When Your Loved One Buys a Juicer

Introduction

Today I tackle the unpleasant topic of what to do when a family member or close friend has purchased a juicer. This is a trying ordeal for all involved, and if not handled properly can lead to a host of negative outcomes up to and including complete estrangement. If someone close to you has already purchased a juicer, perhaps it’s not too late for this post to help. And if such a purchase hasn’t happened yet, don’t be naïve: it can happen to anyone, even you.

Why do people buy juicers?

When a person buys a juicer, it’s tempting to think a normal consumerist impulse is in play: a friend has one, it was on sale, etc. Don’t be fooled: the juicer purchase occupies an entirely different realm than, say, the harmless acquisition of a food processor or “bullet” style blender. To understand why an otherwise reasonable person would buy something that does not have, and cannot have, any utility whatsoever, you need to delve into how the brain works and how a this kind of destructive behavior can be essentially “programmed.”

On the face of it, such “programming” doesn’t look so different from regular advertising, with its slick photo or video showcasing a product to good effect, usually including an attractive person (whether a celebrity endorser, a model, or social media influencer) who creates mimetic desire in the consumer. But in reality, promotion of a juicer is far more sophisticated, and the campaign is deployed extremely precisely to capture the consumer at his or her very most vulnerable.

Remarkably, instead of seeking out a person who is emotionally isolated and has low self-esteem, juicer marketers use every modern technology available (e.g., tracking cookies or pixels, sentiment analysis within social media posts, etc.) to watch for an uplift in optimism. This is the key vulnerability the juicer industry exploits: the erroneous sense that anything is possible, even making nutritious juices in your own home. The peculiar nature of this scenario makes it very hard for loved ones to spot early warning signs. It’s not uncommon, for example, for a member of the juicer-buyer’s household to later report, “I can’t understand it … she seemed fine, she seemed happy!”

Consequences of buying a juicer

The most commonly feared consequence of a juicer purchase happens to be a myth: that it will lead to constant messes that can be extremely difficult to clean up, particularly when substances like beets, berries, pomegranate juice, and/or turmeric are involved. While this certainly can happen, it isn’t really the central problem, because the reality is, most juicer-buyers only use their juicer once. This might seem outlandish, given how expensive juicers are, but if you’ve ever actually drunk the vegetable liquid produced by this appliance, you’ll immediately understand the rationale for never using it a second time. The reality is, nothing produced by the juicer is actually palatable … it only ever seemed like a good idea. The juicer-buyer will likely intend to use the device periodically, even habitually, but is almost certain to never build up enough gumption to do so.

In fact, the most severe consequence of the juicer purchase is the deep shame that the buyer feels every time he or she sees it in the back of a cabinet. Juicers are not small—in fact, they are the very epitome of the giant, single-function kitchen appliance that home owners should avoid, other examples being the bread machine or electric can opener. (Only a toaster is arguably worth the space.) With most such encumbrances, family members may hope to see it offloaded to Goodwill or some other thrift store—but the juicer, in most cases, will not be. The reason? Cognitive dissonance. The juicer-buyer spent so much on it, he is loathe to admit it’s worthless, and the sunk cost fallacy usually crops up, meaning the family is stuck with this thing for life. And every time the buyer sees it, he is likely to feel subconscious stirrings of regret around not only of the folly of having acquired it, but of the ongoing self-delusion driving him to keep it. Whether or not these feelings bubble up to the surface, the juicer-buyer usually lacks the resolve to squarely confront the problem. Hence the festering shame … the juicer might as well be a scarlet letter.

How to help your loved one 

Of course the juicer-buyer is not only hurting herself. The myriad case histories of these purchases are simply heartbreaking, as entire families are impacted. The buyer’s spouse is bewildered as to not only the extravagant uselessness of the object, but of the purchasing decision having been made unilaterally, with no warning or consultation. Meanwhile, children lose faith in the parent who bought the juicer, in light of this inexplicably reckless behavior, and this can lead to a crisis of trust and consequent feelings of insecurity. Then there’s the clutter of the juicer itself, taking up valuable cabinet or countertop space. But while it’s understandable for family members to feel hurt, we must never forget that the buyer is the central victim. Here are some guidelines for properly handling the situation, so as to avoid further harm.

Lead with empathy

It is understandably tempting to express your incredulity at the act of purchase, without pausing to frame your inquiry carefully. It might seem perfectly reasonable to blurt out, “What part of don’t drink your calories do you not understand?!” Or you might demand, “Why would we throw away the best part of fruit—all that dietary fiber—and consume only the part that’s bad for us!?” But this kind of reaction is a big mistake, on two levels. First, since the buyer already knows deep down inside that he has made a mistake, this will only increase his latent remorse. Second, this antagonistic confrontation may drive the buyer into deeper denial, while fanning the flames of what is bound to be a difficult dialogue that could drag on for years.

Thus, it’s crucial to react with kindness and concern rather than confronting the buyer aggressively. Let her tell her story, and try to validate her position. “So … this juicer,” you might begin. “Are you envisioning making delicious and nutritive smoothies for the family?” You might be surprised to learn that your innocent assumption—that she was planning tasty shakes with fruit juice, yogurt, and nuts—was dead wrong, and that she’s planning to go straight to making vegetable drinks, even something with kale. Don’t kid yourself: juicers are not just blenders on steroids. They are specifically designed and marketed to exploit the rare but powerful delusion that vegetable-based beverages are drinkable. 

As disturbing as this is, try to be patient and supportive as your loved one explains her dedication to the family’s health, and the benefits of leafy greens high in vitamins K and A, antioxidants like quercetin and kaempferol, and omega-3 fatty acids. When she describes how much easier juicing is than making a salad, try not to immediately contradict her by pointing out how hard a juicer is to clean, especially given its oleophilic plastic bowl and dome. Remember, this buyer is already in a highly vulnerable state … if she weren’t, she wouldn’t have bought the juicer in the first place! So instead, as strange and inappropriate as this may feel, thank her for thinking of the family’s health. Remember, if you’re going to eventually pick up the pieces and move on, you need her to feel like you’re on her side.

Let the juicer-buyer fail

It can be so hard to just stand by and watch a loved one fail, but in the case of a juicer, it’s actually the best thing you can do. If the purchaser perceives a battle of wills between the two of you, his judgment is bound to be further clouded. Just watch and wait, and when that first batch of kale, cucumber, carrot, and beet concoction comes out, accept the proffered glass willingly. (Honestly, you have no choice anyway.) Promote the drink to the children enthusiastically, as though they don’t sense your skepticism. And then: pretend to enjoy it. Don’t worry, you won’t be working against yourself, for the simple reason that you will inevitably come up short in your play-acting. Not even Edward Norton or Frances McDormand could pull off a realistic impression of someone enjoying a vegetable beverage. Your vain attempt to avoid wincing, grimacing, puckering, or even gagging, and the pleasant smile you try to arrange, will be duly noted. In fact, you will be invoking the juicer-buyer’s empathy.

Extend this strategy to the clean-up. Don’t offer to wash the juicer, no matter how badly you may want to get it out of your sight so you can begin trying to put the entire wretched affair behind you. Let the sprawling apparatus just sit there on the counter, its clear dome spattered with green flecks, looking like somebody actually projectile-vomited inside it. Work around the juicer using the limited remaining counter space, and in fact let the buyer see you being a good sport about it: that is, let her sit with the consequences. If you give in and wash the juicer for her, you’re being an enabler. And if cleaning the kitchen is normally your job anyway, do a poor job with the juicer. Let the residue of beet juice, coconut milk, and/or flax seeds adhere to the sides … the juicer-buyer needs to see all this. (And if the juicer gets put away without being up to your normal standards of cleanliness, don’t fret. Bear in mind it will never be used again anyway.)

Be alert to collateral damage

If you have children, watch for any warning signs that they are coping poorly. Seeing a juicer in action, and knowing it was purchased intentionally, may cause them to doubt the foundation of reliable, competent parenting they rely so heavily upon. If necessary, have a private conversation with your kid(s), emphasizing that anyone can make a mistake like this under certain circumstances. Make this a teachable moment about the evils of targeted advertising campaigns and the ruthlessness of corporations in exploiting our vulnerabilities. Draw attention to your spouse’s overall track record, emphasizing how this behavior truly was an anomaly. And remind your kid(s) that, as hard as it may be to believe, your spouse had the best of intentions and a sincere belief this was in the family’s best interest.

How to move on

While it’s understandable to seek closure in a situation like this, consider that it should not come at the cost of the juicer-buyer’s humiliation. Put this purchase in the proper perspective: your family is only out a few hundred bucks. Don’t get me wrong, “only” does seem preposterous in the context of a totally worthless appliance, but in the big scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal. After all, your loved one didn’t take in a violent rescue dog with expensive health problems, or get scammed into investing in fraudulent cryptocurrency. Just bide your time, let the juicer molder away in a back cabinet, and reflect on all your loved one’s fine qualities. And remind yourself that all kinds of people buy juicers … you just never hear about it. Humans are not perfect. We all make mistakes.

Now, depending on various factors—the level of rapport you have with your loved one; her overall mental health; her sense of humor—it may be possible to ease the ongoing emotional burden of this purchase with a little levity. Coming across the cursed appliance, you might say, brightly, “Oh, the juicer! We should do another veggie beverage!” This is risky, of course, if you don’t get the tone exactly right. Imagine how distressing it would be if your loved one thought you were serious. It is probably safer, if you try humor at all, to be a bit more vague. For example, the next time the family suffers a major setback, you could say, “Well, at least we still have our juicer.” Again, this is a risky move, as it could be construed as sarcastic, and adding insult to injury. Remember, the purchase of this juicer will haunt your loved one for years … I would always err on the side of caution.

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Easter FAQ - A Guide for Newcomers

Introduction

I work with people from around the world (generally via videoconference). Those who are overseas, or only recently moved here, are often unfamiliar with American traditions. For example, when I joined a meeting early and was chatting with a native-born colleague about Groundhog Day, a foreign-born colleague joined a little late and struggled to come up to speed. Flummoxed by phrases like “Punxsutawney Phil,” he asked, “Are you guys talking about football?”

With Easter Sunday coming up, I figured I’d try to provide a handy guide, in the time-honored format of Frequently Asked Questions, for anyone similarly mystified by this admittedly rather complicated holiday.

(No, I’m not really an Easter expert, but maybe it’s better that way; I’ll be less inclined to overestimate how much people already know.)

Easter Sunday Frequently Asked Questions

What is Easter all about?

Easter is a fundamentally a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, though non-Christians in the West often celebrate it as a basic festival, more in the spirit of springtime, a seasonal renewal. In America, as with so many traditions, it can seem like mainly an excuse to eat food that is bad for us.

When is Easter celebrated?

Easter is always on a Sunday, but where the specific date is concerned things get complicated. The holiday takes place anywhere between late March and late April, based on a complex algorithm that people have bickered about for hundreds of years. To this day, different Christian denominations celebrate it on different days. According to Wikipedia, the West celebrates Easter “on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after 21 March (a fixed approximation of the March equinox).” So this year in America, it’s this coming Sunday, March 31. That said, the Greek Orthodox church won’t celebrate it until May 5. So, if you’re late getting a card in the mail, you’ve got your excuse!

Wait a second – if Jesus was resurrected on a specific day, why does the commemoration date depend on moon cycles?

I have always assumed this moon-phase-after-equinox thing was an attempt to move in on the pagans’ action and have the holiday compete with their traditional seasonal celebrations (like how Christmas is conveniently close to the Winter solstice, and my birthday is very close to the Summer solstice). (Yes, that last bit was a joke.) But my theory doesn’t appear to be correct; Wikipedia (which has a very long article about the date of Easter) declares, “The complexity of the algorithm arises because of the desire to associate the date of Easter with the date of the Jewish feast of Passover which, Christians believe, is when Jesus was crucified.” I like that: “the desire.” Whose desire? They don’t say. I don’t suspect very many people actually care how Easter relates to Passover, much less to any astronomical matters. It’s not like if we were out for a night walk anyone would ever say, “Wait a second, how can it be Easter tomorrow? Look at the moon! Does that look like a last quarter moon to you?!”

How is Easter celebrated?

Many Catholics observe various days during Holy Week (the week before Easter), leading up to Good Friday (celebrating the death by crucifixion of Jesus and no, I have no idea why it’s called “Good” Friday). On the night before Easter, some attend an all-night vigil, as I did once at a Greek Orthodox church as the guest of a friend. I had to stand the whole time because, as a relative heathen, I didn’t want to take up one of the coveted seats in the pews. I had been instructed by my friend that the vigil would end in the morning with special music and then the Paschal greeting, aka Easter Acclamation, whereby everybody would turn to his or her neighbor and say, “Christ is risen!” to which the traditional response is, “He is risen indeed!” At some point I forgot how I was supposed to respond, and sweated over it the rest of the night … I had one line to deliver—was I really gonna flub it? As the sleep deprivation got to me, I started worrying that I’d blurt out something like, “Amen, of course, yes,” or “Word up,” or “And also with you.” In the event, I didn’t actually choke … I probably took a cue from everyone else, and/or my response was indistinct among the hundreds of people talking at once.

Religious traditions aside, almost everyone tends to eat chocolate eggs and jelly beans on Easter, and to dye hard boiled eggs, and to have a special dinner, often something really tasty like lamb. And there’s lots of talk about, and pictorial representations of, the Easter Bunny, who’s kind of like a furry animal Santa.

What’s up with the eggs? Is that something Jesus was into?

If you really want to go down a rabbit hole (sorry, couldn’t resist), try googling “did Jesus like eggs.” One article says definitely yes, but I couldn’t get any details due to a paywall. A PETA site says Jesus certainly didn’t eat eggs and you shouldn’t either. Mostly the results are dead ends. I think it’s fair to conclude that the Easter egg has more to do with basic symbolism. Wikipedia says that in the Christian tradition, the eggs “symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus.” The Encyclopedia Britannica says that early Christians repurposed some existing symbolism from pagans who “viewed eggs as a symbol of the regeneration that comes with springtime.”

Does the Easter Bunny actually lay the Easter eggs? In other words, is she of the special order of mammals called monotremes, like the platypus?

I had to do a little research on this one. I can find no evidence that the Easter Bunny actually lays these eggs (even according to the folklore and modern traditions), nor that the Easter Bunny is even female. According to Wikipedia, “In ancient times, it was widely believed (as by Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus, and Aelian) that the hare was a hermaphrodite.” Can a hermaphrodite lay eggs? Well, sort of, but more in the sense of sperm + eggs, not the kind of egg that has a shell and thus can represent an empty tomb.

Meanwhile, both Wikepedia and Britannica mention that eating eggs is forbidden during the Lenten period before Easter, but nobody tells the hens to stop laying, so the ensuing glut is part of why eggs figure in to Easter. So I think it’s fair to say these Easter eggs are chicken eggs, not rabbit eggs. In my family’s case, my kids were never nosy enough to ask where the Easter Bunny gets the eggs, so I didn’t have to make anything up. Perhaps that’s unfortunate; I’d have liked to work monotremic mammals into our family lore.

Why are the Easter eggs dyed?

According to Wikipedia, eggs were originally dyed red to symbolize “the blood of Christ, shed at his crucifixion.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps other colors were brought in to make the holiday more pleasant. Can you imagine how the notions of bloodshed + egg + Easter Bunny might get jumbled up in a young child’s imagination in alarming ways?

Easter egg hunts seem to be a big part of the tradition. Who (supposedly) hides the eggs?

I think the folklore around who hides the eggs will naturally vary from family to family. My wife and I didn’t like the idea of an outdoor Easter egg hunt, for reasons of hygiene, but also couldn’t be bothered to create any mythology around the Easter Bunny sliding down the chimney or some other explanation for how he or she would get in to the house, which we lock up like a citadel. Plus, the hunt was always for the eggs that the kids themselves had dyed, so to pretend the Easter Bunny hid them would have been a real stretch. So my wife and I were candid about being the hiders of the eggs.

According to this article, quoting Lizette Larson-Miller, a professor with the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, “We know that Martin Luther had Easter egg hunts where the men hid the eggs for the women and children and it probably has this connection back to this idea of eggs being the tomb.” I don’t think this aspect of the Easter tradition has survived to modern times.

My kids ultimately became too competitive around the Easter egg hunts, which took most of the fun out of it, so my wife and I turned the tables and had the kids hide the eggs for us. This became a real challenge because their hiding places were so devious, some eggs wouldn’t turn up for several weeks.

That photo at the top of this post is so weird. Is it typical of the holiday?

It’s part of an entire series of strange photos my dad took of my brothers and me with our eggs one year. We never saw the photos until decades later, after his death, because he always shot slide film and almost never did slide shows, owing to his clunky projector and his workaholism. Going through his stuff (so I could sell his house), I found boxes and boxes of slides, I mean like thousands, with this series among them. Check out this choice shot:

That kid looks really stressed. What’s going on there?

My brothers and I weren’t used to our dad paying much attention to us, and couldn’t figure out the odd posing of these photos. I suspect this kid, who is either Bryan or Geoff, was just kind of flummoxed, like “Who is this weird dad guy?” and/or was afraid of letting the old man down by not posing properly.

Why do those eggs say ‘Mommy Day’ on them? Is that part of Easter?

No, mommies are not celebrated as part of Easter; modern cultures have Mother’s Day for that. Who knows what this kid was thinking. Perhaps he was somehow conflating the two holidays due to sheer ignorance. It’s natural he wouldn’t have used the word “Mother” because we were afraid of it … we could only say “Mommy.” We were even more afraid of the word “Father” and could only say “Daddy.” I once said “Dad” because I was about to get spanked for a childish infraction and was trying to be as casual as possible so I said, “Sorry, Dad,” which seemed to fan the flames of his anger such that it was one of the worst spankings I ever had. To make matters worse, when my brothers later mocked me about the spanking (which mocking went on for many weeks), their chorus was always “Sorry, Dad.” Thus, nobody said “Dad” for at least ten more years. But I realize I’m getting way off into the weeds here. I want to emphasize that our family was not normal and our eggs and the way we’ve posed with them are not representative of any Easter tradition.

How did the Easter holiday come to incorporate candy instead of just chicken eggs and a big feast?

According to Wikipedia, “as many people give up sweets as their Lenten sacrifice, individuals enjoy them at Easter.” There’s probably some truth to this, but since a majority of Americans don’t observe Lent, this part of the observance is probably related more to: hey, candy! Yum!

As with most American traditions, the theme of excess is well represented by our Easter holiday. The number of candies and their size have increased significantly in my lifetime. No longer are we limited to egg-shaped chocolates; now we have bunny-shaped chocolates that one day will probably grow to be life-sized. In America, we have a word for this indulgence. We call it: freedom.

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From the Archives - Careergate

Introduction

I recently came across a letter to my brother from 1995, recalling a shameful episode from my past, dating back to first grade. This being a slow news day, I figured I’d post it here. I’ve fleshed it about a bit, from memory. Believe me: I remember this ordeal all too well.

Careergate — July 9, 1995

In first grade, we did a big unit on careers. First we watched some film loops (remember those?) about various careers including middle manager, quality control technician, and comptroller. Naw, just kidding, it was the normal assortment of clichéd vocations like doctor, nurse, construction worker, teacher, farmer … the stuff it’s easy to imagine and picture, even if it represents only a sliver of the wide variety of actual careers out there. Various parents came in to talk about their careers as well, though I didn’t pay much attention. The only one I remember well was a long-haul truck driver. He described, in great detail, the methamphetamine regimen that kept him awake at the wheel, along with its various side effects. (Okay, fine, I made that part up.) Then we kids had to decide what we were going to be when we grew up, and make a big poster showing ourselves on the job. The year before, my brother Max had chosen “ambulance driver,” mainly (I believed then, and continue to believe) because he thought he could draw a pretty cool picture of an ambulance. My parents were pleased at his choice and made a nice fuss over him.

I didn’t put much thought into deciding on my career. I believed at the time, naïve as I was, that I would have a chance to revisit this decision later. I had no idea that this initial stab at a career plan would forever cement my reputation among my peers, my teacher, and my parents. So I thought about the project for about thirty seconds before deciding I could probably draw a TV set, and that it would be fun to draw a TV showroom with not only a few TVs in it, but also a big picture window, through which you could see the street and a cyclist riding by. I thought it would be a nice challenge to draw this well enough for the window not just to look like another TV. So I chose the career goal of TV salesman.

It is probably the case that Mrs. M— explained how the posters would be put on prominent display for all to see, including the parents who, on Parent Teacher night, would be pleased as punch at how Bear Creek Elementary, and Mrs. M— in particular, were grooming their children for highly successful and prestigious lives. But I wasn’t paying attention and thought this was another pointless project that would be soon forgotten. That is, I didn’t realize I was about to shame myself and my entire family, as I was too engrossed in the task at hand to see the big picture. I thought my drawing came out fairly well. It showed a man at a counter taking some money, and the happy customer with his hand on the TV set. In the background was a window: if you looked closely, you saw, through this window, a bicyclist riding by. I was most proud of that scene through the window. I felt it embodied happenstance—a little snapshot of life, caught by random, totally unrelated to the sales transaction. Naturally, I didn’t think these things in these words, but the feeling was there.

I find it noteworthy that I undertook the project without so much as a glance at what my classmates were doing. I was accustomed to being unorthodox, since I was raised if not by wolves, at least by slightly odd parents who in some ways diverged from mainstream society: we didn’t watch much TV, certainly didn’t follow sports (I mean, we didn’t even know the basic rules of football or baseball), used good grammar, were often ignorant of pop culture, and were put on the swim team instead of in Little League. I so often felt lost in the world that I’d just learned to accept this feeling and went through life in a fog, long pondering a great many mysteries but never thinking to ask anyone about them. For example, I couldn’t understand the Snickers ad showing a candy bar being sliced up to show off the peanuts and peanut butter nougat, and ending with the words, “No matter how you slice it, it comes up peanuts.” I’d never heard the expression “no matter how you slice it,” so the entire ad was a mystery. Who, I wondered, goes around slicing up Snickers bars, and why?

And, when I listened to the Carole King album “Really Rosie,” and its title song, I couldn’t fathom the point of the lyric “I’m really Rosie and I’m the most/ Beat that drum, make that toast.” I mean, okay, beating a drum to celebrate someone, sure … but making toast? “Wow, you’re really the most, let me make you some toast. Whole wheat or white?” I had no idea people clinked together glasses of wine or champagne while wishing each other well … I’d never seen such a thing. In my family we drank powdered milk from plastic cups and never offered up good tidings.

So, when I finished my career poster and happened to glance at what my classmates had done, I think I actually felt smug at how hackneyed their career plans were, compared to mine. All the boys in my class chose fireman, doctor, policeman, or U.S. President, and the girls chose actress, nurse, or nun, maybe even saint. You’d think Mrs. M— would kind of snicker at the utter predictability of it all, but she fawned all over them like they were child geniuses. When she got to my poster she kind of turned her nose up. “Where did you get this idea, TV salesman?” she asked, with a distinct note of contempt in her voice. “We didn’t have any parent presentation on this. It wasn’t in the film loops. You wanna sell TVs?”

I just shrugged. I had long before written Mrs. M— off completely. She had lost my respect by tearing masking tape with her teeth, while telling us not to do it; by chewing me out for wiping my nose on my sleeve, which I knew full well was an unassailable privilege of childhood; and by holding a special meeting with my mom to discuss my poor attention span. (My mom described to me the entire encounter. She’d been unconcerned, either because she didn’t see my daydreaming as a problem at my young age. Confronted with the negative report, Mom replied, “I’m sure he’ll come around eventually.” Mrs. M— slammed her fist down on the table and retorted, “That time has got to be now!”)

Anyway, I wasn’t about to reassess my career goals: the picture was already drawn. I asked Mrs. M— what she thought of the bicyclist in my poster, seen through the window, frozen in time. Isn’t that cool? A lone rider trapped forever in a two-dimensional depiction of life itself? Pedaling, and yet going nowhere? Caught in the act of existence? Alas, it would take someone with a college degree in literature to assemble the body of rhetoric necessary to defend my picture, and I was just a dumb kid. I pointed at the bicyclist, and said, “Look at him! He’s not on TV, he’s really there, through the window!” Mrs. M— just rolled her eyes and moved on, freshly flabbergasted by my idiocy.

Even after this icy reception of my poster, I was kind of proud of it, hanging right there on the wall with all the firemen, presidents, nurses, and doctors. I remember feeling a strange kind of pride: nobody else had a window in their pictures. And besides, Chris Phillips’ fireman looked exactly like David Brown’s. Same ladder, same fire hose, same burning home in the background, everything. Moreover, what I saw were a lot of hats. Fireman’s hat (well, helmet), policeman’s hat, nurse’s hat. Like on “Sesame Street,” with its “These are the people in your neighborhood” song. Such simple, foolproof choices. Nobody had even attempted to capture the essence of simultaneity: the skew paths of the featured persons (salesman, customer) vs. this unimportant background character, who is unaware of the brazen, undiscriminating promiscuity of existence, like a nameless renter in a giant apartment building who’s unacquainted with the neighboring tenants. If nothing else, I derived a peculiar pleasure from being the only future TV salesman in my whole class.

Well, I hadn’t heard the end of it yet. I guess it was one thing for my mom to shrug off Mrs. M—’s criticism of me in a private conference, but to have her kid’s utter lack of ambition showcased there in front of all the others at Parent Teacher Night didn’t go down too well. Perhaps she was oppressed by all the proud parents there, all of them giddy in the anticipation of their children’s futures, entranced by the obvious nobility represented by their career goals. Firemen saving homes and families! Nurses helping doctors! Doctors saving lives! And what was her kid planning? To facilitate mass brain erasure by selling televisions?

When she got home Mom gave me a hard time about it. She seemed disappointed, and possibly embarrassed. I could no longer be cavalier about it… I had to face the evil of my ways. I took a hard look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw. A TV salesman … it was disgraceful. I hadn’t been brought up to sell TVs; our dad didn’t even allow us to watch TV! Since he was so seldom home to police this, he had removed the knobs from the TV set so we couldn’t operate it, forcing us kids to reach in with needle-nose pliers and endure powerful electric shocks! Officially at least, TV was beneath our family’s intellect. So where had I gone wrong? How could I so breezily trash my personal brand among my fellow students, not to mention with my family? Was this what I stood for: a livelihood based on brainless transactions, selling boob-tubes to people so ravenous for simple entertainment, all I had to do was basically collect the money, like some schmuck working a toll-booth?

My mom’s criticism was like catnip to my eavesdropping brothers, who treated this like a major scandal, like I’d murdered somebody’s pet or something. They endlessly mocked me for it, to the point that our dad overheard (or had my mom actually told him?) and now he was all sore, too. Looking back, it was kind of an amazing academic performance on my part: I’d made an entire family feel bad. I was miffed at my parents for making such a big fuss, angry at my brothers for teasing me, and felt bad about myself for having so little ambition. My brothers, though delighted at the dustup, surely lost (even more) respect for me; my parents felt bad about me, of course, and also about themselves, and perhaps about my school. Perhaps my mom even wondered if my TV salesman ambition was rooted in some kind of rebellion, lashing out against my dad’s prohibition of TV in our household, in which case this shameful episode may have increased her animosity toward him. As for my dad, who knew full well that he himself was perfect, any defect in us kids was surely my mom’s fault, so he was probably almost as miffed at her as at me. I think it takes a pretty special school project to do all that.

One thing was certain: all of this could have been avoided if I’d just toed the line and gone the conventional path, deciding to be a cop or fireman or doctor, instead of following my fancy. It’s a good thing I was an arrogant little bastard and mostly uneducable, or I might have taken a bad lesson from Careergate. Instead, I just kept muddling on in my clueless way, shaken by the incident but not stirred to any action, such as trying to do better. Story of my life, I guess.

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Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vlog

This post is available as a vlog as as service to the blind, the illiterate, and the lazy. If you are blind, I hope somebody will start up the video for you so you can listen. (As for not seeing anything, trust me ... you’re not missing much.) If you are illiterate, I hope the Play button is self-explanatory. If you are lazy, congratulations on making it this far. If you are none of these, scroll down for the text version. Or not ... whatever.

Introduction

As if the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t bad enough, we as a nation are also facing a lot of scolds who have sky-is-falling, buzzkill attitudes about getting together with our families over the holidays. I say if we’re going to simply ignore or defy these naysayers, we might as well be responsible about it. This post tells you how.

Planning your trip

Leo Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” What about healthy families? It’s worth taking some time to think about your particular crew and its COVID-19 profile. If your family Thanksgiving dinners inevitably descend into vicious long-winded bouts of character assassination, with everybody yelling at once like protesters at a political rally, maybe it’s best to sit out this holiday season. On the other hand, if the grownups sit with their hands in their laps, staring at their plates and finding themselves once again at a loss for words, while the kids sit isolated in another room, peering into their smartphones, silent and sullen for the entire long weekend, then it’s game on for holiday festivities!

Let’s be realistic about it, though: there is some question as to whether traveling is safe right now. According to the Georgia Departmentof Public Health, “Cases of COVID-19 have been reported in many states, and some areas are experiencing community spread of the disease.” Wow. I did not know that. Thanks, Georgia! (Yes, click the link and see for yourself: they really did say that.)

As it stands, the pandemic is certainly escalating. One of the main risks right now is the colder weather, with everybody gathering indoors. So instead of you and your far-flung siblings rendezvousing in Duluth, Bismarck, or Fargo where your parents live, you should have everybody meet up in a warmer clime. Australia would be ideal, but avoid the big urban centers. Kiwirrkurra, which is 450 miles from the nearest city, would be ideal. Kiwirrkurra’s population is barely over 200, so there can’t be much coronavirus there! Plan your trip carefully though, because it’s probably no tourist mecca … chances are you’ll be camping out. And steer clear of the locals ... you wouldn’t want to wipe out an entire community.

Flying during COVID-19

A new study by the US Department of Defense suggests that aircraft ventilation systems aren’t actually spreading the virus as badly as previously thought. “Planes don’t spread lethal viruses—people do,” snarled retired Lieutenant Colonel Miles Briggs, who knows a guy involved with the study. Unfortunately, when I fact-checked this article I discovered that its conclusion was based on a misunderstanding: the authors were talking about two-seater fighter planes where both travelers have those cool helmets with built-in air supply hoses.

Notwithstanding the DOD’s little goof, it is true that even the CDC has acknowledged the efficacy of ventilation systems on airplanes. Thus, the chances of spreading the virus on the plane aren’t that high … you won’t start infecting people until you reach your destination or have returned home. Obviously the problem isn’t spreading the virus geographically, but contracting it somewhere between points A and B. After all, the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is … wait. I’m getting a bit confused. Let’s move on.

It turns out the airplane itself may not be the most dangerous part of your trip. There are also the logistical hurdles at either end. Taking a cab or Lyft to the airport would obviously be a bad idea, so you’ll want to drive there and park in the long-term parking, expense be damned. But the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the terminal is also out of the question, so leave an extra hour early and walk.

The security line is of course a Petri dish of coronavirus. Look at this typical line. I don’t think that’s six feet between travelers; that woman’s mask has slipped down below her nose; and the dippy little dog doesn’t even have a mask! (Can a dog transmit COVID? Hello, we had a bat and a pangolin infecting people already … a slobbering, yapping dog is obviously a mobile four-legged superspreader event!)

Conventional wisdom has it that you should skip the long security line by using TSA Precheck or CLEAR, but that actually might be worse than the longer queue. Why? Because you’ll be in line with frequent travelers—the guys who continue to travel on business, all over the country, treating our beleaguered nation like their own personal coronavirus tasting menu. You want to steer clear of those guys, believe me. Instead, just walk from long-term parking right out to the jetway and simply board the plane, without having set foot in the airport! If you act natural, they’ll just wave you through. Note that this means flying only on those tiny commuter planes without the enclosed jetway bridges, so you may have to hopscotch a bit to your final destination, but hey, safety first!

If you can’t take a commuter plane and are forced to brave the airport security line, remember that the most dangerous aspect of air travel is forgetting to remove your toiletry items from their kit and place them in a Ziploc bag. If your toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoo aren’t segregated like this, the virus has already won. Also, if you have any liquid in a container over 3.4 ounces, you can pretty much kiss your whole family goodbye, unless the TSA catches you and saves the day (again). The exception is that they’re now allowing alcohol-based hand cleaner in containers up to 12 ounces, bless their hearts. So you can bring plenty of that, whether it’s to clean your hands with or to squirt on fellow-travelers.

Brace yourself for some unpleasant changes, though. Airports, which were crappy to begin with, have become even worse. For one thing, they aren’t offering the same amenities, like that $9 beer you normally splurge on because your can no longer handle your (spouse, kids, loneliness) without taking the edge off. Tip: bring your own beer, and charge your (spouse, kids, neighbor in security line) $9 a bottle so they can feel a sense of nostalgic normalcy while you make a few bucks. Yes, you’ll have to consume the unsold beers quickly before going through security, but chugging three or four good IPAs in 30 seconds at the threshold of the X-ray (actually, it’s properly called a millimeter-wave full body scanner) is bound to get your flight off to a good start.

As far as the flight itself, the best way to ensure safety is to make sure you’re well-equipped. I’m not just talking about N95 masks—though those are a good start—but also a good sturdy face shield (not just for blocking droplets, but in case you get in a fistfight, which is not unlikely during these trying times) and also some great noise-canceling headphones, so you won’t be unduly stressed out by the sounds of sneezing and coughing all around you, or people barking at you trying to pick a fight. If you can get your hands on one of those cool fighter pilot helmets with the built-in air supply hoses, that would be ideal.

Most planes use HEPA filters, but how will you know in advance about the plane you’re on, since airlines swap out the aircraft at their whim? The answer is, you can’t know: so bring your own HEPA filter if you can. Since these vary dramatically in size and shape from one manufacturer to the next, practice at home first. Ideally, you can bend the filter so it conforms almost exactly to your head.

If you can, get a window seat. Studies show that people in the aisle are there for a reason—usually because they use the disgusting lavatory several times during the flight, pace up and down the aisle constantly, rummage around in the overhead bin touching whosever bag they want, and otherwise act out annoyingly. Having one of these dirtbag extroverts right across the aisle can’t be a good thing. Meanwhile, if you’re sitting in the window seat and things get a little stuffy, you can open the window and get some air.

Keep your eyes open during the flight in case of unsafe behavior around you. For example, the guy next to you might remove his mask for no good reason, or let his nose poke out, or has a big greasy beard with possibly pestilent saliva dripping down it. Or maybe his mask is made out of tissue paper, or a pancake. Give that guy a proper N95, or ask to change seats!

Using an aircraft bathroom is sketchy during the best of times, and especially dangerous now. The number one rule? Keep it quick! But wash your hands for at least twenty seconds. How is that quick? Doesn’t proper hand washing violate the number one rule? Hey—nobody said this pandemic would be easy. One more thing: if you suspect a pangolin has used the coach class lavatory, don’t take the risk of following it in there. Go through the forbidden curtain to the first class restroom, no matter how much the flight attendant and first class passengers yell at you.

Since the most dangerous part of a flight is removing your mask to eat, you don’t want to do that—and yet you still need hydration and sustenance. I recommend you purchase the Self Help Personal I.V. Kit for air travel ($48.99 from amazon.com, though the needle must be purchased in the airport gift shop or newsstand). With the Personal I.V., you can just run a quick intravenous line, and infuse a bag of saline if it’s a short trip, or Gatorade if it’s a long one. Heck, if it’s a full flight you might even consider putting a little bleach in there!

The road trip option

If you decide it’s just not worth the extra bother of flying, taking some extra time to turn your vacation into a road trip is an excellent idea. I fear for Generation Z, with their reluctance toward learning to drive and getting their licenses. Will they miss out entirely on the classic American young-adult road trip experience of blasting along I-70 at 90 miles an hour, sending toilet paper comets flying out the window, eating greasy fast food and blasting Nine Inch Nails at party volume to drown out the roar of air through the open moon roof? Well, maybe the pandemic can be their savior. Of course, it takes months to learn to drive and get your license, so it’s a little late for that now. Once again, the parents will have to drive, which means windows rolled up, AC on, and Maria Carey, Coldplay, or Sting on the stereo. But there are arguably worse things, like dying of COVID.

Once again, staying safe during the trip will require extra precautions. Going to the bathroom, for one thing, is going to be harder. Many service stations are using the pandemic as an excuse to shut down their restrooms, and others are simply understaffed so their restrooms are filthier than ever. The obvious solution—just pulling over to the highway shoulder, walking a ways out into the bramble, and peeing on a rock or tree trunk—isn’t fair to the women or girls in the car. Luckily, there’s a solution: you can now purchase a Foley catheter in their new “Road Warrior” edition (amazon.com, $58.95), designed specifically for consumers who aren’t comfortable with restrooms.

If you will be driving for several days, sleeping accommodations become a necessity. Campgrounds may not be open, and sleeping in random city parks with homeless people might be bad for your family’s morale. Clearly you’ll need a motel, but are they safe? Once again, the conventional wisdom—to find places that have high reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor—doesn’t apply here. Look, the most dangerous part about lodging is people: so you want to stay where nobody else is willing to go. Look for one-star reviews ranting about how filthy a place is. The gold standard here is a review containing something shocking, like “toadstools growing in the bathtub!” To remain safe, bring a large supply of disposable latex gloves, Tyvek bunny suits, plastic sheeting for the beds, and of course all your own toiletries and bedding.

Is holiday travel ethical?

It has been suggested that getting COVID-19 tests in order to travel more confidently is ethically questionable, when the number of tests—not to mention the personnel to process them—are limited. This can be a problem when we have front-line healthcare staffers to think of, and service-sector and manufacturing workers who don’t have the luxury to earn their living over videoconferences. To them I say hey, this is America. Anyone who can afford a test should just go get it. What’s all this money for, after all, if not to purchase the life we want for ourselves? Read my lips: we are having Thanksgiving with Grandpa, and yes, this means other people may die. You don’t like it, tough titty: this is just how capitalism works. You want you go spend your holidays in Russia? Be my guest. (Well …  theirs. Whatever.)

In closing: ten easy travel tips

Here are ten easy tips to keep in mind when planning or conducting holiday travel during the pandemic:

1. Get tested for COVID-19 before, during, and after the trip.
2. If you plan to visit a family member who has extra risk factors such as type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, heart conditions, cancer, or obesity, make sure these are cured before you visit them.
3. Quarantine for two weeks before beginning travel and again when you arrive at your destination, and require all family members, including your hosts, to do the same—and then quarantine for another two weeks, ideally in a hermitically sealed room, before heading home.
4. Download a COVID-19 app to your smartphone and use it regularly, being sure to rub down your phone frequently with an alcohol wipe.
5. If you’re flying, get tested for COVID-19 before, during, and after the airport security screening, and before, during, and after your flight—ideally, without removing your mask.
6. Demand COVID tests of those around you: at the airport, on the plane, at the florist, at the gift shop, and before hugging any family members.
7. If any take-out food is served at family gatherings, make sure it’s safe by putting it under the broiler for at least 30-40 minutes, and serve it on paper plates, employing gravity rather than utensils to achieve the transfer from pan to plate.
8. Keep your guard up—if somebody around you, whether it’s a family member or a complete stranger, endangers you by not wearing a mask, not keeping six feet away, or speaking too loudly (or worse, singing), take that dude out (but remember to wear disposable latex gloves if you strike him with your fists).
9. Be smart about this: if you’re not that smart, read some books, take a few classes, get educated!
10. Reconsider your actions as the situation changes. For example, if COVID-19 cases should happen to rise during your trip, don’t hesitate to just turn around and head home.

More reading on the pandemic 

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• COVID Wristbands

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - The Bars: a Family Saga

Introduction

This tale, from my archives, concerns an emotional tug-of-war between my father and me which ended up putting my innocent 15-year-old nephew John in harm’s way. Here are John and his father looking none too pleased about it.

If you love bike lore, there’s plenty here to dive into. If you don’t, but enjoy a good tale of intergenerational family turmoil and/or have a yen for Schadenfreude, read on. If you don’t care about bikes or families, click here.

The Bars – September 2008

The family saga begins with this email from my brother:

From: Bryan Albert

Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 1:57 AM

To: Dana Albert, Geoff Albert, Peter S, Mom, Joanne J

Subject: RSVP

Guys,

Guess what? I'm going to tell you about our big RSVP ride, the Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party. [Much detail about the route, etc. omitted here; they did “only” the first day, a 108-mile trek from Seattle to Bellingham.] The ride was great—the weather was awesome, even getting good and hot at some points. [More detail omitted here, including details of sprinting to all the city limit signs, which is SOP for all our family rides throughout time.]

The ride was not without incident, however. Sometime before noon, while climbing up a small hill, John announced that there was something wrong with his bike and that we ought to pull over. To my horror, he demonstrated that his handlebar had cracked and was about to break off altogether! All those sprints flashed before my eyes, and I was very grateful that it decided to break on a climb and not some high-speed sprint. Can you imagine? That would be a crash for sure! So what’s up with that—handlebars aren’t supposed to break, are they? These weren’t even the drilled bars [i.e., holes we drilled so the brake cables could run inside … very cool but widely considered a foolish practice for reasons of safety].

Anyway, it was clear that we wouldn’t get far before the whole right side of the bar would fall off and his buzz would be seriously shackled. He’d have to ride along holding the bar up so that it didn’t get stuck in his wheel or something. He’d probably end up throwing his back into a spasm, and he’d never ride again. So we arranged with Jean [Bryan’s wife] to stop at the next town and effect repairs. The whole way there I was contemplating what might work... Anyway we hit the thrift store first, then the hardware store. I eyed a used golf club at the thrift store that I might break into splints. John might have liked that, with the golfing theme and all—I could have even left the club end of it hanging off like a medallion or something. But I finally settled on a hickory hammer handle, which I lashed to the handlebar with a webbing strap. It wasn’t pretty, and John didn’t hammer any of the remaining sprints (though he did power to victory on one sprint from in the saddle, having gotten a good jump on me), but it did get him home without incident. So that was cool.

[The rest of the story is my response to his email, which I wrote with an eye to one day reaching a far more general audience, as I’m now doing.]

On Sep 12, 2008, at 5:46 PM, Dana Albert wrote:

Bry,

What a great story! What a great time you guys had. The misadventures make the experience that much more memorable. Think of how the Donner party would have sunk into obscurity had everything gone smoothly. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit here.)

That’s crazy about John’s handlebar. I have to admit I feel some guilt about that handlebar cracking, since I put those bars on the bike for John. I was actually relieved to look at the photos and see that it was the starboard side of the bars that broke. Why, you ask? The fact is, those bars were bent when I put them on there (though on the port side), and I knew it. (You can see it in the photo in fact.)

That bike, when I bought it from my teammate, sported these Scott Drop In bars, which instead of stopping where dropped handlebars normally do, have longer ends that turn in 90 degrees and provide a second platform for the rider to put his hands on. When I started working at Square Wheel in 1990, those Drop In bars were getting a lot of attention as Greg LeMond had just won the Tour de France with them. The shop owner predicted I’d purchase a set within two weeks. I said, “Oh yeah? I’ll bet I won’t.” I didn’t, and within the year nobody else was using them anymore either. [In fact they’ve been called the #1 all-time worst piece of road tech by BikeRadar magazine.]

So when I got that bike I had to come up with some different bars for John. No nephew of mine is going to go around with those ridiculous Scott Drop Ins. Fortunately, I had two pairs of Cinelli bars, either of which would work with the bike’s stem. (They wouldn’t work with the more modern stems of my current fleet so they were just malingering in my old gear stash.) One pair of these bars was old and slightly bent. Another pair was newer and not bent. At this point you’re guessing, “Oh, so Dana simply gave John the old bent pair because children don’t deserve the best.”

Logical though this guess might be, it simply wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, I’d been riding the old bent bars on my main road bike for years, and had been using the newer pair on my rain [i.e., backup] bike. The reason is, when I ordered the new bars, intending to put them on my main bike and exile the bent bars to the rain bike when I was first building it up, I had no idea Cinelli had lost its mind and ruined the design of their Model 66 Campione del Mundo handlebars. It is difficult to describe the folly of this move. The best I can do is to compare it to Coke’s decision, in the late eighties, to change its formula. 

If you ask any road cyclist worth his salt, he’ll tell you (albeit in his own words) that for at least twenty years, the Cinelli model 66 was the platonic ideal of handlebar, the thing that they really just got absolutely right. If ever there was a time to leave well enough alone, to not touch a thing, this was it. Studies have shown that a cyclist casting his eyes upon a bike that had the original 66 bars on it would experience a measurable feeling of good will, of soothing reassurance in our unstable world. By “measurable” I mean that you could monitor this guy’s blood pressure and his pulse as he gazed at the bars, and both would go down. Brain scans would show the same changes that you’d expect to see when somebody looks upon a sleeping cat.

But Cinelli couldn’t leave well enough alone, so in the late ‘80s they came out with the Perfections. The Perfections were really similar to the original 66s, except that they had slightly longer reach. And you know what? They really were slightly better! This was the equivalent of an absurd risk that managed to pay off, in a very minor way. (Kind of like Tiger Woods completely retooling his golf swing even though he was already the best golfer in the world—everybody thought he was crazy, but he came back very slightly better.) Now, I never got the opportunity to own a pair of Perfections, because they weren’t on the market very long for some reason that nobody has ever explained. But no problem, I thought. The regular 66s were good enough for Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault, after all. I’d just buy another pair of them. 

[Here are a couple of photos of the Cinelli 66 bars. The first might actually be the Perfections. The second are on Bryan’s Team Miyata ... he still has two of these bikes, both with 66 bars!]

I got the new model 66 bars mail-order, and when they arrived I was horrified to discover that Cinelli had changed the bars yet again, and this time they were a disaster. Perhaps in response to the more modern brake levers, which have longer hoods, Cinelli had shorted the reach on their bars, significantly. The result was a handlebar that looked like the ones that came on department store ten-speeds (back before mountain bikes, when there was such a thing as a department store ten-speed). What was Cinelli thinking? It would be like if for the next James Bond movie, the director decided instead of Daniel Craig it would star Vanilla Ice. So these new Cinellis were totally wrong for my flagship bike, and I continued to use the old bent ones.

 This brings us to the sad tale of how those older bars got bent. Now, I can’t exactly remember what year this was, but I’m thinking 2001 or 2002. Erin and I were living in Albany [CA]. Dad was out visiting, and I decided to take him on a bike ride. Nothing really hard or anything, of course, but just a little cruise through the Berkeley campus, maybe up Old Tunnel road. I’d let him ride my road bike since it’s lighter and more efficient and what he’s used to, and I’d take my slower, heavier mountain bike. It seemed like a fine plan.

Of course, I had to take certain precautions. The last time I’d ridden with Dad was in ‘87 or ‘88, in San Luis Obispo, when Geoff and I loaned Dad the Twelve. The Twelve was our spare bike. Having a spare bike was, for people in our tax bracket, the height of decadence. It was a Miyata 912, which was decent (but not pro quality) road bike. We bought it solely for the use of our guests, and even had a quick-release seat binder bolt for quick adjustments. It had these low-profile Ultegra pedals, with toe clips. They were a bit tricky to get your foot into, and—worrying about Dad’s dress sneakers not fitting well—we loaned him a pair of cycling shoes. What a mistake. I have this vivid memory of him flailing to get his foot in, the pedal spinning around and around, the bike lurching this way and that. I don’t think he crashed, but it was scary to watch, and I think he was embarrassed. So when loaning him my road bike this time, in Berkeley, I took my clipless pedals off and put on these big mountain bike pedals with spacious, roomy toe clips that would easily accommodate even the bulkiest shoe.

Well, it wasn’t enough. Riding along Martin Luther King Jr. Way toward a stoplight, Dad was suddenly unable to get his foot out of the pedal fast enough. I’m not sure how this happened, because he had used toe clips on his own bike for decades and should have been an expert with them. Maybe it’s just some kind of jinx. Anyway, he wasn’t going fast and thus wasn’t hurt, but he ripped my bar tape all up, scratched my brake lever, and, yes, bent my bars.

Now, at this point I wasn’t angry or irritated with him. Nonplussed, sure, but mostly concerned. But he was okay, and we rode home. Now, it did cross my mind that a person in his position might say, “Gosh, Dana, I’m sorry I crashed your three thousand dollar racing bike and messed it up.” Then I could graciously say, “Oh, don’t even worry about it, I’m just relieved you’re not hurt.” But this didn’t happen. Instead, the minute we got home he went out to his car and said, “Is there a Sears around here?” I asked why, and he said that he ripped his trousers in the crash and had to replace them. And indeed, they had a little rip. But his eagerness to drop everything and head over to Sears at that very moment to replace his pants seemed fishy to me. I mean, what’s the rush? Didn’t he pack any other pants? Or was this a little hint that, since it was my bike that crashed him, I should pay for his pants? And moreover, who buys pants at fricking Sears?

I wasn’t about to offer to buy him a new pair of damn pants. Was this my fault, for failing to recognize that a guy who has ridden a ten-speed bicycle with toe clips since before I was born should not be trusted to ride my bike? Or should I have warned him, as we approached the intersection, that he should start working on getting his foot out well in advance just in case he encountered difficulty? Besides, it’s bad enough when your dad buys his pants at Sears—I’ll be damned if my money is going to pay for them.

There was this awkward silence. He seemed really ticked. So I said, “You know, I have some pants I can give you that look exactly like those ones.” And it was true. Many months earlier I’d been at Ross Dress for Less and found some pants called Bugle Boy Basics that don’t have to be ironed. It was an impulse buy because they were like $8, but afterward I had some misgivings—I mean, what kind of grown man wears pants called “Bugle Boy Basics”?—so I wasn’t loathe to part with them now. The funny thing is, they really did look absolutely identical to Dad’s Sears pants. Probably made by the same six-year-old Bangladeshi for the same four cents, I was thinking. But then Dad pointed out, “I see that they’ve done some treatment to these, probably with formaldehyde, to prevent wrinkles. These would probably give me an allergic reaction.” (I am not making any of this up.) I’m not sure what my expression was at this point, or whether or not Dad noticed it, but upon a moment’s reflection he said, “However, the hair on my legs may be bushy enough to protect my skin.” With that he put the Bugle Boy Basics in his car and I never saw them again. (The next day I noticed that he’d mended his Sears pants.)

So, every single time I rode my bike after that, and noting the bent-in bars, I thought of Dad crashing my bike, not apologizing, subtly suggesting that I pay for his pants, taking my Bugle Boy Basics, and not needing new pants after all—and got just a bit irritated. This irritation became compounded, because the memory of how these bars got bent became intertwined with another father/son episode that happened during that visit. I was pulling up to the curb in front of our house in the Volvo, Dad riding shotgun, and I got a little too close to this concrete outcropping in the curb. It juts way out because of some gnarly tree roots, and it had given us trouble before, and also since. The outcropping just barely reached the car, catching the trim on the lower part of the doors, and it just pushed the trim straight back along the car’s body, maybe a couple of feet. It made a horrible noise, like a robot shrieking.

I finished parking and leapt out of the car to examine the damage. It was not extensive: the trim wasn’t even all the way off the car. When I saw how little the damage was, I kind of laughed. Not a this-is-funny laugh, but a relieved “whaddya know!” kind of laugh. But Dad looked kind of pissed. He glared at the side of the car as I zipped the trim right back on there. He gave me a withering look, and I withered. And at this point I slipped unintentionally into one of those split-second fantasies, like the one about him apologizing about my bike. In this fantasy, he registered my withered look, realized he was being a bit harsh, and said, “Aw, don’t worry about it. Happens to the best of us.”

But of course this was a fool’s dream. What Dad did say, rather angrily I might add, was, “You are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” That “real lucky” gets me. Dad is so punctilious with his grammar that “real” as an adverb must have been used for effect. Indeed, within his precise vernacular this almost works like a swear word. It’s the Harrison Albert version of, “You are good and god-damned lucky....”

(It’s noteworthy that when Dad crashed my bike and bent the bars, I did not say anything like “you are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” It wouldn’t have occurred to me. And even if he had crashed my bike after the car incident, I couldn’t have said this because these kinds of indictments don’t run both ways in our relationship. He never hesitates to criticize me, but whenever I’m presented with his failings—which are deeper and darker—I always, always bite my tongue.)

I stood there, reeling, wondering why he was so upset. After all, it wasn’t his car, and besides, it wasn’t even damaged. So what was the problem? After much reflection, I’ve decided the problem was twofold. One, his son is so lame, such a lousy driver, that he failed to account for the broken curb and went and hit it. And two, this lousy son, due to a bottomless well of freakish good luck, doesn’t even have to pay for his failures. It’s like Dad was disappointed that this accident didn’t prove to be my comeuppance.

This notion Dad has of other people’s unfair good luck has precedent. He’s fond of saying, when noting somebody’s wealth, “He really landed with his nose in the fat.” No pulling up by bootstraps for him; no, just unearned good fortune. This would be laudable if he applied it in a general way to people of privilege like us, acknowledging that our own hard work in life comes on top of a mountain of circumstantial luck, like being born in America to a middle-class family in a good community with decent schools and plenty of opportunity. But Dad doesn’t seem to recognize his own overall good fortune, preferring to focus on specific incidents—the “knuckle-dragging cretin” boss who wouldn’t give him a promotion, the university dean who wouldn’t give him tenure because he (Dad) wouldn’t socially promote the dean’s son, the Navy ROTC overlord who interfered with his application, etc.—that show how he never got a fair shake.

And then there’s the case of the drinking glasses. When Dad visited Erin and me in our San Francisco apartment a few years before, he purchased a dozen drinking glasses from the restaurant supply store down the street, for something like ten bucks. Then, his visit became awkward right at the end, because I got in an argument with him about his stubborn refusal to buy health insurance. (He was about 60 at this point, still too young for Medicare.) He was arguing, amazingly enough, that he didn’t need insurance, that it wasn’t worth the money. It was rare for me to disagree with him, much less argue about anything, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. So he ended his visit abruptly, and in his haste to pack up and drive off he forgot his box of drinking glasses.

I was a bit chapped at having to mail them to him, especially since I’d have to pack them really carefully, which would be a lot of hassle. But then I had this great idea: I’d kill two birds with one stone by mailing the glasses without any padding whatsoever: just sitting in the box, nothing but that single layer of cardboard protecting them. And, the masterstroke: I wouldn’t insure them. He’d get this box of totally smashed glasses, I mean just fricking powder, and he’d call me up and say, “How could you not pack them carefully, with some padding?” I would shrug it off and wait for him to ask about insurance, which I could casually mention I didn’t bother with. When he erupted afresh about this, I could say, “Wait, let me get this straight. You won’t pay to insure your own health, but I should insure these cheap drinking glasses? I’m a little lost here. You valued those glasses more than you own life?!”

Alas, my plan backfired. He called me up and said, “A miracle has occurred. The glasses arrived intact.” This incident would have naturally struck him as more proof that some people are simply blessed, and can stroll blithely through the minefield of life without even looking where they’re going and be just fine, whereas other people like him were constantly beset with unfair challenges and setbacks.

And that’s how I came to associate the concrete outcropping of the curb with Dad’s preexisting sense that nothing I’ve achieved in my life is my own doing—that I’m one of those guys who fall with their nose in the fat. When Dad crashed my bike, it was one more example of the bad luck that follows him around. When I screwed up with the car, and when I foolishly mailed something with neither padding nor insurance, I got away with it because I’m just lucky. It’s no exaggeration to say that every time I drove up to my house and saw that broken curb, I thought of Dad’s stern words.

Some time after Dad’s visit to our Albany home, my wife Erin drove up to the curb and did exactly the same thing I had, only this time the curb outcropping zipped the trim all the way off the car, and it got a bit bent and I couldn’t get it back on there. I tried as hard as I could to keep a straight face as I said to her, “You are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” By this time it had already become a running joke.

Erin knows there’s nothing she can do to prevent this curb/scorn association, but when I mentioned at one point that every time I rode my bike I thought of the crash/pants episode, she said, “Dana, this is obviously bothering you, why don’t you just ditch those bars and get some that won’t bum you out every time you look at them?!” She had a point. So I finally swapped out the old bent bars for the new, inferior ones. Sure, the curve of the new bars wasn’t as elegant, but that’s just a bike industry problem … it doesn’t bring home bad blood, doesn’t cause me to hear “you are real lucky” or “a miracle has occurred.” And when it came time to get John’s bike ready, I naturally gave him the better bars, with the original design—the ones I’d have wanted if they didn’t make me think of Dad’s reproach. After all, John wouldn’t have any negative associations with these bars, and he deserved the proper, perfect Cinelli bend.

So, now I’ll be sending you the newer Cinelli bars to get John’s bike running again.  Of course the young lad will have to make do with the inferior curvature, like the bars on a damn Huffy, but shoot, these young whippersnappers don’t know a proper handlebar bend from Shinola. I wonder if John had even realized that the left side of those original bars was bent in. Anyway, I’m so glad he noticed that the right side had cracked, before catastrophic failure. You might say that he is real lucky....

Love,

Dana

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vlog

This post is available as a vlog. Watch on your phone, tablet, Jumbotron, or in IMAX theaters everywhere. If the sight of my face bothers you, switch to podcast mode by closing your eyes. Or, scroll down for the traditional Gobs-O’-Text version.

Introduction

As companies continue to ask employees to telework in response to COVID-19, you might find yourself in unfamiliar territory—your own home. What is this place called “home” where you’re suddenly spending so much time? Who are these people called “family”? And how do we keep this “new normal” from destroying our careers? This post walks you through a menagerie of best practices.

Define your workspace

Sure, your kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and garage may seem totally familiar—but take some time to explore other areas of the house that may seem new to you. Who sleeps in these other bedrooms? What is this strange space called the “living room”? What goes on in the basement?

It might be tempting to involve your whole house in your teleworking. You could take your laptop to the sofa, the La-Z-Boy armchair, or your back deck and expect to get work done. Experienced teleworkers will tell you they tried this and it simply doesn’t work! Sofas are made for sleeping, not marching toward quarterly performance goals. As for taking your conference call out to the back deck, nobody wants to overhear birdsong—that’s just depressing. What’s next, taking your laptop into the bath? Don’t take the bait. Dock your laptop in the home office, and act like you’re chained to your desk—just like good old days before teleworking and COVID-19.

Prioritize privacy

Whether you work from your home or in a common area, take five minutes to assess the privacy of your workspace. Can someone standing behind you read your computer screen? What if your spouse, or your kid, is hunting for trade secrets? It may seem like “all in the family” now, until your teenager suddenly has a coveted internship with your competitor and they start poaching your customers!

Is it okay to work from Starbucks? Well, that depends. Is your local Starbucks even open? If you broke in, or pushed past their ad hoc takeout window, that may strike your colleagues as unprofessional behavior. Conversely, if your local Starbucks is open, because you live in one of these benighted cities that don’t believe in COVID, your colleagues may be shocked, during a videoconference, to see unmasked idiots seated near you. This could be a major distraction, so it’s probably best to work from your actual home.

Have a good Internet connection

Set up your workspace near your wireless access point (WAP). If the WAP is in the kid’s room, and you’re out working in the garage with the furnace duct blocking the signal, you won’t have a good WiFi experience and neither will your colleagues. Trade places with your children, even if banishing them to the garage—with all its toxic cleaners, solvents, and sharp tools—presents a significant risk. At this point you may wonder why you installed the one WAP in the house in their room to begin with. Or did your children do the install? How old, exactly, are these hypothetical kids? A couple sentences back they seemed like children or toddlers, and now they’re high school seniors with internships at Cisco. You can see how complicated teleworking gets!

You might want to splurge on a true business-grade Internet connection. A fully redundant setup such as dedicated concentric Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) rings can be acquired for just a few thousand dollars a month. You can defray this cost by installing an outdoor, all-weather WAP that your neighbors can tap into—for a fee. Just remember to let them know when you change the SSID password, or they might soon be offline and out of a job!

Audiovisual presence

Many first-time teleworkers commit the “rookie move” of failing to optimize their video conferencing setup. For example, the angle of their laptop screen—where the built-in camera is housed—might be set such that their nostrils seem to gape, or the age-related folds in their neck are accentuated. Take some time to set this up right. This might mean sitting with your back to a brightly lit window, so that you appear as just a silhouette, which creates an air of mystery even as it hides signs of ageing, frustration, or boredom.

Don’t neglect your audio connection either. The built-in mic on your modern laptop might be quite good, so it’s tempting to just use that—but then you lose the opportunity to show off your wealth and status by rocking Apple AirPods during videoconferences. Not feeling that flush? Here’s a simple hack: snip off the cords from a cheap pair of white earbuds and wear those, while actually using the audio from your laptop’s speakers and built-in mic. Trust me, your colleagues will never know the difference!

Note that in some cases, your video camera shouldn’t be used at all. For example, if your manager and director both approved the purchase of an external monitor for your home, but they see you plain as day on the video conference, they’ll know you’re just using your undocked laptop. They’ll figure out right away that that expensive hardware billed to their cost center is being used by your kids for gaming. Don’t get fired just because you’re a “cool dad!”

The mute button

Perhaps no other technology has stymied as many people as the mute button. Whether it’s a physical button on a telephone handset, or an onscreen button you click or tap, it seems to have a mind of its

own. Does anything erode your professional reputation as badly as colleagues telling each other, “I think he’s on mute” and yelling, “Bob, can you hear me? You’re on mute!”? Why, yes: forgetting to mute before screaming at your children or muttering profanities to yourself. (And you thought that was a rhetorical question!)

Take some time to master this “mute button” technology. Practice with your colleagues, or even with your kids, outside of scheduled calls. Also, learn to spot the telltale signs that you’re accidentally muted: nobody answers your question, or nobody responds to your statement, or people talk right over you. If these things are happening, it’s time to un-mute. (Now, if you’re already un-muted and these things are still happening, it may be time to find a new job.)

Eliminate distractions

Alas, teleworking can mean pets, children or a favorite hobby are only a few feet away. If you give in to temptation, you might find yourself totally distracted, doing something you actually enjoy or talking to people who really care about you and have interesting things to say. This can derail your career as surely as a three-martini-lunch habit. It’s best to nip these distractions in the bud. Chase your cat around the house screaming until she’s terrified of you, and she’ll steer well clear of your workspace going forward. Alienate your children by bawling them out over petty offenses—or better yet, get all Tiger Mother on them. They’ll stop coming around to chat, no matter how bored they get. Harsh, yes, but sometimes career’s got to come before family.

Sometimes the distractions can come from just outside the home. It seems like every city in America is taking advantage of shelter-in-place to fast-track civic projects like road maintenance and sewer main overhauls. Construction sounds aren’t just distracting—they’re unprofessional. Nobody wants to overhear a jackhammer or earth-moving machine during a conference call. A polite letter to your city council can work wonders—maybe they’ll put their projects on hold until your next vacation. If that doesn’t work, talk to the construction workers themselves. Explain to them how important your business calls are, and how much revenue is at stake. You might be surprised how accommodating they are. Many foremen will be happy to reschedule their work crews until after business hours.

Despite your best intentions and practices, you’re bound to get distracted from time to time, especially during long conference calls. Inevitably, somebody will ask you a question and catch you off-guard. This happens time and time again, and often the distracted party will try to save face by pretending he or she was paying attention. “I’m not sure I understand the question” is one such ruse, another being, “Can you provide a little more context?” Or, the person will try to win points by “coming clean” and saying, “I’m sorry … I [was multitasking] [zoned out] and didn’t hear the question.” Neither of these is acceptable. The first two are transparently disingenuous, and the  last one disrespectful—as if it’s okay to be distracted.

The only truly professional response is a sincere apology: “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the question because I was totally distracted. I don’t even have the context. I know this is unacceptable and I promise to try harder. When you consider how many people are on this call … let’s see, there’s ten of us, and this is an hour-long call, which equates to about $400 in wages … gosh, it’s such a waste for anybody not to be bringing his A-game. Which is why, starting now, I’m going to turn over a new leaf. From now on, you will have my complete and undivided attention, and what’s more…” Keep on like this for as long as you can, like a filibuster. That way, it’s highly likely nobody will ever ask you a question during a conference call again.

Be intentional

As the pandemic creates new and uncomfortable ways of working, setting up regular routines and workflows can help you stay effective. Being intentional means “doing things with intent.” For example, joining a videoconference or working on a spreadsheet is something you would do “on purpose,” which is to say intentionally. Knocking your coffee over on your keyboard would be unintentional. Know the difference. You can’t be an effective teleworker if most of your actions are accidents.

Nurture workplace socializing

Many of us truly miss the water cooler and employee lunchroom. Teleworking can be lonely, especially when you’ve totally alienated your family, so be creative about how to interact with your colleagues. Consider making time for “virtual coffee breaks” using video chat. Please note that the coffee, in these instances, does not need to be virtual. Drinking an actual steaming mug of your favorite beverage is more enjoyable than settling for an icon, GIF, or even a high-res JPG file depicting it. If possible, get that “cuppa joe” into the video frame, to make your coffee break seem more real! But don’t get carried away … try to consolidate your virtual coffee klatches, to cover all your colleagues at once. Otherwise, by the time you’ve “made the rounds,” you’ll have had like eight cups and will be shaking, irritable, and unable to focus. (That is, more so than usual.)

Consider if teleworking is actually appropriate

Yes, we all take orders from management and tend to comply. But if you think teleworking really isn’t right for your role, speak up! For example, if you are an EMT and have shifted to working only from home, your customers—that is, your patients—will definitely feel the difference. If you can help your employer to understand that your job performance is suffering, and that in fact lives could be lost, they may well heed your advice. If they don’t, though, just back off … consider that they may have a more nuanced understanding of these things.

Go easy on yourself

Especially with the added stress of the pandemic, teleworking can be stressful. You might not always feel as productive working all alone in your home office, and nowadays the fact that you actually showed up to work is not always visible to your colleagues. If you find your focus lacking, maybe it’s time for a break. If your employer doesn’t offer paid sabbaticals, try to get an unpaid one. If that doesn’t work, sometimes it’s best to simply resign.

As with all workplace adjustments, don’t take any rash steps until you look at the big picture. If you have a sizable trust fund and your spouse’s employer offers healthcare, it’s a slam dunk … otherwise, you might want to consider if unemployment is right for you. Sure, the stigma if being “on the dole” has greatly diminished in this new era, but many people find that a stable income and benefits may actually be worth the stress of employment.

Separate the personal and professional

Video conferencing tools like Google Meet, WebEx, and Zoom are now being used for both our professional and social activities. In many cases, people are socializing with far-flung friends more often than before the pandemic took hold. But there’s a downside to this: all that teleworkplace videoconferencing can lead to “Zoom fatigue,” where you spend so much time looking at faces on screens, your socializing starts to seem like work. Take stock of your situation and decide if this is a good time to even have a personal life. After all, is it worth the risk that you’ll spoil friendships by equating your pals with workplace stress? Maybe it’s best to cut off all contact with friends and family until after the pandemic. Don’t worry, they’ll almost certainly still remember you when all this is over.

Other reading on the pandemic 

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.