I was watching Jeopardy the other night and heard one of the contestants say that he was a “Stay at home son.” Now, usually when Ken Jennings spends a few minutes asking the contestants about themselves, I go to the bathroom. I don’t know where they find these weirdos but the stories they choose to tell about themselves are always painful. I once heard a woman talk about the time she got stuck in a rental car because she couldn’t find the door locks. She couldn’t figure out the basic function of a car door but she knew everything about Greco-Roman philosophy. 

Apparently, “Stay at home son” is a phrase that means “unemployed.” This particular Jeopardy contestant had graduated college, but he had no foreseeable future employment. “I’ll take Unemployed Nerd for $400, Ken.” Now, I didn’t go to college right away. Since I had spent the last three years of high school majoring in Alice Cooper Concerts and Glam Rock Fashion, my dad wasn’t going to spend any money on college. And, in the late 1970s, “Unemployed Daughter” wasn’t an acceptable profession. Of course, my dad has his own way with words. It was “Get your ass out of the house and get a job.” 

My aspirations had always been to move to New York and become a famous rock groupie, or a Playboy Bunny. At five-foot-two and 85 pounds, with an A-cup bra size, I didn’t see either of those careers as viable options. That’s how I ended up as a file clerk in a local urology office. Needless to say, I didn’t fit in. As a pale, skinny 18 year old wearing a too large white uniform and still sporting my David Bowie haircut, I looked more like a medical experiment than a medical employee. And there was no way I was going to make friends in this place. 

As a file clerk, I had to sit in a file room about the size of a walk-in closet. My job was to look at the appointment schedule and then pull out the patients’ files for the next day. At the end of the day, I refiled them. I think the men who came in there and had scopes shoved into their privates were having more fun than I was. There was another file clerk with me and she was so interesting and fun that I can’t even remember her name. However, some of the other staff are etched into my brain; and not in a good way.

First of all there was Robin. She sat at a desk near the mail machine and cried all day. I learned that her boyfriend had recently broken up with her and left her alone with her two teenaged kids. Robin needed to go out with Joan. Joan was the lab technician who sometimes let me look at sperm samples under the microscope. Anyway, Joan came in one day and announced that she met a guy at the bar the previous night, she took him home and now he was going to live with her. Marcy was the payroll person. She was middle aged, newly married and had a painting of the Morton’s Salt girl hanging in her office. I never knew why. Then there was Mr. Sheldon, the human resource person. He was short, wore dorky plaid suits and always whispered when he spoke. When I interviewed with him, I kept leaning in to try and hear him. I still don’t know if he told me I was hired or that he was tired. And then there was the bitchy daughter of one of the doctors. She would come in after school and sit with the front desk ladies who treated her like a princess. She was obsessed with staring at me and saying loudly that she thought I was ugly and weird. Thank you. I wished her all things evil and that one day she would be horribly disfigured in a burning car accident. I had to get out of there.

During lunch I would call my dad from the payphone out in the lobby of the building and cry that I had to quit this job. How I wish I had known then about being a ‘Stay at home daughter.’ My dad told me to stick it out until I found another job because I had car payments and I needed health insurance. In other words, “stay at home daughter” was, once again, not an option.

Then, after three long months of dragging myself to that pit of urology hell, I got another job. Red Lobster was my salvation. I remember walking into Mr. Sheldon’s office to quit. I gave him a one-week notice, because two weeks would have killed me. He whispered something that could have been either “Best of luck out there” or “Get the fuck out of here.” I’m not sure which. I just knew I’d never have to step foot in that place or see those people again. I was wrong.

One busy Sunday at Red Lobster, the hostess came to tell me that someone requested my station. I just figured it was my Aunt Mary and Uncle Phil. They sometimes came in on Sundays to see me. Imagine my horror when I bounced up to the table and saw Mr. Sheldon and his entire family of plaid dorks. I’m sure a look of horror crossed my face and it took every ounce of strength to be pleasant and take his order. I calmly went over the specials and when he whispered his ordered, I had no idea what he wanted. All of the fish at Red Lobster looked and tasted the same anyway so I just ordered broiled flounder for the entire table.

Luckily, as time went on, my careers progressed and I never had another boring job. I successfully completed college and never had to resort to being a groupie. Although, there are still days that I wish I would have had the chance to wear those Playboy bunny ears. 

###

The decision has been made. The sign is in the front yard. Our house if up for sale. After much consideration, and spending a few glorious winters in Scottsdale, Arizona, we have decided to move. It’s not a decision we take lightly. I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life and the farthest I’ve ever moved away from where I grew up is about 20 miles. Tim, on the other hand, has moved a lot in his life and has now been in Michigan for over thirty years. Since he moved here to be with me, I know these have been the best thirty years of his life. At least that’s what I keep telling him. He has yet to respond in the affirmative.

Of course, I’m excited about moving. I’m also terrified at the same time. Changes in my life have never come easily. When I was 22 I moved into to my own apartment. Every night after work I went back to my dad’s house and begged him to let me move back home. He told me that since I moved out when he was on vacation, and I took most of his furniture and kitchenware, my apartment should feel like home. He, on the other hand, was sitting in a lawn chair, using a plastic fork to eat a piece of cake. Years later, I realized moving was still an anxiety ridden experience. 

Before we moved into our current house, we put an offer in on another house about a mile away. I got so upset at the thought of moving that I had to call my friend, Lisa, over to the house we were considering to calm me down. Lisa just told me to breathe and that the decision wasn’t final and to please move over if I was going to throw up. 

I’ve come a long way from throwing up while looking at prospective houses. Hopefully, this move will be easier on me (and Lisa). For one thing, we are already established in Scottsdale with a condo, good friends, and a love for the hot desert climate. The only thing I’m really having a difficult time with is this whole business of showing the house. Fortunately for us, our real estate agent, Linda, also happens to be one of our very good friends and she is patiently walking us through the process.

The first thing I noticed about listing the house is that all of the wording has changed. Before listing the house, Linda came over for a walk-through. We had to look at the house, not as owners, but as prospective buyers. “Do you think we need to paint the master bedroom?” I asked Linda. “You can’t call it a master bedroom. It’s now either an Owner’s Suite or Primary Bedroom.” she replied. Apparently, the word master has now become politically incorrect and must be scrapped from all real estate material. I should probably refrain from referring to the garage as slave quarters. And that’s not all. Forget Jack and Jill bathrooms. Since Jack and Jill refer to only two sexes, this means there isn’t a place for the non-binary to pee. When writing down information for our listing, I made the mistake of writing that our home is just a “short walk” to town. I was then informed that people in wheelchairs could possibly find this offensive. So, I scratched that out and angrily wrote that our house is an “easy roll” into town. I didn’t want to bring up the fact that our primary suite has a walk-in closet. 

Besides trying to finagle my way past the politically correct verbiage, I also had to get the house ready for showings. Before the listing went public, Linda brought in a team of agents from her office to see the house and make sure it was “staged” properly. Staging a house means making it appear inviting, uncluttered, and immaculate. When we sold our last house, my idea of staging was just making sure my dirty undies weren’t piled up on the bedroom floor. If they were, I just kicked them into the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. Those days are gone. Tim and I were not home when the agents had their walk-through. We were actually across the street, hiding in our neighbor’s living room and peeking through the blinds. When the agents finally left and we went back home, we found that most of our living room furniture was gone and what was left was rearranged to look like a hotel lobby.

“Where’s our stuff?” I asked Linda. “We all decided that the living room needed a cleaner look. It shouldn’t look like people actually live here,” she said. I then asked her where my framed photos were. “We tucked the family photos away in drawers. Prospective buyers want to picture themselves in your home, and not the people actually living there. And can you please remove the names of the cats from the pet door downstairs? Some people have cat allergies and this might deter them.” 

After that agent showing, we felt that we had all of the information we needed for a successful house sale. That weekend we prepared for our first open house. We cleared everything off of the kitchen counters and island so it looked like no one had ever prepared a meal in there. I scrubbed the bathrooms and showers and told Tim if he needed to shower to please go across the street to the neighbors. Linda suggested removing at least 50% of our clothing from the closet. I just laughed at that. Every sofa cushion was fluffed. TV screens were polished. My office desk was cleared of everything except a computer monitor and a pencil. My bookshelves were nearly emptied. The autographed photo from Judge Judy came down off the wall. My framed and autographed Alice Cooper album was turned upside down. My Dexter action figure (complete in kill room clothing) was peeking out from behind a tasteful copy of Great Expectations. As for the cat’s names above the pet door, since both of our cats are sadly gone, I just put up a post-it note that said “Cats are Dead.” Now, let’s get ready to rumble!

While the open house was going on, Tim and I were, once again, across the street hunkered down in a dog bed under our neighbor’s living room window. This was the perfect spot for peeking through the blinds. We saw people come and go and judged everyone by what type of car they drove and how they were dressed. No one that day appeared worthy of our home. “They’re driving a Hyundai,” Tim said. “I don’t want that parked in my garage.” “I don’t care about the car,” I replied. “I refuse to sell my home to a woman who wears leggings and no underwear. I hope she doesn’t sit on any of our furniture!” 

Speaking of spying on people, one hidden gem that we have in our home is a Nest camera. We don’t watch it while people are touring the house. We save it so we can rerun it later with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine. My agent told us that it’s not a good idea to eavesdrop on people because we might not like what we hear. She was right. We listened to people make comments like “This wall needs to go.” “I don’t like their furniture.” “The bedrooms are small.” “I’m concerned about people who have Dexter action figures.” “I would like the paint colors to be a) grey, b) grey and white, c) white and grey, d) white with a touch of gray and e) grey with a touch of white.” I found myself drinking more and more wine and occasionally flipping off the Nest screen. While Tim wasn’t as loud and animated as I was, I could still hear him mutter, “Get the fuck out of my house.” 

It’s been over a month now and the house is still available. At the suggestion of some of my friends, I buried a St. Joseph statue in the front yard. According to the directions I had to bury him upside down and facing the street. I did this at night so my neighbors wouldn’t call 911 and have the police do a wellness check on Tim. So far Joseph has proven to be a slacker. I’m giving him another week before I resort to voodoo and magic.

We’ve even lost our enthusiasm for making the house presentable at all times. The cushions aren’t fluffed. The toilet seat may or may not be up. Judge Judy and Alice Cooper are once again front and center in my office. We don’t even spy from across the street anymore. In fact, we don’t even leave the house. If prospective buyers can’t get past the visual of me sitting on the sofa playing WORDLE, then they don’t deserve our home. 

###

I’ve never been one for volunteering. What’s the point of working without getting paid? I did enough of that as a child when I had to make my bed, wash dishes and feed the dog. My mom used to have me iron my father’s handkerchiefs on laundry day. When I asked my dad to pay me ten cents per handkerchief he just stared at me then told me to change the TV channel. That was another job I had that I neither volunteered for nor got compensated for. When I worked in radio I volunteered to answer phones at the annual PBS pledge drive. I spent four hours in a freezing studio answering phone calls from people who thought $10 was a good pledge. My shift was actually five hours but I was “asked” to leave after someone overheard me telling a caller to “dig deeper” or they could say goodbye to Nova. 

My avoidance of volunteering ended when Tim and I got married and became members of our local Lutheran church. Before we even uttered our first amen we were hit up with volunteering “opportunities.” Usher. Altar Guild. Library. Greeters. Rummage Sale. Choir. Coffee Hour. Gardening. For years we had successfully avoided committing to anything. I did have a brief stint on the Altar Guild but when the pastor saw me pouring the unused consecrated wine down the drain I was “asked” to find something else to do. Finally, we were presented with an opportunity that we were actually excited about. Our youth pastor was putting together a weekly contemporary service aimed at bringing in a younger crowd. With Tim’s television production company and my event planning experience we were a perfect fit. The mid-week service lasted about two years and then when the youth pastor moved to a new church we were done. I was actually sad it was ending. I had a lot of fun volunteering at the church and that’s when I asked the pastor’s wife for a new position. “I’m so sorry this service is ending,” Andrea said. “Me too,” I replied. “Is there anything else I can volunteer for? I just don’t want to deal with old people, poor people or kids.” For a brief moment Andrea flinched, and then took a moment to digest my request. “Well, she said, “The office staff is always looking for someone to come in and help. I could ask Rose, the office manager.” And that’s how I ended up volunteering in the church office. 

Most people might think that the pastor is the person in the church who has his thumb on the pulse of the congregation. That is not true. It is the front office. Every phone call, every email, every written card and letter, and every in-person drop-in comes through the front office. Once in a while, envelopes with money in them for donations or weekly contributions might show up. In the event this happens, the person taking the envelope desperately tries to avert her eyes from the monetary amount while she deposits it in the accountants office within seconds. I’ve seen fire eaters who move slower than an office worker handling a parishioner’s check. It’s just best for all church staff and volunteers not to speculate on why the Davidson’s got a new Porsche but haven’t deposited a weekly contribution in over two years. 

Funeral arrangements are another subject that must be handled with the utmost care. Comforting a grieving family takes sensitivity, a caring nature and a calming voice. I’m not allowed to speak to the bereaved. Recently, a man phoned to plan a memorial service for his mother who was dying. Unfortunately, I answered the phone. In talking with this man, I gathered that his mother was on her way out but he could not give me an exact date. He suggested a date for the following week and I immediately put him on hold. “Rose, this guy wants to plan his mother’s funeral for next Friday. That’s the day of our annual chili cook-off! We can’t squeeze a funeral in that day. You need to talk to him!” “What am I supposed to tell him?” asked Rose. “Tell him to either have his mother die today or wait until after the chili cook off!” I replied. Fortunately for us, she lingered until the day after the chili cook off. Funerals and memorial services are not always easily planned. For her husband’s funeral, we once had a widow hire movers to replace our sanctuary piano with her grand piano from home. She said she knew “the excellence of instruments” and apparently our piano didn’t make the cut. 

Not all funerals involve funeral homes either. I signed for a package once from UPS and put the box in with the office supplies and other miscellaneous items delivered that day. Later on when Rose sorted through the deliveries she let out a stifled scream. “Mrs. Schneider’s ashes are in this box!” “Is that the box I signed for?” I yelled. “Yes!,” Rose answered more calmly. “Her son sent them from Florida for her memorial service.” ‘He sent them UPS? He wouldn’t even pay for FedEx?” I said. “What a cheapskate.” And then Rose and I both washed our hands. Many times.

What has actually led up to this latest tangent, is that our main sanctuary is undergoing a complete renovation. Over the past two years, a large committee of people have taken on the task of raising money and keeping the congregation informed on the construction. Every Sunday prior to the service we showed professional videos depicting the renovation. Along with numerous architectural drawings placed around the church, our website uploaded weekly updates. Since I like to write, I volunteered to be on the Communications Committee where I would put together a monthly article for the church newsletter. The newsletter was supposed to not only inform everyone of the process and timing of the renovation, it was also supposed to inspire them to keep giving money. After my first newsletter, the project manager suggested that I work with another person who had a different writing style than mine. Luckily, he chose my friend Nancy. Nancy is an excellent writer and has all of the finesse and compassion that people keep telling me I lack. Nancy’s job was to remove some of my sarcasm and “Jesus it up.” I suppose quoting Matthew 6:21 was a better choice than using the lyrics from Moneytalks by AC/DC. Needless to say, despite two years of discussions, newsletters, emails, videos and congregational meetings, some members were still shocked when the old sanctuary was torn down. 

Even before the first wall was bulldozed, the church office phones started ringing. Now, we’re used to the usual Monday morning phone calls complaining about Sunday’s service. The complaints range anywhere from typos in the bulletin, the pastor’s microphone was too loud, the pastor’s microphone wasn’t loud enough, why is there so much cheese at coffee hour, and so on. However, when the demolition began, the front office was bombarded with hysterical parishioners claiming they didn’t know the sanctuary was going to be torn down! Not only did the office have to try to enlighten callers that demolishing the sanctuary was always in the plan, they also had to maintain a pleasant church office demeanor. For that reason alone, Rose didn’t let me take any calls. Of course, many, many suggestions were made for alternatives to a complete demolition. Suggestions such as “removing the side walls and roof to “push out the sanctuary a little bit,” were brought forth. Others were horrified that for the duration of the renovation, services would be held in the gymnasium. Because, certainly the basketball nets would impede our prayers from actually reaching the Lord.

I’m happy to say that the renovation is nearing completion and hopefully we will be able to congregate in our beautiful new sanctuary before Christmas. For those of us who work and volunteer in the front office, we are looking forward to things calming down so we can get back to the business of planning baptisms, weddings, funerals and chili cook-offs. I guess with the increased space at church, and the prospect of bringing in many new members, there will a lot more opportunities to volunteer. I’m pretty excited about that!  

“Hey, Michelle, can you do me a favor? I ordered something online…” My friend, Michelle, who lives across the street from me, has come to dread those words. For the past two years, Tim and I have escaped the cold, miserable snow that is a Michigan winter to spend a few months in Arizona. While we’re gone, it falls upon Michelle to keep an eye on our house, check the mailbox for mail that wasn’t forwarded and, much to her dismay, return Amazon packages that I have mistakenly sent home to Michigan. 

So far, I have sent home a six-foot, square outdoor rug, a crate of Orville Reddenbacher popcorn, socks, underwear for Tim and an enormous three-foot in diameter wall clock. It’s just so easy when ordering from Amazon to click the “Order Now” button and not pay attention to the address. You would think that since my Amazon Alexa knows everything about my personal life, she would be smart enough to know where I spend my winters. Unfortunately, clicking on the wrong address is not the only problem I’ve encountered while ordering online. There’s also the distorted photos.

Now, everyone knows I’m no math whiz, so I skip over the “Details” part of the item that lists sizes and dimensions. What’s the point? I once measured my half-bath and came up with 800 square feet. I also should have paid attention when I ordered a small scoop for cat food and a lovely candy bowl for the coffee table. 

The candy bowl holds approximately 17 M&Ms (plain not peanut) and I gave the scoop to the landscapers for shoveling gravel.

And then the armchair arrived.

I ordered an armchair online for our spare bedroom so I could have a little corner refuge for reading and talking on the phone. The day it showed up I was so excited. The UPS driver left it outside the front door and I was so pleased that I was able to carry the big, flat box upstairs all by myself. Those three pound weights I’ve been lifting have really made a difference! “That box looks awfully flat for a chair,” Tim said when I laid the box down. “The cushions are probably vacuum packed like pillows,” was my reply. I grabbed my box cutter and tore into that cardboard box with gusto. I pulled out some metal legs and set them aside. “Those are awfully long legs for a chair,” Tim said. Undeterred, I continued to pull piece after piece out of the box. “Where are the cushions?” I asked. “Maybe they’re coming in a separate box,” I reasoned. After I took everything out and started to assemble the legs I pulled the last large flat piece out of the box. Tim looked at me, scratched his head and said, “I hate to tell you this, but you’re assembling a table.” He was right. There were no vacuum packed cushions or curved wooden legs in the box. It was a table. I was devastated. Not in the fact that I couldn’t tell the difference between an armchair and a table, but in the fact that my chair didn’t arrive. I now had to try to repack the table into a box that was clearly two feet smaller than when it arrived, and ship it back to Amazon. At least the UPS guy didn’t complain when I saw him trying to wrestle that demolished cardboard box with the metal legs sticking out of the side into his truck. And speaking of UPS, they are leaps and bounds ahead of the US Postal Service who should stick to delivering junk mail.

Not all online orders come FedEx or UPS. Some come from the post office. Take for example that large three foot round clock that I had mistakenly sent to Michigan. Michelle kept her eyes open for that clock for weeks and it never showed up. In the meantime, I had ordered another one and was already admiring it on the wall of my kitchen. Periodically, I would get emails from Amazon telling me that the original clock order was being redirected to Arizona. Then, the next week, I would get another notice that it was “undeliverable” and redirected back to Michigan. These seesaw messages kept crowding my inbox and whenever I tried to contact the post office both by email and phone, there was no response. I just ignored the emails, and then I ordered a utility ladder.

Once again, I didn’t realize that Amazon was sending the ladder through the mail. The mail! I sent five postcards that took three weeks to get from Arizona to Michigan and now I have to rely on the postal service to deliver my ladder? By the way, two postcards never made it. On the date the ladder was to arrive, I received an email from Amazon saying that the post office was unable to deliver my package because my “mailbox was full.” My mailbox is a small square that barely holds mail let alone a utility ladder. The online chat person at Amazon assured me that the ladder would be re-delivered the following day. The following day brought the same email from Amazon; the post office was unable to deliver the package because, once again, my “mailbox was full.” Now, I’ve seen my mail carrier. He appears to be a normal guy, he’s totally capable of reading and driving a mail truck. But, apparently he isn’t capable of figuring out that that a ladder won’t fit into a mailbox! Frustrated and angry, Tim and I got in the car and sped over to the Scottsdale post office. I asked the woman behind the plexiglass if there was a package being held for me. She left the counter and disappeared behind a wall to search. In a few minutes she came out carrying an oversized flat box that was ripped on both sides.  Of course, when I saw the flat box I just assumed it was another armchair. She pushed the box over the counter to me and when Tim grabbed it, he saw through the ripped cardboard that it was the large wall clock we had ordered months before. By the amount of forwarding stickers on the box it appears that that clock could have accumulated a lot of Delta sky miles between Michigan and Arizona. I calmly told the postal worker to please return that box to the sender and take another look in the back room. Within minutes she emerged with the right package and we took our ladder home. 

Now, all of this confusion and chaos isn’t stopping me from ordering online. Actually, one of my friends said that her parents keep getting packages from Amazon that they never ordered! So far they have received reams of copy paper, a carton of coffee filters and a cute pair of pink Crocs. This revelation gives me hope that if I can’t get the right package, I might get someone else’s! 

### 4/21