cup of coffee, sitting at the counter and enjoying the flow of night life that walked by and sometimes entered the small but inviting diner. It was almost 2:00 AM and I suspected it was going to be another all-nighter. Some of the bar crowd was already finding their way in.

The smell of frying onions and hamburger was a welcome change from the liver and onions that had been cooking earlier. Big Mac, the night shift cook, was anticipating the usual rush of orders that always came in at that time.

It was called a “Simple” and it was hamburger at its basic best. The bun was warmed on the griddle. A splotch of ketchup on the bottom half, fried onions, a very greasy hamburger patty, a small dollop of chili-pepper-spiked Miracle Whip®, topped at the customers request with shredded pepper jack cheese (and most requested it), and the top half of the bun. Simple, but very tasty. On a typical Friday and Saturday night, Big Mac would cook hundreds between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM.

“Gimme five Simples with jack,” Jeannie hollered to Big Mac, and I immediately wondered why so many waitresses are named Jeannie. “And a bucket of fries,” she added.

“Three more Simples, two with jack, one naked,” Jeannie called out. A naked Simple is bun, ketchup and burger. A naked Simple “no red” means without ketchup.

Anyway, it went on like that for the next couple of hours. Order after order. Scores of Simples chowed down at the counter with scores more going home in brown paper bags. Jeannie loved working the bar rush because she made more in tips during the six hours of those two days than she did the rest of the week.

About 4:10 in the morning, one of the regulars came in. Buddy liked to say he was “houseless but not homeless.” He lived alone in his van, which according to Buddy meant he had a home. Well, he wasn’t quite alone. He had a mongrel of a dog he rescued from the animal shelter. He called him Muddy. Buddy and Muddy.

“I’ll have two Simples with jack,” Buddy told Jeannie. “And a Muddy bag to go.”

A Muddy bag was two naked Simples, no red, that he’d bring “home” for his dog.

Anyway, sometimes Buddy would yell out something as he left the diner. Not always, but sometimes. This morning was one of those sometimes.

“Hey everybody,” Buddy yelled. “Be sure to watch the sunset tonight. It’ll be a beaut.”

“Alright Buddy,” Jeannie said. “We will. Take care now and say hi to Muddy for us.”

I got home around 5:30 that morning, did a little writing and eventually crawled into bed.

Woke up at the crack of noon, did some yard work with my wife through the afternoon and about a half hour before sunset, I remembered Buddy’s advice.

We stood outside and watched. And Buddy was right. The sunset was absolutely magnificent.

It was three weeks later that I ran into Buddy. I asked him how he knew the sunset was going to be so beautiful that night. He looked at me quizzically.

“That night?” he asked. “What night? They’re all beautiful. Every night. It means me and Muddy have lived through another day. It means the problems of the day are done and I can rest. They’re all beautiful, man. They’re all beautiful.”

And you know, he’s right.

SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T SEE THE FOREST BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO SELF-ABSORBED

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I could see the accident coming seconds before it happened.

Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-How-Cool-I-Am swaggered down the sidewalk, barely aware of everyone else on the sidewalk. His Armani suit marred only by the you-can-tell-I-have-an-iPod®-because-I’m-tethered-to-it-by-these-white-cords that hung unceremoniously over the lapels. His faux-hawk mullet looked grotesquely out of place on an otherwise well-dressed young man. His head was bent down as his thumbs worked furiously while texting.

Mr. You-Can-Tell-I’m-Blind-Because-Of-My-White-Cane was heading straight toward him. Everyone else respectfully yielded the sidewalk as he approached them. Everyone except Mr. ICBHCIA.

Suddenly, bam. Their shoulders collide, knocking each one off balance. Mr. ICBHCIA almost dropped his iPod®, and in the split second it took him to catch it, he became enraged.

“What’s wrong with you a**hole,” he screamed. “Are you blind?”

Everyone around them froze. And for a few moments, on a busy sidewalk in downtown Chicago, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. A young boy picked up the blind man’s cane and handed it to him.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the blind man said quietly. “But yes, I am.”

In an instant, Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-How-Cool-I-Am suddenly became Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-What-An-A**hole-I-Am.

Sometimes, life’s ironies are too perfect.

IT FILLED THE ROOM LIKE SOME ALIEN TOXIN ON A KILL HUNT

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He bent over, exposing about three inches of butt crack and what looked like a ponytail that should not have been in that place. And as visually offensive as that was, it didn’t compare to the whoosh of acrid, tepid air that pushed itself over the top of his pants. It hung in the air like a silent, heavy morning fog, singeing the eyebrows and nose-hairs until they turned brittle and ashen. My mustache hairs began flailing about, as if looking for an escape route that didn’t exist, but needing to escape nonetheless. The blood in my face quickly raced to my feet, hoping to escape the horrific odor, leaving me looking more dead than alive.

Pungent was just the beginning of what could only be described as the longest ten minutes in flatulence fiesta survival.

Forget the gag reflex that was stuck in the throat like a dry-heave version of the hiccups. Forget the eyes that watered as if someone were poking them with sewer-dipped pins. Forget even the fingernails that felt like they wanted to curl back on themselves in some failing attempt to get away from the virulent attack. This was serious stuff. Had it happened on an airplane, this perpetrator would likely have been arrested for domestic terrorism and immediately shipped away to some remote part of the Arctic, far, far away from anything that wanted to breathe or live. This was the stuff that urban legends were made of. The stuff that horror writers waited for in some shadowy alley and gave a working title of – “The Night the Living Dead Died. Agonizingly Died. Cruelly and Unusually Died. The Night that Death Died and Couldn’t Die Soon Enough”.

I managed to gasp the single word, “Dude!”

“Yeah,” he half laughed. “That one seems a bit ripe.”

I stumbled through the now-palpable haze that seemed to be filling the kitchen to open a window. And for a much too long of a moment, it seemed as if not even the fresh air wanted to come in. Reluctantly, it began to trickle in as the felonious fart, sensing new worlds to conquer, flew out the window. Well, slowly flew out the window.

As the color began returning to my face and the fresh air reached the tipping point in the room, Smiley, the plumber working underneath the sink, slowly backed out from the cabinet and stood up.

“All done,” he said.

“Are you referring to the work you did, or the ozone layer you almost single-handedly destroyed?”

“Yeah,” he again half laughed. “That one seemed a bit ripe.”

“A bit ripe?” I said in obvious disbelief. “You owe me at least a 10 percent discount for that one.”

Surprisingly, he gave me the discount.

So I’m thinking two things.

If you’re visiting someone’s home, take care of that business long before you enter. One of the last things your customers, family or friends need to be wondering is whether to take you to the Emergency Room, because obviously something crawled up their and died a few months ago. And that half-laugh so many of you like to offer after the fact, it’s not an air freshener, it’s an insult added to injury.

And the other thing is, hey, sometimes to get a discount, all you have to do is ask.