The Legend of Why We Greet Others by Saying, "Good day, how is your toilet paper situation?"

Long, long ago, a sinister villain started poisoning the Corona beer across every corner of the earth.  She first began in China, but then, her work appeared in Italy, Japan, Canada, and Bulgaria.  She sent agents of death into every land and state, stealthily poisoning Corona beer, with no regard for nationality or social status.  People lost trust in friends, neighbors, and strangers, as it was soon realized that her demons had spread quietly - no one could be sure who was the enemy, or whether their beer was safe to drink.  The Corona illness began with a benign cough, but it soon transformed into an agonizing pain of the abdomen.  Toilets offered the only relief, and soon, millions of people were confined to their toilets.  A great toilet paper shortage began.  Toilet paper factories began working 24-hour shifts.  Automakers stopped making cars and began producing toilet paper.  The elderly suffered the most, as, being old and frail, they could not compete for what little toilet paper made it to the supermarket shelves.  While the agents of death lurked, poisoning beer far and wide, the good people who remained made certain to care for the disadvantaged who could not obtain toilet paper for themselves.  Toilet papering - the practice of spreading toilet paper over lawns, trees, and buildings - was how the good people spread their message of generosity and hope: toilet paper for all, toilet paper for the taking, toilet paper laid down at your feet as a symbol of love, peace, and solidarity.  "We are all in this together," it said.  "My toilet paper is your toilet paper."  The sinister villain and her dark army continued to wreak havoc across the world, but nothing could stop the good people from sharing toilet paper with those in need.  "Do you have enough toilet paper?" and "How is your toilet paper situation?" became common greetings for the sane people who remained.  Eventually, the villain and her agents had wiped out the entire beer economy, and her great shadow of death faded.  But toilet paper generosity remained, and it was polite to always inquire about one another's toilet paper situation.  To this day, the tradition endures.  And that is why we greet others by saying, "Good day, how is your toilet paper situation?"

The end.

Cheeky Restaurants

We noticed restaurants have gotten more and more bold.  In San Francisco, suggested tips were up to 25%, going all the way down to 15%.  It's their way of saying, "If you tip 15%, you're among our cheapest customers.  Wanna know what our classiest, most generous patrons tip??"

In Utah (and other states), where minimum wage for servers is only $2.13/hr, the suggested gratuity is even more cheeky.  "Excuse me," they seem to say, "You're only tipping 15%???  I suppose that's technically the minimum..."

As long as restaurant patrons tip sufficiently to supplement their wages to $7.25/hr, restaurant owners can pay their servers only $2.13/hr.  Even worse, many servers technically earn below $7.25/hr some shifts, even after tips, because their employers pay them bi-weekly or even monthly, using tips from other days to round out the figures.

In southern California, where servers are paid at least the $11.00 minimum wage, we were surprised to see restaurant food the same cost as what we're used to in Utah.  (This was our experience.  A Cost of Living calculator I found online said a $13.00 restaurant meal in Salt Lake City would cost $15.00 in Los Angeles.)

Even more shameful, if an employee who isn't normally tipped receives $30 in tips in one month, that employee can be classified as a "tipped employee," thus permitting the employer to lower that worker's wages to $2.13/hr.  In Utah, more and more fast casual restaurants, where you pay at the counter ahead of time, are adding the option to tip employees (tip for what??).  If that employee pools $30+ worth of tips over the course of the month, the employers can take that $30+ for himself, by lowering the amount he pays the worker, and then using the $30+ to get the worker back up to $7.25/hr.  This transforms tipping workers into subsidizing the owner for paying below federal minimum wage.

Nolo.com describes the Utah law here:

Tip Basics

The basic rule of tips, under federal law and state law, is that they belong to the employee, not the employer. Employers may not require employees to hand over their tips unless one of these exceptions applies:

State law allows the employer to take a tip credit. Some states allow the employer to count all or part of an employee’s tips towards its minimum wage obligations. Although the employer doesn’t technically “take” the employee’s tips, the employer gets to count some tips as if the employer had paid them directly to the employee. Utah allows employers to take a tip credit.

The employee is part of a valid tip pool. Under federal law and in most states, employees can be required to pay part of their tips into a tip pool to be shared with other employees.

In an episode of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey, Ramsey was incredulous to learn that the restaurant owner of Amy's Baking Company takes all his servers' tips.  Upon learning this, he revealed to a customer, "Sir, the $10 tip that you left - the young lady, sir - the owner takes the tips."

To an extent, that's what we put up with in all the states that allow their servers to be paid $2.13/hr.

If a server workers 40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year, at $2.13/hr, is paid monthly, and the business owner balances his workers' wages monthly rather than daily, the first $887 in a server's tips is going toward the employer each month to subsidize him paying this server minimum wage.  That's $10,644/year that is subsidizing the business owner rather than going into the server's pocket.  "But if we paid servers $7.25/hr, restaurant food would be more expensive."  That's okay.  If we can afford to eat out, we can afford to pay a little more for restaurant food and tip a little extra, like they do in California.  If small businesses need a government grant to pay their workers $7.25/hr, I would be fine with that.  Just don't take it out of the servers' pay.

If a fast casual restaurant gives the option to tip upfront, I prefer to tip $0, because any tips for the month between $30-$443 (assuming the host works 20 hrs/week) will go toward subsidizing the business owner.  But as for the traditional dine-in restaurants where servers are likely tipped enough that the tips eventually reach the server, it's a little more complicated.  In those cases, perhaps the best way around it is to leave two tips - one for the business owner (on the check), and one in cash (for the server).

Baby Scientist

Babies are natural scientists.  With an earnest commitment to science, everything is an opportunity for investigation.  When did we lose this hunger - in fact, this literal hunger for knowledge?  For the baby, it doesn't matter whether it's "gross."  The most important thing is to know what the dog poop feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like.  The consequences are secondary.

Their patience also deserves commendation.  With limited access to specimens, and subject to the whims of caretakers who may swoop them away from a science experiment at any moment, babies learn to make the most with what is in front of them.  Being spirited away from a scientific analysis in progress isn't a disastrous impediment to your research, but rather a momentary pause, and an opportunity for new data collection.  The unsuspecting mother carrying you on her hip is focused on other tasks.  Plastic bags, necklaces, spoons, plates, napkins, food, books, walls, paper - this interruption is no inconvenience.  It's a well of opportunity - a world of knowledge, seemingly begging for your exam, literally at your fingertips.  The possibilities for clinical investigation are endless.  A true scientist will embrace every proposed experiment with eager, probing fingers and a non-discriminating inquisitive mouth.

- Carly

Giant Corporate Media Organism

It occurred to me today the brilliance of the Corporate Media. So unified in purpose, they are almost like a living, breathing entity. Despite being owned by different Media Conglomerates, the majority of networks often seem to agree on what is currently important, such as "The Confederate Flag," or "Caitlyn Jenner," and even misreport the same false claims of "violence" and "throwing chairs" by Bernie supporters at the Nevada Democratic Convention [1].

You might say this is due to the 1996 Telecommunications deregulation [2], resulting in roughly 95% of the news content we view today being owned by just six networks [3]; or the fact that it was illegal in 1934 for one company to own more than 28 radio stations, but now one company (Clear Channel) owns 1,200; or the fact that one in four local stations relies entirely on shared content [4].

Regardless of the reason for this giant media echo chamber--where the simple repetition of the same opinion or agenda by every news station in sight virtually solidifies that opinion into "fact"--I have found the perfect analogy.

When unified in agenda, these six news networks are like a giant living thing that heaves in and out as one, resonating from within with power and influence. Though they appear to be six, are these media conglomerates *one*? Like the giant fungus discovered in Oregon, which may be the largest living organism on the planet, spanning 2.4 miles (2,200 acres)...are these six giant Corporate Media Conglomerates a single living fungus--the largest fungus on the planet??? [5]

See:  https://twistedsifter.com/videos/when-one-company-owns-dozens-of-local-news-stations/

- Carly

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2016/05/18/478579787/fact-checking-nprs-reports-on-vegas-violence
[2] http://lbj.utexas.edu/rhodesprp/01_02/divide/dereg.htm
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate
[4] http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/04/fcc-pew-local-tv-news-consolidation
[5] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141114-the-biggest-organism-in-the-world

How I Got School Detention

When I was in middle school, I lived in Hawaii.  Apparently, Hawaii has a relatively high tuberculosis rate, and so, listed among our school rules was the decree, "Thou shalt not spit on the sidewalk."  Well, when I was a teenager, I spat a lot.  Nowadays, I don't spit as often, but that could explain my drooling.  Anyway, one day, while at the school, I came across a puddle.  I liked to spit in puddles, as their wetness seemed to beckon to me like a cradle to a sleeping baby:  occupy me.  "Nice puddle," I thought.  So I spat in it.

Well, the vice principal happened to be right behind me, and she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the principal's office, sat me down, and began a painstaking conversation about why we shouldn't spit on the sidewalk, and alternatives to such behavior.  She then sentenced me to write a two page composition on "Why you should not spit on the sidewalk" and one period of cafe duty.

Being the subservient student that I was, I made sure to meet her very reasonable demands, and especially took great care to provide a fair account of every alternative to spitting that the vice principal had relayed.  Below is the text of the two page composition that I handed in to the vice principal.

Carly Wilson

Period:  None

Detention

Assignment

For Ms. Unni

12/3/1998

This paper is on why you should not spit on the sidewalk and why you should spit in the toilet, trash can, or in a piece of paper to wrap up and put in your pocket to save for later instead.

The reason why it is not a good idea to spit on the sidewalk is because you could get tuberculosis or some other kind of sickness from the spit, that would probably be dried spit, on the ground.  You see, if someone was walking along, just going on their merry way, minding their own business, and they suddenly dropped something right on the dried spit with tuberculosis on it, this unsuspecting, innocent person would suddenly become subject to this great and powerful disease, which is a very bad thing because you can die from it, unless you take medicine maybe, thanks to modern day research and study.

Even if you don't have tuberculosis, which I hope you don't, you should probably not spit on the ground because if other people see you spit, that might entice them to spit, and if other people see those people spit then they might spit, and pretty soon the whole school would be spitting and the whole school grounds would be covered in mucus and the whole sidewalk could be infected with strange diseases, especially tuberculosis.

Another good reason why you should not spit on the sidewalk is because you might have to write a paper like this.  You would also get detention, maybe even four days of cleaning the cafeteria tables and having cafe duty, and you probably wouldn't even get any ice cream or any kind of treat at the end!  But don't think of it as child labor though because you're not getting paid, you're paying them, for spitting on the sidewalk.

- Carly

Feelings, Defined by a Two-Year-Old

Nicole has become adept at identifying a range of about three emotions.  Yesterday, while we were babysitting Nicole's cousins, she got to put her skill into practice.

Nicole's six-year-old cousin was cleaning the kitchen floor to earn some video game time.  As he came out from cleaning under the kitchen table, he hit his back against one of the boards. Already dispirited, having spent the past thirty minutes cleaning, he stood there and began to cry. 

Nicole pointed and observed aloud, “Sad, Mama! Sad!” So her cousin soon stopped crying and resumed sitting on the floor, wiping it despondently with a rag. Nicole declared, “Happy, Mama! Happy!” Then, I guess that made her cousin sad, so he started to pout. Nicole brightly announced, “Sad! Sad, Mama!” He lowered his chin and stopped pouting, and Nicole crawled up to him, crouching for a better look at his face, then announced, “Happy!” Her cousin resumed his dejected demeanor, turning away from her. Nicole crawled after him and, needing only a few inches of personal space herself, gave a close inspection of his face and reported, “Sad, Mama! Sad!” He must have changed his face again, because soon after, she proclaimed, “Happy, Mama!”

This went on for some time, as Nicole's cousin tried to turn away from her to escape the humiliation of a two-year-old giving a play-by-play of his emotions. However, each time, Nicole diligently followed him, inches from his face, so as to give an accurate account of his present emotional state--which, according to Nicole, steadily fluctuated between “happy” and “sad.”

- Carly

The Automatic Faucet

I don't think public restroom automatic water faucets are automatic at all.  They don't turn on when you need to wash your hands.  No, I think you have to surprise them.  Because when you first walk up to them, they're like, "AH!  Someone's here!"  And they squirt water uncontrollably for a moment.  Ten seconds later, you've got your hands all soaped, you put your hands in front of the faucet expecting it to turn on again.  But the faucet's like, "Nah, nah, it's cool.  I know you're there."  So you try moving your hands around.  Of course that doesn't work. So you try stepping to the side for a second, and putting your hands in front of the faucet again.  But the faucet isn't blind.  It knows you never left.  So you hide in the stall again and come out.  But the faucet's used to your presence by now.  So what you finally do is just leave.  Walk out of the restroom.
...and then quietly crawl back in, hide in front of the sink, wait there for a minute, and then, all of a sudden, you jump up and shout, "BOO!"  And be sure to stick your soapy hands under the water gush.