Mark Your Calendars

You could be forgiven for missing it. It is easily overlooked, sandwiched as it is between the heady celebrations of Flag Day and the frenzy of excitement that is Fathers Day here in the World's 2nd greatest country. I almost missed it and if it were not for my boss having to cancel a speaking engagement at some wanky entrepreneurship seminar today because of it, I definitely would not have known until it was too late.

Next year, I will be ready for it. What the fuck is it, I hear you scream. Did we miss some major annual event? Are we in trouble with a family member for failing to send a card and token good wishes?

Not exactly, not unless you belong to a family of janitorial technicians, cleaning ladies, scrubbers, moppers or lavatory attendants. Today is Justice For Janitors Day. Yes.

Now I'm not about to belittle janitors or demean them or the work they do in any way. I will leave that for Knudsen. I agree that the work they do is super important and vital to the fabric of society and essential to the productivity of business and industry. Without them we are fucked. Every morning I go into my office and after a quick check to make sure they haven't stolen anything, I make sure that I take a moment to be grateful that they have emptied my bin and vacuumed the carpet. For if it were not for them, nameless and faceless to me though they are, I would have to do it myself. Being whiter than they, that just would not do and if my employees were to see me emptying my own bin it would not lend me much credibility in their eyes. So yes, I am thankful for the janitors.

Do I think they deserve their own day of justice? I'm not so sure. Where will all this end? Who gets a day of justice next? Who decides? Will Hallmark attempt to cash in on these "Justice Days"?

Don't Fuck With No Mild
Mannered Janitors

All I know is this. Stopping traffic on Wilshire Boulevard in the middle of the day is hardly likely to endear their cause to any non-janitors who happen to get stuck in the resulting traffic nightmare. Surely there is a better way to bring attention to the cause like maybe only emptying half a bin while leaving the rotting banana skins, apple cores and sour yogurt containers in the office for days on end. Wouldn't that raise just as many eyebrows? How about not replacing tired urinal cakes? The smell, especially during summer might cause questions to be asked.

I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. That is your job. What I do know is that anyone who is prepared to work, especially doing the jobs that many of us do not want or are lucky enough not to need badly enough to do them ourselves, should receive a decent livable wage and health benefits for doing it. I know it's a capitalist society but I also know how much the agencies charge companies for their services and that the percentage that is actually paid to the janitors is a pittance. It's a very competitive field, cut throat in fact but the owners still manage to do very well.

In my personal opinion, anyone who is able, let alone willing to scrub the skidmarks off the porcelain after I have been in the disabled stall deserves at least $10 for the hour it will most likely take them to get it clean.

Watch The Birdy

We got a new budgie at the weekend. For those of you wondering what the fuck a budgie is (yanks), it's a fuckin' parakeet which will henceforth be referred to as a budgie because that's what it is.

Anyway, we did have two. One went tits up a few months ago. That one was called LemonLime because it was green and yellow. The other one, the one still alive, never had a name because the kid could never decide on anything that she liked.

As a reward for behaving herself in school, Mrs. W promised her a new one to replace the deceased LemonLime. Of course it was I who had the pleasure of standing around for 1/2 an hour in fuckin Petco at the weekend while the princess decided which of the 50 birds in the cage she wanted, then another 15 minutes while the assistant caught the little bastard in the net.

Two days later and the new cage mates seem to be getting on quite well considered the invasion of space and the trauma of being caught in a net and placed inside a cardboard box only to be shoved into a new cage with an unknown bird for company. I have to admit that if I were on the same perch, I would be a bit testy to say the least. Everything seems, for the moment at least, to be working out well.

One of the reasons we never named the other bird is because Mrs. Waring maintains that the moment you name the fuckers, they quickly become an ex-budgie after hiding under the newspaper at the bottom of the cage for a day or two. I'm not quite as cynical in this regard and even with my limited knowledge of ornithology believe that it is more of a coincidence but, being a man of science, am prepared to put it to the test.

I would be waiting all year if I were to leave it up to the child to decide and I don't have that kind of time so I am putting it to you, my loyal and trusted contributors, to come up with names for the two birds, with the kid having the final say in which ones are successful. If, upon bestowal of their new names, they survive, I will be proved right. Alternatively if they both take to hiding under the newspaper until death, I will admit that I was wrong and the lucky winners of this competition will have to deal with their conscience as having been an accessory to their demise.

So, have at it. What names do you suggest for them? The winner(s) will receive a prize (TBD) to the value of 10 American Dollars. To help you, here is a picture of the birdies.

New one foreground, old one rear. If only they could
talk. I would have them saying "You're a cunt!"