I’ve been on the internet for over 30 years, long before there was a world-wide web and way WAY before anybody thought up memes. Once there was a GUI and search engines started to be a thing, one thing I learned in my work as a medical transcriptionist was verify, verify, verify. Everything you find in Google search results is not accurate. At this stage of the internet, I’m surprised there are so few people who seem to get this. I was also surprised that so many people were surprised that there is “fake news.” Even before the internet there was fake news. The internet only makes this sort of thing more visible to a wider audience, it doesn’t diminish it. Mind you, my vigilantism about this isn’t some political fervor – I’d be embarrassed to post something so patently false, not because I’m easily shamed, but because I’m an obsessive-compulsive nitpicker about accuracy.

Memes have gone absolutely nuts on social media during the 2020 election season. I’m not talking about memes that show cats or baby goats or pretty sunsets. I’m talking about the memes that are intentionally created to inflame and influence people by spreading lies, half truths, and innuendos.

Memes are glib and easy to share for a reason – their creators know that’s how to get them to go viral. They don’t care whether the meme is accurate. In fact, they usually know it isn’t accurate. These memes have two purposes: to get shared (go viral) and to influence. Does anyone really think that outside operators coughPutincough are done with the U.S. elections?

Memes in social media are seductive spreaders of misinformation and studies have shown that the most susceptible target is baby boomers, specifically Republican baby boomers.

Although the study did not directly analyze the political affiliations of those who shared fake news, Nagler points to “overwhelming evidence” that most of the fake news was favorable to then-candidate Donald Trump, making Republicans and conservatives more likely than liberals to share falsities.

Then-candidate Donald Trump is now-President-and-candidate, so not much has changed. But don’t start patting yourself on the back if you’re a liberal:

At the same time, the authors note that “there is at least anecdotal evidence that when Republicans are in power, the left becomes increasingly susceptible to promoting and accepting fake news.”

How to responsibly share memes on social media

I love a cute/funny meme as much as the next person. If you follow my newsfeed on Facebook, you will notice I don’t even post many of those. I might like memes on other people’s social media, or LOL at them, but I rarely share memes, especially politically charged ones. If you see me post a political meme, I have:

• Independently verified the text is accurate. Most of these are quotes (or claim to be quotes). I look them up to make sure the person credited actually said it, word for word. If a place and date are given, I check those as well.
• If it is not a quote, but a story, I check to see if it can be verified elsewhere, in whole or in part. These things usually end up being a mix of outright lies and partial truths, with a lot of misleading innuendos.
• If it is a photo of a person or people, I research it to find out the origin of the photo. You can do a reverse image search on Google using either the image itself or the URL where you see the image. The photos in these memes are usually stock photos that have been online from a date prior to the purported event that is being decried, and/or an event that didn’t even happen in the U.S.
• Only accept credible sources when verifying. Sometimes they’re on the first page of Google, sometimes they aren’t. If you’re trying to verify a meme that claims Los Angeles has been fenced off from the rest of the country and is now a concentration camp, you can safely reason that conspiracytheoriesrus.me or similar threads on Reddit aren’t really all that credible. And while many folks only trust what they hear from a limited number of news sources coughFox Newscough, I’m pretty sure that every other news outlet in the country is not just a mouthpiece for liberal America.

All in all, however, I find it easier to just tell people what I’m thinking instead of sharing memes, no matter how glib and funny they may be. I may not be right, and maybe nobody cares what I think, but it’s my own words and at I least own it. 

I want to share what led me to move from pretty conservative to a more moderate position. It’s undeniable: people believe in different things. At a very late stage in my life, I realized that I had never questioned what been taught to me by my family and influenced by the social environment I grew up in, and had only superficially looked beyond that. I started to really examine the basis of my opinions and beliefs. I have a tendency to research things to death, so I started reading.

My husband doesn’t discuss politics most of the time and I credit him for his extraordinary ability to listen to my conservative rants without comment, especially as I have found his opinions are so different from my own. Given his natural reticence, I’m not sure how much influence he has had on our children’s more liberal points of view.

Over the years, as our older son became more and more liberal, I often wondered where I went wrong. How could I have possibly raised a liberal? (The horrors!) I still don’t agree with him all the time, but our discussions over the years have made me stop and think about things I believed to be true, things I believed were positive aspects of life in the United States, or things I simply hadn’t considered because I didn’t think they had an impact on me or my life.

The children got me listening to podcasts; specifically, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. I love all of the Hardcore History podcasts, but the one that resonated the most for me politically was Death Throes of the Republic. I found Death Throes of the Republican presented fascinating – and concerning – parallels to the United States and what is currently happening in its political system.

After a discussion with my son about whether or not the United States is an empire, or acts imperially without acknowledging it, I discovered Chalmers Johnson‘s American Empire series. In light of Death Throes of the Republic, Johnson’s famous statement really resonated:

A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can’t be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

During and following the Vietnam war, protesters were characterized as un-American, unpatriotic trouble makers. The fact that they were protesting America’s support of the imperialistic claims of France was never mentioned in any high school class I took. For anyone else who missed this, Johnson extensively discusses the conflicts created by the historical origins of the United States and support of imperialistic ambitions by our allies, and the U.S.’s uneasy relationship with its own revolutionary history.

The American Empire series also got me thinking about things that are directly impacted by U.S. foreign policy. I do believe a sovereign nation has the right and duty to control its borders. U.S. policies (such as the War on Drugs) and covert interference with other governments contribute significantly to the stream of refugees and asylum seekers on our southern border. We should acknowledge it and take some responsibility for it when formulating policies and attitudes about immigration.

Conversations then turned to racial equality, protests, racism, and white privilege.

Here is where I have to own up to a lot of ignorance, naivety and chagrin. A former classmate posted a meme on Facebook: If you don’t want to be arrested, don’t break the law. I used to believe that was true. I now know that kind of statement usually originates from the comfortable place of white middle class privilege, people who have no idea or simply don’t believe that people are detained and/or arrested all the time for absolutely no probable cause because it’s never happened to them or anyone they know. What changed my mind? Living in Los Angeles will give you an inkling unless you are completely brain dead to what’s going on around you. The LAPD is (in)famous for its racism. Still, I managed to retain my naivety, thinking these were just anomalies. One day I was listening to an Amazon playlist and heard Bob Dylan’s Hurricane. How had I gone past middle age and never heard the story of Rubin Carter? I then read Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson. The movie is good, but the book covers so much more – read the book. It rattled a lot of my long-held beliefs about why so many people of color are in prison, how it impacts family and community dynamics, and how it serves to maintain white privilege.

As noted in Part Two of this series, I gained a lot of historical insight into America’s racial problems by reading These Truths: A History of These United States, by Jill Lepore. I’ll recommend it again.

A better understanding of the foundation of this country, history, republican government and democracy has led me to have deep concerns about the actions of our current president. Given those concerns, of course I had to read John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened. I would think it would be difficult for conservatives to discredit a long-time conservative like Bolton when he expresses the same concern, now joined by a growing number of Republicans and former Trump supporters.

I also challenge anyone who believes there is no such thing as white privilege to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin diAngelo and Michael Dyson. It reads like a primer in many ways, which is probably a good level for people who don’t believe in white privilege. In spite of the criticisms about it, a positive effect for me was that it made me consider a lot of things I’d never realized about how I view white privilege and racism. People with privilege take that privilege for granted and it’s difficult to acknowledge that not everyone experiences life in the same way.

I am well aware that every point of view has its supporting documentation. I approached all of this with careful consideration of the sources, which I felt were credible and objective. Bolton was the lone exception in terms of objectivity; however, given his conservative credentials, I feel his assessment of the current presidency is sufficiently objective, even when taken with a grain of salt. My education will continue. I might still change my mind about more things, I might adjust my opinions about others. I hope I have become more humane in my thinking and my treatment of fellow human beings. I hope I will inspire others to open their minds and explore beliefs and opinions that differ from their own. All Americans will never agree on the problems, much less the solutions, but let’s at try to acknowledge those differences and treat each other with more humanity.

I used to think the same thing. But when I examined it carefully and objectively, I realized that isn’t even true for me, a white woman. In the privilege hierarchy, not even white women are at the top. No, that prize goes to white heterosexual Christian males. So this screed is for the women out there, especially the ones who still believe that in the United States everyone is treated equally and has equal opportunity. I think a woman would have to be pretty uninformed and unaware to believe that women are treated equal to men. And pretty naive or ignorant to not realize that if women (specifically white women) do not have the same opportunity and equality as men (specifically white men), then there are other groups that are also treated unequally.

• While progress has been made over the last 50 years, the gender pay gap continues, with women making an average of 82% of what men make. SOURCE: American Association of University Women. That’s WHITE women. The gap is greater for women of color.
• Men and women tend to work in different occupations; overall, jobs that have been predominantly occupied by men are better paid than jobs predominantly occupied by women. Women continue to be employed primarily in occupations related to domestic duties and caretaking: child care, cleaning, cooking, sewing, and healthcare jobs including nursing, and teaching. It wasn’t until WWII that office clerical jobs such as receptionist, clerical and secretarial jobs started to become more dominated by women, and they were paid less. High-paying jobs such as construction, engineering and technology continue to be dominated by men, and men continue to dominate CEO positions in America. In other words, the pink collar effect is alive and well. It is worth mentioning that this is not because women like these jobs more or are “more suited” to them, it’s because there are systems in place to direct them there, and to keep them from other, better-paying jobs.
• Women with children are more likely to be paid less for doing the same job as women without children, and they are both paid less than a man doing the same job.

If there is no such thing as privilege, if all opportunities are equal, why is there a disparity?

Over the years, I have experienced discrimination on the basis of being a woman. I was discriminated against because I was an unmarried woman, then I was discriminated against because I was a married woman with children. I had one pre-employment physical that included detailed questions about my menstrual cycles and whether or not they affected my mental or emotional status. I was told I was not hired for a position because the man that was hired had a family to support – and I didn’t.

The opportunities young women now have, the privileges that perhaps they take so for granted they don’t even know they are privileges, they have because someone else came before them and fought for women to have equal opportunities to men. It didn’t just happen because men decided to treat women as equals. I know that, because men still don’t treat women as equals.

Let me tell you what pisses me off if I think about it too much. In order to get to this more equal position, which isn’t even equal yet, women have had to petition, beg and protest permission from men, and specifically white men, to get there. What did it take for women to be allowed to vote? Demanding that men let them. That fight took almost an entire century. Does that kind of bring to mind the little woman asking for some pin money from her husband while he grills her on whether or not she really needs whatever it is she wants to spend the money on? And if someone is okay with that, well then – maybe I understand a little bit about why they think everyone is treated equally. And I feel sorry for them.

If it makes me angry, and it makes a lot of women angry, just think how angry it makes POC to have to ask white men and women for permission to be treated equally. Add to that the fact that after many years and multiple generations they still don’t have equality, and you might begin to understand what’s behind the anger that fuels protests. The 15th Amendment, granting equal rights to all citizens regardless of race or color (the 14th Amendment, unfortunately, defines citizens as “male”) was adopted in 1870. Discriminatory practices to suppress the ability of people of color to vote continued until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That’s almost another century. Voter suppression continues, and institutionalized inequality continues.

I’m not going to blow fairy dust and angels out into the blogosphere or anything. I am pretty sure there is no society in the history of the world that hasn’t suppressed or oppressed some class of human beings in order to assert its superiority. Historical precedent doesn’t make it right – it isn’t an excuse to continue what we know is wrong.

Thinking that the United States is any different, that we are enlightened or more civilized and we don’t treat people that way is just delusional. If we actually were more civilized and actually practiced what Christians profess is a love for all of God’s children, nobody would have to fight for 100 years for equality, or grind away slowly at it over decades. It would be offered; the people who benefit from that inequality would acknowledge it and make it right without the protests and the lawsuits.

There are circumstances that may eliminate or diminish a person’s ability to take advantage of opportunities. Race, gender, belief systems, sexual orientation should not be one of those things, not in a country where we want to believe we are all created equal and that we all have equal opportunity.

If you want to read an excellent scholarly study on the history of racial inequality in the U.S., I suggest These Truths: A History of These United States, by Jill Lepore. It’s a long book, but I certainly found it to be enlightening and informative. It explains how we got here. It doesn’t explain why it’s still a problem. I don’t think there is any explanation for it, at least not any acceptable ones.

I am a baby boomer. I was raised in a conservative family. I have spent most of my life identifying myself as a Republican. I’m Caucasian. Up until 1965, my memories are of life in a white, middle-class, conservative family living in a white, middle class neighborhood in Los Angeles. My parents divorced in about 1965. A two-parent family was my first loss of privilege. Because, at that time, very few middle class white people got divorced. I had no friends or schoolmates whose parents were divorced. Aside from the loss and confusion generated by divorce, being a child of divorced parents was embarrassing. And, as it turns out, makes you different. My second loss of privilege was middle class status. In the 1960s, few middle class women were employed outside the home and single (male) wage earners accounted for the majority of family income. Staying at home and taking care of the family and the home was what women did. Unpaid, but very much a job. Very few women had marketable job skills, and very few jobs were available to the ones who did have them. They could be secretaries or, if they had a college degree, school teachers.  In other words – pink collar ghetto jobs. I was too young for details of divorce at the time and I never thought to ask as an adult (as it was all over and done with by that time), but as was typical at that time, the end result was that the family quickly fell below poverty level while our father remarried and carried on with a middle class lifestyle. The summer before I started 6th grade, my mother decided it would be best if we moved from Los Angeles. We went to Logan, Utah, where my grandparents owned a home they had, up to that point, rented out to students attending Utah State University. It is also where my parents lived when I was born, as my father was getting his graduate degree in engineering. When he graduated, the family moved back to Los Angeles. After they divorced, we went back.

While our family was still different, there were a few saving graces that made us less different. First of all, we were members of the dominant religion (yes, Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons). Still, it was a bit of culture shock. Mormonism in the Intermountain West was generally understood by Mormons outside the Intermountain West to be practiced in a much different way. I think of it as more – more strict, more conforming, more judgmental. And because it was the dominant religion, the practice seeped into other aspects of life. It was, if you will, Mormon privilege. For example, on my first day in sixth grade, I was shocked when class was started with a prayer. Following the Pledge of Allegiance, of course. Even at that age, I wondered if it was even legal. (As it turns out, no it was not- school-sponsored prayer was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1962.) And I found it uncomfortable.

And how many sixth graders do you think had the guts to ask to be excused during the prayer? Nobody in my class, including me. Not bowing my head and saying amen was my minor rebellion, and I continued to be uncomfortable with it throughout the year. If I, a member of the dominant religion felt uncomfortable with school prayer, how do you imagine someone who was not a member of the dominant religion, or not even Christian, would have felt? And here’s the really telling thing: I never felt this way in California, where I went to school with kids of all religious and ethnic backgrounds – and where they did not start the school day with a prayer. It takes a certain amount of arrogance to completely ignore a Supreme Court ruling while assuming that either all children in any given grade school in the district belong to the dominant religion or that they have the maturity to speak up and state an objection without feeling like they’ll be ostracized for it. And in my mind, it’s especially egregious when imposed upon grade-school age children.

I mentioned that with my parents’ divorce, we also lost economic status. I want to be clear that I am not saying that economic disadvantage for a white person is comparable to the economic disadvantages experienced by people of color. I am only relating my own experience and how it has impacted my opinions about white privilege, inequality, and injustice.

We became recipients of welfare. My mother got food stamps. I cannot even begin to describe the level of embarrassment that accompanied going to the grocery store and paying with food stamps. In the culture of the time, it was like announcing to everyone in line behind you that you are poor, that you are less, that somehow, someone, somewhere made bad decisions or was irresponsible. As soon as someone in line behind you realizes you are paying with food stamps, it somehow gives them the right (or, depending on their level of self righteousness, the responsibility) to judge your purchases. They are saying with the look on their face that you are not deserving of certain food items because you are poor and paying with food stamps. The truly self righteous will make comments out loud, although not usually to the person paying with food stamps, but to someone standing with or by them. Why did she have four children if she can’t afford to feed them? I don’t buy that myself – it’s so expensive! How can she afford that on food stamps? Is that what my tax dollars pay for? And God forbid if you’re overweight! My mother struggled with obesity her entire life. I have struggled with my weight most of my life (still do). Can you imagine hearing the woman behind you in the grocery line whisper to her companion “how does she stay so fat when she’s on food stamps?” I don’t have to imagine it, I’ve heard it.

And what I find sad – and somewhat disheartening – is that there are people who will read this and either think there’s nothing wrong with the grocery store judgment, or agree that they’d do the same thing.

We also received food from the church. Now, I have to explain that my parents’ divorce contributed greatly to my mother’s insecurities, which extended to food. Someone should have realized this and put her on a food budget because it would have been impossible for us to use all the food she got from the church. I don’t remember it being as bad when we lived in Los Angeles, but when we moved to Utah she had an entire dirt-floor basement to store it. However, she was horribly embarrassed about having to get food from the church. The church brand is Deseret and all the can labels were printed as though Deseret was a company name akin to Hunt’s or Green Giant. Due to my mother’s embarrassment, our first task upon taking delivery of food was to remove the labels so nobody would know it was “church food.” Like most insecurities, there was no logic behind this. Someone might be just as likely to wonder where we got all these cans without labels, or why we removed the labels. The situation was complicated because without labels, we didn’t know what was in the cans, and never seemed to come up with a foolproof system for storing certain things on certain shelves so we knew what they were. At first, my mother tried to decipher the stamped code on the bottom of the can, but some of them were just difficult to interpret or read. Finally, we got markers and marked them as we removed the labels. This worked until the marker wore off, because of course permanent markers were more expensive. The toilet paper was a weird shade of dark pink and quite distinctive. I will never forget my mother’s horror over being told that a meeting had been held and she was counseled that we used too much toilet paper, or that she cried when she told us and asked us to try and be more conservative. (Four women, one house – is there such a thing as enough TP?) 

What embarrasses me the most is that I have made judgments about others who suffer from economic disadvantages. One would think I’d be the last person, right? I have improved and I continue to try to improve and not be judgmental because I know firsthand how it feels. I can’t make excuses but I can say part of it was immaturity and part was being raised in a culture of self reliance. I believed if I could work hard and make something of myself, anyone could. I am embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to explore any number of the topics it’s necessary to explore in order to get a better understanding of the human beings with whom we share space on this earth. It’s taken a lot of open mindedness and reading to change my thinking. And on occasion my son reminding me that when I apply a negative label to someone, I’m talking about someone’s daughter/son, sister/brother, mother/father, aunt/uncle, and last but not least, a human being with all the flaws human being are prone to. But more on that in Part Two or maybe even Part Three.

You can currently get this book with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

With that behind me… every time I read Jovan’s latest, I think (and often tell her) “This is the best one!” And I mean it, every time. Now, several books later, if you asked me to consider all her published works as a whole, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one I like the most or think is the best. I will fall back on what I tell my children when they ask who is my favorite: whichever one I’m with. With Jovan’s writing, my favorite is the last one I read.

I used to read a lot of romance novels. That was pretty much all I read. For the last decade or so, however, I read them rarely. Most are formulaic and predictable. Most with cookie-cutter or cardboard characters who just seem to be THERE but not real or believable. Female characters who start out strong as nails and end weak, or remain strong as nails but just too prickly to like. I.just.can’t.

You might read the description of Dark as Knight and think- but I’ve heard this story before. Kidnapped bride. OK, I’ve read that one as well. But it was never the wrong kidnapped bride. Oh, and Earl-with-mistresses-must-marry-someone-respectable/noble is one you’ve also read. Me, too! But never Earl-with-FOUR-mistresses. Who live in his home. Where he is bringing his kidnapped-by-mistake new wife. Who is told they’re part of the bargain. Along with his four bastard sons. And there is nothing cardboard or cookie-cutter about Grimme or Brighde. They both have their issues and baggage, which contribute to the conflicts that range between terribly funny (classic Jovan) to frustrating to deep and dark. While Brighde is tough and resourceful, her feelings get hurt, she cries, she gets angry, but she’s always right! She is relatable and likeable, even loveable and she stays that way throughout. Grimme reminds me of Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey character (Aubrey & Maturin series), who is masterful and commanding at sea, but terribly inept at everyday life on land. Grimme is good at warfare, but as newly minted Earl of Kyneward, his home life is a chaotic mess.

Sex, generally not the kind most people would consider conventional, is always a large part of Jovan’s characters and this is no different. If that offends you, Jovan is not the author for you. Just sayin’. It’s also a great part of the conflict in this story. I mean – the guy has four mistresses he’s not willing to give up for his wife, so you have to figure there’s going to be some conflict there. Jovan writes good sex scenes; graphic, but not overdone and not gratuitous. The purpose of the sex is always to either give insight to a character, move the story forward, or to progress the relationship of the characters.

I enjoy the humor of the story. Jovan knows how to imbue her characters with life: they love, they laugh, they argue and fight and slam doors and kiss and make up and lay in bed laughing and talking. Even the secondary characters are so delightful and well written, you wish for their stories, or that they come to a particularly sticky and just end.

If you are looking for a historical romance with great story, great setting, great characters, the kind of book you can’t put down but don’t want to read too fast because then it will be over and you will feel compelled to write e-mails to author, begging for more and soon, I highly recommend Dark as Knight.

Yes, I’m a fiberholic. I love yarn. I love knitting. (I used to crochet and now not so much as I prefer knitting.) And yes, like so many knitters, I have a stash. A large one. Large enough that it could definitely be classified as SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). I take some comfort in the knowledge that I’m not alone in this; it means I’m not as weird or crazy as some of my family members might think. There are multiple groups on Ravelry and Facebook that support this. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to supporting those on a yarn diet. (They’ve had to stipulate that there are to be no posts about yarn cravings and yarn temptations resisted – it’s kind of like waving hot baked goods in front of a dieter.)

But… I started a yarn diet last year and discovered the downside to stashing: it’s difficult to select a project to match the available yarn. Or maybe I’m pickier about it than others who are attempting stash reduction, I can’t decide.

There’s a reason for myriad knitting patterns touting “one-skein somethings.” In my stash, I have many single skeins. Some are loners – I have no other yarn of that type or similar type. Some are fraternal twins – I have more than one single skein, all in different colors, sometimes compatible colors, frequently not. When selecting what to make, I have to consider the weight, fiber composition, texture, and color.

And really, while I could make hats and cowls and scarves until I die, what the hell do I do with them?? I live in Southern California and except for this winter, the weather is pretty accommodating and doesn’t particularly require heavy knits. Thus, I somewhat regret my early love affair with bulky yarn. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it, but I have to be practical. I have found some use for these items since starting work in an office that is cooled to arctic-like temperatures and my desk is directly underneath a vent. Before I started this job, I gave about a dozen scarves and cowls to my sister and was happy to do so.

The advice I get most often is “donate them to the homeless.” Yes, I can just see a homeless person following the instructions to hand wash and dry flat that 100% merino wool. I can’t even get my children to accept knits that require that. I love natural fibers probably more than I love bulky yarn. We could debate the value of giving someone a warm hat or scarf, even if it won’t last long because the care instructions won’t be followed, but the bottom line is I’m not going to waste my time, knitting or debating. (I also believe that knitted pet beds should be made from inexpensive, washable yarn and not $20/skein 100% wool.)

Speaking of my children, my family isn’t terribly cooperative, either. Both my boys now live where it gets cold enough to snow. I should be cheerfully knocking out hats and scarves for them. But again, I’m running into that wash/wear issue. Even if they’re receptive to the item, the reception becomes static when I tell them they can’t just throw it in the washer and dryer. In addition, the prospect for grandchildren is looking pretty grim. As for the rest of the family, my nieces and nephews tend to give birth to male children, and I have few colors in my stash that are either neutral or not frankly feminine. There’s also that wash-and-wear issue again. I don’t feel a new mother really wants to hand wash/dry flat anything, regardless of how adorable and hand made it is. And a note to any nieces and nephews reading this: if you have heard I’ve given baby knits to friends of my children or even total strangers, while you have received nothing, now you know why. Feel free to let me know when you have a female child in the making and whether or not you’d be willing to hand wash and dry flat.

I know it seems counter intuitive to the whole “reduce the stash” ideal, but when I started to realize these onesie-twosie balls of yarn were going to be an issue in terms of actual use, I started buying in quantity. I may now have more yarn, but I also have more options in terms of what I can do with it.

As much as I love Ravelry, and as helpful as I find it in reducing stash, it also highlights the dangers of the one- and two-skein stash. There just isn’t a lot you can do with it. Your choices are pretty much hats, scarves and cowls, perhaps newborn or preemie cardigans or vests.

But then I went back to work. In an office. And while my company doesn’t employ a lot of people, the office is in a business center with two office towers and there are some large companies in the buildings, and in the area.

I’ve shared my story of the the naked man dangling from the window of a building. The new mystery is the Woman in the Bathroom.

I admit I’m sometimes oblivious to what’s going on around me. I go to work, do my job and try and stay out of office politics and other trouble. I like to eat lunch out on the outdoor patios scattered around the grounds of the office complex and sometimes people watch there, but most the time I just eat lunch and read. Therefore, I was unaware of the bathroom mystery until it was brought to me attention when two co-workers were discussing it on a slow afternoon.

There is apparently a woman who goes into the bathroom on our floor to… hide out from her job? Nobody knows.

Our floor isn’t fully occupied, so the bathroom isn’t really busy. In fact, the only people I’ve ever encountered in there are my co-workers. That will probably change, as there are two office suites currently being built out for occupation on the floor, but for now, it’s a quiet place. The Mystery Woman always hides out in the same stall. She’s been clocked in there for an hour or more by my nosier co-workers. To my knowledge, nobody has seen her actually entering the bathroom and she stays in the stall if someone else is in the bathroom. It’s difficult to catch her leaving, as well, although a co-worker has actually seen her. Once aware of this curious behavior, it’s easy to spot her presence in the bathroom. On entering the (very quiet) bathroom, that one stall will already be occupied. She starts rustling the toilet paper or the paper toilet seat covers. I’ve even been in there when she’s flushed the toilet – but then doesn’t leave the stall. But then… nothing. Signs of life, but no signs of actually leaving the bathroom. While I’ have some sympathy for someone with bladder or bowel issues, those kinds of noises never happen.

Typically, you’d expect when someone flushes the toilet, they’re done and they’ll be exiting to the wash basins, right? Nope. I’m at that age where it takes me a little longer to empty my bladder and I’m a bit OCD about washing my hands (mentally singing the happy birthday song to ensure I’ve given the soap time to thoroughly kill all bacteria – don’t laugh, they give classes on this when you work in a hospital and the lessons stuck). Even then, even with the toilet flush, nobody joins me at the wash basin and the bathroom is once again silent except for my hand washing.

Who does this? Doesn’t her employer realize she’s gone for extended periods of time? Or do they just think she has severe bladder issues?

It’s not like I obsess over this. I don’t think about her at all unless I go into the bathroom and she’s there. However, when I do think about it, my imagination runs wild at the possible scenarios. One of my co-workers speculates that she works on another floor in the building, mostly because it’s not likely she works on our floor, which is largely unoccupied right now. Maybe the women’s bathroom on the floor where she works is too busy to get away with sitting in a stall for an hour or more. I can’t help but think that if you’re hiding out from work, there are more interesting places to do it than a toilet stall, but maybe she has something to read. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll run into a co-worker if she goes to the lobby or one of the patios. For the amount of time she spends in there, she could go hang out at the Starbucks that’s an easy walk down the street – since her employer doesn’t seem to be missing her anyway.

I’m sometimes tempted to confront her – you know, have a friendly chat over the stall door – and ask her what’s up, if she’s okay. I wonder if she’d answer. I don’t give into the temptation, mostly because I suspect she just wants to be left alone, but also partly because it’s not really my business. Like the naked man dangling from the building, it will probably remain a mystery that fuels my imagination.

That’s so not me.

I do try to temper my love of fiber (and my love of acquiring it, whether or not I have plans to use it). I acknowledge that I might might be at the point where my stash could be SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) and therefore acquiring more is unnecessary and just, well, foolish. I have, therefore, vowed to work only from my stash this year, although I occasionally find myself standing in front of my fabric or yarn stash and wondering how it is I can’t find what I want for a project.

So I embark on a determined course of not only working from stash, but actually finishing projects, another challenge for those of us who tend to lack focus.

The first step was to update my stash on Ravelry. If you knit or crochet, Ravelry is a wonderful resource. There is some debate in the Facebook groups I belong to as to whether it’s worth the time to do this, or if time is better spent just knitting. It probably works better for some than others so I’m just coming at this from my own perspective: it’s worth the time if you are a stasher.

First, the yarn stash. For me, a key component to actually using the stash is knowing what’s there, and where it’s at. You can’t use it if you don’t know what you have and where to find it. Like any database website (such as Goodreads, my other favorite), starting from zero is a significant investment of time. Once you’ve invested the time, however, maintaining it is not time-consuming. Especially if you’ve made a vow not to acquire more. Ravelry even has a field for where the yarn is stored. I store mine in see-through plastic containers that are numbered. I put the bin number in the location field in Ravelry, making it easier to find. The information can also be exported as an Excel file. (I did this and ran a sum on the number of skeins. I’m not even going to admit to the number.)

Second, the pattern stash. Knitters usually have lots of patterns, as well. Mine is a mix of digital and physical. I also went through the public library catalog to find as many pattern books as they have available. I added all these to my Ravelry library and created “sets.” The sets tell me where I can find the pattern: the public library, my own bookshelf, or the location of the digital file on my network. This is also time consuming, and older pattern books may not be in the Ravelry database or, if they are, they may not have all the patterns in the book or booklet. It’s not perfect, it’s just better. I add patterns as I acquire them.

I recently cleaned up my “favorites” in Ravelry. Favorites can be bundled, so I bundled them based on self-assigned criteria – use whatever makes sense to you. Now, instead of spending a lot of time browsing through the huge database of available patterns on Ravelry (as pleasant as that is), I can focus on things I have already identified as being of interest to me, ones for which I already have the pattern.

That moves me on to the Ravelry queue. I only put projects in the queue when (a) they are something I want to make and (b) I have stash yarn that can be used to make them. If it’s something I want to make but I either don’t have the yarn or I haven’t yet identified a stash yarn that would work for the project, it goes into a favorites bundle instead of the queue. Seeing these might even motivate me to use the stash yarn more diligently so I can buy the yarn to make those projects. The queue does a couple of things for me: it allows me to focus on what I can start AND finish, using a pattern and yarn I already have. When I have completed a project, I can go to the queue and quickly select the next project to start. It also keeps me from using yarn for another project, because the Ravelry stash can be filtered for “queued” and “not queued.” I have, in the past, acquired yarn in sufficient quantity to make something like a sweater, then inadvertently used some of it for something else (usually something less useful than the intended project), leaving me with not enough yarn to make the larger project.

When I’m ready to start a project, I go to my queue and click “start project,” which moves it to the project section. That means I’m casting on! I’m now a believer in filling in the database with as much information as possible, since I did a very large swatch for a project, put it in the washer/dryer so I could get the gauge as it would be after washing – then cast on another project with the needles and forgot what size needles I’d used to do the swatch. I’d finish a lot more projects if I didn’t spend so much time unraveling mistakes. For anyone who has WIPs (work in progress) that are so old they can only be classified as UFOs (unfinished objects), this is essential, unless you’re willing to keep buying more hooks and needles to replace the ones lost with UFOs. My swatch was only a couple days old; I have no excuse except aging brain. I now fill in the needle size on my projects. (Fortunately, I was 95% certain I’d done the swatch with the needle size recommended on the yarn ball band.) Most of the time, I try to only have one project and finish the project before I cast on another. However, it does depend on the project. I am currently working on two because one is a seaman’s scarf with a design worked from a chart; the other is a sweater with many, many plain knit rows. One requires concentration, the other doesn’t (yet). I switch between the two to keep it interesting and based on what I’m doing while knitting. It’s impossible to knit a complicated pattern when I’m with my knitting friends.

For me, Ravelry facilitates productivity and focus. I can search the database and filter it based on criteria I set. I don’t like doing pieced projects, especially large ones. When I look at my UFOs, these sorts of projects comprise the majority (including one I started 40+ years ago, and should probably just relinquish as unfinishable). Given that, using scraps and single skeins requires more creativity – and the help of Ravelry. When working strictly from stash, the most important filter is the amount of yarn required to complete a project. If you’re intent on reducing your stash, stay away from projects that require more yarn than you already have!

Forums and groups are another invaluable resource. I’m not sure I would’ve made it through the Baby Surprise Jacket pictured if it hadn’t been for the Ravelry forum, and it was a really important present, along with a crib from the Treasure Rooms furniture site online. There’s a wealth of experience and expertise available in those forums.

Of course, while resisting the siren call of adding to the stash, I also have to resist spending unproductive and unfocused time on Ravelry! I’m not curing my addictions so much as I’m replacing them with healthier addictions. I think.

Fred’s office managed the property required for all the research projects, which included camping equipment, lab equipment, and a motor pool. He also acquired equipment from various sources, and frequently went to government auctions to buy more things.

Anybody remember computer punched cards? I remember people making Christmas wreaths out of them. Fred would send me to the Computer Center with a box (or two) of punch cards and give me directions on how to run them. For some reason, I never related this process with the huge bound computer-generated reports that Fred would later pick up. Another blast from the past – thick stacks of computer printouts with holes in the side for the printer feeds, bound in cardboard binders. I’m not sure what all the reports were – either I never knew or didn’t care enough to remember – but I know one of them was a database of all the property maintained by Fred’s office. Does this sound like a snore? It was, especially in this particular out-of-the-way office building. This was the closest I got to any kind of technology at this job.

Our office was in an older building that looked like it had been thrown together shortly after the end of WW II. It was one of a couple set in a cluster around a newer four-story building that housed the rest of Natural Resources, along with Wildlife, Biology and a couple of other departments. Our building was pretty small; in it, the Ecology Center had three rooms. Additionally, there was a bathroom and a couple of other rooms occupied by graduate students, who seemed to be in the field or in class most of the time, so it was pretty quiet. My office was in the largest room and had file cabinets and whatever else was generally needed. Fred had a small office and there was another small room with a typewriter that was used occasionally.

If you couldn’t tell from the introduction to Fred in my last post (Part 2 of this series), working for Fred turned out to be quite the experience. He was one of the most challenging people I’ve ever worked with. He was short and very round and had a Napoleon complex as large as… well, Napoleon. This was unfortunate in and of itself, but I’m sure having a secretary who is 6′-0″ and a department head who is 6′-4″ didn’t help any. Fred was determined that if he had to be a small dog, he was going to have the loudest bark and the biggest bite – at least with any dog he felt was below him in the pecking order. With Fred, whatever I did, I did it wrong; if I didn’t do it, I should’ve done it (but probably would’ve done it wrong). I was tearing out my hair. After a couple months of Fred, I went back to the HR department and begged my friend to find me something else. There wasn’t anything else, and she cautioned me about leaving another job so soon and getting a reputation as a job hopper. She advised that I figure out a way to make it work with Fred.

Fred was a master of making mountains out of molehills. One of the first things he drilled into me was how he wanted phone calls handled. When I answered the phone, I wasn’t to ask who was calling; he expected me to recognize voices after the first couple of calls, or after speaking in person with someone. He worked with his office door open and if he heard me ask for the name of a caller, he would wait until I put the call on hold and then chew me out, especially if it was someone whose voice he thought I should recognize. I often wondered why he had someone answering the phones for him because I swear he dropped everything he was doing every time the phone rang, so he could eavesdrop. If he was on the phone, he would sometimes place the call on hold, not so he could answer the other phone line, but to eavesdrop. Finding out a caller was someone whose voice I hadn’t previously heard didn’t back him down any, either, and he never apologized. To this day, I have a very good memory for voices because Fred drilled it into me. I’m not sure it’s an entirely useful skill, and probably not one that’s worth the amount of grief Fred gave me over it.

One of Fred’s other “rules” was that the campus interdepartmental mail system was never to be used. Thankfully, we dealt with a limited number of offices and this didn’t require hiking out to the far-flung departments on the edge of campus. Still, in the dead of winter, walking around campus to deliver mail was no fun. This introduced me to another game Fred played – and let me tell you, it took quite awhile before I caught on to him. On occasion, he would return from running errands or going to meetings and tell me he’d stopped in at the campus mail department “just to check” to see if there was any mail there for the Ecology Center. The interdepartmental envelopes supplied by the University had holes punched in them. According to Fred, this was so they could run a long wire through them and make sure the envelopes were empty before they recycled them. (I’m still not certain if that’s the true purpose of the holes – but whatever!) He claimed he’d run the wire through a bunch of envelopes and found some that had been sent to the Ecology Center (i.e., me) that still had mail, accusing me of being careless about opening all the mail we received, and then sending the envelopes back to the mail center with mail still in them. He would hand me this “found” mail as proof, mail I had never seen. Once I caught onto this game, I was pretty sure it was mail he’d just picked up at the mail center that day. He also claimed on more than one occasion to have found mail from our department being sent out through the interdepartmental mail, having found the envelopes in the recycling pile without the receiving department opening and reading them. Which, of course, he discovered by running the wire through the “empties” pile of envelopes. This was held up as proof that the campus delivery system was unreliable and supported his edict that all mail be hand delivered, as well as providing him with an opportunity to accuse me of not following his direction to hand deliver the mail. This had me baffled for months, because just as surely as he knew I had messed up, I knew I never put anything in the interdepartmental mail and that I opened and emptied all the mail received. How could this happen? As I suppose Fred intended, this made me a little bit crazy and I became hypervigilant. Which didn’t help because Fred continued making these claims.

The other game he liked to play that drove me crazy was claiming he’d tried to call the office numerous times when he was out of town, and nobody answered. Remember – still no voice mail. The phone would have rung until the caller hung up. He’d rake me over the coals on where I’d been that day, or question whether I’d even come to work at all. He would even claim that other people in the department had told him they’d come into the office to look for me, and I wasn’t there. Again, I was completely baffled. Where would I go? To the bathroom? Certainly, but that doesn’t take long and I could hear the phone ring. And there was no occasion when I’d gone to the bathroom and the phone had rung. Maybe I’d been delivering mail? He found this acceptable to a point, but claimed he’d called at 15-minute intervals for a couple of hours, more than enough time for me to deliver the mail, and the phone wasn’t ever answered. More crazy-making bafflement for me. This went on for a couple months and at this point, I was certain I was losing my mind. The occasion arose when he was again going out of town for the day, and my sister asked if she could come use the extra typewriter in the office. Fred said it was okay and she came and spent the entire day there, typing a paper. She got to the office shortly after I did, we ate lunch together in the office, and we left together. On the rare occasions I had to leave the office, I told her not to answer the phone if it rang, but she told me the phone never rang when I was gone. Nobody came into the office all day. In short, it was a typical day for the office. The next day, Fred started in on me again with the usual “where were you, I tried calling all day and you never answered the phone.” He listed all the people who had complained to him that they’d been in the office and couldn’t find me. He must have forgotten my sister had been there, or he didn’t realize she was going to be there the entire day. I asked him how many times he thought he’d called and he said at least a dozen times. I told him that not only had I been there to answer the phone all day – which, by the way, had rung only a couple of times, and was answered when it did – but my sister had been there all day and could back me up on that, and the fact that the phone didn’t ring at all when I was out of the office. For the first time, I realized Fred had been lying to me about the phone calls, about the mail, and about a lot of other things I’ve probably forgotten over the years. I finally had the ammunition I needed to call him on it. I told him I knew he was lying about it, I didn’t know why and didn’t want to know, but it had to stop. He never tried the phone game with me again.

Shortly after our come-to-Jesus talk, Fred was gone to another government auction and was away for the day. I usually walked to work, and this day was no different, but I was running a little behind and didn’t want to be late for work, even though Fred wasn’t going to be there to say anything about it. There were a lot of other people hurrying to work and to classes. As I was walking past the Natural Resources building, a movement on one of the upper floors caught my eye. I looked up – and there was a naked man dangling from a window on the third floor! He was facing the building and had his fingers hooked onto the window sill. I stopped and took a good look, just to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing, and confirmed that yes indeed – there was a naked man hanging by his fingertips from a window on the third floor. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen this, but it seemed I was the only one who noticed. Nobody else was reacting, they were busy hustling to jobs and classes. I watched him for a minute, looked at my watch, and realized I was going to be late for work if I didn’t get moving. What was I thinking?? It certainly would have been more entertaining, not to mention instructional, to stay and see what the guy was going to do. Duty called louder than curiosity, however, and I skinned through the office door right at 8 a.m. This didn’t stop me from wondering about this odd event, however, and when Fred returned the next day, I told him about it. Once I stopped letting Fred make me think I was going insane, I discovered he was quite the campus busybody and gossip. He looked at me like I was actually insane and said “you didn’t stay to see what happened, or tell anyone?” Well, no, I didn’t want to be late for work. Fred went into busybody high gear and asked me to show him the window in question, then set about to discover the details. It turned out the window was to one of the women’s bathrooms, and there had been an illicit party late into the night. So much for campus security. Fred’s theory was the guy woke up late and maybe one of his party friends had taken his clothes as a joke. Rather than walk through the building naked, he escaped out the window, then didn’t know what to do. Fred even scouted the bushes beneath the window and determined some looked crushed, so he figured the guy finally dropped to the ground, apparently didn’t hurt himself, then took off across campus (naked). This was all conjecture and theory, and we’ll never know what actually happened. Why nobody else saw this, I’ll never know – it remains one of those unsolved mysteries.

Fred and I got along much better after that, but I  basically changed my personality in order to get along with him. He was better, but that’s only a matter of degrees; he was who he was, and I wasn’t going to change him. As painful as it was, I’m glad my HR friend told me to stick it out, because it was a great lesson in learning how to work with difficult people. I never trusted him again, but instead of fighting his chronic game playing and lies, I’d just let it roll past me without giving it any significance, but I never ever defended myself or apologized to him again. Basically, I gave him the sort of responses you give people when you aren’t really listening but you can’t tell them to shut up and go away.

Other than the challenge of dealing with Fred, this was one of the least challenging jobs I’ve ever had, with the exception of some of the temporary jobs I’ve done. I remember more about Fred and his head games than I remember about what I actually did there. When I say this office was quiet, I mean it was like a tomb most of the time. If an actual person showed up at my office door, it was such a rare occurrence, I’d sometimes be startled. Fred would have told anyone how busy he was, but mostly he was busy with head games and being a busybody.

I never got to the point where I really liked Fred, but I could work with him. To my surprise, I found he really liked me. He seemed to make absolutely no connection between the way he treated me and how that might affect how I felt about him. I had been there a little over a year when, for reasons I don’t remember (probably loss of funding somewhere), my position was eliminated, and I was laid off. I was overjoyed. Fred cried. Yes, really.

The office was a beautiful vintage home, with a wide wraparound porch, a double entry to keep out the cold, leaded glass windows, and lots of wood. I don’t know if the engineering company had refurbished it, but someone had and it was like walking through a door to the past. I remember everyone being nice, but not terribly friendly.

Things started out kind of weird. The word processor was on the second floor. I’d been shown the desk, but was told multiple people used the word processor, so they couldn’t assign that desk to me, and I was given a somewhat generic desk on the first floor, near the copy room. As it turned out, it didn’t really matter whether I had a desk, because I spent no time there. After a couple of weeks, I started wondering why I wasn’t doing what I’d been hired to do. Finally, I went upstairs and asked the woman who was using the word processor if she knew when I might expect to start doing word processing. That’s when I found out she was actually the person I’d been hired to replace. She had changed her mind about leaving right before her scheduled last day, they’d allowed her to stay on, and she had no plan to leave. The word processor desk wasn’t used by multiple people, it was still her desk. For some reason, all the employees had been told not to tell me, and it was the office secret. I think she was actually relieved the big secret was out. I went to talk to our boss and was basically told I should be glad they had decided not to renege on their job offer two days before I was supposed to start. I became her back-up.

So, what did they have me doing? Well, this engineering company did a lot of work with waste water systems. They had specs, operating manuals, etc. etc. etc. Hence, the need for a word processor. All these documents had to be copied and bound into 3-ring binders, and they made multiple copies. The number of copies depended on their contract. Since they had someone to run the word processor, someone familiar with their office and documents and systems, and since I’m sure she didn’t want to be relegated to copying, collating and binding, the new girl got the job.

Being the old days, I’m not talking about a super-dooper electronic digital copying machine that copies, collates and binds and the only thing the operator has to do after sending the digital file to the machine is make sure nothing jams up. I’m not even talking about something that copies and collates. I can be thankful I’m not talking about dittos. Here’s how this went: I would go to the copy machine and run ## copies of page 1, then take it to the conference room, where there were a couple long, large tables, and place page 1 in the first slot of a flexible expanding collator. (Non-affiliate link, but Amazon is the only place I could find one of these things.) I then went back to the copier and copied page 2, repeating the process until all the slots in the collators on all the tables were filled, or the end of the document had been reached. They had something like 10 of the largest expanding collators you could get and they were lined down both sides of all the tables. Then, I’d start at the beginning, pull a sheet from each slot of the collator all the way down each side of the table, stack it up at the end, and start over at the beginning, turning each copy at a 90-degree angle so I could keep each set separate. I’d do that until the collators were empty. Some documents were so long, one time through the process wasn’t enough to complete the document and then I’d start back with the copying, then collate, then put the second set with the first set. Rinse and repeat until all copies of the entire document were complete, then I put them in binders. I don’t remember punching holes, so we probably had pre-punched copy paper thank you God. It’s also possible I have just blanked out the memory of putting three holes in that many copies of that many pages. I would then run copies of the inserts for the front and spine of all the binders and insert them, stack the binders in boxes, then start on the next document. The supply of documents to be copied and collated seemed endless, but just in case I ran out, there was filing. Up to this point, filing had been my least favorite office job. Now, it was a blessed break from the monotony of copying and collating. If I ran out of copying, collating and filing, they could find some blueprints that needed to be copied.

Probably because I wasn’t there long, and I was unhappy for most of it, and because everyone in the office was keeping a secret from me, I didn’t make any friends at this job. I don’t even remember the name of my boss or any of my co-workers. I was also pretty isolated, spending most of the day alone in the conference room or copy/file room. Aside from the misery and boredom induced by spending the day copying, collating, and filing, the most memorable event was a kerfuffle over… shoes.

In those days, women wore dresses, pantyhose and heels to work. Always. There were no casual days, and this was not a casual office. Standing on my feet all day, walking around conference tables and collating, or standing in front of the copier or file cabinet, was getting to me, and I started slipping off my shoes. I also admit I might have been getting a bit of an attitude problem, but honestly saw nothing objectionable about it. I would, of course, slip them back on whenever I went out into the offices. I even put them on to walk from the conference room to the copy room, slipping them off again in the copy room while I stood in front of the copier. One day, the HR guy came in and told me it was unprofessional to take my shoes off in the office. (Seriously, did someone complain about it?) I pointed out to him that I only took them off in the conference room and the copy room. The conference room was closed while I was working in there, and I was alone there 90% of the time. The copy room was in the back of the house and only employees went in there. At that point, I didn’t care if other employees thought I was unprofessional. He said if they needed to use the conference room on a moment’s notice, someone (a client? clients never came into the office) might see me. I looked at him, looked at the two conference tables covered in collators and reams of paper and the stacks of binders in the chairs, looked back at him and said there was no way anybody was having a meeting in that room on a moment’s notice. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t a conference room, it was a document assembly room that could be used as a conference room, but only with sufficient advance notice. (In the few months I worked there, it was never used as a conference room.) That’s the last I heard about taking off my shoes being unprofessional, but I wasn’t there all that much longer anyway.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to get tired of this job. I talked to my boss many times, which resolved nothing because the woman I’d been hired to replace was still there and they didn’t know what to do with both of us. I went back to HR at USU and told my contact there I needed a job. This led to my working as a secretary for Fred, in the Ecology Center, which is part of the Natural Resources department. Which is another story, but first there’s a side note…

When I gave notice at the engineering company, my boss asked me where I was going to work, then went ballistic. In my opinion, his reaction was completely over the top. I mean – what did he expect? We’d had multiple discussions about what I was doing and how unhappy I was there, and I was pretty certain it wouldn’t be difficult to replace me with a file clerk who made a lot less than I was being paid. Plus, they still had their original word processing secretary! What was the problem? Later, in the file room, I got the back story from someone. My boss at the engineering company was Fred’s neighbor, and they hated each other with a passion. There had been shouting matches in their front yards, lawsuits and threats of lawsuits for a variety of petty complaints and slights. He couldn’t stand Fred, and Fred couldn’t stand him. He was certain I knew this and had taken the job with Fred to spite him. I knew nothing about any of this, but I later learned that the minute Fred saw my resume and who I was working for, he wanted to hire me, and then he took the first opportunity to rub it in his neighbor’s face. Yeah, that’s the kind of guy I was going to work for.