I like a clean windshield in my vehicle.  Clear sight is a big part of safe driving, but I really like a clean window.  Nothing in my line of sight, no smudges or previously squashed bugs last very long with me.   Call it a fault if you must, but I just like my windshield to be free of any distracting blemishes.

With that in mind, I am one that cleans my windshield at the gas station every time I fill up.  Those courtesy squeegees that have become a staple to most gas stations have become a critical part in my choice of where I fill my tank.  I am selective of my stations because I really hate when a station doesn’t keep a fresh, high performing squeegee at every station.

If you have ever decided to clean your windshield with one of these squeegees only to have it leave more streaks with every swipe than it cleans off then you know exactly what I am talking about.

Though it may be a freebie, if I repeatedly deal with a cracked or warped squeegee that doesn’t do it’s job, I will end up finding a different gas station to fill up.  Right along that, if the station doesn’t keep the cleaning solution full and clean along with the paper towels stocked, I’ll end up somewhere else.  Of course price per gallon is my first reason to choose a station, but that squeegee station leaves an impact.

Yes, this may seem petty to some, but for me it is a part of the fill station experience.  It’s those little things in life that help it go smoothly or leave me grumbling about not going back until they get their services right.  I am sure there is a little life lesson in there somewhere you could draw out, but I’ll just rant a little and let you apply the warm fuzzy part yourself :)

My  rant today (time to change HRT patch) is about women’s clothing that are labeled One Size Fits All and the fact  men’s clothing doesn’t seem to be labeled as such. Also have you noticed men seem to have less of a size issue than women…there are men’s clothing stores named Big and Tall. But I don’t think a Short and Fat shop for women would fly….we have names like Lane Bryant.  Our larger sized clothing is called Plus sizes giving the illusion we are getting something extra…a bonus. Women like free stuff! A gift with purchase….the only gift we are getting is enough fabric to cover our…you know. Assets….

 

Now back to this One Size Fits All ah garbage…what lunatic came up with that concept? If you say ALL you are implying more than most, right? That EVERYTHING will be included in this ALL.  Someone didn’t do their homework to find out the majority of women in the US are size 14 and up. And the average size 14 women couldn’t get the One Size Fits All top to cover their “part” let alone their “all”. I find this upsetting…misleading and well…mean! How many of you ladies out there have picked up a top that is One Size Fits All …you hold it up and think…ok that will fit.  You take it back into the fitting room…undress and try to wiggle it down over your head…getting it caught on your earring…half way down…arms up like you are having a Halleluiah moment knowing your only way out is to cry out for help for a saleslady to save you from this humiliating situation to ask you, “Do you need a bigger size?” You thank her for untangling you and try to block out of your memory the fact you really should have NOT warn your old bra but at the time you did not plan on flashing the entire Ladies department in Target and whisper, “Ah no it was a One Size Fits All.” She tries to make you feel better with, “They run small.” And you say, “I run big…”

 

Ok…It is hard enough for a woman to shop for clothing what with all the ALL the departments…Juniors, Misses, Woman’s…Men have one department…Men’s Clothing. You men need a new shirt you go into Men’s Clothing and pick it out by small, medium or large if casual or neck size if dress….short sleeve or long. Simple…non- complicated.  A woman has to know if she is a Jr. large, misses’ medium or women’s small as any one size is completely different in each department. And then that wonderful One Size Fits All thrown in there to really make a women’s body image crash and burn.  We also need to stress about and take into consideration monthly bloating, tucked in or not tucked in when worn, message being sent (sexy or business), not to mention all the styles…we are talking racks and racks full of shirts!

 

Maybe the One Size Fits All just got me started as I really have issues with the whole of women’s clothing in general. All this came about because I made the stupid decision to shop for a new semi-dressy modest dress to take to New York with me. A little background sharing here for a moment…I use to be a size 10-12 about a year ago…but due to many issues (one being I eat) I am now a size…well not 10-12. Ok…so in the world of Women’s clothing I start off with a disability…I am NOT an anorexic which seems to be the model being used for ALL sizing and designs today. (Again talking women’s clothing only as in the men’s department there are racks of football jerseys labeled up to size XXXXXL that a family of 6 could use as a tent) So I (with my 16 year old daughter in tow) stop in a few shops to browse and see what they have…here is where I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (when she was still dressed like the hooker) when the salesladies turned their noses up to her and said, “We don’t have anything for your kind here.” My daughter pulled a cute dress off a rack and said, “Look mom maybe they have this in your size.” I held it toward the saleslady and asked, “Do you have this in a size 14-16?” She looked at me and said without expression, “We only go to size 12 here but Dress Barn down the street has Plus sizes.” Here’s that Plus sizes again and Dress Barn is better translated to “Dresses as big as Barns”.  At that moment I wanted to ask her forgiveness for having ever eaten ANYTHING in my life (what I really wanted to do was hold her down and force feed her a candy bar) but I left with my daughter walking behind me saying, “You are too old for that style anyhow mom.” Oh THAT helped!

 

We found Dress Barn and did feel a bit more comfortable “with my own kind” and soon had a pile of dresses picked out to try on. Sadly what I found was most dresses in my size looked like dresses my near-sighted color blind great grandmother would wear…large flower prints in the lilac color of Easter grass. I settled on a black pant suit….

This topic has come to mind for two reasons. First, we just had a guy visit our office wearing what I consider to be the most effeminate getup for a straight guy I have seen in recent memory. Second, I have a real beef with people who do not dress to their body type.

I have to be a little careful I guess because some of the people that read this blog will know who I am talking about. Oh well, throw a little caution to the wind, right? So on to my rant.

This guy that just came in the office, to remain unnamed, was wearing khaki caprices, a white t-shirt with a pink sweater vest and some weird small billed (almost beanie) kind of hat on backwards. I am a pretty tolerant guy when it comes to fashion sense, because I am no stylistic expert myself, but this getup frankly had the entire office snickering until he left; then it was a full on laugh fest once the door shut on his way out.

It was obvious he thought he was pretty hip with what he was wearing, and had put a lot of thought into the ensemble. Perhaps he should think a little less and simplify his approach to his daily wear. I might have thought I was way off base with my thinking had I not see and heard the resounding affirmative chuckles. It wasn’t even the color that bothered me that much, it was the entire presentation that threw it over the top.

Style is subjective, I realize this, though within current styles there are a wide range of options that work for better for different people. Any normal person can look in the mirror and have a general sense if something works or not, at least one would think.

This takes me to my next part of the beef, dressing for your body type. For this one my rant points squarely to teenage girls for the most part. I see this with some others of other ages and gender, but by far the majority of my observations have been with those angst-ridden young ladies. So many just can’t seem to realize that not all of the latest trends work for their body type.

First of all, this is not a personal shot at people that are overweight, particularly tall or short, etc. Simple reality is that we all are different and very few of us fit the advertised norm that so many styles are based on. So all PC out of the way, some of us are fatter than others and most of us poke out in places that the models don’t. Deal with it.

The other day I was out at lunch with co-workers and the girl in front of us was rather round, which for the last time I will express the necessary PC in saying weight is not the point here, so move on from any thoughts to rebut my callousness. What bothered me was the fact that she was trying to pull off the ultra short jacket look over a longer undershirt. Rather than give structure to accentuate the fact that her top half was narrower than her bottom half, it looked like she had squeezed in to her daughter’s jacket or caught in a sudden rainstorm that caused ultra-shrinkage of the fabric. She looked like she was about to bust a seam. The undershirt was then extra long and stretched to capacity over her more than ample backside. Short version, it highlighted all the wrong features in a big way.

I see kind of thing oh so often with those teenage girls, especially with the whole midriff bearing styles. Girls, if you have a pooch, or perhaps better termed gut, don’t wear the hip hugger jeans with short shirts. A belly is only attractive to be seen sticking out, frankly if it doesn’t stick out. I don’t need the extra attention to your fat roll.

I won’t spend extra time trying to balance this article with examples for skinny people, tall people, etc. You get the point. Dress for your body type. This is not to say that all people with a few or more than a few extra pounds need to wear baggy clothes either. Wear what looks good on you and makes you look good. Simple concept. Pick a swimsuit that works. Tuck or don’t tuck shirts appropriately. Do or don’t wear those tighter clothes depending on what works. If you need help, take a friend when buying your clothes and give them carte blanch to tell you exactly what looks good and what doesn’t. It may hurt a little at the time, but you will be thankful later on.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I know what “structure” in clothing is because I’ve caught an episode or two of What Not To Wear on TLC with my wife. Perhaps a few episodes of this show should be standard viewing to kids to give them some basics.

What gets me is the newer bottles dressings come in, particularly ranch dressing.  Some of them have started including a squeeze style spout that makes it much handier to control the flow vs the old standard pour method.  There are some bottle styles where you know they will include the new squeeze style, but if you have a standard style bottle, it is a bit of hit or miss.  Our local store doesn’t always stock the “known” bottle style, so when we purchase a regular bottle, it is pretty much hit or miss.  We have looked the bottle over, and there is no indication which style spout you are getting.

I know, big deal, right?  I beg to differ.  When you have kids under the age of ten, and multiple of them at that, having a flow control spout is a point of interest.  This is especially true when your previous bottle was a nice controlled version, and the new one isn’t.  Kids, and us adults for that matter, get used to simply tipping over the bottle and squirting out how much you want.  With a regular pour spout, this approach brings an unwelcome surprise.  “Have a little salad with your dressing” is the common joke for the situation.

With a dressing such as ranch, I just can’t see why you would ever not want a spout that controls the flow.  Does anyone really like globs dressing spaced throughout your salad instead of a nice spread out small stream?

Of course if I was really doing it the right way I would do the fork-dip method the weight loss programs suggest, but then that wouldn’t be all that much fun now would it?!

How many times do we use phrases like that out of habit when they don’t really apply. The most common I hear is “How you doin?” when you first start talking with someone. Bank tellers, cashiers and other people you really don’t know really don’t care how you are doing, but this is the first thing that gets said. Usually the response is “fine” or “great” and then you ask them back how they are. Pleasantries aside you get down to the intended conversation. Do we say these things really to be pleasant, or simply out of sheer habit? I have a friend who’s dad has made it his personal joke to respond to this common question with “terrible,” “just awful” or something similar to catch people off guard.

I don’t watch a lot of TV these days, at least not general TV for the sake of just watching. When I do, I like to catch a few particular shows if they happen to be on. I hate reality shows in general, I find no desire to watch people argue about things that really don’t matter and basically put on a strange act to try and garner the most camera time in their 15 minutes of fame. There are a few that I enjoy though that I don’t know if they really fall under “reality shows” but the generally get typed as that. They are the shows that actually do something good with their funding, like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the car shows like Overhaulin’ and Trick My Truck.

It is on the last show mentioned, Trick My Truck, that the shop owner gives a corny little speech at the end about how they are happy to have helped the trucker by making his truck something special. At the end of his speech, he always uses his signature sign off, “We’ll be seein’ ya.” Some writer obviously decided the show needed that endearing little phrase at the end to tie them all together. I prefer to use the opportunity to jump ahead 30 seconds on my DVR if I happen to have some show time in memory from pausing earlier, which I usually end up doing because of the common kid-based interruptions.

To give him credit, in this case he is actually referring to to him and his “crew” when he says “we’ll” so the phrase actually works. What made me laugh this morning is when an individual uses the phrase. It was just two guys chatting outside the convenience store that had obviously bumped in to each other when filling up or grabbing a fountain drink. I happened to be walking buy when the “We’ll be seein’ ya” popped out and they parted ways. I laughed inside and actually thought about looking around and behind him and asking, “where are the other people?” I know, petty and not all that funny, which is why I actually didn’t do it.

Brian Regan, the comedian I have mentioned several times on this site has a great bit about the “you too” misuse. In his joke he talks about a taxi driver wishing him a nice flight and a waiter wishing him a nice meal, and how his habitual response of “you too” just not fitting those kind of situations. I crack myself up when I incorrectly say something completely of habit because I think back to this joke. Isn’t it a lot like when young kids make that oh so embarrassing
mistake of calling their teacher “mom” for the first time?

We are creatures of habit, and our speech is laden with little idiosyncrasies like this. What are your some of your favorites?

On this site I generally steer clear of very personal topics such as religion, race, etc. I prefer to talk about things that are either common sense or just plain funny to talk about without being offensive. There are plenty of hot headed sites out there that love to rile people up in the interest of generating traffic or voicing their opinion. Me, I’m just happy to write a few things that I either find funny or feel strongly about. I just can’t leave this one alone though.

Honestly, I don’t care what religion you are. Perhaps care is the wrong word. I care that people have something to believe in, to give meaning and provide a foundation for values and morals. I am happy to share how I derive my beliefs, but I am also happy to leave people to their own. I have my strong beliefs and I am happy if you have your own or none at all. You can have a sense of ethics, values and morals without religion. That is a basic premise of our modern society, to each their own. I don’t mind anyone that feels strongly enough about their beliefs to actively try and share them with others, as long as they are sharing this with people that are interested in hearing it and the message is a positive one.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. a Mormon. I grew up as one and have made my own adult decision to remain as one and raise my family as such. I served a two year mission for my church and shared the message of love and Christianity to anyone who was interested in mine. I shared a message of love, hope, peace and values. I did not share a message of what is wrong with everyone else and try to beat down the “competition.”

I simply cannot figure out why people feel so strongly about bringing down the beliefs of others to the point they have to actively campaign against them. I have often laughed at these types that show up for church gatherings and not only protest the meeting of well intentioned, value driven people, but even do it in such a belligerent and insulting fashion to try and pick a fight with anyone taking their bait. I really can’t laugh at it any more.

These groups and individuals don’t just proclaim their beliefs and invite others to see what truths they have to offer. They are not even borderline bigots, they are bigots. They will resort to childish name calling, slander and all they have to offer are the same message of half truths and lies in an attempt to deceive. I have looked at some of these message in the past and they are well written, placing truthful statements alongside lies and shaded comments strategically designed to trick those that don’t know better. I am sure some of these types really believe they are doing “good” in what they are attempting, but truly believe most are doing it for some other agenda, likely a personal vendetta for who knows why.
No wonder so many people have such a misunderstanding about Mormons and what the believe. Not only do people not get the opportunity what we actually believe, they are bombarded by ill-intentioned falsities produced by people with an agenda. The problem is we are a loving, long-suffering, turn your other cheek Christian group of people, so we typically take our beating and move on. Every time I see something like this new campaign I shake my head in disgust and wish we could do even more. I am the hot head of the bunch, so I make sure and not cross paths with people like this. I don’t need the stress and I would likely take the bait and join the fight.

All we ask is that we be allowed to live and let live. Share uplifting messages and share in our family values. Is that too much to ask? Why work so hard to bring others down. It simply doesn’t make sense.

So hopefully as you read this blog you’re not doing so with a critical eye, looking for perfection in writing. You are deathly not going to find it here. But I will say that is one of my goals in writing more often, is trying to improve upon my skills. Recently I came across an article that pointed out some common mistakes that people make when writing online that make them look less than intelligent. I thought that was a little extreme, but the point is true. Here are those listed in the article (that you can read great examples of by visiting)

• Your vs. You’re – know when you’re using the possessive versus the contraction
• It’s vs Its – again contraction versus possessive
• There vs Their – are you going there or says something they own?
• Affect vs Effect – I will admit this is a tough one for me, I always seem to forget which is which

Here also are a few that I have found common that hopefully if you make these mistakes by bringing them up I’d help you correct a bad habit.

Misuse of the Apostrophe
We often use contractions in the way we speak in fact we use them a lot, but that does not mean we have to use it so much in writing. Here again I admit that because I write so informally on this blog, I often end up using contractions perhaps more than I would like to admit. Lately because I am using a voice to text software to help me write quicker, I find that I am using even more contractions because I am speaking my thoughts rather than typing them. This is something I am putting a little effort into to try and change. Contractions are not necessarily evil, but when we use the apostrophe we need to make sure we are in fact using it correctly. I find that many people will use an apostrophe to indicate the plural of something which is incorrect and end up making a word possessive when it shouldn’t be.

Quotations And Punctuation
First off, I dislike it when people over quote things. In fact I find that many people who use air quotes when they speak are the same people that over-quote things when they write. That point aside, I am always troubled with remembering the right way to deal with punctuation when quotes appear at the end of a sentence. For some reason I remember or at least think I remember that there was one set of grammar rules that said you put the period at the end of a sentence inside the quotes and another set of rules that said you put it on the outside. From what I have seen, it is more accepted these days to have the period inside the quotes. Were I am faced with a dilemma is when I am quoting something that needs to be specifically typed with what appears inside the quotes, and specifically without a period in it, such as any username, password or website address. So rather than deal with looking like I don’t know my punctuation, a usually end up reforming the sentence or paragraph to try and express the same intent but in a way that doesn’t have the quotes ending up at the end of the sentence.

Transpositions
This is just another fancy word for typos. There are so many common ones that come from either typing fast or lazy fingers when you type that I can’t list them all. Here are a few though

• form/from
• for/fro
• casual/causal
• the/teh

As I said the list could be long but I point out some of these for specific reasons. With current technology we have come to rely on spellchecking to try and make us look like we know what we’re doing. The problem is we have become lazy and just trust that the spellchecker is getting it right. The first three in my list are examples of how a spellchecker pilot something slide when it does not match our intended word. The last is a good example of words that have been because of our lazy fingers that we need to correct by simply rereading what we have written. Just those few extra seconds or perhaps minutes can go a long way to helping people take our written words more seriously.

So what are some of the common spelling or grammatical mistakes that you see as you traverse the grand World Wide Web? These can be things that you commonly see in forums which are inherently informal, or in the fast array of news sites out there that you may read? I ask this question for too self-serving reasons, 1) to invite comments and see what the readers of this blog think, and 2) to see if there are some spelling or grammatical pet peeves out there that I may do that I can correct.

So have at it, the floor is now yours.

This brings me to perhaps the most unsanitary of places, the public restroom. These dens of germ infestation are places that I will go to most any length to avoid. Call me the camel of urination, but I’d rather hold it as long as I can to get back to a bathroom I trust instead of using a public restroom. There are those times, though, that despite proper planning and perhaps as much foresight is possible, you have no choice but to use a public restroom.

First off, I hate using any restroom that is not properly cared for. In fact, if an establishment does not care enough to maintain their bathroom facilities, I really do not have much trust in the rest of their business. This is particularly true for restaurants. As a customer, we don’t have the opportunity to tour the kitchen to see what kind of habits they have in keeping things clean and sanitary, so the restroom is really the only place we have to judge other than the table itself. Fortunately most restaurants realize this take care.

Yet, despite their best efforts, the design of the building itself often precludes your ability to use the facilities and exit in a purely sanitary state. This is what troubles me and the point is this rant today.

Most buildings have a pretty standard layout, meaning they have their stalls, the men’s version has their urinals, and there is a sink or two for hand washing. First off, motion sensor flushing facilities are a must. The idea of grabbing a handle the flash on something that you know hundreds of people before you that very day have grabbed after having touched their nether regions is not the best visual I can think of. I admit in some cases I have chosen to use my foot or a ball of water about toilet paper to perform this task in leiu of actually touching the handle.

Moving on to the hand washing options. Again motion sensors are the best option here. Nothing good has happened since the flushing part of the routine bow for hands have touched the handles to turn on the water. Germs galore. If motion sensors are not available, I typically end up just turning the handle with my bare hands, but after washing, a paper towel is typically my choice for grabbing me to turn the water off. Why wash your hands, if when you are done you are going to grab that dirty handle to turn the water back off anyway. I trust my bathroom habits far better than those unknown people before me. Of course this only works if they actually use paper products for drying your hands. If they use any air based and dryer, which really isn’t a bad option, this does limit your choices for turning the water off. Hopefully you got a good combination of motion sensors along with air dryers.

Finally, the part of my rant to gets me the most out of everything to discuss about a typical public restroom experience — finally leaving. In the standard layout of a bathroom, of course it has a door. Grabbing that handle to open the door is the last thing I want to do after finally getting my hands clean and hopefully germ-free. Who knows if the person before me actually washed their hands, or, if they did, how good of a job did they do?

Back in my college days, I took a microbiology class. We of course had the typical lecture portion of the class, but we also had a lab portion. One of the experiments we performed was to swab any public surfaces and apply them to petri dishes to see what kind of fungus we can grow. I am sure many of you may have heard stories like this in the past, but the short version is that some of the best fungi were grown right off of the doorknob to the classroom. I shudder to think what I might have grown at I found the door handle exiting a public restroom. I can guess the results, so it’s an experiment that I choose to avoid.

So with all that said, perhaps my favorite public bathrooms are those found in most airports. If you have traveled, you probably can visualize what I’m about to describe. These restrooms are of course designed for high-volume usage, especially when passengers are disembarking from a long flight. There are no doors, rather a mini catacomb entryway that allows you to wind your way in out of the eyes of public viewing, without ever passing through a door. Granted, this takes a little bit of room to accomplish, but it is the most sanitary of options.

So next time you have the occasion to use a public restroom, think of my little rant here and observe the steps you have to take to end up leaving with hands and sanitary enough that you feel comfortable eating with them. I really don’t consider myself a germaphobic, but I am pretty particular about having clean hands especially when I am about to begin shoving food in my mouth. Maybe this goes back to my previous rant about my semi-OCD tendencies, but I like to think it’s just common sense.

]]> http://www.whatsgottago.com/2007/03/02/clean-hands-dilemma-in-public-bathrooms/feed/ 2 http://www.whatsgottago.com/2007/02/22/taking-responsibility-for-your-own-actions/ http://www.whatsgottago.com/2007/02/22/taking-responsibility-for-your-own-actions/#comments Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:02:58 +0000 What's Gotta Go http://www.whatsgottago.com/2007/02/22/taking-responsibility-for-your-own-actions/ If I could sum up the problems in modern society, it would be this: people in general do not take responsibility for their own actions. This is one of my all time biggest pet peeves. We have created the problem over the course of generations, and with each subsequent generation we are making it worse. If people would simply own up to their own mistakes and take responsibility for their own betterment and that of their kids, we would be living in an entirely different world. Let’s explore this for a minute and see if you agree with my conclusion.

I have wanted to write about this for some time, but what has brought the subject fresh in my mind again these days is my 7 turning 8 year old son. Lately he has entered a strong faze of needing to find someone to blame for everything he views as wrong in his little world. He has a strong view of the way things should be in his mind, and whenever something doesn’t fit that view he has a bit of a meltdown. I realize it is a phase for him that he has to work through, but I’m telling you that if he doesn’t work through it soon I may strangle him. Not literally of course, but he is definitely trying the little bit of patience I am capable of.

His level of placing blame knows no bounds. He stubbed his toe the other day and started screaming about how his sister was to blame because she left out a toy that he was avoiding and therefore kicked the couch. My wife packed his school backpack and that ruined his morning; the next she didn’t pack it for him and that equally ruined his day. Getting picked from an weekend after school program my wife went into the classroom to get him – a big no-no that embarrassed him – left him screaming how his life was now ruined. Of course there is the ever popular not being able to find an article of clothing because his room had been cleaned when he was way (egads!) and that just can’t happen. The list of examples could go on and on these days, but you get the picture. Completely unreasonable, and completely something you deal with when raising kids.

Problem is, some people never grow out of this stage of needing to place blame on someone else for their own created situations. I think our overloaded civil court system is a direct result of this problem. Sure, there are legitimate claims that need to be handled in a legal arena to force others to be responsibility for their actions, but there so many frivolous lawsuits of people trying to find others to be found responsibility for something that it is hard often to know the difference.

Take for example the now infamous hot coffee lawsuits where someone spilled their beverage obtained through the (McDonald’s) drive-through, was burned and now was suing said establishment for untold millions of dollars because the coffee was too hot. Uh, let’s see, aren’t you purchasing this beverage with the expectation that it would be hot? Wouldn’t any reasonable person expect if they spilled such a drink on them that it would in fact burn you? Why would your lack of coordination become the liability of the restaurant who sold you the product? Why does this lawsuit even get allowed in the system?

Finding a person or entity to blame and make financially responsible for damage done is perhaps the most abused aspect of our court system. There is money to be made, often through settlements simply to avoid the time, expense and potential negative publicity associated with a full lawsuit. People know this, and unfortunately a lot of people knowingly use the system to their advantage for this very reason. There are many, though, that simply go through such a routine simply because they don’t want ot admit that their own actions or perhaps stupidity had led to their unfortunately circumstances, so they go to any lengths to get the blame placed somewhere else.

Off of the legal side, how about our educational system. I spent a little time working in the public school system, and my mother worked in a school district for a number of years. I can’t tell you how many times I heard parents raging on about how the school system had failed their child and it was their fault their child was an uneducated idiot. Now I won’t remove all blame from teachers as it is their job to try and reach children, but the children have a direct and much larger responsibility in the education process. Parents need to stay on top of the child’s progress (or lack thereof) and be an active participant to insuring their child gets the education and life skills they need, both in and out of school. Admittedly some kids have the personalities to make this a difficult proposition, but don’t look to place blame on the school. I firmly believe that in every school situation a child can get the education they need provided they have the motivation and support necessary in the home. All schools are not created equal, but it can be done.

As a teacher I was fortunate to have some experience going in to the situation, so I structured my class in such a way that good records were kept and kids had every opportunity possible to succeed, so failure was only of their own doing. I had a few parents of my failing students lay into me something fierce come mid-term parent-teacher conference about how I was failing their child. The tune changed when I laid out all my careful records of what their child was not doing and could have easily done to have a passing grade. In all situations the anger of the parent had obviously been created by some crafty story telling of the child before our meeting, and by the end of the visit had shifted from me back to the child. All but one of them ended up passing by the end of the term.

Don’t even get me started in politics, which is the arena where placing blame for wrongs (often artificially) and taking claim for accomplishments that may not be your own is considered part and parcel to the trade. Ugh, it disgusts me to even think about it.

How about the ever golden excuses when you get pulled over for a traffic infraction? There are entire lines of jokes surrounding the excuses people come up with to explain away or justify their speeding, running a red light, etc. It all roots back to the “my dog ate my homework” period, where are both trying to get away with on one hand and trying to shift blame on the other. “I’m late for a doctor’s appointment” is no excuse for breaking the law, and I think most cops are not only tired of hearing the lame excuses, but likely it makes them feel even more justified in writing you that ticket when you are trying to weasel out of it. My father was the king of conversations with people he had just met, something that always amazed me, especially the few times I had seen him strike up a friendly conversation with a cop that had just pulled him over. On every instance that I was present in person, he was let off of a ticket because he was friendly, respectful and honest. He didn’t try to justify his speeding, he owned up to it. Usually it was just not paying attention, and he would admit to it.

“Sorry officer, I didn’t even realize I was going over the speed limit until I saw your flashing lights. That really was not very smart of me.”

This may or may not get you off of a ticket, but his sincere and honest approach taught me a much greater lesson than had he tried to lie or manipulate his way out of it. Of course his added obvious flatter didn’t hurt his cause either: “I sure appreciate you doing your job and bringing this to the attention of people like me.” That part of the lesson wasn’t lost on me either.

One of my favorite songs pertaining to this subject is a song by Oingo Boingo called Only A Lad. I looked the lyrics up so you don’t have to find them. The short version is the song recounts the story of a boy that didn’t terrible things all his life, from a child on up to being an adult with increasing severity. All along the way there was always some excuse. He’s only a lad, he really couldn’t help it, society made him who he is. In the end we hear:

Hey there johnny you really dont fool me
You get away with murder
And you think its funny
You dont give a d*** if we live or if we die
Hey there johnny boy
I hope you fry!

Not the most pleasant of songs of course, but the message overall I agree with. You can’t always place your blame on others. Sure, society influences what we become, but society starts in the home. Later in life, it is up to use to continue with our habits and beliefs or make the choice to change. I won’t get into the nature vs nuture argument here, but I do believe in a bit of both mold us into who we are. But we are a higher intelligence, so we have the capacity to change.

I heard a quote in the context of a religious speech, but it definitely applies to life in general:

“A second truth about our accountability is to know that we are not the helpless victims of our circumstances. The world tries to tell us that the opposite is true: imperfections in our parents or our faulty genetic inheritance are presented to us as absolving us of personal responsibility. But difficult as circumstances may be, they do not relieve us of accountability for our actions or our inactions.” — Henry B. Eyring

Unfortunately, I don’t see this trend changing any time soon. With the prevailing belief that schools, community or government need to do more for us vs initiating change ourselves, we will continue down the path. But, if you want to see a change within your circle of influence, start with yourself and your family. Start to recognize when something is your own doing and deal with it. Ingrain in your children a sense of personal responsibility. Having a work ethic is another that goes along with this, but I’ll leave that for another day.

There are oh so many other attributes that need to be acquired, but I believe a sense of personal responsibility for one’s own actions is at the root of it. Sure, we all want world peace, but I’d be happy to start off with more people taking ownership of their own actions. Perhaps a lot of other thigns would work themselves out.

The funniest thing about accents, I think, is that most everyone thinks they don’t have one. Guess what, you do. Everyone does, it’s just a simple fact; it’s all relative. You have an accent to someone that speaks differently than you. I live in northern Utah, which really is a melting pot linguistically because of the number of people coming from all over to school here, and others that have spent a couple of years elsewhere speaking a foreign language. That said, Utah has it’s own set of accents like any other place. There are the natives from American “Fark” (Fork) that always are always good for a laugh.

I spent most of my youth living in Washington State. Our big pet peeve up in the Great Northwest was people moving into our great state. Yeah, we had that attitude that it was “our” state and keep everyone else out, especially those darn Californians. Nevermind that most of us were transplants to the state as well, but we were practically natives now, so it didn’t apply to us. How did you identify yourself as an “outsider?” Aside from the inability to drive in the winter, it usually started first with complaining about the rain. If you weren’t used to the rain to the point that you didn’t even break out an umbrella much less not even realize it was there, you definitely hadn’t lived in the great state long enough to be a local. In Washington we didn’t tan for color, we rusted.

The one outsider trait we all disliked the most was those that came in with an accent that included adding an “R” to the name of our state. I am sure you’ve all heard this before…Warshington (war) is not the name, it reads “Wash” in that name. Now I know there will likely be some that read this site that still do this, and just know I have gotten over my strong feelings about this, now I just give that little inward chuckle at both hearing it and realizing how strongly I felt about it. That said, if this makes you realize you do this, perhaps it will help you work that out of your dialect. :)

I always thought this came from a specific accent, somewhere in the Northeast, but I searched the ‘net a bit and was surprised to find that in forums threads where people discussed this very thing, noone could pinpoint any place that was the source of the famous added “R.” Some indeed said the Northeast, but others actually claimed it was the oldest of Washington natives that said it. That of course was vehemently denied by Washitonians on the forums…with gusto I might add. Others even pointed to Arizona/Nevada, and so forth. So no one area was able to be blamed.

All this reflection did make me think more on the different funny things that typify “known” accents in the many ways the English language is spoken. Of course I know the Brits reading this will claim that we Americans don’t even know how to speak proper English, but that aside, there is humor in every dialect. Here are a few quick ones off the top of my head:

Quarter

• New Englanders: kwatah
• Mid-Atlantic States: ku-warter
• Midwest: kworter or kwarter
• Westerners: korter

Canada – aside from the always popular to make fun of “eh?” at the end of most sentences, the way they say their “A” within a word. Good example. In the US most of us say Mazda as “mahz-dah” with the long “A” sound. In Canada it is with more of an “a” like in apple.

The South - what more can I say than what Jeff Foxworthy has done in his comedy for so many years. When I lived there for a couple of years, I came back speaking with what my parents thought was a slur. They thought I had my retainer (one of the joys if post braces as a teen) in my mouth. Natives of the south just do everything at a different pace. Maybe its the heat, but generally speaking they get to things when they darn well feel like it. My favorite words to laugh at there were fixin’ and “axe” (ask).

Bag – pronounced as “beg”. I have seen this one again credited to the Northeast, but there is a girl in our office from the midwest that does this as well.

Adding “ed” to words that don’t have it – “across” becomes “acrossed” for some strange reason.

Mountain – pronounced without the “t” as “moun-un” or something similar. I am guilty of this one and it is credited often to the Northwest. How many people have you heard say “offun” though from all over? My wife is from Mountain View, California. When we first started dating she would always remind me to put the “t” back in there and say it correctly. That’s ok though, she used to have a hard time putting the “g” properly in words like hanger – she said “haner” but she has since corrected it. I am still working on mountain, so I must be a slower learner or an incredible creative of habit…ok, both really.

There are so, so many more than I haven’t included here, so I’ll ask the readers to put in the comments some of their favorites. Remember, we are celebrating our differences here – while having a good laugh along the way – noone get offended. I want to see what everyone else has noticed as the common and funny accents or words that come from all over. Give me your best!