She writes because she can’t not write

Only a writer would come up with that kind of sentence for a headline. It makes you pause and think. That’s what writers do, at least the good ones. And that’s what I strive to be, a good writer. I have wanted to be a writer ever since winning the prize for “most original story” in second grade.

Don’t be fooled because I went to college for something else. I am foremost a writer.

After graduating with a degree in human resources, I was hired by The Daily Reporter in Coldwater. I wrote business and sports, covered meetings, reviewed the arts, edited the outdoors section, and photographed everything.

Terrific opportunity, but as much as I loved the work, I soon discovered my reporter’s life was in direct conflict with something I loved equally: paying the bills. Within six months, I started working for the hospital as a prevention educator, but spent six more years as a correspondent. It was the start of my dual (duel?) career as business professional and writer.

I write because I can’t not write. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I emerge writing.

When I moved to Kalamazoo to work for Michigan Department of Corrections, I began writing on the side for Business Review and the Kalamazoo Gazette’s marketing department. Writing has been the world’s best moonlighting job because it’s paid exposure to new information and interesting people. An invaluable education.

I’ve been paid not only monetarily, but with residual knowledge. You’d be surprised at how many business issues arise that I understand because I once covered a meeting or interviewed someone on the subject. That’s how I learned about topics as diverse as brownfield redevelopment, fly tying, solid waste management, furniture restoration, and parliamentary procedure.

Being curiosity-driven leads me to ask the kind of interview questions everyone else wonders about. I am the girl next door who earnestly wants to know. That’s hard for people to resist. So they talk to me.

I believe every person and situation has a story to tell, whether or not they know it. The challenge lies in telling that story in a way that best reflects the subject. The best compliments I’ve received as a writer have been that I accurately captured who someone is or what they represent, whether through feature article or by reconstruction of their resume. Good writing is as much about listening as it is about writing.

There’s a thought process behind writing that requires strong powers of observation and analysis. You have to be able to put two and two together without math symbols as guides; seeing the invisible and hearing the unspoken. It’s great when you succeed and embarrassingly clunky when you don’t.

Even my most flippant humor requires theme and thought. Really. I use my words to capture the undercurrents of life, regularly mocking my own petty struggles so others can safely acknowledge their shortcomings.

Sometimes I hammer issues directly. Other times I use a rubber mallet. Last week’s

column on the “marrying” of ketchup bottles may have been funny, but it also captured the frustration of employees who have their energy wasted performing senseless tasks.

I could have come out and said, “It stinks to have your energy wasted at work,” but that would have been a very short column and far less entertaining. It was more memorable to exaggerate one of those situations and show that at the end of the day, the ketchup marrying tasks of life don’t matter.

It’s my job as writer to take you the long way home so you can enjoy the scenery. A chef friend once told me love was the most important ingredient to include in your cooking. I bring similar affection to my column. I hope it shows.

Do I ever suffer from writer’s block?  The answer is a resounding “no!” But I languish from the reverse condition: Writer’s flood, too many ideas splashing around in my brain.

While I prefer humor writing to straight journalism, I’ll throw in an occasional serious concept or deep thought, mainly to prove I do have them. That said, I promise to be funny here most weeks.

It’s not me you laugh at, anyway, but yourself.

Ketchup bottle nuptials breed contempt

During my eight-year tenure as part-time waitress, one of my least favorite restaurant jobs was “marrying” the ketchup bottles at shift’s end. This time-consuming, nerve-wracking job had to be done or the world, as we knew it, would surely come to an end.

My role as world savior was to take the glass ketchup bottles with the lesser amounts and prop them up against the wall on a shelf where they would drain neatly into bottles that contained more ketchup. At least that’s how it would work in a perfect world. But in my flawed restaurant universe, I’d end up with a major mess, sticky red stuff oozing down the sides of bottles. And someone always toppled my bottles.

When a ketchup bottle breaks, it defies all laws of physics. Anyone who’s ever cleaned up a shattered bottle of ketchup from a tiled restaurant cooler floor knows the amount spilled and splattered exponentially exceeds the original amount in the bottle. While I’m no scientist, I believe the formula would read something like S + S > O.

The only thing worse than being the one to break a bottle of ketchup on the cooler floor is being the one to find an anonymously broken bottle. The act of discovery obligates you to perform the cleanup, without the satisfaction of seeing and hearing the bottle break, which can be quite entertaining, provided it does not occur during a lunch or dinner rush.

The right to perform ketchup marriage rites led to silent nuptials I’d run through my head as I married the bottles, sugar and creamer packets bearing witness. “ . . . for richer, for pourer . . . in thickness and in stealth.” Boredom begets such babbling.

There was also an incestuous quality about ketchup marrying, as all bottles came from the same parent company. I was surprised to read on the labels they hailed from Pennsylvania rather than Arkansas.

Why couldn’t they just elope?

Another baffling aspect about ketchup bottle marrying was restaurant owners’ willingness to shell out $5 in employee wages to save 50 cents in product. You’d think ketchup was a highly valuable commodity, like the skin care products guarded behind the counter at Hudson’s, Marshall Field’s, Macy’s or whatever they’re calling that place this week.

One day I questioned a restaurant manager about it.

“WHY do we marry the bottles of ketchup each night?” he boomed, unamused by my suggestion we just let them continue to live in sin. “Because nobody wants a half-full bottle of ketchup.”

Well, maybe nobody on Planet Manager. But most earth people agree there’s nothing more frustrating than getting a bottle of ketchup so repressed by its recent vows that nothing comes out. Let’s call it product performance anxiety.

I hate sitting in a restaurant booth, performing a modified Heimlich maneuver on a ketchup bottle, trying to dislodge the darned stuff while my fries grow cold. Finally I hear a nasty plopping sound, half the contents of the bottle fall out onto my coleslaw, and my blouse gets the rest of the fallout. It’s all so easily preventable through NOT marrying the ketchup bottles in the first place.

Why can’t restaurants just leave the ketchup bottles upside down on the tables to let gravity assist, like shampoo bottles in the shower? 

“That would not look classy,” said my manager.

Classy?! We’re talking a place that serves ketchup!

Apparently, we food servers were entrusted to be protectors of public perception and keepers of the sacred ketchup compact, knowledge of which is sworn to secrecy: Ketchup bottles are not always full. Shhhhhh.

Santa may be unsleighed, the Easter Bunny unmade, and the Tooth Fairy belief decayed by the end of childhood, but our food service mission was to ensure adult diners carried to the grave the illusion of the perpetually full ketchup bottle.

Naturally, I rejoiced when one of the major ketchup brands began selling its product in red, ketchup-colored plastic containers. Not the marrying kind. Victory for the bachelor ketchup bottle lobby!

I had to conclude much of life is like a bottle of ketchup: Rarely all that it seems, occasionally more, and regularly messy.

4-H needs addition of fifth letter “H”

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of observing an amusing phenomenon: 4-H participants and parents from three different counties simultaneously busting butt to get ready for their respective fairs.

Two of my Jackson County employees had kids with 4-H projects due. One was bearing down on her teenage daughter to finish painting a mini-mural, resisting adding the final touches, herself. The other was desperately looking for a drill to hang a similar mural.

Back in Union City, I stopped by my older sister’s house long enough to see her crack the whip at my youngest niece over doing some final work with her calves before the Branch County 4-H Fair. Meanwhile, my nephew called around to locate a pair of show boots to fit his sister’s perpetually growing feet.
Next, I ran into Calhoun County friends lamenting their grandchildren’s foregoing food and sleep, cranking out eleventh-hour leathercraft, sewing, and stained glass projects.

Don’t you just hate when fair week sneaks up without warning?!

The Jackson County Fair is held the same week in August as the Branch County 4-H Fair. Calhoun County’s fair arrives the following week. The dates never change, and 4-H project procrastination doesn’t, either. It’s been around as long as there has been 4-H. Maybe even longer.

This especially amuses me now because my husband proposed last year during the week of the Branch County 4-H Fair, so I had the same timeframe to get ready for my wedding as the 4-Hers did to prepare their fair projects. Aside from the baking that couldn’t be done until two days before, I didn’t run around like a seventh-inning idiot. I may have walked very fast a few times, but I never ran.

Is it fair week already?

By my calculations, Branch, Calhoun, and Jackson county 4-Hers have it much better than those in other counties. They’ve got all of June and July to prepare. So in theory, they should be more on top of their respective games.

What would the August fair youth do if their respective fairs were suddenly moved up to June or July? Collective gasp. Worse yet, what if they ended up with September fairs, like the kids in Hillsdale and St. Joseph counties? Would they be able to successfully balance fair project procrastination with the homework they’re probably also putting off?

For the reasons stated above, I propose we add a fifth “H” to 4-H, making it 5-H. The fifth “H” would stand for “haste,” which appears to be practiced as much as head, heart, hands, and health.

National 4-H officials take note: You should create a procrastination division. Unlike sand art or scarecrow making, procrastination is a talent these youth are likely to use for the rest of their lives. Why not help them master the art early, so their haste is not wasted?

Rather than a 4-H project, procrastination could become a full-blown event. Make it competitive, like other fair royalty contests. Just picture the winners walking around the fair wearing sashes stating “Procrastination Princess” and “Perpetually Behind Prince.”

The contests could involve multi-tasking that mimics manic pre-fair behavior: points awarded for documented drop-back-and-punt moves such as baking brownies on the exhaust manifold of the car enroute to the baked goods judging; running large animals through a brush car wash on show day; completing a wood-burning project using the lighter in the livestock truck; force-feeding animals to ensure they make weight; and completing a sewing project while standing in the judging line. Endless room for creativity.

The final test could be singing “Tomorrow” from the musical, Annie.

Some Branch County 4-H groups seem already to have embraced the concept, if in title only. Clubs with names like “Batavia Hustlers” and “Desperados” convey the sense of freneticism that seems to build as fair week approaches. With a little tweaking, they could be joined by the likes of “Mudsock Mayhem” and the “Unstable Mates.”

Who would judge the procrastination division? Some perpetually busy soul who sleeps with his/her cell phone under the pillow, but can never seem to quite get it together. Any nominations? Hope it’s not you.

Head, heart, hands, health, and haste. Let’s here it for 5-H!

Pets’ claws threaten bubble of frugality

I’ve cut back on my budget about as much as I can. About the only area where I haven’t yet involves my pets.

But how do you cut back on dog food and cat food when you’re already buying the cheapest brands? You experiment until you find the cheapest brand your pets don’t like and therefore will refuse to eat.

The “feed the food they hate” plan also works well if you are going away for the weekend. Like babysitters, most dogs and cats will scarf down the entire two- to three-day supply of food you left for them before you’ve even backed the car out of the driveway. Giving them a food they hate helps them learn portion control and rationing.

A similar strategy worked for my parents when it came to my least favorite foods, Spanish rice and beets. I can still hear my mom saying, “If you get hungry enough, young lady, it’s going to start looking pretty good.”  It still hasn’t.

In that same vein, I tell the cats, “If you don’t like it, go out and catch a mouse.” And I’m sorry to report, indoor mousing is also an option at my place.

It’s tougher with the dog. What do I say to her? “Go out and catch a cat.”

I’m toying with the idea of bringing her home road kill a couple of times each week. After all, there’s nothing a dog likes more than to get a hold of something semi-freshly dead. I’ll put a special crate on my car’s luggage rack and cruise M-60 for carrion on my way back from Jackson. That’s what falconers do. Aside from the crows and turkey vultures, and unless this practice really catches on among the uber-frugal, I’m pretty sure I’ll get pick of the litter.

Speaking of litter, to save on cat litter, I started locking our two cats outside during the day. I’ve heard some parents do this with their children during the summer months, to ensure they remain fit and don’t send the adults into one. My cats should appreciate the opportunity to play outside, too. Right?

I also figured that because both cats began their lives as strays, and since their favorite pastime is making a break for freedom whenever someone opens the outside door, the forced fresh air playtime wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

Boy was I wrong.

As soon as they were intentionally put out, both cats pressed their faces pathetically against the windows of the enclosed porch, loudly protesting their torture. Great. Now I’ve got to purchase more window cleaning supplies, plus earplugs.

When I came home from work that night, a cat lined each side of the porch, meowing frantically as if I’d been gone for days. As soon as I opened the door to the house, I understood why. They shot like rockets straight in the direction of the litter box. They’d become so institutionalized, they’d held it all day.

Wonder what would happen if I stayed away for a few days. Perhaps I would come home to little scraps of cat everywhere from where their bladders had exploded. End of cat and cat litter expense.

No, with my luck, they’d just develop costly bladder infections. So much for reducing my budget. 

Perhaps I could train the cats to use the toilet. While multiple people swear they know of someone (usually the urban legend kind of “friend of the neighbor of my uncle who lives out of state”), whose cat who uses the toilet, I have never witnessed this spectacle. And I’ve seen a lot in my 44 years on this Earth.

Plus, the plan seems full of holes. If I can’t even get my family members to neatly use the toilet, what are the odds of my successfully training a cat to? My kids seem stymied by the flushing mechanism. Would the cats require purchase of a more easily flushable toilet they could maneuver with their paws? And could a male cat be trained to put the seat back down?

I can see this issue requires further thought, which, at least for now, is free.