Lots of Monkeys

Remember “Take your daughter to work day?”

Today is “Take your mother to work day” for me. Which is an interesting experience, to say the least. Introduced my coworkers to my mother and of course, she behaves herself. Then, back in the office, strange words start to issue forth from my mouth.

“No, you can’t touch that.”
“Put that back, please.”
“Okay, I’ll take you to the restroom.”
“Please don’t touch that.”
“No, it’s not lunchtime yet.”

Right now she’s sitting in my reception area and playing secretary and surfing the net. It’s interesting because I have memories of me going to her job during school holidays. Mainly I remember sitting and doing homework, or reading.

But of course, being the perfect child–I never touched anything.

Well, mom and I are just geeking out a bit. We did a bit of shopping today, had some lunch, and in general catching up.

And, in typical Mom fashion–I can’t keep her from cleaning.

“These chess pieces were all over the place so I cleaned them up.”
“Mom, that was a game in progress.”

Ah well. These things can’t be helped.

Mothers will be mothers. Sons will roll their eyes as they have for generations before them.

And they’ll always be family.

I have one of those keychain lights. If you know me, undoubtedly, I’ve shone one in your face (either by design or by accident) and you’ve been blinded by it. These LED keychain lights are Photon Lights. Extremely useful in my line of work, they light up the backs of machines and allow me to get at whatever cable I’m looking for. They’re great at night just walking around. Also useful on road trips. And the amount of light they produce is incredible. Ask me, I’ll show you! Regardless. . .

Being me, I bought one of the most expensive and feature filled model of these lights about a year ago. Cost me about twenty five dollars. To my disappointment, I noticed that battery life was extremely short. I rolled my eyes, chalked it up to “early adopter” risk, put it on a shelf, and promptly forgot about it for a year.

Browsing the web, I found out that there was a lifetime warranty for said light. I sent it back to them with a letter explaining the short battery life. A week later, I’ve got a brand new light.

And spare batteries.

And, in addition, they sent me another Photon Light with a different color LED, “for my trouble.” It’s yellow.

All for the price of postage and an envelope. (For the record–one dollar and ninety seven cents.) Now that’s a warranty.

And yes, I realize that talking about this is exactly what they want me to do. But could you imagine if other companies handled defective merchandise in the same way?

“I’m sorry that we had to recall your car. But here’s a brand new one, and another one for your trouble. I hope you like yellow.”

But we all know that’s not going to happen.

Taking care of customers, after all, is a dying art.

Okay. I thought I was seeing things when I had my brief stint with television a few weeks ago. Something called, “The Rerun Show.”

When I first saw this on the glass teat, I thought, “Hey, wow, television’s doing self parody! That’s great.”

Little did I know how wrong I was. These are television shows reenacted word for word. It’s the same scripts, different actors.

“The Rerun Show” revisits classic TV moments when a talented ensemble cast reinacts episodes of some of AmericaÂ’s favorite TV shows with a contemporary comic twist.

And yes, I know that “reinact” is spelled incorrectly. I’m taking it word for word from NBC’s website.

Public Service Announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, television has reached its saturation point. No further innovation is possible. I advise everyone to go out and perform one or more of the following activities: Play some pool. Read. Become regulars at a bar somewhere. Visit a museum. Drink sangria. Try all you can eat sushi. Play some games. Watch movies with friends.

Choose what you want to be entertained by, when you want. The networks have given up trying to entertain you.

You’re going to have to go out and do it yourself.