Old dog ... and awkward moments!

Have you ever heard someone ask the question “Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”… Of course you have! But I honestly think no one has ever actually SAID that because, although I have heard the question asked many times, I have never heard anyone have an answer.

You actually CAN teach an old dog new tricks … if by old you mean early 40’s and if by dog you mean ME. I continue to learn new things every day. Some I am even fortunate enough to learn the easy way, but most … well most come the hard way. As I sit here listening to the rain come down I decided to sit down and share some of the lessons I have learned and, more importantly, HOW I learned them … enjoy!

Anyone who has ever worked “on the road” knows that one of the most important aspects of your job is to know where the cleanest and easiest accessible public bathrooms are located. If you tend to work in one general area you will know where most of them are and no doubt you will find one that becomes your favorite. I had one of those, a favorite public bathroom.

This location was centrally located, always clean and had plenty of stalls so there was never a wait … important characteristics in the world of public bathrooms. I can honestly say I actually learned many a lesson in this restroom; like YES, .63 cents is enough for some people to come back and knock on an occupied stall door to retrieve … but that is another story for another blog. Today I want to share with you the day I learned a bunch of new things in just one “sitting”.

It was mid-day and I had just finished a good lunch. Now it was time to pick up the newspaper and rest … hey, they call it a restroom, right? Now as I sat there reading the paper it happened … the lights went out! So here is a list of things I learned that fateful day:
1. The motion activated light switch in this particular bathroom shuts off after 15 minutes of motionless.
2. Public bathrooms become VERY dark when the lights go out on you.
3. It is impossible to throw enough toilet paper over the wall to try and re-activate a motion detecting light switch, crumpled up newspaper doesn’t work either.
4. When a complete stranger walks into said restroom, thus activating motion detecting light switch, and sees a bunch of toilet paper and newspaper strewn all over the floor then hears me exclaim, from the end stall, “Oh, thank God” … well, this will always lead up to an awkward moment!


Let’s move on to another lesson learning adventure shall we? Working in a customer’s home one day with a fellow co-worker and in order to get to where we needed to get we had to navigate around these porcelain statues the customer had all over the room. As my co-worker was attempting to squeeze into this one spot he accidentally bumped into one of these statues. This one was in a glass case, stood about 3 feet tall, was dressed in a red robe and had a white face with bright red cheeks. As I lunged to catch it from falling I yelled out “Watch out, don’t knock over the clown!” This is the day I learned that there is a religion that actually has a God that happens to look like a clown, and I also learned that when you call someone’s God a clown, they become very irate. Which I can understand, because I see it as the equivalent to someone seeing a picture of Jesus on your wall and asking “Hey, who’s the hippie?” … again, another awkward moment!

One trend I see in my life is that often speak before I think. Like the day I had a customer ask me if I could move her TV for her. I explained that my company did not allow that and if I was to move the TV and it broke I would personally be responsible for it, a risk I wasn’t willing to take. I then went out to my truck to grab some tools and when I came back into her apartment she was carrying the TV into the living room. Being the concerned individual that I am I said “You shouldn’t be carrying a TV when you are pregnant” … anyone want to guess this lesson learned? Yeah, never, ever, never assume a woman is pregnant! Unless she actually says to you “I am pregnant” just assume she is fat and keep your mouth shut. Oh, what happened next? Awkward moment!

As I think I have demonstrated in the above stories; you can teach an old dog new tricks … but 9 times out of 10 the lesson will end in an awkward moment!