Time for Softball Again!

It's that time of year again! Time to play softball! We've signed our team up with the local Parks and Rec Department, and our games begin on August 11.

I'm fully recovered from the broken ankle in last season's finale, although I've yet to swing a bat with my balky left shoulder. I'm sure it will be something I can play through, though.

Chuck is taking a more active role in the coaching of the team this year, so I'm glad of that. I'm still helping him out, but he's going to take some of the load off.

Since he's doing the lineups and field assignments now, he's trying to decide where to put everyone. In my 20+ years of playing softball, I've played every position on the field, but as I age, my depth perception is failing me. My only hope of not completely embarrassing myself in the outfield is to play there when the sun is still up. Once the sun starts to set, that's it for my ability to track fly balls. I can see that the ball is in the air, but its trajectory is a complete mystery to me. One time last season, I was yelling "I got it! I got it!" while trying to field a fly ball. I heard the outfielder next to me say, "Um...no you don't." And a second or two later, the ball went about 20 feet over my head. That's how bad it is.

So these days, I'm a much better infielder than I am an outfielder. We have an absolutely stellar shortstop--easily the best athlete on our team--so I won't be playing there. And we have a new woman on the team who holds down first base quite well, so I won't be over there, either. Chuck's trying to decide whether to put me at second base or third base. Either one works just fine for me. I like them both. I'm hoping we can have a practice before the season starts, in part so we can determine if our new first baseman is going to be able to handle the velocity of my throws from third base. Many a first baseman over the years has complained about how hard I throw. Even when I try to take something off of the throw, I get complaints (and I start losing accuracy). That was actually a big reason why I moved to second base. With short tosses from second to first, I throw with a much lesser sense of urgency.

So anyway, whether it's second base or third base, I'm looking forward to it.

And I'm not sliding this season.

At least not feet-first.....

My World Gets a New Look

I haven't enjoyed My World in quite some time, so I've decided to shake things up. Maybe a little different look will help My World become a more pleasant place.

I think I'm also going to try shorter, more frequent posts. I know how much everyone enjoys those posts that take 20 minutes to read (end sarcasm), but those take me two or three hours to type. I just don't have that block of time available on a regular basis, and it takes a lot of energy to come up with topics to write about and then edit them to my standard of perfection. Maybe shorter posts will keep me motivated to write more often.

I certainly need the outlet, that's for sure.

I've also noticed that I bitch a lot. I've never been accused of being an optimist, but as I look back on previous posts, I see now just how much I bitch about stuff. It's no wonder that My World feels so negative. Perhaps shorter posts will allow me to focus on positive things and record them before I forget them and replace them with memories of negative stuff (it's in my nature; don't bother trying to fix me).

For example, my left shoulder hurts like a son of a bitch, and it has been feeling like that for about a month now. I could write a book on how frustrating and painful this shoulder experience has been, but instead, I'm going to try to focus on some positive things. My doctor referred me today to a sports medicine specialist who seems to be highly regarded by several of my friends, and my doctor assured me that "we'll get that shoulder fixed up." And I should focus on the fact that my appointment today was free of charge, thanks to my employer setting up a free medical clinic for county employees a few months ago. I should focus on the fact that I got some medication free of charge today, too, thanks to the free medical clinic. And I should focus on the fact that I have finally...FINALLY...found a doctor who I like, who I'm comfortable talking to, who listens to me, and who remembers things I say and concerns I have (such as my unwillingness to use opiates for pain relief). Again, thanks to the free medical clinic.

I should be thankful that the non-narcotic pain reliever he has given me knocks the shoulder pain down from feeling like someone is driving a red-hot railroad spike through the front of my shoulder with a jackhammer, to something manageable. This is especially good because softball season starts on August 11--another thing I'm thankful for.

I'm very thankful that I volunteered to coach t-ball. For an hour each Saturday, I'm in absolute heaven, teaching a bunch of four- and five-year-olds how to play a sport I love. Kids that age are such a refreshingly stark contrast to my daily contacts at work. I never want that hour to end.

I'm thankful that my best friend lives right across the street. And that we co-own a kegerator over at his house. I'm thankful that I can talk to him about anything at all, which is even easier for me to do after pressing the kegerator into service.

There. That's good enough for today. I feel better already about My World. Of course, there's a lot more that I'm thankful for, but I'll save those thoughts for another day when My World needs another picker-upper.

Now it's time to see what Chuck and the kegerator are up to.

Let's Go, Orioles!

I'm embarking on a new adventure: coaching. It's actually not an entirely new adventure for me, as I've coached recreational softball teams and Special Olympics athletes in the past, but what makes it new for me is that I'll be coaching a dozen four- and five-year-olds, including Olivia, in t-ball. We're in a league run by the local YMCA, and our team is the Orioles.

It's one thing to tell an adult buddy of mine to put his beer down, pick up his softball mitt, and try not to completely embarrass himself over at third base. There isn't much coaching skill involved in that. It's quite another thing entirely to try to teach a bunch of little kids the very basic fundamentals of baseball, such as how to drop the bat after hitting the ball without maiming anyone within a 30-foot radius.

Fortunately, I have help. There are two of us coaching the team, and the other coach is a professional acquaintance of mine. I look forward to working with him in a different capacity--and getting to know him better--throughout the season.

Last week, I attended the Coaches Meeting and learned what the YMCA expects from its coaches. We heard the basic common sense stuff (although, in today's society, it has to be said) like: never be one-on-one with any kids, including when they have to use the restroom; don't give your own kid special treatment, good or bad; high-fives are good; butt slaps and purple nurples are bad; screaming spit-flying obscenities in a four-year-old's face while slapping him repeatedly, then withholding water from him after he runs the wrong way on the bases is bad; reinforcing the YMCA's values is good, etc. Apparently drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use in front of the kids is also frowned upon, as are public displays of affection. Who knew?

Anyway, once we got through all that legal mumbo-jumbo stuff, we learned about the rules of our league. I knew from sign-ups that it was a non-competitive league, but I also know that some parents keep score in their heads. So I was a little nervous about my first coaching stint with other people's kids having the added pressure of unspoken expectations to "win" these non-competitive games.

But the YMCA alleviated that concern. Every kid on the team bats in every inning. There are no outs. Each kid swings until putting a ball into play, even if it takes 35 swings. Each kid advances one--and only one--base at a time. If the batter reaches first base before the other team has even collected the ball, the batter stays at first. If the other team throws the batter out at first base, the batter stays at first. The last kid up to bat in each inning gets to run all the way around the bases for a "grand slam." We play for an hour, or three innings, whichever comes first. We have 12 kids on our roster, so we'll score 12 runs each inning. Assuming the other team has 12 players, too, the other team will score 12 runs each inning. For those parents scoring in their heads, the game will be a 36-36 tie every week. So I was pleased to have the ability to "win" games completely removed by league rules.

Last night, all of the coaches, players, and parents met at the YMCA office. We got our rosters and schedules, and we got a chance to say hi to our players and their parents. Olivia, being painfully shy, crawled up my leg every time I tried to introduce her to the other coach or to any of the players on her team. I chuckled to myself, though, as I watched most of the other kids crawl up their parents' legs when I talked to them, too. One of those nice little reminders for me that Olivia is a typical four-year-old.

It was also nice to hear other parents asking the same questions and expressing the same concerns that I had when I signed Olivia up to play. It's an unknown realm for most parents, and they simply want to know what's expected of them, what to bring to practices and games, and that their kids are going to be okay. I understand the anxiety of turning my kids over to a stranger, so I went out of my way to put parents at ease. Many of them fretted that their child has no prior experience playing baseball. I assured them that I expect absolutely nothing from the kids, and Olivia has no experience, either. That seemed to relax them all.

So the adventure begins Saturday morning when the Orioles--nine boys, three girls, and two coaches--take the field for our first practice. The first three Saturdays of the season (minus Independence Day weekend) are practices. The final four Saturdays of the season are games. We all get team t-shirts on the day of our final practice to wear for our four games, and the kids get a participation trophy at the end of the season.

My goals for the season are simple: everyone has fun, and the kids learn the basics of baseball. If, by the end of the season, the kids can hit a ball off a tee, run the bases in the correct direction, and maybe field a slow grounder or two, I'll consider it a success. Oh, and if we avoid any visits from an ambulance throughout the season, that'd be nice, too. After all, we coaches are old and fragile, and we break easily.

What Does "Dead" Mean?

I have been provided with a variety of equipment to use when I go out to probationers' residences to conduct home visits, including a Kevlar vest. Sure, Kevlar is great protection against a bullet to the torso, but I hate wearing my vest. It's bulky, it's awkward, it's uncomfortable, I look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy when I have it on, and worst of all, it's miserably hot. By the end of a 70-degree day of home visits, I'm drenched in sweat. In the dead of summer, I'm pretty sure my internal organs have been pressure-cooked by the end of a shift. And those who know me know that I absolutely loathe being hot.

So I've been getting a little sloppy about wearing my vest lately. (Sorry, Mom!) My home visits have been concentrated in the county in which I work, which is half rural, half suburban, mostly laid back. That's not to say that bad things don't happen around here, but it's pretty uncommon to see anything on the local news coming out of our county.

I also like to think that I have a pretty disarming style when I'm out on home visits. I do everything I can with my body language, choice of words, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. to put everyone in the home at ease, even as I'm confiscating their drugs, alcohol, firearms, or whatever else I find in there that's going to send them to jail. I'm also extremely particular about who I take with me as a partner. There are a small handful of people in my office who I'm comfortable with in the field, and I pretty much just stick with them.

So I figure with all of that going for me, why subject myself to a day full of heat-related misery, when the chances of me needing the Kevlar are minuscule, right?

I know, I know. That's how officers get killed. Getting complacent. But did I mention how much I hate my vest?

Yesterday, my partner and I were planning to do some home visits in a fairly nasty part of Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the temperatures were predicted to hit the mid- to high-80's, with considerable humidity. Despite the exponential increase in risk, based simply on the area we were headed to, I was still contemplating not wearing my vest. It was going to be absolutely miserable wearing it in that kind of weather.

But then I got a sign from above, delivered by Olivia.

As I was getting her ready for school yesterday morning, she observed that some of the flowers in our garden were gone. I confirmed her observation and told her that the flowers were dead. Then came the question I wasn't prepared for.

"Daddy? What does 'dead' mean?"

I did my best to explain in 4-year-old terms that "dead" means that someone or something isn't with us anymore, but they've gone to heaven, and they're watching us from way up high in the sky. I was mentally high-fiving myself after that answer. Not bad for having to completely pull that one out of the thin air at a moment's notice!

"So the flowers are in heaven?" she asked.

"Yes, they are," I said.

"So Bronson [our dog that we had to euthanize a couple months ago] is in heaven?" she asked.

"Yes, he is," I said.

Olivia pondered that for a moment or two, and then uttered one of those sentences that changes a person's course of action.

"Daddy? I don't want you to be dead."

Two hours later, as I was strapping my Kevlar vest on, that sentence was running over and over again through my head. As I boiled like a lobster all day, that sentence was going through my head. As I was desperately trying to cool down for hours after work, cranking up the air conditioning, sitting in front of a fan, taking a cold shower, downing Gatorade like it was going out of style...that sentence was going through my head.

The story would have been made-for-TV material if I had gotten shot yesterday, and the Kevlar vest stopped the bullet. But that didn't happen. Nothing even remotely close to a confrontation ever happened, and my partner and I made it back to the office completely intact.

And yet my four-year-old daughter managed to correct weeks of sloppiness on my part in one short, well-timed sentence.

Kids say the darndest things.

What We've Got Here is Failure to Communicate

It's no breaking news that the internet has revolutionized the way we socialize. There's e-mail, texting, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging, match-making websites, and countless other ways that we can socialize with each other without ever leaving the computer screen. I'm a texting and e-mail junkie, and I have a Facebook page and this blog. I tinkered with Twitter for awhile but never really got the hang of it or understood the point of it.

In the beginning, I thoroughly enjoyed Facebook and this blog. Facebook got me reconnected with high school classmates, including my best friend from my childhood, who I hadn't communicated with in over 20 years. It was an easy way to keep up with my friends' and family's lives, as well as an easy way to keep them updated on what's going on in my life. This blog was a fun way to express things that were on my mind, and to feed my interest in writing.

But in the past couple of months, I've become increasingly disenchanted with both.

After receiving a considerable amount of backlash--both directly and indirectly--from my last post on this blog, I lost my interest in writing. I meant my last post as a means of venting and, to a lesser extent, a plea for help from other experienced parents on how to survive this difficult phase in my kids' lives. Apparently the child-rearing manuals that came with my kids got lost somewhere between the hospital and our house after they were born, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time. I just fake it, and sometimes I get it right. Sometimes things go very wrong for an extended period of time, though, and I get frustrated. I got some supportive comments from a few friends, but I was alarmed to discover that many other people took that post as an opportunity to question my parenting skills, my mental health, and whatever else was being questioned. I wanted help. I got scrutinized, instead. I didn't like it.

Facebook has become a similar headache. It seems that any of my posts that are anything but silly slapstick entertainment are hyper-analyzed. Comments are misconstrued, activities are judged, who I choose as friends are a source of contention, photos are criticized...and don't even get me started on those God-forsaken games like Farmville. God, I hate that game. What started out as a fun little time-killer turned into a full-time job with endless demands to send shit, build shit, harvest shit, fertilize shit, and on and on and on. The damn game didn't work right 80% of the time, it involved an endless string of pop-up windows, and then I started getting huge amounts of junk e-mail at home that I blame on either Zynga--the creator of Farmville--or Facebook prostituting my e-mail address out to the highest bidding john. I'm just so disgusted with the whole experience that I stopped playing all games a few weeks ago, and I'm taking a break from Facebook as a whole for awhile.

Obviously, I am responsible for what gets posted on my Facebook page and on my blog, so I'm not trying to play the role of martyr here. And I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. I read a lot of columns--entire columns!--on sports websites, analyzing and criticizing what athletes post on their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. What I'm sure the athlete meant as a means of expressing frustration with a situation turns into an entirely blown-out-of-proportion ordeal in the media. A 140-character post on Twitter leads to multiple 800-word columns of analysis, criticism, theories, and various interpretations on countless websites.

It got me thinking about what the on-line world has done to human socialization. Chuck steadfastly refuses to make a Facebook page, and only recently did he begrudgingly add the ability to send and receive text messages on his phone. His reasoning is that he prefers face-to-face interactions to anything on-line. And I'm starting to understand his perspective.

Human communication is a very complex process involving a whole slew of verbal and non-verbal cues. When we communicate solely through written text, especially with a limited number of characters, the vast majority of those cues are lost. The nuances of interpersonal relations go missing. Often, the communicator's intent is lost or misinterpreted. If I had expressed the same frustrations that I wrote about in my last post on this blog to a circle of live human beings, I guarantee that the response would have been different. People would have heard tone of voice, seen facial expressions, observed posture and hand movements, and all of the rest of the cues that we, as human beings, constantly transmit and receive. My style of communication--especially my sense of humor--relies heavily on sarcasm, exaggeration, context, timing, and the multitude of cues observable in face-to-face interactions. That doesn't always translate well to text. If I tell someone in person, "I want to choke my kids today!", they easily pick up on the other cues--especially if they know anything about me and know that I would never actually harm my kids--and recognize that I'm blowing off steam and maybe asking for assitance. If I post "I want to choke my kids today!" on Facebook, I have people contemplating calling the police and/or Child Protective Services.

Misinterpretations are often easily avoided with face-to-face communication. When I say something, I'm reading the cues of the person I'm talking to. I can clearly see when the person is not understanding what I'm saying by the look on their face, and I'm immediately able to address a potential problem, further explain my position, or otherwise clear up the misconception or confusion. That ability is lost when posting things on-line.

I believe, too, that when we interact face-to-face, we are much less inclined to dish out the biting criticism, the rude remarks, and the armchair quarterbacking that is so easy to distribute behind the safety of a computer screen. In face-to-face communication, we usually refrain from expressing those types of thoughts because we don't want to witness the hurt feelings, risk a punch to the face, or experience any other backlash from what we express. We have developed into a much more critical society, and I wonder how much of that is a result of the ability to post written comments and avoid the face-to-face repercussions of our comments.

Small conflicts get blown up into huge ordeals when we feel like we can just unload on someone by way of a keyboard. Such a storm is brewing right now in my workplace, providing a very real illustration of that point for me and the employees of two different offices. What could probably have been resolved with a quick face-to-face interaction or two is brewing into a full-blown knock-down-drag-out because of sharp-edged e-mails passing back and forth.

Sure, we've always had the rumor mill, the grapevine, the watercooler, and various other means of gossiping about people, but with the relatively newfound ability to comment on just about every single little thing on-line, and often from the safety of anonymity, we seem to have gotten more malicious, more inflammatory, more judgmental, more unforgiving, and more confrontational. We have fewer filters, less tact, and lowered inhibitions when we communicate electronically.

We have become, in my opinion, less human.

We have lost sight of the fact that human beings are...well...human beings. We make mistakes. We say stupid things. We have whims. We have desires. We have emotions. We have good days. We have bad days. We're not always rational. It is human nature to want to express those sentiments to other human beings. But because of the modern ways in which we communicate now, we often only see one dimension of a person's message, missing the totality of it. And way too often, our responses to those messages are malicious.

We actively seek out people's moments of weakness, taking great pleasure in rubbing their noses in their mistakes, reveling in their demise, broadcasting their defeats to the world, and standing over them, beating our chests in glory because, in this very moment in time, our lives appear to be better than theirs. We have lost the ability to show compassion, to understand, to empathize, to reach out a helping hand, to pick someone up when they're down, to identify with their anguish and offer a shoulder to cry on. We have lost the ability to celebrate someone else's successes without jealousy or wondering out loud who they screwed in order to get where they are now. We have lost the ability to turn the other cheek...to forgive and forget and move on. In our frenzy to rip the meat off the bones of others at every opportunity, we have forgotten that we are all human beings--that we're all in this together. We have forgotten to treat others the way we want to be treated.

It's what our society has become, and that's sad. But I can't change it. I can only adapt.

The lesson I've learned from all of this is that I need to step back a little bit from the on-line world and take a page from Chuck's book on reestablishing more face-to-face contact with people. And if/whenever I do return to Facebook and this blog, I need to censor what I write and what I post (and, taking my own medicine, lay off of Ryan Leaf). That's a shame to me, since I had the obviously idealistic belief that Facebook and a blog would be a good place to share thoughts, opinions, discussions, experiences, and laughs while keeping up with the same from people I'm interested in. All it's good for now, though, is sharing a few vacation photos and funny websites, and that doesn't hold my interest nearly as much.

A Frustrated Parent's Lament

Olivia is on the cusp of turning 4 years old, and June will turn 3 in early summer. They're both in a phase right now (I sure hope it's just a phase, anyway) that is causing me a significant amount of anguish.

They love their mommy.

Not normally a bad thing, right? But these two knuckleheads take loving their mommy to a whole new level. They want "uppy" all the time (they want the Mrs. to hold them), and they're constantly under her feet to the point of trying to crawl up her legs. Not only have neither of them "cut the cord," but they often both act like they're literally trying to crawl back up into the womb. Each of them says the word "Mommy" no fewer than 113,784 times a day, trying to gain her attention, and they do it over the top of each other. The more tired they get, the clingier they are. The Mrs. tries to make dinner, and she's constantly turning around and nearly falling over one of them. The Mrs. tries to sit on the couch and relax for a minute, and they're all over her. When she takes a shower, the girls are pounding on her bathroom door, wanting in.

Olivia, especially, has always been a mommy's girl, but her level of dependence on the Mrs. has become nauseating. When the Mrs. sits down, Olivia is instantly right next to her, with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, sucking her thumb and running her hands through the Mrs.'s hair, twisting it into knots. Olivia has also decided that she suddenly can't do things that she's been able to do by herself for quite some time--dressing herself, opening the refrigerator to retrieve a yogurt, etc.--without the Mrs. "helping" her (read: doing it for her).

In the evenings, the Mrs. and I rotate reading stories to the girls before bed every other night. However, for the past several weeks, the girls raise nine kinds of hell when it's my turn to read to them. They want Mommy to do it. And when we break the news to them that it's Daddy's turn to read, you'd think we were driving a red-hot nail through their eyeballs, the way they react. They don't want me reading to them, they don't want me putting them to bed, they barely want anything to do with me.

They certainly don't want me disciplining them. I'm the seemingly heartless enforcer in our house. I have the iron fist. They know that they can slide stuff past Mommy (or wear her out) that they can't get past me. (And the Mrs. knows this. I'm not writing anything that we haven't already repeatedly discussed with each other. She balances out my heavy hand, too.)

Every night, Olivia finds her way into our bed, and then she's all over the Mrs. like glue--again with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, even to the point where she lies on top of the Mrs. And when that doesn't satisfy her need for contact with her mommy, she starts rolling around all over her, like a dog rolls in grass. It's absolutely ridiculous.

June isn't helping matters any with her own behavior. She's the most stubborn, defiant kid in the history of mankind. Well, at least since her...um...mother...was a child. (Yeah, we'll stick with THAT parent being the one who is stubborn and defiant. It's my blog. I can write anything I want!) June will say "No!" in response to EVERYTHING. She often follows it up with a very theatrical slumping of the shoulders, pouty lip out all the way, sometimes letting a string of spit slowly go from her mouth to her shirt, head hung, and a slow walk to her room. When she finally gets to her room, she slams the door shut in grand fashion, often yelling "I QUIT!", and then completely comes unglued, crying and shrieking at the top of her lungs. And she never stops. She'll carry on for hours...days...months...if we let her. And it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever to set her off. She just did it to me this morning when I told her--in a very civil tone, not raising my voice one little bit--to stop coloring on the placemats with a pen.

Tell June it's time to eat dinner? "NO!" It's time for a bath? "NO!" It's time to get out of the bath? "NO!" It's time for a diaper change? "NO!" Want to sit on the potty? "NO!" Time for bed? "NO!" Time to get up? "NO!" Time to turn off the TV? "NO!"

You get the picture.

I think the Mrs. is just as exasperated as I am, but for a different reason. For me, as silly as it sounds, it hurts my feelings--A LOT--when my daughters say that they don't want me to do anything with them, and when they act like it's absolute torture to do something with me, rather than with their mommy. I know they're just 4 and 3 years old, and they likely don't mean anything malicious towards me, but after weeks and weeks of hearing "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" every time I want to read them a story or put them to bed, it starts to take a toll. I'm also exceedingly frustrated with Olivia's sudden "helplessness" without the assistance of her mommy. And now June is starting to copy her older sister's behavior, too. June's second favorite phrase, behind "NO!", is "I can't do it!" That phrase goes right through me.

The Mrs., on the other hand, is feeling smothered, and for good reason. She's doing basically all of the childcare on a daily basis because our two little knotheads are so insistent on doing everything with Mommy. The girls constantly have a list of demands--I want juice, I want yogurt, I want candy, I want this, I want that--and they talk over each other, getting louder and more frantic in their demands as they try to drown the other one out. The Mrs. can't get a moment's peace. She gets very little sleep at night, and to make things worse, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, while the Mrs. is a pretty light sleeper. There are times when I wake up in the morning feeling fairly refreshed, and the Mrs. looks like death warmed over because she's been up all night with one or both of the girls for some reason. I had no idea that she was up with them, or I would have helped. I know she wants to kill me, but I swear I didn't hear anything last night!

The dog is just as bad as the kids, wanting the Mrs.'s attention non-stop. You should witness the scene when the Mrs. gets home from work, having picked the kids up from school, and the dog greets her. It is absolute, unmitigated chaos for a good 30 minutes while two toddlers and a dog do everything they can to get the attention of the Mrs. and demand everything under the sun. I don't know how the Mrs. does it every day. I'd want to jump off the nearest cliff. That's probably the only thing saving me from being a widower--a total lack of cliffs in central Indiana.

I'm hoping this is just a phase. I'm hoping other parents can tell me that Olivia and June will eventually grow out of this. If I know there's an end in sight, I can hang on until we get through it. I can endure just about anything. I'm pretty stubborn and defiant that way. Er...I mean...the Mrs. is. But if this is something unusual, we need to get everyone in to see the doctor or a counselor or someone pronto because I can't take another 15 years of this.

Do You Play Football?

I just want to take a minute to record a classic moment in probation supervision before I purge it from my memory and get on with my life.

A little background info: One of our probation officers recently left our department to take a similar position in another state. For the sake of this story, we'll call him...um...Ben. Because that's his real name. This probationer met with Ben a few weeks ago for his initial appointment, and Ben then reassigned him to me for the remainder of his probation.

Ben is a very meticulous probation officer. He consistently scored near the very top of our office in performance evaluations, and he's well-known for his attention to detail. As a result, when I got the file, there were very thorough notes in place describing what Ben told this probationer at his appointment.

Our conditions of probation require that everyone--regardless of their offense--complete a substance abuse evaluation within the first 45 days of their probation. In this particular case, this probationer clearly needed to do this. The reasons why are unimportant. Just trust me on this one. He needed to complete a substance abuse evaluation.

So here's how part of the appointment went.

First, the probationer showed up 10 minutes late today because he couldn't find the entrance to the building that leads to my office. Granted, it's a different entrance than he went through to see Ben a few weeks ago, but we work in a small building. He could walk all the way around the building about 30 times in 10 minutes.

Then we get back to my office, and the first thing out of his mouth is, "Do you play football? You look like you play football." Really?, I'm thinking to myself. Because I'm 5'8". 5'9" if I stand up real tall. And no one who has seen my physique in the past 20 years would accuse me of having an athletic build. I can count on two hands the number of 5'8" or 5'9" players who have EVER played in the NFL in the past 50 years, and they were/are all lightning fast. I'm not even in the same realm as "lightning fast." And those players were/are all at least 40 pounds lighter than I am.

I ask him if he has gotten his substance abuse evaluation scheduled or completed, as Ben had told him to do.

HIM: No.

ME: Why not?

HIM: Because I have to take care of my girlfriend's kids while she's at work.

ME: Where does your girlfriend work?

HIM: She works with old people.

ME: Doing what?

HIM: You know, she goes to old people's houses. Like, old people.

ME: For what reason?

HIM: Ummmmmm.......

ME: To rob them?

HIM: No! You know, OLD PEOPLE.

ME: I know what old people are. What does your girlfriend do at old people's houses?

HIM: Well, they're, like, old people. And they're in a bed or something in their house.

ME: Uh huh. And what does she DO for them?

HIM: I guess she takes care of them.

ME: Does she work for hospice care?

HIM: Huh? What's that?

ME: *Sigh* How old are her kids?

HIM: Six and four.

ME: So what does having to watch her kids have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment like Ben told you to do? I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and I can make phone calls when I'm watching them.

HIM: Well, I can't drive.

ME: Again, what does that have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment?

HIM: Well, I want to go to [a specific substance abuse counseling agency], but I don't have their number.

ME: Did you check the list of counseling agencies that Ben mailed to you?

HIM: He didn't give me a list.

ME: Really, because his notes said he mailed you a list along with your initial appointment letter, and you obviously showed up for your initial appointment, so I know you got the list, too.

HIM: I don't know what I did with that envelope.

ME: Did you look in the phone book for [the particular agency's] number?

HIM: I don't have a phone book.

ME: Did you call the probation department to ask for [the particular agency's] number?

HIM: No. I thought I had the entire period of my probation to get the evaluation done.

ME: Do you not remember signing your Probation Order, and receiving a copy of it, where it says this has to be done within the first 45 days of your probation?

HIM: Nobody told me that.

ME: Really, because that doesn't sound like Ben at all to me, not making sure that you understand your conditions of probation and have a copy of them.

HIM: I didn't know.

ME: Oh, I can't wait to see the judge's face when you tell him that at your probation violation hearing.

HIM: I'm violated?!

ME: Well, you're past your 45 days the Court gave you to get your evaluation done, so why shouldn't I violate your probation?

HIM: What if I get it done by my next appointment?

ME: Ah, now you're catching on. You do that, and I might not file a violation. But if you don't, I guarantee you that I WILL file one. Do we understand each other?

HIM: Yes.

ME: Good. I'm giving you a drug screen today, too.

(Long pause)

HIM: Did you play COLLEGE football?

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say

Today I got a book by Seuss.
The rhymes in it can be quite loose.
I like to read it to my girls,
Especially the one with curls.

Seuss is a fave of mine, you see.
It started back when I was three.
My grandpa liked to write in rhyme.
He was quite silly from time to time.

As I grew up and learned to read,
He wrote me letters in rhyme. Indeed!
The entire letter would read like Seuss.
Sometimes I'd read while drinking juice.

I'd write him back as best I could
And make it rhyme, just like he would.
For years, we kept it up like this.
He'd read my rhymes, and I'd read his.

It became a kind of special thing,
The joy for me that it would bring.
And then one day, Grandpa was gone.
I cried the day that he passed on.

I still miss him lots, even today.
So when I see Seuss, it makes my day.
I really like his silly rhymes.
They take me back to happy times.

If you don't like green eggs and ham,
That's quite alright. I understand.
But Dr. Seuss is dear to me.
And now he fills my girls with glee.

Grandpa, the goofy rhymes still live.
Your gift to me, to my kids I give.
I read the Doc and have to smile,
While thinking of you, all the while.

Phase One Ends (well, almost)

Phase One of the eBay and Craigslist experience is over. For the most part, anyway. We have found some stragglers--CD's we forgot about in the car, a couple more old computer games I found way back there in the desk, stuff like that--that are up for auction right now, but none of it will bring in much money. It's more about clearing out clutter at this point.

There haven't been a whole lot of developments since my last post. Not surprising at all was the outcome of my unpaid item claim on eBay's Resolution Center: the Louisiana deadbeat never paid. Nor did she even respond. She has, however, found the time to buy more stuff on eBay...and pay for it. Why she never paid for my item will forever remain a mystery.

If you ever sell anything on eBay, take the time to block this person from bidding on your items:

dre_kayla

So ten days after I originally sold the item--plus all the wasted effort of trying to contact dre_kayla, followed by wasting my time opening an unpaid item case in the Resolution Center--I have sold it again to a person who was the third-highest bidder in the auction. The new buyer's maximum bid was $2.00 less than that of dre_kayla in the original auction, so that's what I sold it to her for.

I haven't had any other problems with payment. Everyone else has been great about promptly paying.

Only about half of my buyers have left me feedback on eBay so far, but it's all been positive, so that's good.

The item we got the most money for? The lot of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands that went for $140.00. Nothing came even close to that. In fact, we sold a lot of 97 CD's from 1990's bands and got $53.00 for it. The Mrs. can't believe that my "lousy" music even sold in the first place, much less that it became the top seller. I still chuckle about it.

All the "big" sellable stuff from inside the house is gone now, so we'll make very little additional money for however much long it takes Phase One to finally fizzle out. Phase Two will begin when it warms up, and I can get up into the attic and out into the storage shed to see what is up and out there. I suspect, however, that most of what we'll find in those two places will be more appropriate for a yard sale than for eBay. There may not be a Phase Two, but we'll see.

At any rate, we've grossed just over $800.00 so far. By the time eBay and PayPal take their fees, and we factor in all of the shipping supplies we've purchased, I imagine we've probably netted somewhere in the neighborhood of $650.00 or so. Not too shabby.

I did spend a little of our earnings during my time on eBay. I found a nice little wall decoration that I've been after for quite awhile. It very simply states Luke 6:31, also known as the Golden Rule. It's a very important concept to me. It's the way I try to live my life, and it's something I want my daughters to see on the wall every night at dinner and incorporate into their daily lives, too. There are several variations of it, but the decoration I got says: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." I got one for my office, too.

Maybe I should have gotten an extra one for dre_kayla.

eBay Update

The adventure continues, although we're nearing the end of what we've determined to be Phase One of the eBay/Craigslist experience. We have grouped the last of our CD's into six lots, ranging from 3 CD's to 100 CD's per lot, and put them up for auction on eBay. The last auction ends in 2 days and 1 hour, and then we'll be done for awhile.

Oh, we have a set of VHS movies for sale on Craigslist, too. They didn't sell in three or four lots on eBay, so we put them all together into one lot and have them advertised on Craigslist for now. We'll see if there is any interest on Craigslist, and then they'll probably become yard sale fodder in the spring.

(Another example of how I don't understand what people will buy: we couldn't even get any nibbles on eBay for those VHS movies, which are all truly in terrific condition. But some exercise VHS tapes in covers that were beat to hell (and I clearly indicated that in the description)? Sold 'em for $5.50. And three people were fighting over them. Go figure.)

It's been going pretty well so far. I've been getting positive feedback from some of my buyers, which is good. Many buyers probably haven't gotten their stuff yet. The ones who have responded all had their stuff sent Priority Mail or First Class. There are plenty of people, though, who should have gotten their stuff, but who have not taken a minute to leave me positive feedback. That's frustrating.

At any rate, we don't really have anything left in the house that we want to sell on eBay, and I need a break from it all for awhile, anyway. When it warms up, I'll head up into the attic to see what we have up there to clear out. I'll also check out what's in our storage shed. Maybe there will be a Phase Two when that happens, or maybe we'll determine that our remaining clutter is more yard sale material than eBay material.

So in a couple of days, Phase One will be over. Assuming everyone pays, of course.

Which brings me to my next update. The deadbeat who won one of my auctions last Tuesday, then said that "maybe" she'd pay on Friday, and "definitely" would pay on Saturday? She still hasn't paid. According to my calendar, it's now Monday. Further, she has made no attempts to communicate to me any problems she might be having with paying for the item. Her hollow promises to pay by Friday or Saturday were a response to ME contacting HER. She has made zero effort to initiate contact with me, nor has she given me any indication as to why she's not paying. What pisses me off even more is that since she won my auction, she has paid for two other auctions she has won--a toddler's outfit and a cell phone. She's new to eBay, so I initially wondered if maybe she just didn't understand how to use eBay or PayPal. At least this latest development clears up that concern.

My conclusion now is that she is simply willfully not paying me, for reasons unknown to me.

The Mrs. has an amusing theory. The deadbeat is from Louisiana. Part of my eBay moniker contains the word "Colts." The Mrs. wonders if this is some sort of deranged Saints fan...

Whatever the situation is down in the bayou, I'm done with it. I was going to wait until tomorrow to give her a full week to pay before taking action. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't being unreasonable. Maybe it's a total coincidence that the other 31 buyers I've dealt with in the past week have paid me within minutes or hours (and in two instances, SECONDS) of winning their bids, and she's the one and only person I'm having problems with.

So last night, I started thoroughly researching eBay's policies. I discovered that they have what they call a Resolution Center. After four days from the time the auction ended (which was last Tuesday, Feb. 9), I can notify eBay of a deadbeat buyer. eBay notifies the deadbeat of the open case, and the deadbeat then has four days in which to respond or pay. So clearly, eBay feels that having to wait four days for payment is too long. Turns out, I'm not being unreasonable at all.

After some thought, I decided to submit my case to the Resolution Center last night, rather than wait until tomorrow. At this point, the $46.00 she owes me is less of an issue for me than the fact that she has been a complete pain in my ass. Waiting two more days was going to amount to nothing more than two more days of me not being done with this ordeal.

I also want eBay to be aware of this deadbeat. People like this don't need to be on eBay, wasting other people's time. Hopefully, eBay will pin a scarlet "D" on the chest of this deadbeat's profile, for every other potential seller to see. As I wrote previously, the worst sin of an eBay buyer is to win an auction and then not pay for the item. Equally as bad would be if someone paid a seller for an item, and the seller never shipped it.

So I decided that it's time to take things to the appropriate higher authority, much like decisions I make at work about filing probation violations. (And this entire situation has been very similar to what I experience on a regular basis at work.) When do I notify the judge of a probation violation? When the probationer doesn't do what they're supposed to do? And when I confront them about their shortcomings, they make promises to correct the behavior, and then don't follow through with those promises? When the probationer has committed the worst kind of violation of the rules? Yes, that's when I notify the higher authority in the form of filing a probation violation with the judge. So using that train of thought, it was clearly time for me to notify the higher authority regarding this eBay deadbeat.

This probationer--er, I mean, this deadbeat--now has four days to respond to the open case in the Resolution Center. If (when) she doesn't, I'm not sure what eBay does to her, but I know what I'm going to do on Thursday evening. I'm going to offer the item to the second-highest bidder with a completely clear conscience. And then I'm going to leave the deadbeat negative feedback. I've already learned that when the deadbeat inevitably leaves me negative feedback in retaliation, I can get eBay to remove it from my feedback score because she didn't pay for the item. HA! Suck it, deadbeat! I'm also able to block her from ever bidding on any of my auctions again.

Who knows...maybe the deadbeat will surprise me and pay for the item within the next four days. My probationers have surprised me in the past by doing something to help themselves long after I had lost all hope.

I'm just a tad skeptical, though.

Stay tuned.