KID: When are we going to be at Grandma’s? I want to get out.
WIFE: It’ll just be a couple more minutes.
ME: If we survive. There are more than 30,000 traffic fatalities a year in this country.
True Things I Shouldn’t Have Said Anyway
stonesl
A Life Examined
When I see the violence my children do
stonesl
I am reassured the world will be the way it is for a long, long time to come.
A Middle Manager Faces Down Defeat
stonesl
What do you mean, “error”? What error? I need this printout for the meeting. No, don’t freeze up. Not now. Come on, print, damn it. Print! The executive vice president is going to be there. Not now. It can’t be. How can this happen to me?
Oh, it needs paper.
A Middle Manager in His Berserker Rage
stonesl
What the hell is happening up there? We haven’t moved in, like, five minutes. There, the light just turned again. Damn it! Damn it all to hell I’m late already! AAhhhhhhh! Aaahhhhhhh! Aahhhhhh! Ouch. That steering wheel is harder than it looks.
True Things I Shouldn’t Have Said Anyway
stonesl1
KID: [After hugging] Mommy, you’re all wet.
WIFE: It’s sweat. I was exercising.
ME: Did you know that sweat is essentially diluted urine?
While waiting to check out
stonesl
at a bookstore recently—remember those?—The Stoneslide was reminded of an important restaurant maxim. A customer two people ahead was complaining with vigor and petulance about an inconsequential matter. She was laying into the clerk, too, not only the store, despite this being out of the clerk’s control. The clerk was a pro, though, letting the woman’s illegitimate vitriol drip off her like the midnight spray in a dive bar on New Year’s Eve. As I watched the clerk take it like a champ, I recalled the ageless piece of wisdom that the only thing worse than a customer speaking is a customer complaining.
