Balancing the Tip

Having recently received a gift certificate for Starbucks, an establishment I don't normally visit for a variety of reasons, I suddenly became aware of the tip jar. A business that charges up to four dollars for a cup of coffee has the audacity to put out a tip jar in front of the cash register. The tip jar is not for the extra change you might receive from your purchase. No, as evidenced by the dollar bills stuffed in it, no change is expected; thus, the minimum tip appears to be a dollar. Something else that soon becomes evident is that tipping will get that mocha to you, not only a little faster, but with a little better quality to the drink.

A tip is defined as “a material favor or gift, usually money, given in return for service.” It is a gift in addition to the advertised bill of fare.

I can’t vouch for where the idea for the tip jar originated, but I remember reading somewhere that the concept developed in Florida when a cashier at a restaurant placed a tip jar in front of the cash register. Fellow employees told him that it was a crazy idea - that no one would put a tip in a jar for merely taking their money at a cash register. But by the end of the shift, there was a tidy sum in the jar. From there, the idea of the tip jar grew until today the tip jar is ubiquitous. Now you will find it at coffeehouses, sandwich shops, and ice-cream parlors as the practice continues to spread.

We have all heard that the word “TIP” is an acronym meaning “To Insure Promptness”. It is thought that tipping descended from feudal society, where a noble lord or lady, as a act of charity, would throw a few coins to serfs to show their appreciation for a good deed.

Unlike a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, who perform full-service jobs at less than the minimum wage with tips expected to make up the difference, employees at counter-service businesses normally receive sufficient base pay, and customers aren't obligated to tip. An individual having a thirty-second transaction with a customer, in which no service is performed having a direct benefit to the customer, is certainly not entitled to a tip as compared to a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, who may be servicing diners for up to an hour or more.

During the last Christmas season, our local newspaper carried an article in which suggested tips were offered for those individuals performing certain services:

* Maid - one week's pay. This is for maids in your employ whom you pay directly. If you use a service and never know who is coming out, don't tip at all.
* Gardener - $20-50.
* USPS Mail carrier - Non-cash gifts with value up to $20. This is for mail carriers that you know and see regularly. Read more below.
* UPS - Regular driver - $15.
* FedEx - Not allowed to accept cash gifts, but a gift up to $25 in value is permissible.
* Apartment building superintendent - $50-200. Tip less if you tip throughout the year.
* Apartment Doorman/concierge - $10-80 or more each, depending upon building. The fewer doormen the building has, the more you tip each one. Those who serve you more should get a bigger tip.
* Apartment building handyman - $15-40 each.
* Apartment building elevator operators - $15-40 each.
* Shampoo - $10
* Manicurist/pedicurist - $15 or more
* Hairdresser/stylist - $15 or more
* Massage therapist - $15 or more. Read more about tipping massage therapists at www.frappydoo.com.
* Newspaper carrier - Daily - $25 - 50, weekend - $10
* Regular overnight delivery person - $10-30
* Teacher - $25-100. Give a gift certificate to a bookstore or office supply store. If you know the teacher's hobbies or interests, then a gift certificate would be nice from the local movie theater, hobby shop, mall, fine restaurant or day spa. Some teachers might feel uncomfortable receiving gifts around grade time. If you are unsure, ask your principal first.
* Coaches, tutors, ballet instructors, music teachers - A small gift from your child.
* Garbage collector(s) - $15-30 each. Nowadays, most garbage collectors are really truck drivers. The truck has an arm that does all the work. If this is your situation, there is no need to tip.
* Baby sitter - One night's pay, plus a small gift from your child.
* Full-time nanny - One week's to one month's pay based on tenure, plus a small gift from your child.
* Au pair - One week's pay, plus a small gift from your child.
* Day care service - $25-70, plus a small gift from your child.
* Parking attendants - $10-20 each
* Personal trainer - $60-100 upon reaching goal.
* Country Club - I believe in tipping at Christmas regardless of the club's tipping policy. I recommend a minimum of $50 for your waiters, locker-room personnel, front-desk employees, and golf professionals. For head waiters or special service, make it $100.
* Dog groomer - 1/4 - 1/2 cost of a session.
* Dog walker or sitter - 1-2 week's pay.

If I had tipped according to the recommendations in the article, I would have paid over a thousand dollars in tips before I ever started to buy gifts for my family.

Why don’t we just end tips (and bonuses) for people who are merely doing the jobs for which they were hired and instead pay them an adequate wage or salary? Then, if they don’t perform well in the job, they can always be dismissed.

What next? A tip jar at the cashier's register in the supermarket?

Spun with Foonerisms

Have you ever experienced an embarrassing slip of the tongue, a linguistic flip-flop in which you made a funny misstatement resulting from the transposition of the initial consonants in words? For example, you meant to say, “I really like Grandma Filley’s tarts, but it comes out, “I really like Grandma Tilley’s farts. So if you have made a verbal slip, rest easy. Many have done likewise. A radio announcer named Harry Von Zell once introduced the president of the United States as Hoobert Heever. And Lowell Thomas presented British minister Sir Stafford Cripps as Sir Stifford Craps. All of these tips of the slongue - I mean slips of the tongue - are examples of spoonerisms.

The word “spoonerism” comes from the name of Reverend Archibald Spooner, a priest and university professor at Oxford, England who lived between 1844 and 1930. He suffered from regular slips of the tongue, and rapidly became famous for them. His famous speech lapses are thought to have resulted from the difficulty he may have had reading. Spooner was an albino and as such, suffered from defective eyesight.

Spooner’s most famous spoonerism was supposed to have been at a church service, where he was heard to tell a parishioner "Mardon me, Padam, but this pie is occupewed -- may I sew you to another sheet?"

There is some difference of opinion about what constitutes a true spoonerism. Some authorities view that a spoonerism can only involve an exchange of initial sounds (usually consonants); thus, "peas and carrots" becomes "keys and parrots." Others allow transposition of syllables ("Don't put all your Basques in one exit") or word parts ("When I throw rocks at seagulls, I leave no tern unstoned."). And others allow the transposition of entire words ("The cows sent into orbit became known as the first herd shot round the world.")

Some other linguistic flip-flops by Spooner turned "a well-oiled bicycle" into "a well-boiled icicle." Spoonerisms, also known as "metathesis", are thus usually a specific form of wordplay involving the swapping of syllables between two words in a phrase (usually exchanging the first syllable of two words), in such a way that the meaning of the phrase is completely altered.

Here are some other examples of spoonerisms:

nosey little cook from cosy little nook
a blushing crow from a crushing blow
our queer old Dean from our dear old Queen
we'll have the hags flung out from we’ll have the flags hung out
know your blows from blow your nose

go and shake a tower from go and take a shower
bowel feast from foul beast
hypodemic nurdle from hypodermic needle
chipping the flannel on TV from flipping the channel on TV
this is the pun fart from this is the fun part

Whore of farts from Four of Hearts
Dicks of Simon's from Six of Diamonds
Hen of tarts from the Ten of Hearts

Birthington's washday from Washington's Birthday
Sale of Two Titties from Tale of Two Cities
Flock of bats from block of flats
Chewing the doors from doing the chores

my zips are lipped from my lips are zipped
"Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride."
"That is hucking filarious.”

Now see if you can translate these spoonerisms:

Prinderella and the Since

Here is a story that will make your cresh fleep. It will give you poose gimples. Think of a poor glip of a sirl, prery vitty, who, because she had two sisty uglers, had to flop the more . . . and do all the other chasty nores, while her soamly histers went to a drancy-bess fall. Wasn't that a shirty dame?

The Pea Little Thrigs

In the happy days when there was no haircity of scam and when pork nicks were a chopple apiece, there lived an old puther mig (In other surds, a wow.) and her sea thruns. Whatever happened to the migs' old pan is still mistwhat of a somery.

Want to try your hand at creating some spoonerisms? Let’s hear them. Apply spoonerisms to excerpts from famous speeches, to news articles , to some dialogue from famous films, to limericks, to folk tales, or to anything else you can think of.

Here are three ways to create your own spoonerisms:

1. Switch Initial Consonants. Example: Psychologist: A person who pulls habits out of rats.
2. Reverse the Syllables. Example: I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
3. Transport Entire Words Around. Example: A bunch of cattle put into a satellite was called the herd shot round the world.

Using Perpetual Warfare to Preserve the Peace

Over four decades ago, President Eisenhower delivered a farewell speech to the nation in which he issued a warning about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals for the military. He emphasized that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence... by the military-industrial complex... The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. ”

The military-industrial complex (MIC) Eisenhower warned against refers to a close and symbiotic relationship between our nation’s armed forces, its arms industry, and associated political and commercial interests. Originally, the President had included Congress in the mix, referring to the military-industrial-congressional complex. He struck out the word “congress” in the reference, but the essential role that Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry was still on his mind. Industry supplies the materiel and other support to the military, while the defense industry depends on the federal government for appropriations to support the complex. The expressions of “permanent war economy” and “war corporatism” are related concepts associated with the MIC.

The permanent war economy and war corporatism as concepts refer to an institutionalized war economy operating in a semi-command-type economy, directed by corporation executives, based on military industry, and funded by state social spending. In the year 2005 the whole world spent about a trillion dollars on the military. The United States alone spent nearly half of that amount - over $478 billion, larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than China's. This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements). The appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have totaled over $350 billion so far, and in January of 2007 President Bush will ask Congress for an additional appropriation of $100 billion for those wars to be added to the $70 billion already appropriated for this year.

Now, it appears at last that the military-industrial-congressional complex has what it has always dreamed of - a perpetual war, a war with no end in sight against “Terrorism”, which is a tactic used by an undefined enemy, not a physical target to be fought and which can be defeated. Winning a war against “Terrorism” is the equivalent of attempting to win a war against “Evil”. Perpetual war is a war with no clear ending conditions. It also describes a situation of ongoing tension that seems likely to escalate at any moment, similar to the cold war, which lasted almost fifty years.

It has become progressively easier for a nation such as the United States to engage in perpetual warfare due to the continuing development of interlocking relationships between those who benefit directly from war and the large and powerful companies such as Halliburton that indirectly benefit and shape the presentation of the effects and consequences of war (i.e., the formation of a military-industrial complex).

In the novel “1984”, George Orwell created three fictional world-dominating superstates engaged in perpetual warfare with one another. The state of war was used by each of the superstates to justify control of its citizenry by totalitarian methods. By creating fear and hate of an undefined enemy, the governments provided an excuse for enforced obedience to Big Brother, who protected them. The economies of all three superstates were based on perpetual warfare, and the citizens were kept busy manufacturing goods, not to improve their own living standard, but to feed the insatiable appetites of the war machines. As a result, the citizens developed a “siege mentality” in which they learned to hate the enemy and love the oppressive government that afforded them protection.

A white paper called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” was presented by the Project for the New American Century or PNAC in September, 2000, a year before the attacks on the World Trade Center. Among the persons signing the paper were Richard Cheney, William J. Bennett, and Jeb Bush. While the paper was published on the internet, implementation of it by the White House has been in secret.

The thrust of the white paper calls for the complete domination of the globe by the United States, with wars against Iraq, Syria, and Iran, domination of outer space and of Cyberspace. It calls for an enlarged military to fight simultaneous wars, and security bases worldwide with extensive military forces posted to keep all nations subservient to US military and economic power. It also calls for nuclear rockets to be fired from spy satellites to suppress any challenge to US global domination.

UPDATE: Excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 2006:

Bush’s Move to Supersize US Military

Washington - Expanding the size of the US armed forces could be an expensive and lengthy task - in essence, a redoubling of the national effort to grapple with the challenge posed by Islamic extremism.
The move would be irrelevant in the Iraq war, say some critics, because by the time more troops are recruited, trained, and deployed, the conflict there will probably be set in its course.
But in calling for such an increase, President Bush said the US military must be positioned to deal with terrorists for a generation to come.
“It’s a calling of our time,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

“Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.” --Shakespeare’s King Lear

Are You a Blogging Addict?

Blogging Addiction Disorder (BAD), which refers to the malady of devoting an excessive amount of time to blogging, is another type of obsessive addiction that has invaded the human psyche. Like all addictions, such as alcoholism, smoking, gambling, pornography, and so on, BAD is a pathological disorder in which individuals, in this case, turn to blogging in an attempt to change mood, to overcome anxiety, to deal with depression, to reduce isolation or loneliness, or to distract themselves from overwhelming problems.

There are two types of addiction: positive and negative. If you are devoted to a hobby and try to spend as much time as possible pursuing it - this could be an outlet for learning, creativity, and self-expression. Thus, in this case it is a positive addiction. But in a truly pathological or negative addiction, the bad outweighs the good, resulting in serious disturbances in one’s ability to function in the real world.

How does one know whether he or she is suffering from Blogging Addiction Disorder(BAD)?

1. Do you feel preoccupied with blogging?
2. Do you feel a need to spend more time in blogging to achieve satisfaction?
3. Do you feel irritable, restless, or depressed when you are not blogging?
4. Do you blog to escape problems or to relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?
5. Does blogging interfere with your personal life and career?
6. Have you changed your lifestyle in order to blog?
7. Have you decreased your physical activity in order to blog?
8. Are you sleep deprived in order to engage in more blogging?
9. Are you neglecting family and friends in order to blog?
10.When you get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, do you check your e-mail to see whether other bloggers have posted or whether you have new messages from fellow bloggers?

If you replied in the affirmative to two questions you may have a slight case of BAD. If you said yes to three questions, there is a good chance you do have a significant problem with BAD. If you answered yes to four or more questions, you are demonstrating a pattern of behavior which would suggest that you have a serious problem with BAD.

On a lighter note, people who answer “YES” to any one of these questions about BAD should immediately request help from a professional counselor:

1. On a plane trip, do you put your laptop on your lap and store your child in the overhead compartment so you can blog?
2. Does it take you more than three minutes to scroll from top to bottom of “Blogs I Like”?
3. Is there a permanent impression of your derriere in your computer chair from long hours of blogging, but you haven’t noticed?
4 It is ten o’clock at night and your attractive young wife has just stepped out of a bubble bath, all perfumed up, attired in her sexiest lingerie, and growls in a sexy voice, “Hey, Big Boy, don’t you want to come to bed early?” Your answer is, “Sorry, I would love to, Babybunkins, but I am right in the middle of writing my next blog post, and I can't stop just now.” This response suggests that you suffer from one of the most severe cases of BAD.
5. To allow more time for blogging, have you installed a mini-fridge, microwave, and port-a-potty in your computer room?
6. Does your significant other tell you that you can’t bring your laptop to bed in order to continue blogging?
7. Do you tell your kids that they can’t use the computer for their homework so that you can continue blogging?
8. Do your kids start referring to you as “that person in front of the monitor?”
9. Do you take your laptop into the bathroom and continue blogging while sitting on the john?
10.Have you bought your significant other a computer so that you can blog with him or her?
11. Did your significant other leave you last week, and you are still blogging and don’t know it?
12. Did your significant other leave you last week, and you are still blogging and don’t care?

It's important to learn how to control your blogging so that it doesn't control you. In severe cases, talk therapy to get to the root of the problem is crucial. Setting definite time limits also works. If you are currently spending five hours a day blogging and wish to reduce the number of hours to three, try to reduce the time limit in increments of one-half hour every other day over the period of a week. Use a clock or timer to remind you when to stop each time. And be sure to stop! Who said that the withdrawal from any addiction is easy? Behavior can change, but the allure of blogging - with its promise of anonymity and instant intimacy - will never change.

DISCLAIMER: Since I am not a psychologist with a specialty dealing with addictive behaviors, this post is not likely to appear in their journal titled "Psychology of Addictive Behaviors". My purpose in this post is to identify some of the behaviors of bloggers and to devise a questionnaire based on a format used to identify addictive behaviors in other areas of human activity. Please treat my post as a semi-serious, semi-humorous study of possible blogging addiction.

To Lucy and all the other bloggers out there: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Good morning! How are you feeling this morning? Oh, I am so happy to hear that. Well, I am not much for speechifying, but I certainly want to express my surprise and gratitude to all those who like me and my blog. When I first started writing on Blogstream over a year ago, I never expected to entice more than a few readers to my posts. When I became a featured Blogstreamer later, it was a total surprise for me. In view of the great number of outstanding writers on Blogstream, I think myself fortunate to even be considered for all those awards. Thank you to everyone who reads and enjoys my posts. I shall continue to attempt to meet your expectations. I agree that a special award should be given to Lucy for her arduous effort in presenting us with the Second Annual Blogstream Awards production, and appreciation should also be extended to Pioneer for giving us the forum in which to showcase our talents. Again, my thanks to all of you.

A New Year’s Resolution I Kept

Perhaps you have heard of the man in his nineties who quit smoking cigarettes after eighty years of smoking them because, as he said, “I don’t think they are good for you.” Of course, we all know that is true; and that is why so many smokers try to use a New Year’s resolution to quit smoking.

An anonymous wag once said, “Quitting smoking is easy; I have done it many times.” I am sure that there are many people who have had the experience of quitting smoking for a short time, only to take it up again.

One time, after ceasing smoking for seven months, I was on vacation at my brother’s home. He was a smoker, and every time he offered me a cigarette, I would resolutely reply that I had quit smoking. One time, after I had imbibed a bit he said, “Oh, come on, you’re on vacation. Enjoy yourself.”

Ten years later I decided it was time to quit again. Now, I know that anonymous wag was right, except that quitting smoking is not easy and it is better if you do it only once.

The next time I made the decision to quit smoking, I psyched myself up for about three weeks before New Year’s Eve, concentrating on the reasons why I should quit smoking: the expense, my health, the spot I burned in the new sofa, the hazard of starting a house fire, the danger of smoking while driving, and the effect upon my wife, a non-smoker. I then decided I would use that date to stop smoking for the rest of my life. So at 11:59:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve quite a few years ago, I lit up a cigarette, exhaled all the way, took a long drag, burning the cigarette paper almost down to my lips and inhaled the smoke deep down into my lungs, all the way down to my toes. Coughing profusely, I stuttered, “That is the last cigarette I will ever smoke.” And it was and will be.

Giving up smoking “cold turkey” is not easy. Those usual times I wanted a cigarette - after eating, before retiring, upon awakening, with the morning coffee, and around other smokers was admittedly a difficult time. For about the first week, every time I wanted a cigarette, I would push a stick of gum in my mouth and chew it. After about a week, the old habit subsided to the point that I no longer desired a cigarette.

But now I am addicted to gum chewing. I guess it’s about time for another New Year’s Resolution.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!