Urinal Cakes

Times are bad.  The Dow Jones Index closed under ten thousand again yesterday.  The stimulus package that was to create American jobs has done nothing more than cause traffic jams wherever the government has contracted road improvements.  Those jobs were called "shovel ready".  Too bad they'll take into the next century to finish.  American unemployment numbers are so bad that people are starting to think the Carter Presidency wasn't as terrible as they thought (That wasn't nice.  My dad really liked Carter.)  In the news I hear the phrase "double dip recession" about as much as I hear Obama blaming Bush...for everything.  Yeah, times are bad.

The Muller household is feeling the brunt of it as well.  I've taken a significant hit in my annual income.  Mrs. Muller has made adjustments, but sometimes it's not enough.  Just today she bought groceries.  Her receipt shows she spent $68.45 while saving $72.83.  Nice one, babe!  But at one point she considered having me killed in order to collect the life insurance payola.  Not nice, babe!  Fortunately, she came to her senses and realized I'm a keeper.  And I am.  Still, financial ruin and the threat of murder can cause a lot of stress.  I'm stressed.

That's why I was happy to see that my employer took an interest in my and my fellow cohorts mental well being.  It's the little things that make a difference.  It's the effort that shows they care.  I noticed it when I went to the bathroom.  While standing at the urinal I looked down and noticed something there that wasn't there before, a urinal cake.  A urinal cake is that block of disinfectant found in a urinal.  Guys pee on it and it causes urine to splash everywhere.  This particular urinal cake turned the little puddle of water in the urinal blue.  As I peed the water turned green.  That made me smile.  I told my friend, Juice Man Gary, about the urinal cake and he said that he'd also noticed it.  It made him think of the beach.  Now, isn't that something.  This little block of disinfectant had brought a smile to at least two stressed out employees.

They also put aerosol cans of air freshener in the bathroom stalls...you know, for a courtesy spray.  This made me think of a joke I heard.  It went something like this; a man and a woman were on an elevator.  Much to the woman's embarrassment, she farted.  The man told her it was OK, he had a can of pine scented air freshener.  She thanked the man.  At the next floor the doors opened and a man got in and exclaimed, "Wow!  It smells like someone crapped on a Christmas tree in here!"  In the men's room of my office it smells like someone crapped on a cinnamon stick.  Still, it makes the whole trip to the bathroom more enjoyable, so I'm not complaining.

So, things are hard, but we need to focus on the big picture.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, or what the big picture is, but it sounds good.  I'm just glad they put urinal cakes in the urinals and air freshener in the stalls.  It's a small thing that has, at the very least, inspired a mulling.  And I like to think when I find something funny that it helps alleviate stress.  In fact, I'm sure of it.  Still, I would take more money...just sayin'.

A post script here:  I made up the part about Mrs. Muller killing me for the life insurance.  She actually was going to have me maimed in order to collect on a disability policy she recently took out on me.  I knew that policy was a bad idea.

A post script-script here:  OK, I made that part up, too.  I still think she'd like to kill me sometimes, though.