The Spousal Interrupt - Redux

So, after several weeks and five visits by repairmen, the landlord agreed to replace the clothes dryer. The new machine features typical German over-engineering: multiple filters requiring substantial manual intervention, a control panel that would look at home on the Starship Enterprise and…

Spousal Interrupt: “Do not use this letter to complain about Swiss appliances. The reader doesn’t care and is tired of hearing this from you.”

“Hmm,” I thought. “This is getting difficult.

Yesterday morning, while Nazy was retrieving her breakfast eggs from the refrigerator, she knocked a bottle of ketchup over. And …”

Spousal Interrupt: “This is not funny, Dan.”

“Quiet, my dear. I am on a roll.”

“… red ketchup, launched by the equal and opposite reaction generated when the bottle hit the floor, followed a parabolic path upward..”

Spousal Interrupt: “This is really not funny, Dan.”

… until it reached the ceiling. At that point, abrupt deceleration caused the spherical ketchup droplets to flatten. Portions remained on the ceiling. Other parts, lacking viscosity and the associated surface tension, simply obeyed the law of gravity and accelerated downward.

“Yuck!” Nazy said as a ketchup storm hit her hair.

My reaction was exactly what should be expected of a concerned, carrying and compassionate husband.

“Are you laughing?” Nazy growled.

“Of course not, my dear. I am sympathizing.” I reached for my digital camera.

“That’s not a good idea,” Nazy said.

Were I brave enough, I would have included the aforementioned photographs. It did however, remind me of the time that someone turned the blender on – but forgot the lid.

Spousal Interrupt: “This is really not funny, Dan.”

Or the time, in Vancouver, when someone forgot eggs were on the stove. When the water boiled away…

Hmm… I have decided to change the subject.

The Spousal Interrupt

“So,"I thought. "My wife doesn't want me to blog about unfair US taxes."

"I don't want you to complain," Nazy replies.

Accordingly, I have shifted gears:

“Garry,” I said. “You must join the call. You’re the head of the Division; the deal is all about storage. We need you to represent the company..”

“… Dan…”

“You must explain that they are being unreasonable. As head of the business unit, you have clout.”

“Clout, Dan? Here? I’m wondering why I left my ‘clout-filled’ job at..”

“So, Garry,” I interrupted. “You’ll kick-off the call at noon?”

“I have to fly home, Dan. And before I leave for the airport, I have to fire three people. My personal ‘touch’ is required for that. My wife is poorly. The cat died last night and the kids are crying. We’ve just moved into a new house and the plumbing is leaking, the movers ruined my wife’s heirloom credenza…”

Spousal Interrupt: “Do not use this letter to complain about your employer, Dan. The reader doesn’t care and is tired of hearing this from you.”

“But, my dear, I’m not complaining about my employer, I’m going to complain about the customer.”

“No.” Nazy replied.

“She is so understanding,” I thought – shifting gears once again.

After several weeks and five visits by repairmen, the landlord agreed to replace the clothes dryer. The new machine features typical German over-engineering: multiple filters requiring substantial manual intervention, a control panel that would look at home on the Starship Enterprise and…

Spousal Interrupt: “Do not use this letter to complain about Swiss appliances. The reader doesn’t care and is tired of hearing this from you.”

“Hmm,” I thought. “This is getting difficult.”

Taxes

The week began on a frightening note. Following routine, I collected the mail form our postbox. Anxiously I opened one (rather hefty) envelope as I took the elevator to our apartment. A piercing pain gripped my body and I slid to the floor wailing. My final USA tax assessment had arrived.

While Nazy reassured the neighbors, I crawled to the medicine cabinet and quaffed several (extra strength) pain killers. After I regained my strength (a process that took several hours, eh, days) I telephoned Caspar, my US accountant.

"It’s unfair, Caspar.” I explained, patiently.

“It is the law. As an American, you are not allowed to take advantage of the fact that you live in a low-tax country. You have to pay the difference.”

“Caspar!” I exclaimed. “My income went down. How can my taxes go up?”

“The dollar, Dan, went down, so your total income in US dollars increa$ed. A lot!”

“The dollar may have collapsed, but I am paid in Swiss Francs. My expenses are in Francs. The change in the dollar does not affect my cost of living in Switzerland.”

“You won’t need as many Francs to pay your American taxes..”

Spousal Interrupt: “Do not use this blog to complain about American taxes, Dan. The reader doesn’t care and is tired of hearing about this from you.”

... Now I have to think of a new topic....

P.S. The photo is of me scouting out a place to pitch a family tent in the forest. That's about the only place we will be able to afford if the taxes... oops, my wife is striding into view....

Juggling Action Items

“Why are you complaining, Dan?” My boss asked. “You’re in the golden state.”

“It’s 3:00AM. That’s why I’m complaining.”

“That’s funny. It’s noon here.”

“It’s dark here, so I can’t tell if it’s golden. But wind is driving supersonic (rain)spheroids against the window, so I’m pretty sure…”

“It never rains in Southern California, Dan,” My boss interrupted.

“I’m in Northern California.” I replied.

“Well, eh, hmm. I just wanted to wish you luck with the customer meeting.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

“And,” he interjected. “You need to revise the forecast, redo next year’s business plan, update the response sheet for the Sun attack, Mainframe attack and Cisco attack..”

“I thought we were partners with Cisco.”

“Of course. The Cisco partnership call is..”

“I get the idea.”

“And how will you use the marketing assistance..”

“I won’t.”

“… revise the strategic growth initiative, respond to the management mandate, complete the standards of business conduct course, watch the Ethics in Action webcast…

“The Ethics in Action webcast!” I interrupted. “I’ll do that right now. Goodbye.”

In truth, suffering from jetlag, I had been awake when he called. “But,” I thought. “I know that the Ethics in Action webcast will put me to sleep.”

Who'd a Thunk it?

The big news this week concerns Dr. Darius D. Martin who has earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The path has been long (UCSB is excited to retire the oldest student ID in history) because Darius didn’t want to write a thesis, he wanted to win a Nobel Prize. I will take this opportunity to review father-son conversations over the last few years.

“My paper must astonish! It’s magical.”

“Do it on-time,” I admonish.”It’s maniacal.”

“You’ve complained,” Darius exclaimed.

“The path is fraught,” his father thought.

“It will be great.” Darius replied.

“It will be late.” “Before I’ve died?”

Unlike his Dad – who wrote a thesis proving that “Two Heads are Better Than One” (I am not making this up), Darius (The Great) likes complexity. His thesis has integral signs and math stuff.

I knew, of course, that the final submission would take place at the last hour of the final day. And, because Darius needed to have UCSB send a completion note to the American University of Beirut by September 15, I naively assumed that he would be done on September 14. Unfortunately, one of his committee members was on holiday – scheduled to return on the 16th. Darius talked him into coming back a day early and convinced Beirut to interpret “September 15” as “September 15, Pacific Daylight Time”. It was the last possible minute.

Nazy has interrupted the preparation of this letter. She claims:

“Darius finished, Dan! It’s great! So stop making jokes. Besides, didn’t you spend 10 years at Georgia Tech?”

“But I got an undergraduate degree and a..”

“And when you left, didn’t Georgia Tech celebrate retirement of the oldest student ID..”

“Wait a minute, Nazy.”

“And didn’t you finalize your Ph.D. the last possible day?”

Flashback: June, 1974

I was getting nervous. It was noon – scheduled time for my defense of thesis. I also had to deliver three copies, signed by my advisory committee, to the graduate office before 4:00PM. My professorship in Memphis was contingent on receiving this information on, or before, this date. Nazy and I were booked on a flight to Iran the next day. We hadn’t heard from my outside advisor, Dick Kain, who was driving to Atlanta from Minneapolis. We couldn’t get in touch with him. [It was 1974: mobile phones had not been invented.] At 12:30 Dick called from a payphone [In 1974 these telephones were quite common. It was a wired device that was coin-operated.] at a nearby McDonalds. [It was 1974: McDonalds had been around forever.]

The thesis defense, rescheduled for 1:00PM went flawlessly. As Dick signed the document (at 3:30):

“You’ve misspelled my friend Lewis Cobbam’s name,” he told me.

“Chobbam?” I replied.

“No ‘h’,” Dick said. “Just fix it before you hand in the final version.”

“Naturally,” I replied. (Evasively.)

Thoughtfully, I carried my thesis to the graduate office. I submitted it unchanged. [There was only one person in Atlanta certified to type a Georgia Tech Ph.D. thesis and there was no time to take it to her.] When we returned from Iran, I checked out the three copies in the library and crossed out, in ink, the superfluous ‘h’.

Present Day

“Dad,” Darius had said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t submit the thesis. It will be published and accessible on the web. Someone might find a mistake.”

"Undoubtedly, Darius wouldn’t approve of my approach," I thought. I said something else:

“That will mean that someone is reading it, Dar. They’ll cite your paper. Your academic stature will expand. Perhaps you should offer a reward for people who find errors – and cite your paper. Google rankings, Dar, are based on cross-references. If your paper is cited often, you’ll move to the top. Make errors intentionally.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Of course, not, Dar. I make my errors unintentionally.”

“But..”

“Submit and get out, Dar. It’s time.”

“Do you think?”

“Yep.”

Darius celebrated with his sisters before leaving for a quick trip to Thailand and Cambodia. On the 25th he passed through Zurich “on his way” (routing courtesy of Darius) to Beirut. He will start work at the American University on September 28. Friends responded predictably.

“He’s working in Lebanon? As in Lebanon?”

“Of course,” I replied. “He is Darius. As in Darius.”
.

The Planetary Walk

Nazy planned several activities for the visit of Mitra and Stefan. Stefan, a vegetable connoisseur, really enjoyed the Burkliplatz farmers market. (I like it too, but mainly for the flowers.) Following tradition, we took them on the planetary walk on the crest of the local Uetliberg Mountain.

I had a 3:00 PM con-call (my employer keeps getting in the way of my social life) so we left early – and just missed Tram 3 toward Central Station. (The next tram came 9 minutes later.) We arrived at Central Station, only to discover that we had just missed the train. (The next train came 15 minutes later.)

The planetary walk features a scale model of the solar system. It begins with the Sun (the size of a basketball) and continues with scale models of the planets. (The Earth is the size of a pea.)

As we were nearing Uranus (a ping-pong ball 2 miles from the start), I explained the solar system to Mitra.

“But,” I said. “The model is not completely accurate.”

“Why not, Dad?”

“The solar system doesn’t go uphill,” I puffed.

“Hmm..”

“And it’s a good thing that we didn’t do the interstellar walk.”

“Why Dad?”

“On this scale, the nearest star would be in Rome.”

Passing Neptune (pictured above), we arrived at a picturesque restaurant and took a short break. Then we walked to the cable car for the ride back down the hill. We just missed the departure. (The next cable car was scheduled in 15 minutes.) We admired the view while we waited. Somehow we didn’t see the arrival of the subsequent cable car and, as a result we just missed its departure. (Add another 15 minutes.) Arriving (finally) at the bottom of the hill, we walked to the train station arriving just as the S-18 departed for the Hauptbahnhof. (The next train arrived 15 minutes later.) We made it to the central station 15 minutes before my con-call.

“Just enough time,” I thought, “to make it home for the call.”

It would have been, but I just missed tram 3. I took the con-call in the tram.

Love Means...

It had been a long trip and, although the flight home was smooth, I arrived tired. I’ve found that the best way to handle east-bound jetlag is to take a short nap upon arrival. Nazy saw that I was tired and concurred. Leaving me on my own, she left to buy some groceries.

“Don’t worry, Dan. I’ll be back in about 2 hours.”

“That’s great!” I replied, locking the front door and simultaneously failing to notice that I had left the key hanging in the keyhole. I took a quick shower and instantly fell into a deep sleep.

As promised, Nazy returned home a few hours later. As mentioned, I was sound asleep. There was one unforeseen development: It is not possible to unlock the door from the outside if there is a key in lock on the inside. Nazy couldn’t get in. Unaware that I was sleeping with my good ear buried in the pillow, Nazy rang the doorbell. I didn’t hear it. She called the home phone. I didn’t hear it. She called my iPhone – it was on my desk in ‘silent’ mode. Nazy left several messages – culminating in:

“It’s been two hours, Dan.”

She was just about to call the police (maybe something had happened to me), when I heard the pounding and ringing. Nazy was not amused.

“When I left the key in the lock and trapped you outside for 20 seconds, Dan,” she noted. “You were very angry. You kept me outside more than two hours. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

The photo shows the messages left on the iPhone (which was in the other room). A similar number showed up on the home phone (also in another room).