Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

The Toilet for the Severely Constipated

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And then, in my usual struggle to convince my college daughter that her parents have anything happening in our lives back in in old Chicago, I mis-crowed on a FaceTime call that we’d acquired two toilets “that flush seven bowling balls!”

“Ummm, no, Dad. That’s impossible.”

“No, really! There’s a picture of it right on the box!”

“Dad, I don’t care what it says on the box, I’m telling you …”

The Murrmudgeon: ‘It’s a Lot,’ and Other Smarmy Expressions We Can Do Without

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I don’t like phrases whose very use is subtle, uncopped-to code, signaling that the utterer belongs to a certain cultural tribe.

Especially when that tribe is mine.

For instance, it grates on my balding scalp when one person refers to another person as a “good human.” What was wrong with “good person”? You could call someone a good person without vaguely insulting other people, or slyly appointing yourself as an arbiter between good members of your own species, and bad. Imagine a turtle, going around and appointing some of the other turtles, “good turtles.” What an asshole that turtle would have to be.

“It’s about how you show up.” What does that mean, exactly? I have heard it and read it a million times on LinkedIn and I literally do not know. Far as I can tell, all it means is that if you say it, you’re probably a good human. (Which means you live in a northern U.S. state and think Bad Bunny is a misnomer. Again: These are my hu— people! I just hate the way they talk.)

“It’s a lot.” You know what else is a lot? Life. Life is a lot. It’s more than you can even imagine. By the year, by the month, by the week and by the day. Even the most advantaged person’s life is a lot—or feels like a lot, to them, most of the time. I have a relatively easy job, talking to people all day, and writing stuff (sometimes, about the people I’ve been talking to). And yet every day seems like a lot.

I mean, just yesterday I was up at 6:00 a.m., e-nagged three dozen journalists, podcasters and communication executives, sat through five hours of Zoom calls of varying stakes—(one I forgot about until one-minute til, and had to frantically shower in the sink)—scheduled a half dozen more calls and embarrassingly double-booked an important one because I was distracted by a $2K bill I hadn’t seen coming, and had two toilets delivered on the sidewalk in front of my house that I had to wrestle, solo, up the stairs and into the living room. All before taking the dog for four-mile run and hammering this post out, between correspondence and communication about serious issues with friends and family, before dinner.

Or as Woody Guthrie sang, “I was born working, and I worked my way up by hard work. I ain’t ever got nowhere yet, but I got there by hard work. Work of the hardest kind. I been down and I been out. I been disgusted and busted and couldn’t be trusted. I worked my way up, and I worked my way down. I been drunk and I been sober, and I been baptized and I got hijacked. I been robbed for cash, and I been robbed on credit. Worked my way in jail and I worked my way outta jail. Woke up a lotta mornings, didn’t know where I was at. Yeah, it’s a lot.”