During the summer between high school and college, I worked in the cafeteria at Fisherbody. I wasn’t old enough to work in the factory but I was old enough to work in the cafeteria.

Work in the cafeteria was different to say the least. There was a series of jobs that you could move up into as people left for factory jobs. New people started work by washing pots and pans but every one had a coffee route.

A coffee route was a twice a day event. Mid morning and mid afternoon, everyone took their coffee wagon on a run which consisted of 8 to 10 stops along the assembly line. Each stop lasted for a set amount of time as the line would be shut down for coffee break.

The coffee wagon consisted of a 2′ x 3′ stainless steel cart with two shelves. The top shelf held a 20 gallon coffee urn on the front of the cart along with an assortment of sandwiches and donuts while the bottom shelf was more of a tub which held ice and an assortment juice and milk.

Now, I had worked my way up through the ranks from pots and pan to dishes to coffee carts. Coffee carts meant that I was the one who made the coffee and loaded all the carts with coffee, juice, milk, sandwiches and donuts. And, moving up through the ranks meant that I got a new coffee run.

Each of the coffee carts had a listed number of food items on them and everyone was held accountable for the food items on their cart. This meant that at the end of each run you either turned in all of your food items that didn’t sell or you turned in the money for the food items. In short, if your wagon was short, the money came out of your pocket.

I never had any problems with my coffee runs until I moved up to the run as wagon master. (loading the coffee wagons) When I became the wagon master, my coffee runs always came up short. And each time, it was for the same amount of money. Hum!

Finally, I noted at one of my coffee stops, that while every one was sorting through my selection of sandwiches and donuts, one guy approached the coffee wagon from in front of the coffee urn. Since he was in my blind spot, he would then reach down and grab a carton of milk from under the cart and walk away with out paying.

Thief!!

This really ticked me off. This guy was making 20 times the amount of money that I was making yet he was stealing from me and I had to pay for it!!

My plan was simple. I took a carton of milk and set it out side the factory in the hot sun and waited a few days. When I noticed that the carton was nice and swollen, I knew it was time.

On that fateful day, I brought the carton inside and iced it down good so that the swelling went away. Then I tucked it into a spot deep under the ice until the time was right. After all, I didn’t want any of my paying customers to end up with the bomb. Then, when I finished my last stop before the theft stop, I moved the carton of sour milk to the front of the wagon and positioned it as an ideal grab.

When I got to the theft stop, my regular paying customers grabbed what they wanted and paid for it. And the thief, as usual, approached the cart and quickly grabbed the bomb that was laid for him.

Seizing his prey, he quickly moved from the cart and prepared to devour it. He pealed back both sides of the carton and pulled the spout forward. Lifting it high, he pressed it to his lips and took his first big gulp. And a moment later, he spit it all out.

Yes!!!

But, oh no, he wasn’t finished. He decided to complain that the milk was sour. I told him that since he hadn’t paid for the it, he could have all of the sour milk that he wanted for free. And that if he wanted fresh milk, he would have to pay for it.

He threatened to complain to the union and I said “be my guest”! Next, he said that he would take his business to another wagon and I said”fine”. After all, if he left, my profits would increase.

I made a point in warning my co-workers about this clod. He was eventually written up. But the look on his face when he took that first fateful gulp was worth more than the money I lost on that clod.

Yes!!

It was Christmas morning and the ground was blanketed in a fresh layer of new snow. Kathy left for church early as she was singing in the choir and they always warmed up before church. Since I would be leaving for church at the regular time, I was instructed to put the ham in the oven and to turn the oven on.

Just before I got ready to leave, I put the ham, all 18 pounds of it, in the oven and set the temperature for 350. I then proceeded upstairs to brush my teeth. By the time that I had finished brushing my teeth, the girls had their coats on and were waiting by the back door. Since the stove was located by the back door, I glanced at it as I went out the door.

After church, Kathy arrived home about 30 seconds before I did. When I entered the kitchen from the garage, Kathy was waiting for me at the door. Visibly upset, she asked why I had left the oven door open. Perplexed I asked what she meant by that. She said that when she walked into the kitchen, she found the oven to be wide open. I reassured her that when I left the house, the oven door was closed. Besides, I would have to be both stupid and blind to leave the oven door open. I hung up my coat and proceeded upstairs to use the bathroom.

When I got to the bathroom, I encountered the next big mystery. The bathroom door was closed. Going back downstairs, a quick head count confirmed that all of the members of the family were present and that none of them were in the bathroom. So, why was the bathroom door closed? After all, I was the last person to use the bathroom and I certainly didn’t shut the door.

Ah, oven door open, bathroom door closed. Was there someone else in the bathroom? Maybe the person who opened the oven. Next question, do we open the door or do we call the police to report an intruder? After some thought, we decided that anyone stupid enough to hid in the bathroom was probably not going to be a serious threat so we opened the door. There was no one inside. The bathroom window was closed and locked so that was not an escape route. The mystery grows.

Rachel went into her room and noted that the gerbil cage had been moved. Suzanne went downstairs into the basement and noted that the door to the laundry room was closed. We never shut the door to the laundry room as that is where we keep the litter box.

A check of the premises revealed that all of the windows and doors were locked. A survey of the fresh snow yield no new tracks. And the only tire tracks in the driveway matched our cars.

Perhaps the cats had somehow opened the oven. But, a quick check of the spring tension on the door proved it highly unlikely. Besides, how would they close both the bathroom and laundry room doors? An earth quake had been suggested but anything strong enough to open that oven would have sent dishes flying from the cupboards.

To this day, we still do not have a good explanation.

My wife and I used to do wilderness camping. We would sleep in a pup tent and cook over an open fire. Sometimes we would gather berries and put them into bread dough and then we would bake the dough in a fry pan.

Since we did not have a frig at our disposal, and wishing to avoid carrying extra weight, we opted for a lot of dehydrated foods. Most of these foods we purchased at either the grocery store or the sporting goods store. And sometimes, we purchased more food than we used in a summer. When that would happen, the unused food would go into the cupboard for future consumption. And so it was with the dehydrated minestrone soup mix.

While the minestrone soup sounded good at the time we bought it, when we actually went camping, the weather was too hot for soup so we waited for a later day to sample it. And, that later day occurred on Saturday afternoon during a cold winters day.

It was near zero outside and the snow was blowing. A perfect day to stay inside where it was warm. And a perfect day to try the minestrone soup. So, a pot of water was put on the stove and when boiling, the minestrone soup mix was dumped in. A couple of minutes later, we had minestrone soup.

We divided the soup into two bowls, got some crackers and sat down to feast on hot soup. It was then that I noticed something unusual about the soup. There was rice in it.

Even though I wasn’t Italian, I did know that rice is not usually apart of minestrone soup. So, I commented to Kathy about the fact that this minestrone soup had rice in it. She said that she had noted it too.

It was at this point in time that reality set for both of us. Minestrone soup does not have rice. And, what we thought was rice was really dead meal worms. Simultaneously, we both put our spoons down and pushed the bowls away. After a brief moment of horror, we got up from the table and dumped the contents our our bowls down the drain.

Since we still had a craving for hot soup, I hopped into the car and drove over to Eberhards (local grocery chain) where I purchased some canned soup for our afternoon lunch. Even though it was cold and blowing outside, we still had our hot soup.

One of my co-workers was asked by his boss to write an introductory statement for a disaster recovery plan. He was also told that he was not actually writing the disaster recovery plan but just a statement saying why we needed a plan.

The first draft of the disaster recovery statement was about 3 pages in length. When he presented it to his boss, his boss reviewed it and told him that this was not what he wanted. When he asked his boss what he wanted in the statement, his boss said that he didn’t know. So, my co-worker made a second attempt at a disaster recovery statement.

The second draft at a disaster recovery statement was about 6 pages long. When he presented it to his boss, his boss reviewed it and told him that this was not what he wanted. When he asked his boss what he wanted in the statement, his boss said that he didn’t know. So, my co-worker made a third attempt at a disaster recovery statement.

Seeing that my co-worker was getting frustrated, I tried to help him out. Knowing that the managers around here tend to be a little wacky, I told him that he was trying too hard. So, I suggested that he try this for a disaster recovery statement. “In the event of a disaster, we need a disaster recovery plan.” He was reluctant but disparate so he gave it a shot.

When his boss read the one line disaster recovery statement, he said that it was exactly what he was looking for.

My co-worker was stunned. He was sure that it couldn’t be that simple. After all, his boss could have written that by himself.

He came out of the bosses office shaking his head and mumbling. He may have been frustrated but at least he learned something. And that is that the leadership in state government tends to be on the dense side.

When I was growing up, I would occasionally get plantar warts on my feet which would necessitate a trip to the foot doctor. The foot doctor would put some liquid nitrogen into a Styrofoam cup and burn off the wart buy using a Q-tip which was dipped into the liquid nitrogen and applied to the wart.

I was always amazed as to how quick and painless it was. In fact, it looked so simple that I could even do it. I could easily get a Styrofoam cup and a Q-tip. All I needed was access to some liquid nitrogen.

When I started working at Calvin College, the missing element appeared.  Up in the Physics lab, was a large tank of liquid nitrogen. The Physics department used the liquid nitrogen to keep their nuclear diodes cold. And since I didn’t need much liquid nitrogen, the Physics department didn’t mind me using a little for the occasional wart. Ah, but all good things must come to an end and I left Calvin, trading my title in for something more tangible like money.

All was fine with my new HMO until I needed a wart removed. The doctor examined the wart and told me to buy some tea tree oil at the local health food store and apply it to the wart 2 times a day. He wouldn’t even write a prescription for the tea tree oil so I had to buy it out of pocket.

Tea tree oil? Never heard of it so I looked it up on line. I found a web site for a tea tree farm in Australia. I was amazed at the uses for the product. Among many things, it is good for athletes foot, acne, bad breath and yeast infections which I guess are one in the same according to the website. It is also good as a bug repellent. So, I decided to give it a try. If nothing else, at least it would repel mosquitoes.

Day after day, week after week, I applied the tea tree oil to the wart. And day after day, week after week, the wart held it’s ground. Drat!

Since the HMO was getting a little weird and my insurance now covered a local practice, I changed doctors. The new doctor looked at my wart and returned with a Styrofoam cup of liquid nitrogen and a Q-tip. A few seconds later, the wart was dead.

Liquid nitrogen may not be as easy to obtain in a store as the tea tree oil, but at least it did what it was suppose to do. Maybe I can use the remaining bottle tea tree oil for repelling insects.

This morning, as I was exiting the restroom at work, I felt someone on the other side of the door, pushing as I was pulling the handle. Having someone entering the restroom at the same time as I was exiting is not that uncommon. However, I was surprised to see that the person entering the restroom was a woman.

Now, I knew that one of us must be in error and since I had just finished using the restroom, I was quite sure that it wasn’t me. Of course, the woman was quite surprised that someone was exiting at the same time as she was leaving and even more surprised to see that it was a man. And in an instant, she froze.

At this point in time, we have a problem. I am trying to leave the restroom but she is blocking the doorway. And what’s more, she isn’t moving.

While I am fairly sure that she doesn’t really want to come in, I give her the benefit of the doubt. Holding the door open with one hand, I gesture a welcome with the other hand. This action was enough to over come the shock and break the standoff. She politely smiled and without so much as a word, turned and exited.

This is a situation where timing is everything. Had she arrived at the door 5 seconds earlier, she probably would have entered the men’s restroom resulting in a close encounter of the strange kind.

The state has two public parking lots here in downtown Lansing. When you pull into them, you have to take a ticket in order to raise the gates. When you get ready to leave, you go to a special machine that reads your ticket, takes your money and validate your ticket. Then, when you get to the exit gate, you insert your ticket and the gate goes up. Pretty neat! But, prior to this high tech approach the state had parking attendants.

The parking attendant approach was similar to the high tech system except that it was the parking attendant who took your money and activated the exit gate. Every day, Monday through Friday from 8 to 5, the same guys sat in the parking booths in their parking lot and collected money. The only exception was when they went on vacation.

When the parking attendants went on vacation, some one would have to fill in for the parking attendants. And an interesting thing would happen. Parking revenues would increase by 30%. The state was at a loss as to why the revenue had such a dramatic increase and assumed that there were 30% more people using the parking lots during this period.

Finally, after several years, they got suspicious that maybe the parking attendants were stealing money from the parking coffers. But, the state did not have a way to audit the financial activities of the parking lots. And, since the state had no way of knowing how much money was really collected each day, they couldn’t prove that theft was taking place.

Finally, the parking attendants were confronted and told that the state had evidence of their theft. They were lying, of course, but the attendants didn’t know that. They were given a choice of an early retirement or going to court. They retired.

Rather than go to court, the state has a habit of offering early retirements. Not only do they offer early retirements, sometimes they even throw in a bonus as an added incentive. So, it goes something like this “You can go to jail or retire early. And if you retire early, we will give you a $10,000 up front bonus plus add 10 years to your pension longevity.”

So, not only did the guys pocket about $100 a day from the parking booth, they also walked away free with full medical, a $10,000 up front bonus and an additional $15,000 a year from their pension. And who said that crime doesn’t pay.

The summer that I graduated from high school, I took a life saving class at the local lake. At the completion of the class, I had to take a test to insure that I could indeed preform all of the requirements of the life saving program. And one of the requirements was to save a swimmer in distress.

Now, since there weren’t any swimmers in distress at the time, a volunteer was needed. In my particular case, the volunteer was girl my age whom I personally knew and who had taken the class the year before.

She swam out into deep water and hollered for help. I, in turn, ran into the water and then started swimming out to her.

Now when you are dealing with a drowning person, you can’t let them get a hold of you. If you do, they will take you down with them. So, just before you get to them, you dive under the water and rotate them by their knee so that you are behind them. Then, while hanging on to their waist with one hand, you put your arm around their neck under their chin. Next, you release their waist and begin swimming to shore with your free hand while dragging the victim behind you.

In theory, this approach should work. But, unfortunately, my pretend victim knew what to expect and she was feeling up to a little fun at my expense.

As I dove under the water to rotate her, she too dove under the water. (A real drowning victim would never do something like that because they are interested in getting out of the water and not under the water.) And because the water was murky, I couldn’t actually see her knees, I had to guess where her knees should be. And, because she dove at the same time that I did, her knees were not where they should have been. So, instead of grabbing her knees, I grabbed her boobs.

Well, I was quite tired since this was the last event of the test and not really in any mood for her antics. So, I rotated her by her boobs instead of her knees and I found that in a situation like this, the boobs work just as well as the knees.

Now, since I had reoriented my self with my victim and since we were both still under the water, I just put my arm around her neck under her chin and we both came up out of the water together. And I began swimming to shore with my victim in tow.

Usually, at this point in time, the victim may still be struggling. And if the victim struggles too much, you are supposed to momentarily rotate them face down in the water.

In the case of my victim, I was way too tired to put up with her games. So, when she started struggling, I simply hooked my fingers under the strap of her two piece bathing suit top. Knowing that in an instant I could expose parts of her that have never been seen by mortal man, she stopped her struggling and fully co-operated.

I passed the class and that was the last time that I went swimming.

One Saturday night, a number of years ago, I friend of mine went to a party held in a rural park. And the more that the partiers drank, the louder that they got. Finally, around 11PM, the sheriff arrived to break up the party.

Now, my friend, who was very drunk at the time, was under age. Fearing that he would be arrested, he ran off into the shadows.

At the end of a large open grassy field, he spotted some trees. Thinking that if he could make it into the trees, the sheriff would not be able to find him. So, he made a break for it. But, just before he got to the trees, he ran into a chain link fence.

Now, the chain link fence shouldn’t be a problem. He has seen people on TV climb those things many times. So, he decided to give it a shot. Using his hands and feet he proceeded up the fence.

Slowly but surely, he was making progress but just before he got to the top, he lost his grip and fell to the ground. Time after time, he would start up the fence and time after time, he would fall. Finally, exhausted, he laid down on the ground and went to sleep.

The next morning, he woke up at home plate.

When I worked at Calvin College, they had a maintenance building on the far end of campus. Like many of the warehouse buildings in the area, the maintenance building featured a 24′ high ceiling in the warehouse with a 10′ high ceiling in the office attached to the front. And like many of the warehouse buildings in the area, the office area was enclosed by prefabricated walls made of foam insulation sandwiched between two pieces of sheet metal.

As the maintenance staff expanded, it became necessary to expand the office area. So, work began to put an addition onto the front of the office building.

The plan called for the new addition to be completely enclosed. Then, when that was done, they would remove the wall separating the new addition from the old office area.

Since the wall between the old office and the new addition was made of sheet metal and insulation, they decided that a Sawzall would be the perfect tool for the job.

A Sawzall is a hand held reciprocating saw, kind of like a saber saw only much larger. It can easily be used to cut wood or metal and do so quite quickly.

When the addition was finally enclosed, a couple of the carpenters grabbed the Sawzall and began cutting down the wall.

Their approach was simple. Since the addition afforded them more room to work, they decided to cut through the wall from the addition side. They drilled a hole in the wall large enough to insert the blade and began cutting down the wall about 3 inches above the floor.

At first, the Sawzall cut through the wall like a hot knife slicing butter. But then suddenly, the pace slowed for a couple of inches and then resumed again. This perplexed the carpenters but since the pace had returned to normal, they didn’t give it a second thought. But, once again the pace slowed for a couple of inches only to return to normal. They concluded that there must be some sort of re-enforcement in the walls that was slowing their pace. And so, the fast/slow cutting pace continued for the duration of the wall.

When they finally got the wall cut free, they discovered the really reason for the fast/slow cutting pace. They had cut off the bottom of the legs of two chairs and a table that happened to be up against the old wall.

The chairs were still functional, but they just had more of a lounger look to them instead of the straight backs that they used to be. The table, however was a loss. The incline made it impossible to use as everything would slide off of it. So, it was decided to sell the table and chairs at the spring garage sale.

When people would ask why the table was sitting at an angle, they were told that it was an old drafting table. When they asked about the angle of the chairs, they were told that they went with the table. Mr. Haney would be proud.