Better Late Than Never

With just ten days before New Year’s Eve, 2010, this seems like a good time to honor the New Year’s resolutions I made on December 31, 2009.

Resolution Number One was to post to this blog a minimum of three times a week. Obviously that one is way by the boards, but, as habitually tardy people like me often say, better late than never.

Resolution Number Two sprang from the recognition that, while only 61 years old, time is an increasingly scarce resource. Therefore, I resolved, I will strenuously avoid wasting time with useless people.

Comedian Bill Engvall has made a living talking about “stupid people,” and their need for a sign. If you’ve never heard this marvelous bit, Google “Bill Engvall and stupid people” now.

Even if you are an Engvall fan, take the time to listen to him for a minute or two. It’ll help you understand where I’m coming from. Go ahead. I’ll wait.




Now, are we on the same page? Good. I need to take this a few steps past just plain stupid, meaning, “lacking in intelligence or common sense.” The kind of people who try to waste my remaining, precious moments of life, I will label “useless.”

You see, stupid people usually mean no harm. They can’t help marching at the tail end of the IQ parade (my dear wife, a most sensitive lady, feels that’s too nasty and mean); often, they simply do not pay attention to life. And there are people who simply choose to drift along, understanding little, enjoying the moment. If you listened to Engvall’s routine, you’ll understand what I mean.

But those who earn the label “useless” frequently exhibit anger, cruelty, even malice intent. Dictionary definitions of “useless” include: “being or having no beneficial use; incapable of functioning or assisting; not expected to achieve the intended purpose or desired outcome.”

It is this sort of person I feel is more of a time-thief than any other sort. And my second New Year’s resolution of 2010 was to avoid them all.

I am pleased to report that for the most part, I was successful in my quest to steer clear of people who sought to wasted my time. Please understand that my time is no more valuable than your time. It’s simply that I’ve become deeply concerned about how much or how little may be left, and I selfishly intend to use it for my own purposes.

The major factor in this crusade was quitting my part-time job. Let’s say that I worked as a dishwasher in a kitchen for two years for a marvelous, benevolent chef, who employed a mentally unbalanced, violent, vulgar, skilled but careless cook.

Let’s say that when the chef sold the restaurant, the new owner put his friend, the careless cook, in charge. Now, for two years, I had no problem with the cook. But he wanted to hire his lady friends to be his dishwashers.

First, he harassed and bullied one dishwasher into quitting, but he was outmaneuvered by another cook, who got his own buddy hired. Now, the bully turned to me.

I must explain that I have arthritis and usually use a cane to get from place to place; I’m rather fragile, but I get around pretty well. To prod me into anger and to quitting, the meat-headed meatball maker would poke me and punch me. Once, when I fell to the floor in pain, he said with disdain, “That couldn’t possibly have hurt!”

He would come up behind me and knock the cane out of my hand; when I asked him why he was such an (expletive deleted), he said, “For giggles and laughs.”

After a year of this, I was still on the job, mainly because it was just part-time and because it was so convenient—less than a mile from home. But I was getting hurt; I was taking a lot more pain medication than I would have needed without the intentional joggling my body endured from my useless boss.

The end came on a Wednesday morning in October. The cook and another employee were taking a break when another employee came into the kitchen. I was outside, let’s say, clearing tables. Suddenly, I felt a very sharp pain just below my right eye, and looked up to see the useless cook smiling broadly.

Knowing he’d thrown something at me, and assuming it was a rock, I explained loudly, and with a touch of profanity, that I believed him to be unworthy of my presence in the business he had been entrusted to run, and that he had ruined the name of the chef, we’ll say, who had spent over 50 years making this the most trusted place in town.

I then hopped on my little Yamaha scooter and rode as rapidly as a 50 cc scooter can go toward the police station.

A police officer took my statement, visited the kitchen, took statements from the cook and from one of the two employees who witnessed the event, and took pictures of the weapon—what I’d assumed was a rock had indeed been a pellet from an air gun.

As the officer issued a summons for assault, he told the cook that he could have put out my eye, the cook said, “Yeah—but I didn’t!”

That, my friends, is what I call a useless human being. To enhance the definition, this smudge of humanity found a way to get the charge dropped. I was told by the police officer that the district attorney decided not to charge my former boss for three reasons:

1. None of the employees who witnessed the incident seemed willing to complete a statement due to the employee/employer context. (“Speak and you’re fired.”)

2. The victim said he was struck with a rock, but pictures seem to depict an air gun. (“The victim must be pretty stupid not to know a rock from an air gun pellet.”)

3. There will be an issue with credibility, especially since their relationship seems to be strained prior to this incident. (“The victim must have made the whole thing up because his boss didn’t like him—who would ever believe a word he says.”)

Now I’m going to post this, finally fulfilling, in part, my 2009 New Year’s resolutions. And then, I will use some of my precious time watching a movie with my dear wife.