Mamazina Blog

My Husband, Quality Control

My husband and I met and married in three months’ time (don’t try that at home). Our whirlwind romance left little time to actually “know” each other. We were still in float-mode: when you ride that intense wave of infatuation that comes crashing down right around the time of your first fight, leaving you with that beached-whale feeling.

It didn’t hit me until we got back from our honeymoon that I had entered into unknown territory by marrying this man: The World of an Engineer.

Those of you who’ve come in contact with an engineer know exactly what I’m talking about. They’re a different breed of human. Part man, part robot, part quality control expert -- they exist to make the rest of us feel like slackers.

Don sees details the naked eye cannot see. He smells odors that only the best cadaver dogs can ferret. He’s a true skeptic and has an unhealthy mistrust of the medical community (drug pushers), all salespeople (pathological liars) and my home cooking (germ-infested slop).

Building our new life together required a lot of shopping. I pride myself on my shopping technique and the speed at which I get the job done. Don says I’m impulsive. I think I’m efficient. Who has time to see if shoes “hurt” or “fall off”? And so what if the stool has three legs? It’s an opportunity to work on your balance. I'm too busy to dig through cheese to get the “unmoldy” ones.

To Don, shopping is an experiment in cost/benefit analysis and intensive quality control inspection. Every product is thoroughly researched. Excel spreadsheets are drafted and redrafted. Minimum-wage-earning salespeople are interrogated thoroughly.

I try not to visualize the look on the face of the poor guy (I’ll call him “Bub”) who picked up the phone at Circuit City one morning. Let’s just say, it wasn’t his lucky day. Here’s what I overheard on speakerphone.

Don: Hi, I’m looking for the Sharp Aquos LC42D62U 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Do you have that in stock?

Bub: Yes we do.

Don: What is the contrast ratio?

Bub: Ahh. I believe it’s 1200:1.

Don: Can you guarantee a cinematic experience maximized for my natural line of sight?

Bub: Um, okay.

Don: I’m looking for breath-taking picture quality. Will the Aquos give me that?

Bub: Sure thing.

Don: I want the full high def experience. I want to see the pores on Ladanian Tomlinson’s nose. Will this TV give me the pores on Ladanian Tomlinson’s nose?

Bub: Yes, sir. You’ll get the pores.

Don: What is the response time?

Bub: 6ms

Don: What is the wide-viewing angle?

Bub: 176º H by 176º V

Don: Does it come with built-in ATSC /QAM/NTSC tuners?

Bub: Yes sir.

Don: What about the glare of ambient light?

Bub: It has a low-reflection Black TFT panel that reduces the glare of ambient light.

Don: What if 20 pixels go bad within the first month, then what?

Bub: Well, we’d take it back.

Don: What if 50 pixels go bad within two months, then what?

Bub: Again, we’d take it back.

Don: Okay, what if 38 pixels go bad within three months, then what?

Bub: Ya, we’d take it back.

Don: What if it falls off my wall – is that my fault?

Bub: No, that would not be covered in the warranty.

Don: Well, that’s just crap. What kind of warranty is that?

Bub: Well, it has a one-year labor and parts and three-year parts warranty.

Don: And it won’t cover a straight shot to the ground?

Bub: No, sir, it won’t but we do offer an extended warranty.

Don: No, we both know those are money-making scams to benefit you not me. Now what if the screen explodes, then what?

Bub: It would all depend on how long you had it.

Don: Say I don’t like your price. Can you get me a better one?

Bub: I’d have to ask my manager.

Don: Okay, now let’s talk about the Toshiba REGZA 42RV530U 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV. How do they compare?

[Click. Dial tone.]

Don: Hello?

Bub, like many employees of our local electronics and hardware stores who’ve been exposed to Don, most likely had a nervous breakdown.

It’s a testament to my strength that I have endured the engineer’s microscope all these years and that I can still speak in complete sentences and do not have to wear a helmet to get through the day.

The problem with engineers is that their radar is never down. They are always scanning the environment for potential hazards.

My husband is certain everything is going to kill him, especially my home cooking.

He takes a few bites. He stops. In tandem, the kids stop. His eyebrows come together. The kids squint. He sniffs the food. They sniff. His bottom lip curls to indicate vomit is on the way. They start to gag.

He says, “When did you make this?”

“Two years ago,” I say.

His nose crinkles. The kids crinkle. “I’m sorry but…something tastes old.”

He pauses.

“What’s the white stuff?”

“Ya, Mom, what’s the white stuff?” says Jack.

“It’s nonfat plain yogurt,” I retort. “It’s good for you. And ten minutes ago before your father launched his forensics experiment, you thought I was the Galloping Gourmet so keep eating and go back to liking it.”

The detective continues: “Did you use any ingredients that expired?”

That’s when the digging begins. Out comes the trash can. He reaches for the yogurt tub.

“Lookie here, you guys! This yogurt expired last week.”

“Mom, that’s gross!” says my loving and supportive daughter.

“Whatever. It’s good bacteria,” I say.

“Oh my God! We’re gonna need a tetanus shot!” Don leans over the sink and starts scraping his tongue.

“Calm down, all of you. Oprah had people with OCD lick a toilet seat and the inside of a trash can and they lived. You’re lucky you’re not one of them.”

Germs are a big part of Don’s world and he is forever seeking to determine their origin. If someone coughs within a mile radius of him, he suddenly has a tickle in his throat and is convinced his lungs are filled with phlegm.

If our daughter breaks out in eczema from eating too much cereal, Don will ask, “Oh my God, is that a flesh-eating virus or did you eat something that Mom made?”

If I get a coldsore on the corner of my mouth, he looks at it like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby when she sees her son’s yellow eyes for the first time. He backs up with sheer terror.

“What happened to your mouth?” he cries. “You’ll need to sleep in the guest room for at least a month.”

If Jack starts kicking his sister on the couch, Don believes it’s a medical condition. He runs down the usual suspects:

“Did your mother make you watch Michael Flatley and ‘Lord of the Dance’?”

“Oh my God, I think you have Restless Leg Syndrome. Did you eat something Mom made?”

“When was the last time your mother changed your sheets?”

Ahh, the sheets. The second cause of illness in the Rose family.

While living with an engineer has its definite drawbacks, there are times when I am grateful. Like Christmas morning, when the kids open their electronic gadgets and run to me with seven operations manuals. I just point them to their father, who is eagerly waiting to jump into such fascinating material.

Inevitably, he will find a major defect in the programming of one the items and hi-ho, hi-ho, back to the store it goes. He smiles to himself, knowing he saved our family from the horrors of an inferior quality product.

My father told him on our wedding day, “No returning Lisa.” It will be the first and last time he falls for a warranty like that.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Lisa Christiano Rose is a freelance writer, humor blogger and mom of two living in San Diego. She can be found at http://lisawantsthefloor.blogspot.com or www.sandiegowritergirl.com

The world's worst boss

I imagine a memory of some incorrigible person has just entered your mind, some impossible to please, whiny, workaholic with no life, but I can do one better. Allow  me describe the worst boss I have ever had, and I just started working for her. And though I love writing, she is making me sorry I ever decided to become a writer.

First of all, she has fifteen jobs which need doing yesterday, and hands you a list without prioritizing it. You can hardly decipher which writing job is most urgent.

She then makes you feel guilty if you take a phone call while writing, phone calls, she tells you, are only acceptable while doing manual labor, so you switch to those tasks guiltily when the phone rings. She hounds you to get the writing done  so that you don't even enjoy the break, and leaves you so undermined, that you find the simplest writing job, the ones you used to enjoy and do with ease, have you tied up with a pit in your stomach causing Writer's Block.

She doesn't look back on your successes and build you up, she tells you that the editors' of that magazine who published your last piece must have been desperate for material and they'll never publish anything from you again, now that they have come to their senses. You'll be a failure as a writer, why didn't you stick with teaching? Who did you think you were anyway, Erma Bombeck?!

You feel like quitting and telling this bully of a boss where to go. . . until you realize that you are her.

You are a freelance writer who has always dreamed of getting your youngest child in school,and moving to a quiet home in the country so you could write full time, get your book published, and get those articles written. Now your dreams may be coming true, but you are tied up in a knot by nagging doubts which have no basis in reality, and oh, yes, you still have three children to raise, and a home to maintain. You deny yourself the pleasure of your accomplishments and enjoyment of your dream job; freelance writing.

You are a ball of guilt and self-recrimination. You are your own toughest critic.

You are a woman.

Leticia Velasquez

Cause of Our Joy

Kiki magazine--for girls

I am the mom of three daughters who like to show off their fashion style in different ways.  Our oldest values comfort above everything else.  I have noticed that when she picks out clothes that she also likes to blend in with the group.  Middle daughter likes to be wearing the most colorful outfit in the room.  Nothing is too much for her and I admire her sense of selection.  Youngest is still trying to figure herself out but likes to model middle daughter.

So when I saw the magazine Kiki for the first time, I knew that all three girls would love it.  The magazine is for girls with style and substance.  No ads just stories for girls about fashion and travel with room for them to try out new ideas amd jot down their responses.

The website is www.kikimag.com if you have young girls with a sense of style.

Kathy Schlaeger lives near Cincinnati with her husband and three daughters.  Her family loves Kiki magazine.

What if women ran the world?

This interesting piece—written by a man—ran in The Christian Science Monitor. Although I could be accused of having an obvious bias, I’ve tried to think about this impartially. I stumbled upon this article just after reading about a study that found that companies run by women are in much better shape in this economic downturn because women were less likely to take risks than men. Worth thinking about...UPDATE: I just read the article to my kids. Naturally, they (a boy and a girl) are of two minds about it. Take a guess which one thought the article was right on, and which one didn't... 

By Mark Lange

from the March 26, 2009 edition of The Christian Science Monitor:

It is getting harder to escape the sense that most of the trouble in the world – whether it’s coming out of the Senate, a mortgage lender, or a tank turret – can be traced to one overriding problem: too many men steering. Had our economic, domestic, and foreign policy been more informed by women, we might be enjoying a safer ride.

Doubt it? Here’s a test. Would any of the women you admire have set up a healthcare system as byzantine, costly, and underperforming as America’s? Or a financial system where mortgage lenders don’t have to care about being paid back? Or a bailout that spends $1 trillion in public money to subsidize the purchase of junk debt from the same geniuses that generated it?

Read more here.

Think For Yourselves

I get a lot of email. I get email from my family, friends, and my ministry. So I get a lot of forwarded email. Emails that good intentioned people want to warn me about or inform me of.  The thing is – I’ve seen most of them several times.

 

What strikes me about forwarded emails is that most people do not check them out for authenticity. They just take the email at its word! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve let someone know that an email they sent me was a fake! And now, I get emails that say, “Verified by Snopes” (Snopes.com is a website dedicated to urban legends and false emails). But more often than not – these too are fake. I’ve gone to the site only to find that the “verified” email was a different one, not the one being sent out.

 

Here is just an example of a few of the many emails being circulated around the internet that are not true:

 

Life is Beautiful powerpoint email

Glade Plugins Fire Hazard

 

In God We Trust omitted from coins

 

Bill Gates/Microsoft Giveaway

 

Gangs Car Bumping

 

Missing Girl: Penny Brown

 

These are just  a few examples.

 

When you forward something without verifying whether or not the contents of that message are true or not – you could be passing on false information to people! Don’t just take someone’s word for something, but think for yourself and research whether or not the topic is indeed true. Even if it says on the email that it’s been verified and it’s true – don’t just take the email at its word. A lot of times that is put on there in the hopes that people won’t check it out and buy into the lie. 

 

We live in a technological age. People can abuse that so much easier by quickly sending out lies, false information, and rumors. It is up to us to use our brains and think through the information we get before blindly believing it. The same goes with media information we get. Remember Y2K? Everyone thought that would be a horrible event. It passed uneventfully. Look into what you are told. Look into global warming without just blindly believing what information you are fed about it. Look into the presidential candidates for yourself and research what you are being told by reporters and news programs. Look into any and everything before you simply repeat what you hear or were told.

 

Don’t be a sucker. Don’t let someone feed into your fears and mislead you. Take a few minutes to research things out and be an informed person. It’s worth the time it takes to know what truly is going on around you.

 

~ Dionna Sanchez (Keeping It Real Columnist)

http://twitter.com/DionnaSanchez

 

Barometer Low but Rising by Maureen Locher

Ever had one of those times when nothing moves you? When you feel blah for no good reason? That’s me these days.

 

Perhaps I should blame my mood on Ohio’s climate. Yes, that’s good – cast blame. We Ohioans have been teased with temperatures soaring in the 60s. Last week the low was 20. Mother Nature held out the carrot then snatched it away. I should be used to it by now; it’s not exactly new to me as I’ve lived in Ohio my entire life.

 

Hope and happiness manifest themselves as the mercury rises, but sadly the opposite is true as the mercury plummets. I know spring is coming – planting gardens, tulips bursting forth, running outside without a coat. Faith tells me all these benchmarks will arrive. But right now I’m in that limbo place of waiting. Inspiration low, creativity stymied. But I do believe good things are around the proverbial corner.

 

I know one day I will wake up, and not only will spring have sprung, but summer will sneak in on its heels. Spring and summer have become a bit blurred in recent years. Global warming? Perhaps. I don’t really care what it’s called. Just give me warm weather, sunny skies and pretty flowers, and watch my mercury rise.

 

Maureen invites you to join her at www.MaureenLocher.com ~ To Give God. Be sure to catch her column Just Another Manic Momday in the upcoming MWLM spring/summer issue where Maureen is also the magazine’s copy editor.

 

P.S. Pre-Spring Forecast: Ohio temperatures climbing!