I'm Your Man

I'm Your Man

Noel Laflin

3-9-21

Facebook is now suggesting that I might be interested in a dishwashing position.

Well, dear Facebook, I’m your man.

You see, when I was 16, I worked in a Chinese restaurant as a dishwasher – so I come from a world of experience.

As a matter of fact, I had been working there for two weeks already when one night I came in the back door off the alley and was about to announce myself to the fellow I was relieving for the evening shift when I saw that he was adding two cups of some kind of white powder to the dishwashing machine before turning on the wash cycle.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “Soap. And I always thought it had some kind of automatic soap dispenser built into the dang thing. Huh! Well, what do you know?”

So, after that, I, too, started to add detergent to each wash.

Finally Found His Pants

 Finally Found His Pants

Noel Laflin

3-4-21

My father, like yours no doubt, had a good sense of humor and had a lot of favorite quotes and pet sayings. My sister and I could probably banter back and forth a dozen or more to this day.

But my personal favorite still remains, "This party is getting too wild for me, and as soon as I find my pants, I'm leaving!"

March 4th marks the anniversary of his passing fourteen years ago, or as he probably would have quipped, had he been able, it was the day he finally found his pants.

Keep the Change

Keep the Change

Noel Laflin

3-2-21

The scene hinted of a sense of normalcy, a mother and her daughter standing outside of Albertsons with boxes of Girl Scout cookie's piled high atop a folding table.

It was unexpected, in this time of weird expectations.

But there they were, both in masks, hand sanitizer sitting prominently at one corner of the table.

We were so delighted to see them in this familiar location that I doubled the order after David said one box of Lemonades and one of Shortbread please.

The cute young lady miscalculated and wanted to undercharge me, but quickly thought it over and then got it right.

I now wish she hadn't discovered her error just so I could play the cad and tell her to keep the change.