Conclusions
So after two weeks of sitting by patiently while my dogs hogged the phone, I came to the following conclusions: The animal communicators with whom I spoke all seemed like nice, sincere people. They seemed to genuinely love animals and believe that their work was for real.
But judging by the three-pronged saga of Winky’s mysterious past, either some of these people are delusional or my dog Winky is a sociopath.
Cell Phone Etiquette
I know I am not the only person who is growing increasingly irritated with the way my fellow Americans have become obsessed en masse with talking on cell phones. Ever since cell phones caught on in such a behemoth way, everyone is suddenly under the impression that they need to be on the phone all the time.
Pre–cell phone, I don’t remember seeing people lined up by the hundreds on street corners, in the parking lots of gas stations, and in front of supermarkets waiting for a chance to use the pay phones. In fact, believe it or not, people used to spend a portion of the day totally and completely phoneless!
Now these very same people seem to think they cannot really go anywhere or do anything at all unaccompanied by a phone. They feel a true sense of deprivation if they cannot make phone calls on the land, on the sea, and in the air. And with the rise of this obsessive-compulsive need for continuous phoning, phone decorum, along with any respect for the privacy of others, has melted away like the snows of yesteryear.
Not very long ago, being in a commercial establishment constituted a shared experience among a random assortment of like-minded patrons. Here we are all here in this drafty hallway/annoyingly crowded airport lounge/ridiculously loud, poorly lit Afro-French bistro, we would silently think, as a group. Like it or not, we are all in this together.
Now, because of the intrusive and domineering nature of cell phone yakkers who blithely force us to listen to private musings meant for the ears of someone we cannot even see, we find ourselves unwillingly preoccupied by the dopey details of some stranger’s dinner plans, business dealings, or marital woes, all of which we know are none of our business. They force us into a position of feeling like nosy, snooping interlopers even though we are every bit as entitled as they to be wherever we are—wasting our hard-earned money on overpriced coffee concoctions or violent, ill-conceived, poorly plotted summer movie blockbusters.
A couple of weeks ago I read an editorial in The New York Times by a writer named Sharon White Taylor in which she made a plea for someone to develop some hard-and-fast cell phone etiquette.
I have risen to the challenge. Please regard the following as a sancrosact edict, not unlike an amendment to the Constitution.
Cell Phone Etiquette— Defy It at Your Own Risk!!!
As it is impolite to place cell phone calls at a distance of less than fifteen feet from another person, we hold these truths to be self-evident:
The interior of a commercial establishment is to be regarded as an equally shared airspace, not to be vocally dominated by one person more than another. Which is why it follows that the situations listed hereunder are inappropriate for placing, receiving, or otherwise engaging in any and all cell phone calls:
1. At the Table in a Restaurant
It is impolite to place or to receive a cell phone call when in the presence of dining companions. Group dining was developed as a ritual of camaraderie and communion among those at the table only.
It is also impolite for the waiter or waitress to place or receive phone calls while taking an order or bringing the food. If the chef in the kitchen is back there talking on his cell phone while he is making something with balsamic vinegar, this is permissible as long as he is not visible to the dining population.
2. At a Theatrical Event
It is definitely not okay for audience members to place or receive phone calls in or around any kind of theatrical venue. So, too, is it inappropriate for the performers on the stage or in the orchestra pit. A good rule of thumb is this: If you have a program in your hand, or are already dressed in your Elizabethan costume, turn your cell phone off and put it away.
This rule also extends to the placing or receiving of cell phone calls during a movie. Even a very, very bad movie. With the possible exception of an Adam Sandler movie, when it is permissible to receive a maximum of two calls from licensed health care professionals, concerned about your mental state and trying to talk you out of there.
3. Inside a Lavatory Stall
The presence of unseen strangers, even those only present via cell phone, is not welcome among the pantsless during the vulnerable Homo sapiens waste elimination process.
4. In the Supermarket
This also includes the pharmacy, the hardware store, and any storelike place in a mall. The other day I found myself shopping for groceries next to a guy on a cell phone who was selecting his purchases, one at a time, via a tedious discussion with God only knows who. I can only hope the person on the other end of the phone had the sense to break up with him later that evening. He does not deserve to have a happy home life.
5. In the Elevator
Allow us to share our precious between-floor-transit moments together in complete silence.
6. While Dancing, or During Any Activity That Involves an Embrace
This, of course, implies no cell phoning during sex. With the one exception of any sexual situation in which a partner has refused to perform any sort of foreplay, but then proceeds to whale away for a really long time regardless. Under these circumstances, it is okay to place calls to taped messages such as Moviephone or 900-number horoscopes which involve only listening, but not talking.
7. At the Doctor’s Office
When in the examining room, it is not appropriate for the physician, dentist, surgeon, attending nurse, or patient to place or receive personal cell phone calls during any tedious, nerve-racking, or potentially humiliating medical treatment.
B. Don’t forget the great outdoors. This includes anywhere in, on, or around water, such as poolside situations, snorkeling, deep-sea diving, hot-tubbing, waterskiing, and boating. It is also impolite to take or receive phone calls in the bathtub or on the toilet. (See also #3.)
Likewise the wilderness. Cell phones are not to be taken on nature hikes, to national parks, or on rock-climbing expeditions. No one came all that way, not to mention spent all that money on the special shoes, just to listen to someone else’s phone conversation.
Well, there is much more to be said. But I don’t want to risk requiring too much of a hostile and unruly public all at once. Kindly memorize the above. When it is fully integrated into society as we know it, I will let you know what I expect from you next.
My Career in Stun Guns
I live in Los Angeles because I am a frequent employee of what we refer to as the entertainment industry. And one of the by-products of that liaison is being “invited” to join an awful lot of labor unions. Which is why I’ve been a dues-paying member of the Writers Guild of America for about ten years, although I’d managed to avoid any gathering of more than three writers in one place at one time until last week, when I decided to go down to the Hollywood Palladium and see if I could find out why, as a member of the Writers Guild, I had been on strike for four months. This being my first-ever union meeting, I can offer no comparisons, except that I think there are probably fewer pudgy minoxidil users in rimless glasses and sleeveless sweater vests in attendance at a giant meeting of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
As for the content of the meeting, it fluctuated wildly between a very dull point-by-point reading of the proposed contract and some extremely raucous shouting, complete with the wild hissing, booing, and cheering one might expect at one of Saddam Hussein’s rallies. There were no refreshments and no fabulous door prizes, and no one besides me was interested in doing “the wave.”
Yet, while I had gone into the meeting unfocused, alienated, and kind of irritated, I left feeling rather impressed by the passion that members seemed to have for continuing th
e strike. And in trying to cope with the idea of even more striking, I became aware that the reason I’d tended to avoid previous Writers Guild meetings was my growing disenchantment with the field of TV scriptwriting. So maybe my whole forced retirement was just a sign from God that it was time to select a more suitable career. Which is why I got up the next morning and started carefully reading the help-wanted ads, searching for beacons that might light the way to a brighter tomorrow.
1. Selling Stun Guns: A Career Just for Me?
No wonder I got excited. The ad said, “Make big money selling the revolutionary stun gun,” and what little girl doesn’t grow up hoping to hear herself one day speak the words “Any stun guns for you today, sir or ma’am?” Of course my heart was racing with anticipation as I dialed the number. A woman answered and told me someone would call me back. I didn’t realize how unnerved I was by this until I heard myself tell her that my name was Monica. When the phone rang just a few minutes later, I jumped. A man’s voice said, “Hello, Monica?” and I felt the blood drain from my head. Just yesterday I had been a slightly respected member of the community, and now strange men were phoning me at home and calling me Monica. “What’s all that clicking on the line?” the guy asked. “I don’t like all that clicking. I better call you back.” He hung up, and I briefly considered not answering when he called back. Maybe weapon sales wasn’t the ideal career for me. “How about if I just come down to your headquarters?” is what I eventually said to the guy. “We don’t have a headquarters,” he told me, but he would “arrange to meet anywhere you’d like. We’re a fly-by-night organization.” “So I guess that means you don’t have a medical or dental plan” is what I said, but I was thinking, Boy! This is too good to be true! An opportunity to go to an undisclosed location and meet a strange man from a fly-by-night organization who is driving around with a trunk full of weapons! Pinch me! I must be dreaming! “I’m going to have to think about it” is what I eventually replied as I reopened the want ads.
2. Stun Guns Part Two: The Adventure Continues
“Sell Stun Guns! Promote Peace! Prevent Violence! Make Quick Cash Daily!” said the ad right under the first ad. Now here was an attractive package—international diplomacy and high-stakes capitalism neatly rolled into one. Okay, I’d been burned before, but by now I kind of liked the idea of telling people that I was professionally “into stun guns.” It had a crisp, dignified ring to it. So I dialed this number with a lot more enthusiasm and confidence—or at least that’s what I thought I was doing until I heard myself tell the salesman who answered the phone that my name was Monica. “You have a nice voice, Monica,” the guy on the phone said. “I’ll bet you could sell stun guns.” Suddenly I felt the room spinning and my skin growing damp and clammy—the combination of a goofy alias and a violent weapon being used in the same sentence was making me swoon. But on the bright side, this guy did have a headquarters, and so I found myself walking up to the door of a small white stuccoed house on a busy street, across from a retirement home and directly next door to COMPLETE BRIDAL SERVICE, EVERYTHING FOR THE WEDDING (which I figured probably was a prime location for this kind of business, considering the potential for shared referrals).
Outside the front door was a large, colorful lottery wheel, and beneath it was a crude painting of a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end. A man of about forty-five, sporting the always-fashionable Harpo Marx hairstyle, opened the door and invited me into a small but tidy living room. “Why are you looking around all nervous?” he said. “We’re a licensed lottery dealer. That ought to make you feel safer.” And of course once I realized that, I relaxed immediately—cushioned by the knowledge that lottery dealers are the moral backbone of every community. “Have you ever seen a stun gun?” he asked, instructing me to sit down on a sad old couch directly across from a large pyramid-style display of various hair-care products: shampoo, creme rinse, styling gel, mousse, extra-body conditioner … a perfect addition to the decor of any smart room.
“Do you know what a stun gun is?” he asked, disappearing into a back room. “No,” I loudly confessed, “I barely know what a creme rinse is.” He returned and sat down uncomfortably close to me on the couch, removing from a box another black box about the size of a cassette player. “This is a stun gun,” he told me. “When you push the trigger here, it sends out a jolt of electricity. It’s forty-five thousand volts. It’s the only legal self-defense weapon that you can carry concealed.” He held the thing out in front of my face and squeezed the trigger, causing a bright blue miniature lightning bolt to jump from one point to another and causing me to jump from one point to another as well. “The way it works is we sell them to you by the dozen for $30 apiece, and then you resell them for $79.95 … but to tell you the truth, your personality … the way you react to the guns …,” he said, hesitating, “well, it’s obvious you’re uncomfortable with them, and if you don’t like them you’re not going to have a lot of luck selling them.” Somehow I knew there was a grain of truth in this. So I knocked him down and, grabbing the stun gun, zapped him. Then, when he was out for the count, I shampooed and moussed up his hair. (Okay, I made that last part up, but, as may be clear by now, I left there still thinking like a writer. I knew I hadn’t found my new career yet.)
3. Ad Number Three: My Career as a Professional Hypnotist
“Earn while you learn,” the ad said. “No college education required.” And while it was too late to do anything about erasing the latter, the idea of having my own little club act where I could wear a gown and humiliate audience volunteers had me nearly paralyzed with joy. Which is why I found myself in a room full of Naugahyde chairs in a building just a few doors down from the Hot Legs Boutique in midtown Van Nuys. We were a small group and so ill at ease that none of us could even look at one another, so we were relieved when a thirtyish man with a mustache (who looked like the “after” photo in a men’s styling salon) came in and dimmed the lights. He instructed us to watch the TV monitor at the front of the room.
“We are going to learn all about Marlo Thomas’s unusual new movie with Kris Kristofferson,” an announcer’s voice boomed as we watched the opening credits for PM Magazine. “Plus, we’ll find out about a miraculous cure for everything!” Right away I suspected that one of these two probably had something to do with hypnosis. And sure enough, seconds later we dropped Marlo like a hot potato and met Carol, a singer who was plagued by some kind of mysterious vocal obstruction until she turned to hypnosis, at which time, she said, she “discovered my own knowingness.” Seconds later, Florence Henderson was seen chatting with Merv Griffin about how hypnosis allowed her to “go back in and clean out the areas of your life that bother you.” (By this I assumed she meant that whole unfortunate Wessonality campaign, unless she meant those endless reruns of The Brady Bunch)
When the segment was over, the guy from the styling salon photo rejoined our group. “What kind of people did you just see using hypnosis?” he asked us. “Were they reasonable people? Functional people? Normal people with normal problems?” No one said anything right away, maybe because we all had the feeling that the jury was still out on Florence Henderson. So to loosen us up a bit he had us go around the room and introduce ourselves. The girl with the fluffy hair was a receptionist at a local TV station. The white-haired guy next to her was unemployed. The hip-looking guy next to him was in music publishing and used to manage big moneymaking bands in the sixties. And the oily-haired guy soaking in cheap cologne to my left was a security guard. As for me, I was just a happy little woman named Monica who had a dream of a nightclub career where I could take audience volunteers and stretch them out stiff as a board between two chairs.
With some annoyance the instructor informed me that this was not that kind of hypnosis. This was for midcareer people who want to work in a “therapy-related field” but don’t want to spend eight to ten years getting a psychology credential. The twenty-four-hour beginning class ($295) would enable students to begin to see clients professionally i
n just twelve weeks. And by the end of the first year’s internship here a trainee hypnotist could figure on making $20,000 to $50,000. As I looked over the application forms, I had to admit I felt spooked by the notion that in less than three months some civilian who wanted to stop smoking or who was experiencing stress might find him- or herself growing sleepy by gazing into the eyes of a security guard.
“Anyone can print up a sign and just say they’re a hypnotist,” said our instructor, “but we are approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.” I thought about that and, deciding that the first way was more to my liking, headed out the door to check out the cost of printing up a sign. I had mixed feelings—sadness, because I hadn’t found my new career, and happiness, because the strike had given me the free time to check out some very important new options. “Train to be a model, or just look like one,” said the next ad on the page. Now here was a career that just maybe I could be comfortable with. I wonder what they pay you to just look like a model?
Firing My Dog
The recession is something that affects each American differently. But as I sat staring it in the face, it occurred to me that there were some obvious ways to cut my expenses dramatically. Which is why, one day in late summer, I called for my new dog Lewis to come into my office. Since he never comes when I call him, I finally gave up and succeeded in locating him out in the yard underneath a hedge, where I was able to make him stop digging and look me in the eye.
What the Dogs Have Taught Me: And Other Amazing Things I've Learned Page 11