9-to-5 Thoughts Archive

Everyday musings.

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Bathroom Signs

  Maybe this has always been this way and I’ve just now noticed, but why are women bathroom signs circles and men bathroom signs triangles? I understand the anatomical reasons — the triangles mimic the male penis and the circles mimic the female vagina — but I do not understand the purpose. It is not as [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Soap Dispensers

  I squarely blame this on architects. What is the deal with soap dispensers in restrooms? The bathroom will be recently remodeled and have wonderful marble-like countertops, and the soap dispenser — it will be right in the middle, so all excess soap drips on to the countertop. Or, the soap dispenser is seemingly in the [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Salt

  Who was the first person to start digging into a mountain side, find a white crystal-like substance, and think, “Hey, why don’t we sprinkle this on our corn-on-the-cob?” That sounds like a great idea. What a find. We use salt everyday, and it is a staple in nearly every food we eat, yet it is [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Two Spaces

  This is what I cannot stand, not in this day and age. Copy-pasting a bunch of text from a Word document, or similar, and discovering that there are two spaces following every sentence. When will people end the madness? The typewriter went extinct decades ago. Are these people using the font Courier? Get used to [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Dog Walking

  While we walk our now 13-month old Labrador retriever around our neighborhood — either together or by ourselves — we make sure our puppy (Haley) stops and sits at all corners. She has learned this, and now does it on her own, and waits for us to lead her across the street. (Okay, maybe she [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Slowing Down For Cops

  I have never understood the logic. A speeding driver sees a cop on the side of the road, either taking radar or dealing with a car already pulled over or something else, and the driver immediately puts on the brakes, slowing down to 5 or 10 miles per hour below the posted speed limit, and [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Out Of Service Escalators

  What is the deal with people being visibly, and at times, animatedly, upset when an escalator is out of service? Take the stairs. What would you have done if there were no escalator? Well, here’s your chance to find out. Has our society become so lazy that we now assume a working escalator will be [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Asshole Drivers

  There is a difference between driving like an asshole and driving like an idiot. I know it is easy to write-off an asshole driver by saying, “Well he/she doesn’t know any better.” But that is not always the case, because there is a difference. When some idiot is wantonly driving along the freeway because they [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Door Close

  Why is there a “door close” button on elevators anyway? Do they ever work? Have you ever hit the “door close” button, and then think, “Wow, the door closed much faster than if I’d done nothing at all?” Probably not. And what is up with the term “door close”? (Was this Yoda-inspired?) Is the command [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Newspaper Vendor

  If you are the person who walks through the train station each morning and makes idle chit-chat with the newspaper vendor but never buys a newspaper, let me tell you, although the newspaper vendor is perfectly pleasant with you in passing conversation, he hates you and everything you stand for. (Now try sleeping at night.)

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: HOV Lane

  Just because you qualify for the high-occupancy vehicle lane does not mean you have to use that lane during off-peak times. It’s for everyone. During non-commute times, this HOV-lane is now the “fast lane,” and although the posted speed limit is 65 miles per hour (measured instantaneously in the forward direction), cars in this lane [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Grocery Shopping

  While shopping at a grocery store last night I realized how much food there actually is. As I strolled the aisles, I wondered, “Who the hell buys all this stuff?” And then as I briefly watched other shoppers, I noticed the things they went for, items I would never imagine myself (or anyone else, for [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Gas Prices

  A lot of gas stations are open twenty-four hours. When do they change the price? Could you imagine pulling in at 5:30 in the morning, and by the time you are finished pumping, the unit price for a gallon of gas had increased a couple pennies? Are the attendants waiting for just the perfect time [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: The Pets of the Homeless

  What’s worse than bums? Bums with dogs. I mean, now you just can’t walk by not feeling bad about the homeless person, but you can’t help but feel sorry for the homeless person’s dog. The dog is just lying there, hoping for some food, not realizing how much his owner sucks. I mean, what a [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Homeless

  I know this is going to sound harsh, but admit it, it’s true. I have two thoughts on the homeless. One is actually a thought my brother and I conjured up as we drove home during the winter from college in Syracuse; the other is a self-realization. (1) Why don’t homeless people in cold climates, [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Local Calls

  Has anyone recently asked to use your cellphone, and in order to convince you to succumb to such a minor inconvenience, pleads the case that their call is “only local?” Does this person understand cellphones? Obviously not. Don’t tell me who you’re calling; you can be calling Florida or Maine, for all I care. All [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Street Vendors

  As I took these photos with my cellphone camera, I thought of how differently one looks at street vendors in one’s own city than one does street vendors in, say, Paris or Barcelona. Just interesting is all.

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Escalator

  Why do people insist on not walking up the escalators? It is not an elevator; it’s a moving staircase, for Pete’s sake. (Nevermind who Pete is.) At least most people follow the custom “stand-on-right, walk-on-left” rule; most people. Are these the only stairs these people face all day? Well, if I just get up these, [...]

• 9-to-5 Thoughts: Milky Way

  A possible new series. Although I do not work nine to five (who does these days?), the lexicon of the general public still renders this series’ title applicable. As I forage through the random Halloween candy that has been brought in to the office and dropped in a box in the kitchen, I think to [...]