Who is sufficient?

As is her usual practice, the Prissy Princess is working feverishly to beat yet another work deadline. You might wonder why she does not try to spread her workload out so that she is not always so stressed out near the end of a project. The Gallant Hero wonders this, too. He tries to encourage her to develop good time management skills by giving her books such as Getting Things Done, but -- although it may have wonderful ideas on time management -- because she is behind in meeting her deadline, she has no time to read it. He also encourages her by bringing her Diet Pepsi while she is working, which is far more helpful.

Sometimes the Prissy Princess gets very discouraged when working on projects by writers who seem to think their readers enjoy deciphering material that makes their head ache. Sometimes, because of this, her soul echoes the words of the Apostle Paul: "And who is sufficient for these things?"

And sometimes, when the princess does not get out of the house for several days, she develops some unfortunate personality characteristics. These personality characteristics have been known to move the Gallant Hero to ask the Lord, out loud, to please help those who are grumpy to improve their attitude.

She just hopes the Lord does not suggest that the Hero give her a book about it.

More phone conversations with Dad

One day when I called my parents and learned that my mom was out doing errands, I thought, Good. This time they can't talk to each other while I sit on the other end listening to them decide whose turn it is to bring in the mail. At least I'll have a nice, normal, two-way conversation with Dad.

But about 10 minutes into our talk, my dad abruptly broke off what he had been saying. "Those people who're supposed to be moving in next door are back again," he said excitedly. "They've been saying they're moving in for a month now, but they just show up sometimes and then go away. Just a minute. I'm going to go see what's going on over there."

Incredibly, he put the phone down, interrupting a call from someone 500 miles away to find out what was going on 40 feet away. Things must be really slow around there to generate this much excitement. My end of the phone conversation obviously hadn't been very exciting, either.

By the time he came back, I could have had a week's worth of laundry washed and dried and put away, baked a couple of cakes, and finished my entire spring cleaning.

"Well?" I said to the Neighborhood Peeper. "What did you find out?"

"Nothing," he said in disappointment. "I couldn't see anything. They must have gone around the other side of the house. Or maybe inside."

I could imagine my 85-year-old father trotting -- his trot may be slower than it used to be, but he can still trot -- from window to window, straining to get a glimpse of the action next door. His tone indicated that he strongly suspected some sort of illegal activity, because if these people were legit, why hadn't they already moved in, and why were they being so secretive about their movements? More to the point, why hadn't they told HIM what they were up to?

Later I told my mother about the incident. She made an exasperated clucking sound. "He is obsessed with finding out what's going on over there," she said. "I'm sure they're just fixing the place up before they move in. I try to keep the blinds closed, but it doesn't do any good. You know your father."

Yes, I do. But I still don't know what it will take to have a nice, normal, two-way phone conversation with him.

Performance evaluation

A book I'm editing right now talks about teacher evaluation. It reminds me how glad I am that I'm not a teacher anymore, with all that angst about being observed and rated and maybe being sent to time-out for not doing a good enough job.

But of course people in other professions get evaluated too. And I suddenly realized that, because I work at home and am my own boss, I don't.

So I decided that, as my own boss, I can give myself a performance evaluation. Some of you may protest that such a review would inevitably be biased, to which I say "pffft." (One of the many perks of working for yourself, besides giving yourself biased performance reviews, is being able to say "pffft.")

So, here are the results of my performance evaluation:

1. Procrastinates starting work: Exceeds expectations
2. Multitasks and manages time creatively (does laundry, readies dinner, runs errands, etc., while working): Outstanding
3. Dresses appropriately (by at least 3 p.m.): Meets her very low expectations
4. Uses workspace creatively by moving work materials to the couch, bed, etc.: Above average
5. Communicates effectively (through e-mail chats with friends, phone conversations with strangers, discussions with self, the mailman, etc.): Jolly good
   
6. Sets priorities (e.g., in deciding whether to have a hot chocolate break now or later): Needs improvement (should have a hot chocolate break now AND later)
   
7. Able to independently utilize resources in the refrigerator and cupboard: Superior

Not bad for a first-timer. As a reward, maybe I'll give myself a raise. Or at least another trip to the refrigerator.

Camp of Dreams

I want to go back to camp.

Okay, I admit that my camping days as a youth do not number among my favorite memories. Camp is one of those great places where you are supposed to go to grow "character." Mostly what I grew at camp was mosquito bites, but that didn't stop my parents from sending me there.

So no, I don't want to go back to Girl Scout camp on Lake Gitchegomme and have to run around the dinner table because I broke the no-elbows-on-the-table rule (to this day I do not see the need for such a rule). Where I want to go is to "Victorian Dreams: A Living History Camp."

This is an actual summer camp right in our little historic town. It's held in the ruins of an old girls' school (or "female institute," according to the brochure, which makes it sound somewhat like a place for the feeble-minded). But here's the neat part: For a whole week, you get to pretend you're living in the 1850s. You get to make authentic crafts and play games and sports from that time period (girls had sports back then?), learn Victorian dances (unfortunately, you have to dance with other females), enjoy morning tea, AND -- here's the best part -- dress up in pinafores! True, it says the pinafores are "camp adapted," but still. How neat would that be to dress up in old-fashioned clothes and run around in a cool old architectural ruin?!

I always thought it would have been way cool to be born in the olden days and get to dress up in fancy clothes, chase buffalo, cut off the chickens' heads (okay, maybe not everything would have been fun). But THIS is much cooler. You only have to PRETEND to have all those struggles. After a week, you get to go home to all your conveniences.

There's just one catch. This way-cool experience is for girls in Grade 4-6 or 6-9. I do not think I would pass for Grades 6-9, and certainly not for Grades 4-6 (although if I had to prove my age by my shoe size, I would probably qualify).

Too bad I was born too late to experience the real thing, and too soon to go to the camp.

"Your hidden talents will remain hidden!"

I thought the little sayings on Valentine candy hearts were bad ("go fish," "chill out") and on fortune cookie fortunes ("be mischievous and you will not be lonesome," "you are always on our minds" [WHOSE minds??]). The little notes that come in Dove candy bars rank right up there in the dorky department. It's like there were two people making them up, and they couldn't agree on whether they should write little fluffy sayings about life (WHOSE life, I'm not sure) or stuff about chocolate. So there are some of each. Here is a sampling:

"Chocolate loves you back." (Joe says, "What, by making us fat?")

"Sleep under the stars tonight." (And be sure to bring the Doves.)

"Watch the sun come up." (Stars, sun -- what is the fascination with nature?)

"A gentle touch speaks volumes." (Does this mean biting the chocolate in a nonthreatening manner?) ("I don't think they're talking about chocolate," Joe says.)

"Go where your heart takes you." (And make sure your head tells it to go get more chocolate.)

"Be a little mysterious." (Don't tell how many candies you ate?)

"Do something spontaneous." (Like stop eating chocolate?)

Okay, maybe some of them are not so bad, but I wonder who comes up with these sayings, and how they get that job.

These silly sayings by no means discourage me from eating the Dove bars. In fact, the more you eat of them, the more the sayings start to actually make some sense, like "Exercise your heart today," which clearly means "Eat more dark chocolate Doves -- they're good for you!"

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go exercise my heart.

Two sides of the heart

Which kind of Valentine are you? In honor of this holiday that people seem to love or hate, let's take a look at two different approaches to Valentine's Day. The sweet, thoughtful type of Valentine is expressed by this little boy shopping at Target with his mom:

Little boy: I love you, Mom! (repeats five times and is warmly acknowledged by Mom each time)
Little boy: (grabbing Mom's face) Mommy, I love you so much I just can't stop telling you it!

(Audience: Awwwww. Fainting in the aisles occurs among some of the female shoppers.)

Now, I'm betting that some of you might find yourself more closely aligned with the philosophical Valentine view expressed by another little boy overheard in Target (really, I don't go around Target snooping on little boys and their moms, it just seems that way):

Mom: Let's look at some Valentine cards for the kids in your class.
Little boy: AGAIN? We just did that!
Mom: That was last year, honey.
Little boy (incredulously): We have to do this EVERY YEAR?

I'm sure that many of us, like that second little boy, wish we could just do one special thing on Valentine's Day, once, and get lifelong credit for it. But it doesn't work that way.

So, even if you really, really blew Valentine's Day this year, or you hate it, or you would prefer to pretend it doesn't exist, go grab somebody's face and tell them you love them so much you just can't stop telling them it.

And don't let a whole year go by before you do it again.

His and her desserts

On the rare occasions when we order dessert after eating a meal out, we just laugh when the waiter or waitress asks if we want to split one. "Are you kidding?" I say. "I would get one bite. Unh uh, I don't care how big it is, you bring me my own dessert."

And so when we went out for Joe's birthday recently, I ordered a Caramelized Banana Cream Pie and he went for the apple tart. Halfway through, he asked me how I liked it.

"Um, I'm still deciding," I said. But I'd had enough to feel generous in allowing him to try a bite, so I pushed it toward him. We do not go in for reaching for something on each other's plate without asking.

He took one bite and declared it "gross." "How could you eat half of that thing?" he sputtered as he shoved the plate back toward me. This is a man who never met a pie he didn't like.

"Well, I kept thinking maybe it would get better," I said. It looked good, so surely some part of it had to taste good, too. I just had to keep eating until I found that part.

It was then that he told me he had read some reviews of the desserts before coming to the restaurant. "What did they say about the Caramelized Banana Cream Pie?" I demanded, though I had a pretty good idea of what he was going to say.

"Most people said it wasn't very good," he admitted. "But I didn't say anything because I didn't want to influence you."

Everything else in our life, he has no qualms about influencing me, especially if he can do it with information learned from Google. I am not sure why this occasion was any different. But suddenly I felt I could abandon the quest to find a good-tasting part of my pie.

To console me, Joe let me have some of his apple tart, which I had declined to order for myself because I thought it would be too, um, tart. It was to DIE FOR. He was too full to finish it (this is a man who never met a dessert he couldn't finish), so I helped him. I figured the half of the banana cream pie I'd eaten didn't count because I didn't like it.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to some Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. I am hoping he doesn't like mine and is too full to finish his.

Vote for Tom!

On this eve of Maryland's presidential primary, I am pleased to announce the intentions of our nephew-in-law, Tom, to run for president. He shared this with us over the weekend as we gathered at a restaurant to celebrate another family member's birthday.

You can imagine that this excited much interest among us. Much of the evening consisted of his developing, with our encouragement, his platform. We asked him a lot of hard questions -- he has to get used to the media doing this -- but it was difficult to trip him up. For instance, his answer to "What about foreign policy?" was "We should have one." Who can argue with that?

There seemed to be some question about where he stood on the matter of the rich and poor. On one hand, he believes everyone should be treated the same in the matter of taxes, for instance -- none of this sliding scale stuff -- but on the other, he feels that there should be some allowance made for health care expenses. Obviously, this part of his policy will take a little more thinking on the part of the rest of us, his advisors.

One matter that occasioned a great amount of debate among the group was Tom's assertion that, if public education cannot do its job -- and he certainly gave the impression that he believed this was the case -- the government should give all parents vouchers for private schooling. He did not explicitly state this, but I believe he would also be in favor of more recess. Also more pizza in school lunches.

The candidate hopeful tackled the issue of health care head-on. Under his leadership, everyone would get a certain allotment of money with which to buy health care insurance or otherwise cover health care expenses (such as, perhaps, importing drugs from Canada or buying them over the Internet). When pressed about where the government would come up with this money, Tom firmly stated that as the government currently spends at least this amount on such programs as Medicare, Medicaid, Medigap, Medimart, etc., his solution would require no additional spending.

He was also for no one being homeless, although he was a little vague about the details of how this might be accomplished. He's sounding presidential already!

Although Tom expressed some enthusiasm for a Fair Tax, he admitted to some reservations about what such a move might do to the economy in the short term; specifically, he felt that the economy would, in presidential terms, "tank." His opinion was that this would not be a good thing for the majority of citizens.

When the topic of the environment came up, I advised the candidate that the matter of waste should be solved by sending it all to Canada. After all, they share theirs with us, at least in Michigan. It is only fitting, then, by virtue of the ties of friendship that have long existed between the two countries, that we share some of our own trash with them. In fact, to show the Canadians how much we value their friendship, we should go one step further and give them all our trash.

Tom stated his belief that we should drill for oil in Alaska, but unfortunately I did not hear any further details on this subject as my attention was suddenly diverted to my marinara sauce, which had escaped the bounds of its bowl and was spilling over onto my clothing. I am sure, however, that whatever reason he expressed for harvesting Alaskan oil, it was very sound.

In his gratefulness for our help in clarifying his platform, the candidate freely bestowed on us various Cabinet posts and other positions of honor. One of our party even asked our waiter at the restaurant if he would be interested in serving on the White House cook staff. He did not seem to appreciate the enormity of this offer, saying only that he hoped there would be a "better position" for him. Some people just do not recognize a good opportunity when they see one.

I am promised the post of White House historian, because I like to make things up. No, no! Because I like history and I like to write. I have already archived a picture of the presidential hopeful that should prove useful in the event that, say, I would desire a considerable presidential raise.

So remember, vote for Tom! And pray for all his advisors.

Chim chim, Part II

"Tell me again why we both have to be here when the chimney guys come back?" Joe wanted to know.

"Because they're going to put a video camera down the flue and they're bound to find all sorts of things wrong and explain them in words I won't understand, like 'You will have to take out another mortgage to pay for all the things we are going to do to your chimney,' " I said.

Which was pretty much what the chimney guys did say after they finished their second evaluation. But the part I really had trouble with was when Mike, the main chimney guy, talked about rebuilding the top of the chimney. Mike would not be the one to actually do this. Apparently the company has a legendary man, Jim, who does all the masonry stuff. Jim is so legendary because he is 83 years old.

I thought Mike was kidding.

An 83-year-old, on our roof?

Not that I go in for age discrimination on the job, but I pictured all the 80-somethings I have known in my life, and my imagination failed me when I tried to picture them on our roof.

Mike explained that they would have to build some sturdy scaffolding on the roof so Jim could move around safely. He did not explain how Jim would actually get up on the roof. Helicopter?

"Does Jim have any grandsons?" I asked in what I hoped was a tactful manner. "You know, that he might pass along his legendary skills to?"

But Mike seemed unperturbed by the prospect of an 83-year-old on the roof. And why not? It wasn't his roof the old man might fall off of.

"What if he fell off?" I whispered to Joe. "It would be devastating if he fell off our roof."

Joe was of the opinion that it would be devastating to have anyone fall off our roof.

"Oh, you know what I mean," I said. "He's more likely to fall off than, say, a 20-year-old." I wanted no part in the possible ending of a legend's career, not to mention his life.

Joe had other worries. "Would we pay him by the hour?" he whispered to me. "Cuz he might not work all that fast."

We missed some of what Mike was saying as we pondered these weighty questions. We were relieved to not have to make an immediate decision on whether we would have the chimney rebuilt. "We don't really recommend waiting on that," Mike said, "but you could wait."

"I'll bet they don't want us to wait," Joe said to me when Mike had gone. "What if something happens to Jim while we make up our minds?"

"As long as whatever happens to him doesn't happen to him on our roof," I said. "I don't want to be known as the people who had Santa fall off their house."

Are smoking and overeating bad? Depends who you ask

Want to help our struggling economy? Give the government a break on health care costs? Start smoking! Become obese!

Really. A new study shows that, contrary to popular belief, smokers and those who are obese actually cost the government less than healthy, skinny people. It doesn't take a scientist to figure out why, though. Healthy people who eat all their vegetables live longer. (Okay, the people doing the study did not actually say that part about the vegetables, but you KNOW that's what they mean. They are always pushing the vegetables.) The longer you live, the more things that can go wrong, healthwise anyway. And so the more society racks up costs in fixing those things that go wrong with you.

The study did find that health costs for healthy, skinny people are lower from ages 20 to 56. But over the long haul, those people consuming all their leafy greens and doing their 30 minutes of exercise a day are a real drain on the health care system.

Sure, this study was done in the Netherlands, but according to the law of transatlantic fatty acids, it applies to us here in the U.S. as well. This really puts a damper on people who make their living telling other people to get in better shape and eat their vegetables. Pity the dietitians, the public health and school nurses, the Surgeon General! Smokers and people who are obese are going to be thumbing their noses at them.

And let's hope this bit of news doesn't get into the hands of our presidential candidates. At least one of them is bound to start espousing some new health care reform that goes something like this: Encourage people to be healthy until they're 56 (through force-feeding and mandatory exercise, if necessary), and then start throwing cigarettes and saturated fat at them to try to knock some years off their life (and, more importantly, money off the nation's health care costs.)

In fact, one of your more liberal candidates, for instance Mr. Huckabee, might even suggest raising the smoking age to 56. The candidate might also propose some incentives to get people to start smoking at that point, paint a grim picture of health care going bankrupt, and throw in a senior discount for cigarettes, and before you know it people will be convinced that it is their patriotic duty to start smoking.

And nutrition? I envision there being two food pyramids, based on age: the one currently in use, for people up to age 56; the other, for 57 until checkout, will be filled with from top to bottom with chocolate.

I know where my patriotic duty lies.

Chim-chimaney-chim-chimaney

Our home has been invaded this week, as you know, by myriad workmen, firemen, Martians, etc. Today we were visited by the Chimney Sweep, whose name was Mike. I was disappointed to find that Mike did not actually dress in tails and top hat and wave a little duster thing around, as suggested by the Chimney Sweep logo in the company ad. He wore a much more practical uniform, which the company probably had to switch to due to an uproar among the Chimney Sweep Wives, who got tired of taking care of soiled tails and top hats. Nor did Mike sing as he performed his duties, ala Dick Van Dyke, which was probably just as well because it would have been a very long drop to the ground in the backyard if he had gotten a little carried away.

Chimney Sweep Mike brought along an accomplice, whose name I neglected to get but who, to my satisfaction, sported a perfectly round piece of soot smudge right on the end of his nose. I had the feeling it wasn't real, that it was just part of an act designed to make up for the disappointing lack of formal Chimney Sweep clothing, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

They were here to inspect our furnace flue, which was implicated by the furnace repairman earlier in the week as possibly being involved in our recent little carbon monoxide excitement. "Never hurts to check these things out!" he had laughed. No, it never hurts, except in the checkbook.

So Mike and his nameless accomplice set about performing their inspection of our furnace flue. This inspection consisted of one of them going up onto the roof and the other into the furnace room. There followed a very technical verbal exchange as they attempted to ascertain which opening on the roof belonged to the furnace. (Step 1 in Chimney Inspection: Find the correct chimney. This is not as easy as it sounds, at least on our roof. Maybe yours comes with everything tagged -- "Fireplace," "Bathroom Exhaust," "Furnace," "Santa's Deliveries," etc., but ours apparently does not.) Anyway, this highly technical exchange went roughly as follows:

Man on roof: CAN YA HEAR ME?
Man in furnace room: YEAH!
Man on roof: No response.
Man in furnace room (goes outside, yells to man on roof): I said, I could hear ya, all right!
Man on roof: Well, then, I guess that means this here's the chim-- WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Just kidding about that last part. No harm was done to the chimney sweeps during this inspection, although I can't say the same for their clothing.

When they came back inside after their technical discussion, Mike announced that there were "some issues" with the flue. Now if you are a homeowner, you will be familiar with the concept of "issues," because the number one problem with your average home these days is "issues." And they are always very costly. One "issue" with our furnace flue was that Mike could not see into it, so he could not determine whether anything inside of it was in need of repair. He could not, really, even tell what was inside of it; for all he knew, it was stuffed with lost socks from the dryer. Therefore, he wanted to come back later in the week and do a video scan and then we could "go from there."

I appreciated this effort on Mike's part to explain things to me in simple terms. "Go from there," as any Homeowner Dummy knows, means that there will be more visits from Mike and Chimney Sweep #2, each costing more than the previous one, and that at the end they will be no closer to determining what is wrong with our furnace than if they had danced around on the rooftop in tails and top hats.

It would almost be worth it to see that.

An unplanned day

Today starts out like most other Mondays. Joe goes off to work, and I settle down to watch soap operas and consume bonbons.

Ha! Just kidding. That's what I do on Tuesdays.

Just kidding again!

What actually happens is that I dial a number I have never dialed before in my life: 911. It is a weird feeling, dialing 911. I feel vulnerable, which of course I am, given that our carbon monoxide detector has gone off. It isn't because the unit is malfunctioning.

The 911 dispatcher sounds nothing like what I imagined, or what I've seen on TV. TV dispatchers are always very confident, authoritative even, and you trust them as you would trust your mother or your grandmother. The one I talk to sounds more like she could be my kid sister, if I had one, but I think, these people have to have training, right? They know what to tell me to do. She assures me that the fire department will be right over and lectures me, in her little-girl voice, on the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, all of which I already know. I can tell she is reading from something in front of her.

After hanging up the phone, my first thought is what any normal individual would think in such a situation: Strangers are going to enter my house, and they are going to see what a mess it is. Only slightly less than my fear of being overcome by carbon monoxide is my fear that someone will see the state of my housekeeping.

Stupid, you say? Of course. But nevertheless, as I wait for the fire brigade to appear, I frantically try to at least clear a path for them to the furnace and other important areas (Why didn't I get all this laundry done this weekend?!). It would be beyond embarrassing to have the fire department call for an ambulance because one of their own was attacked by a c-clamp lying carelessly about. And then, help me, I even do a little vacuuming. Just the worst parts.

I manage to get the place reasonably presentable and am waiting patiently outside on the front steps, as I promised the 911 dispatcher I would. A neighbor passes by, giving a cheerful "Hello" as if it is no unusual thing to see a resident sitting on her front steps in the drizzling rain. Another worry strikes me. Please, God, I pray silently, do not let the fire department bring five trucks and 20 men. It would be so embarrassing.

After all, the most important thing in these situations is to keep your head. The second most important thing is to keep from being embarrassed.

But thankfully just one truck shows up, not even a ladder truck, and only four men. Three come inside. They ask questions, they take readings, they go upstairs, they go downstairs. They ask if I am aware that the furnace has not been serviced since 1992. I am quick to inform them that the furnace has only been in our custody for a year and a half, and therefore we cannot be held responsible for whatever came -- or didn't come -- before that time. (Later, I find that the 1992 date cannot be correct, but by then the firefighters have gone and I have no chance to explain.)

The firefighters are very nice. They do not lecture, although the lieutenant goes on for a long time -- unnecessarily long, I feel -- about service plans for appliances. He mentions, more than once, that he himself has one and that he thinks we should get one. I nod. He tells me that, ideally, we shouldn't stay the night in the house, but that if we have to, we can turn the furnace off and sleep with the windows open. Just use lots of quilts, he says, and you'll be fine. I feel a tinge of pity for his wife.

After the firefighters have left, I immediately call who they told me to, only it turns out to be the wrong place to call. I make another call, and although this is the right place to call, I experience some difficulty in making the woman understand just what it is I want a service technician for. I don't know what he needs to do to fix the problem, I say. I just know that he needs to fix it!

Finally I pull out the last weapon in my arsenal: I have been referred by the fire department, I tell the woman on the phone. And that seems to do the trick. But first, she wants to know if I plan to pay by check or credit card. My life is in jeopardy here, and she wants to make sure the company is going to get its money! But at this point, I would promise to pay in crisp new bank notes if it would get someone here faster to fix the problem.

Joe is always telling me to ask questions. Usually I forget, or I am too embarrassed. But this time, when the technician comes, I am ready with my barrage. I ask him every question I have forgotten to ask before, even questions that have nothing to do with the furnace ("So, you're a woodworker like my husband? Does it drive your wife crazy?"). I learn a lot, only 10% of which I will retain, but he seems happy enough to help.

The technician fixes what he believes to be the problem with a great amount of banging and, in between all the noise, a great number of tales about how his wife has relegated his woodworking to a teeny tiny room in their newly finished basement. He cautions that, although he thinks the problem is solved now -- the problem of our carbon monoxide, not the problem of his teeny tiny woodworking space -- we should also have the chimney inspected.

Later, there are more calls and trips to the store for additional CO detectors -- one can never have too many, is my new motto. The guidelines we read say to place the detector near the ceiling, as CO rises. We search in vain for an outlet that is near the ceiling. There is one in the ceiling, in our bedroom, but it has not worked for quite some time. We discuss the merits of plugging the detector in the outlet just behind where my pillow is located, as it is the highest outlet we can find, but I note that if it were to go off, I would probably sustain some significant, permanent hearing loss. However, we consider this a small price to pay for keeping us safe. Joe offers up fervent thanks for the person who invented the CO detector.

All kidding aside -- we are not being even Slightly Humorous about this part -- please, please, if you do not already have a carbon monoxide detector, get one (having one in the box does not count). Get more than one. Install them. Know what to do if they go off. After all, we want you to be around a long time to keep reading this blog.

P.S. In all the excitement, poor Joe did not get a proper birthday celebration. He did, however, get chocolate cupcakes.