A woman came to my work the other day as a representative of a well-known charitable organization. We were all herded into the Training Room to listen to her sales pitch about why we should give some of our hard-earned dollars to her charity. She related the story of her brother, who dove into the shallow end of a swimming pool while drunk and broke his spine, leaving him paraplegic. She continued on about the tough road her brother has had battling alcoholism and how he never could have made it this far without the help of charity, and shouldn’t we all contribute to help those like him? Hmmm, here’s a guy that’s obviously a complete fuck up: he’s made a life-changing mistake, and obviously learned no lessons from it. He continues to pound the booze and be a prick to his family. So what should we do? Chip in to help bail him out, of course, while desperately hoping to staunch the flow of blood from our own hearts. There’s no better charity than helping those who refuse to help themselves, after all.

Wikipedia says that a philanthropist is someone that donates their money, time or reputation to a charitable cause. Though generally lacking both items one and two, and with a reputation that would not secure two grains of rice for a starving Nigerian child, occasionally I find myself in a position to be charitable to an organization. The dilemma that I encounter at these (rare) times, though, is the process of sorting through the thousands of charities to find the one deemed “most deserving” of my money.

In general, I despise people. The thought of contributing to a cause that could result in their numbers actually increasing turns my stomach. Imagine MORE congestion on the highways. Imagine MORE Mongos trying to figure out the Self-Checkout at Home Depot on a Saturday. Now imagine that you had a hand in their existence on this Earth (beyond fathering them out of wedlock).

Take cancer. I’ve donated to the Dana Farber before. Once. Fucking saint, right? I was drunk, and hitting a “triple” by donating $75 to the Red Sox drive sounded fun. Next best thing to lining a shot into the triangle at Fenway. There are almost a million deaths a year from cancer in this country alone. Can you imagine if every year we had an extra million people wandering around the mall like overfed cows, when all you want to do is get to the damn Verizon store to get your broken cellphone fixed? Part of me argues that cancer is one of nature’s ways of keeping population growth in check. I’m not especially enthused about my $75 going to offset the hospital costs of some 78-year-old two-pack-a-day smoker who has come down with lung cancer. What if they get better?

So who then? What, so you’re homeless, living on the streets, talking to no one in particular while you soil yourself? Fuck you, buddy: there but for the 70 hours a week I work go I.

Then, one day it hit me: the kids. The goddamn kids. The goddamn, innocent, smiling kids. They didn’t do anything to deserve the horrific fate of leukemia or being born with their organs on the outside or a whore of a mother who can’t afford to raise her ninth child and puts it up for adoption. They’re just kids. Just a reminder this holiday season before you drop $100 on another inflatable Santa riding a Harley for the front lawn.

Here’s a recipe I stole from Alton Brown at FoodNetwork.com
(Full recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_8389,00.html?rsrc=search):

For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water

Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.

These people are not looking for your critique: they possess fragile psyches and will crumble under the weight of any perceived criticism. They don’t care what you think, unless you are in complete accordance with their actions, in which case your condonation becomes ammunition against the next critic to dare suggest rest stop bathrooms may not be the most likely locale to find a soulmate.

Otherwise, they inevitably will resent you and your advice, no matter how sound. Should your advice prove to be correct, and the pretty young thing brought home from vacation in Thailand turns out to only be after the money (and, incidentally, also a man), they will resent you making them look foolish, suspecting that in offering advice, you were actually attempting to demonstrate a superior intelligence. Should your advice prove wrong, and the latest studies show sodomizing dead bodies is indeed effective in reducing bad cholesterol, they will wonder what ulterior motive you had in suggesting they avoid graveyards and morgues.

Heed my words: keep your advice to yourself, and rest assured in the knowledge that you are, indeed, smarter than everyone else. Allow a gentle smile to play across your lips as you lay your head to rest upon your pillow each night, for they are idiots, but they will be gone soon enough. And offer a quick prayer that you are not within fifty yards when they go, as they are bound to take those around them down with them.

1) A mattress. You spend 1/3 of your life in bed. You might as well enjoy it as much as possible. You’ll never talk your lady into trying anal if she can’t get comfortable in your bed. After a good night’s sleep, you’ll have more energy the next day, meaning better productivity at work, meaning your boss will give you a raise, meaning eventually you can afford to nap on the pelts of baby albino harbor seals you have clubbed yourself. In the meantime, try out a number of mattresses from a few different stores to find one that you really like. And don’t make the common mistake of assuming that the “softest” mattress will be the most comfortable in the long term. You need something that will properly support your prodigious bulk, fatty.

2) Booze. Leave the $7.99 handles of rotgut behind when you exit your college years. Better booze will leave you less hungover the following morning, meaning your coworkers won’t as easily be able to tell that you’re a raging alcoholic who spent Tuesday night powering through a bottle to cope with the shame of being woefully unqualified for the job secured for you by your father-in-law. If you’re mixing in some elaborate fruity cocktail you may be able to get away with a slightly lesser quality of booze, but otherwise pony up the cash for some decent stuff. There’s nothing worse than waking up following a bender fueled by Pepe Lopez tequila.

3) Shoes. Payless was invented for women so they could buy a pair of shoes that they intend on wearing once to match some outfit for a funeral. They are not fit for everyday use. This does not mean you have to spend $950 on some Italian loafers. But pick up a quality pair of dress brown, black and casual brown shoes. Even if your job allows you to wear sneakers, the judge will appreciate your spiffy footwear when you show up to contest that restraining order. And you can ask the ladies: shoes are one of the first things they notice on a guy. Your plastic-fantastic $9.97 specials are not going to cut it. On the other hand, spending only $9.97 on shoes does leave you more spare cash to pay for sex…

4) Tires. Sure, it’s some tire company’s marketing campaign, but it’s true: your tires really are the only thing that keeps you stuck to the road. Shitty tires put you and the people around you at risk. And let’s face it: you’re a barely competent driver as it is. So forego adding those snazzy clear tail lights and spend some cash on your tires. Check http://www.tirerack.com for good prices and a number of reviews. Special note for those that live in the snow belt: you need TWO sets of tires. Snow tires are an absolute must. Look at it this way: you slide off the road during a storm and damage your bumper, your insurance deductible is more than you would have spent on snow tires in the first place.

Who the hell are you trying to fool? Fruit On the Bottom is not a “feature”, it’s a pain in the ass. If I wanted to eat plain yogurt I would have bought plain yogurt. Instead, I’ve either got to sit there with my spoon mixing the yogurt like I was stirring up another batch of bathtub meth, or endure 3/4 of a container of plain nastiness followed by 1/4 of a container of syrupy, over-sugered fruit puree. Do everyone a favor: admit that the Breyers people didn’t want to shell out the $1.4M for the yogurt mixing machine and
stop bullshitting us with the fancy scripted letters on the packaging proclaiming “Fruit on the Bottom” as if that should entice us to buy your yogurt over the supermarket brand, who somehow have managed to master the technology necessary to ensure an evenly blended mix of fruit and yogurt right out of the container. I’m on to you and your lies.

An oil change is a simple enough task, and one I typically would not pay to have done. The $30 I’d spend at the local tune-and-lube tastes better in the form of a steak and a 12-pack in my belly. But it’s January. In New England. And all my tools are in storage at the U-Haul (thanks again McLaughlin’s for fucking up that house purchase). So, I advise my girlfriend to take her Mini to a local place for the oil change. She would be providing her own oil and OEM filter; how badly could it get fucked up?

You managed to answer that question when she opted to take her car to your shop, and answer with a vengeance: you fucked it up badly. When presented with the five-quart jug of Mobil1 oil, your technician apparently assumed that whatever amount was in the jug was the appropriate amount to add to the car’s crankcase, manufacturer’s recommendation be damned. So in went all five quarts, 8/10 of a quart more than the 4.2 quarts the car is designed to hold. With a (seriously) overfilled crankcase comes the potential for many problems: oil aeration leading to crank damage, damage to the catalytic converter ($887.25 without labor at the Mini dealer at last check), etc.

Okay, you made a mistake. We all do it. The true test is how you behave in the aftermath of your mistakes. There are two roads one can take when confronted with a mistake: Road A involves acknowledging the mistake and offering to make it right. You opted for Road B: deny, lie, accuse and pass the blame. And you covered ALL of those bases in your response. Well done.

My girlfriend shows up to pick up her car and asks for the extra oil. You claim that there were only four quarts in the jug (begging the question: if that WAS true, how can you explain that you left the oil 2/10 of a quart short of the manufacturer’s recommendation of 4.2 quarts?). My girlfriend leaves, and drives to the Wal-Mart to double-check what she already knows: there are five quarts in the jug. By this time, your shop has closed for the weekend.

She shows up first thing Monday morning when you open (ten minutes late) to ask that you take out the extra 8/10 of a quart and refund the $17 you charged her for her time and trouble. You deny that the whole jug of oil was ever dumped in. My girlfriend then asks where the extra oil is, if that is the case. Your response: “I don’t know”, the rally cry of those caught in a lie. You finally admit that it might have been filled “a little bit over”. My girlfriend follows you into the bay, where she proceeds to show you how to read a dipstick. She shows you a dipstick that clearly shows the oil level measuring almost a full quart over the “FULL” mark. You proceed to badmouth Mini with something along the lines of “if they made a proper dipstick, I could have read it”. Don’t you manage a (shitty) auto repair shop? I would hope that you would be able to read ANY dipstick without difficulty. I would be wrong.

After having another technician remove the excess oil, you return and claim that the level was “only a bit overfilled, and not enough to worry about”. 8/10 of a quart is not “a bit”, and is more than enough to run the risk of damage, especially on a car with a small engine like the Mini. But here’s where you go above and beyond and really deliver on the customer service: you refuse to refund the $17 she paid, claiming that my girlfriend “probably overfilled it herself after the fact to get her $17 back”.

Wow. Well done. You managed to exacerbate one simple mistake and turn it into a shining example of why the public (and women in particular) fear auto repair shops, scared of being mislead or taken advantage of. There’s a reason for these fears: they are right.