Pet Peeves

Hello World, Good news! This is the last Friday the 13th of 2015, after the twin terrors started off the year on the wrong foot in February and March, and thanks so very much not. Even better, 2016 will have only a single one for the entire year, so that already sounds like a big improvement over this year, I dare say. This week was also notable for Veterans Day on Wednesday, as the country took a collective pause to honor the sacrifices of brave men and women (and their service animals) in uniform. Armistice Day, as it used to be known, has taken a real beating over the years, and like Columbus Day, is in grave danger of being relegated to the scrap heap of holiday history, through no fault of its own. Banks, post offices, and some schools may shut down for the day, but for everyone else, it's still business as usual, without even the sanitation men around here getting the day off, and that's saying something. Pretty soon, they're just going to designate one day a year and call it "Miscellaneous Occasion Day for the Observance of Antiquated Holidays That Have Fallen by the Wayside" and lump them all together in one place, once and for all. As long as we're on the subject of animals, it reminds me of the latest rage that is all over social media these days, and is not only the top dog, but also the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees, and the king of the (ant) hill. Along the same lines as uncovering your perfect porn star name [your first pet's name and the street you grew up on] or your inner Mafia gangster name [your middle name and your most prominent physical or psychological feature] thanks to our friends at The Black Cat Appreciation page, there is now a handy chart from Fresh Step for choosing Your New Cat Name, to satisfy your own feline cravings, or share with your special furry companion. They take the last digit of your phone number, each of which has been assigned a specific title, like General or Emperor, and follow that with your zodiac sign, each of which has a particular adjective associated with it, like Scratchy or Fluffy. Then they wrap it all up with your favorite color, which goes along with its own nonsense words like McPaws or Von Scooper - and you end up with something like Princess Bossy Pants or Count Fishy Whiskers for your trouble. Unfortunately when I do it, I get Sir Hairy Bottom, thanks not, so there's obviously room for improvement there, and that's not just the catnip talking, believe me. And speaking of room for improvement, recently at my temporary job in the real estate office, I needed to check out an empty space, amply armed with a comprehensive checklist to record any damage left behind by the vacating tenants. It came as an unwelcome surprise to discover that the lights didn't work in the hallway, so that when I opened the outside door from the parking lot, that provided the only light to be had. Looking about, I could come up with nothing at hand that I could use for the purpose of propping open the outside door to let in any light, so at least I could find my way to the vacant space down the hallway. But from the door, I could make out a bathroom across the hallway, and I figured that I could reach it even in the dark, once the outside door closed behind me, and then use the bathroom lights to help illuminate the rest of the way. I could just barely make out a dim red light inside the bathroom door, so I followed that and started to feel around for a light switch, which I'm thinking must be near the little red light, no doubt helpfully provided so you can find the light switch in the dark, after all. (There I go, using logic again.) You can imagine my astonishment (and to say that I jumped out of my skin would not be overstating the case by any means, I can assure you) when suddenly it spit out a paper towel at me. Yes, that red light in the bathroom was the motion sensor on the automatic paper towel dispenser, and when I waved my hand in its general direction, on the prowl for a light switch, it very dutifully (if misguidedly) responded in the only way it could, by supplying me with a paper towel for my efforts. I can't tell you how I laughed (which really reverberated eerily in the dark vast emptiness) when I realized what was going on. Once I came down from the ceiling, that is. Anyway, the punch line to the story is that I found out later that the hallway lights actually did work, but a previous electrician had installed the light switches upside-down, so you needed to push them down (OFF) to turn the lights on. (Silly me, using logic again.) Since I came in the building when the hallway was dark and both switches were pushed up (ON) I just assumed that the lights weren't working, and although I did flip them up and down a couple of times, apparently it wasn't enough to fire the ballasts and power up the fluorescent tubes. So apparently the whole bathroom shenanigans could have been avoided in the first place, although admittedly, it would have been at the expense of one heck of a story that was the cat's meow and then some. The even more punch line to the story was that I inadvertently left the outside light turned on when I finished and locked up behind me, thinking everything was not only hunky, but also dory, and both at the same time. Au contraire! (That's French for "Who turned on the dark?") Remember those upside-down light switches by the door that I thought didn't work? It seems that one of them was for the spotlight above the outside door to the parking lot, and so I accidentally turned it on (by pushing it down) when I thought I would have been shutting it off instead. I didn't think about it after that, although I did notice it was on during the day, and I just figured that the timer was set wrong, so the light was coming on at odd times. In any case, it stayed on for 3 days straight, until the janitor figured out what the problem was (he already knew that it wasn't attached to a timer, so that couldn't be the problem anyway) and when he explained to me that he went inside to turn it off, that was the first that I realized the part I had played in the upside-down light switch caper. I can tell you that somewhere, Con Edison is having a great big laugh. Speaking of capers, alert readers may recall the prospective tenants (Sheldon Leonard and Vito Scotti) who seemed so inordinately keen on that poor derelict space crammed full of the bathroom contractor's various and voluminous piles of supplies, and were ready to sign a lease the same day - in fact, we sent one to them and were just waiting for them to send it back, they were so anxious to move in. Not so fast! Apparently they had a change of heart (or wallet or conscience or something) and decided against taking the suite in the end, which made a lot of sense, but only surprised me because they seemed so overly wild about it to start with. The only thing I can figure is that they must have realized that they couldn't tunnel into the bank vault from there after all, and they lost all interest in the space at that point. So we're still on the lookout for someone to give that suite a good home, or vice versa, in spite of its shortcomings - although with my luck, it will turn out to be someone like Professor Hissy Von Litter, I shouldn't wonder. Elle