Bullying Prevention – The Psycho Defense

            Not long ago, I was put in touch with a friend I hadn’t seen since we were young teenagers living in city housing projects in the Bronx, decades earlier.  It turned out that he (let’s call him Denny) also had moved north to Rockland County.  We spoke by phone, and agreed to meet for lunch at a Thai restaurant in Nyack. 

            Denny had always been petite.  He was our version of Mickey Rooney or Michael J. Fox:  the bright, wiry, energetic, and sometimes wild kid who stopped growing long before the rest of us did.  I recalled him as fearless, reckless, and sometimes just plain nuts. 

            One day, as kids, a group of us were walking through a mom-and-pop shopping section of our neighborhood, maybe coming back from a movie.  As we passed the outside display of a florist shop, Denny suddenly picked up a potted plant and threw it through the storefront’s glass window, sending soil and shards of glass flying.  We all took off as if fired from a cannon.  As I said, he was sometimes nutty. 

            When I entered the restaurant and set eyes on Denny, I stifled a reaction of shock.  Though facially he hadn’t changed much in 40 years, he was completely bald.  I immediately surmised his hairlessness was not a grooming choice.  He was, he told me, being treated with chemotherapy for cancer.  It appeared to me he wasn’t doing well.  Again, unfortunately, I was right.  In a year or so he was dead. 

            Probably owing to the mixed emotions of the moment, the conversation we had that day over lunch is today a blur in my mind.  But I do vividly remember one revelation, concerning his outsized rowdiness.  He confessed to me that, because he was small, he intentionally cultivated the image of dangerous craziness, the reputation as being one liable to do anything at any moment.  This had been his defense against bullying.  And it worked.  Denny was never picked on or pushed around.  You don’t mess with a psycho. 

            But Denny had been a good kid really, and a good friend ... mostly.  It was sad to hear him divulge he felt he needed to conceal his good nature behind frightening, if not criminal, behavior – all to avoid being victimized by bullies. 

Chatty Cathy at the IRS

My wife and I were summoned by the IRS for an audit of our 2009 and 2010 Federal Income Tax Returns.  Second audit in 10 years.  What a pain in the @ss.  We spent days blowing dust off of our notes and receipts for those years in preparation for the interview today.  We were told to allot four hours for the meeting.  Four!  Waterboarding would have been quicker and more effective.  We trekked over to our local IRS offices, and were seated opposite a pleasant, good-natured middle-aged woman.  She went through with us a dozen or so items marked for scrutiny, checking for, and adding up, receipts.  My home office was a big red flag.  And, in a year (2009) when Sandy and I both had surgery, our medical deductions.  I made a point of turning on the charm and maintaining a jocular, but respectful, facade.  It must be that those folks - the examiners - anticipate negative attitudes and surliness on the part of summoned taxpayers - I can't imagine why - because she positively lit up in response to my pleasant demeanor, and became Chatty Cathy.  Instead of four hours we were out in two.  She did find a number of errors attributable to me and Turbo Tax, but some of them were, believe it or not, in our favor.  So, in effect, it was a wash.  A tie.  A win-win situation.  No money needed to change hands between us and Uncle Sam.  Sandy and I thanked the examiner, and walked out of there as fast as we could without running.  I was sure that, before we got to our car, she'd come running out of the building waving a form and calling us back for something issue she'd forgotten to look into.  But, no, we made a clean getaway.  Your tax dollars at work. 

What's Your "Surfstopper"?

            (My sincere apology for being absent from my blog for a while.  I’ve had my hands full dealing with an urgent but, thankfully, temporary family health problem.  Anyway ...) 

I’m sure you, at one time or another, have found yourself sitting in front of your TV, remote in hand, channel surfing.  I’m also sure you, while doing this, have had the experience of coming across a favorite movie, and, even though you know the film well, you cease surfing and watch the film to the end.  Let’s call these films “surfstoppers.”  What are your surfstoppers?  Mine include: 

            West Side Story

            Shawshank Redemption
            The Magnificent Seven
            Jurassic Park
            Independence Day
            In the Heat of the Night

I could go on, but let’s hear from you.  What stops you in your tracks?

Crying Over Sour Milk?

The droll, deadpan comic Stephen Wright asked the perplexing question:  how do you know when sour cream goes bad?  It’s a question I’d spent little time and psychic energy on ... until I perused the label of my Kirkland Mature Multi Vitamins and Minerals jar.  It asserts:  freshness and potency guaranteed.  That’s a claim I used to be able to make about myself, but about a vitamins?  How can you know when your tablets are over the hill, have seen better days, or are just too pooped to pop?  Have your supplements lost it when you’re:  no longer faster than a speeding bullet; less powerful than a locomotive; able to leap tall buildings in two bounds?  And, assuming you can tell that your vitamins and mineral tablets have run their course:  freshness and potency guaranteed?  I wonder how many jars of vitamin supplements get returned to Kirkland with sour letters from consumers fuming about flaccid freshness and limp potency ... with a demand for a refund.  In other words, how can one know when a “Mature” product is too mature to do any good?  The expiration date, you say?  Okay, “09/13.”  Does that mean that on September 30 of 2013 I'm good to go, but on October 1, 2013, my vitamins give up the ghost, are less than useless, aren’t worth the plastic they came in?  A recent Budweiser ad campaign touted the “born on date” that’s printed on its beer bottles, implying assured freshness.  But the commercials never explained what the date – “1JAN12,” for example – means.  For how long after January 1 is the beer good?  A week, a month, a year?  I had to go to Budweiser’s website for the answer:  110 days.  So the beer “born” on January 1 is good through April 19.  Does it go skunky on April 20?  And what about the date on a milk container?  Do I need to open the container by that date or finish it by that date?  Oy! 

What do I look like, a doorstop?

My mother taught me to be courteous.  And that includes holding a door open for someone coming through the door behind me – be that person male or female, young or old.  It only takes a second or two to pause and hang onto the door until the next user grabs it.  No huge expenditure of energy; no great loss of time in my day.  What I find exasperating is the utter lack of acknowledgment when I hold a door open for someone.  I wasn’t hatched yesterday.  I know we live in a fast-paced world in which we’re conditioned to be wary of strangers.  So I don’t expect conversation or a tip.  But how about a simple “thank you”?  People pass through the door I politely hold open for them without so much as a a nod or momentary eye contact.  Never mind a smile.  Maybe we’ve become so accustomed to motion-activated automatic doors that we don’t know what to make of the sight of a human being hanging back to hold a door open.  The world seems to be filled with Queen Elizabeths who regally saunter through a held-open door as if they’re entitled to it and couldn’t condescend to spare a glance.  And, of course, there are the passers-through with cell phones pressed against their ears.  Those electronically mesmerized folks probably don’t even realize they’ve passed through a door on their way to their cars.  Yes, if it bothers me that much I could stop holding doors open.  I could let them slam into the faces of those behind me.  I should know how; I’ve seen it done often enough.  But, with my luck, the day I decide to let the door go without glancing over my shoulder, it’ll be my mother behind me. 

What lack of manners bothers you?