I have a problem, ironically, with the people who tell me, “no problem.” When someone does me a favor such as open a door, hold an elevator, or help me pick up something I dropped, I always make it a point to say, “thank you.” to which the expected response is “You’re welcome” but instead I get the response of “No problem.” I have a problem with that.

It particularly bothers me when I am in line at a retail store. When I pay for my merchandise and hand the clerk my cash, I wait patiently for my change. When it is given to me (sometimes counted into my hand and sometimes just handed to me in bulk) my response is “Thank you for giving me change from the money I gave you to buy merchandise in your store which I hope was not a problem for you” which I usually trim down to “Thank you.”

For as long as I have been speaking English, which is most of my life after evolving from Gibberish, the anticipated answer to the statement “Thank you” is “You’re welcome” occasionally augmented to become “You’re certainly welcome” or “You’re very welcome”. It should never be “No problem” which implies that sometimes there is a problem and what do they do when that happens? For this reason, I wish to have the phrase “No problem” stricken from the vernacular just as I want the phrase “Have a good one” stricken.

I am a huge advocate of accuracy and think that the more accuracy we have in our lives, the less mistakes will be made. “Have a good one” has no accuracy. Have a good WHAT? Have a good day? Have a good week? Have a good time? Have a good lunch? Have a good sleep? Have a good life? Just tell me what you are wishing I have a good one of, that’s all I’m asking.

So please join me in my crusade to stamp out senseless idioms. From here on in, promise to never take “No problem” as an answer. Tell the offender that you know there’s no problem because you are doing your job and if you are doing your job and if you have a problem with it, you had better come up with alternative employment.

Don’t let anybody tell you to “Have a good one” either. Insist that they be more specific in what they wish. It’s not hard to do and it makes your greeting so much more personal like when somebody calls you by your name instead of saying “Hey pal”.

I’m thinking of calling my group Idioms Really Stink or IRS. You’re invited to the next convention. BYOSTU, Bring Your Own Star Trek Uniform.

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I enjoy gardening more than any of my other hobbies including sloth and lethargy.

Gardening is the only thing a homeowner can do that gives him a reward. If you paint your house, what is your reward? Your house looks nice, even though nobody else will tell you that. What about plumbing? If you unclog the toilet, what is your reward? Your payback is that you don’t have to go down to the gas station to use the can and that seems more of a threat than a reward.

With gardening, the reward is FOOD. You get to eat your hobby, and in the case  of zucchini all of your friends, relatives, and unsuspecting neighbors can eat your hobby too.

There is a lot of maintenance involved in gardening, but if you are considering growing your own crops this year, follow my 10 Step Plan, it’s as easy as ABD.

Dale’s 10 Step Gardening Plan

Step one – First, turn the soil; till the acreage, or as I did and hire a guy named Billy Jim to Roto-till my garden plot.

Step two – is a beer, as a reward for having completed step one.

Step three – is planting. Planting involves placing either seeds or baby plants in the soil so they can grow. It is long, tedious, back breaking work that leads directly to step four.to step four.

Step four is another beer for completing step three.

Step five, is watering. Edibles need a great deal of water to grow. This is because they are primarily made of water. A banana is 74% water. The human body on the other hand is only 60% water. So don’t go thinking you’re better than a banana.

Steps six through ten. From here on in, your work is all maintenance. There’s weed pulling, plant thinning, composting, mulching, more weed pulling, anti-rabbit fence installing, fertilizing, weed pulling, and of course, beer drinking. This is a lot of work, but there’s food on the other end, and the best part is that you only have to grow the stuff you like.

There’s no seed packet for mixed vegetables, you only grow what you like. There are no beets in my garden. This year I put in a crop of soybeans. I hear that soy milk is quite healthy and after you milk ‘em you can turn them into tofu. It’s a win-win. And, given the size of my plot, I should pull in well over a bushel of soybeans, maybe two.

It’s got to work out better than last year when I tried to grow pork-n-beans.

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Today is April 15th, commonly known as tax day, the day when you, as a citizen of the U.S. of A, must file and pay your income taxes for money earned in 2012. You have until midnight today to do that and I say, “Why didn’t somebody warn me that this was coming?”

Now that I look back, it makes some sense that I was seeing Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty on every street corner waving me into an H&R Block office. They were trying to tell me to get my taxes done but I didn’t catch the hint and now and I have only a few hours left. At least I have an idea this year.

I am going to fill out my tax form with numbers I selected at random from last night’s lottery. Then I will place these numbers on the tax form and add a couple of zeroes to make it look legit. I will also include a check for $75 to cover taxes owed. My theory is thus; when the IRS person opens the envelope and sees the check, he or she will be so happy that somebody actually sent them money that they will be overjoyed and not even bother to look at my return.

If they do examine my return and claim that I was fraudulent, I will simply say that, “I was just joking. I have an overactive funny bone and since funny-bone-icitis is not covered by ObamaCare, there is nothing I can do about it. Oh sure, I try to sadden up by watching Cubs games or weather reports from the midwest but I just can’t do it. My funny bone keeps interrupting and making me do crazy stuff. I apologize for the mistake and will redo my tax return with a more serious bent next year. In the mean time, you can keep the $75 on my account.”

I’m hoping that excuse will buy me a little time but it will probably buy me a lot of time, like 10 to 20 years. Time to file for an extension so I can think up a better excuse.

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I recently learned that April is National Stress Awareness Month, as if we are not aware of stress the other 11 months of the year. We have always had stress but recently it seems to surround us like some kind of killer fog. It’s everywhere and we need to get rid of it.

While I have always been a proponent of stress reduction, I never really had a plan to reduce my own stress. For years, I have been speaking about the stress relieving benefits of laughter but making yourself laugh is a lot harder. You can’t even tickle yourself to make yourself laugh. Go ahead, try it.

In my ongoing effort to lower my stress, I have decided to try meditation. Granted, I don’t know anything about meditation other than what I read in a book but that was enough to get me started. So far, my regimen consists of a breathing exercise followed by a period of  muttering nonsense and focusing out of my third eye. This is the part I don’t really get.

According to the book, I am supposed to sit cross legged, with my hands resting on my knees, and I am supposed to repeat the word “Om”. I am more likely to repeat the word WTF than I am Om, because I find Om to be one of the dumbest things a person could say.

Plus, I looked up in the dictionary and they don’t even spell it right. Om is spelled o-h-m and it is a unit of electrical resistance. Now it makes even less sense. Why would I want to concentrate on electrical resistance when I am trying to eliminate stress. Electricity has always given me stress, even static electricity. Let’s face it, a shock is a shock and it doesn’t calm me down.

So I decided to use my own meditation word. Something that means more to me than ohm. After hearing about (but not yet seeing) the movie the Life of Pi, I decided to choose pi as my meditative word. Of course, I once again had to correct the spelling to p-i-e which is a word that means the world to me.

I love pie. It is my favorite dessert and I don’t really care what kind of pie it is. In fact, I have never met a pie I didn’t like…except for mincemeat pie, Shepherds pie, and steak & kidney pie, all of which are not pies as much as they are the organs and dangly bits of animals served with a crust on top. This is not pie.

Real pie has a succulent filling of fruit, or pudding, or custard, or something else that does not come from an animal’s insides. Apple pie, berry pie, pumpkin pie, cherry pie, banana cream pie, even strawberry-rhubarb pie, a tasty pastry that contains fruit AND a vegetable.

So I meditate by concentrating on pie and it seems to be working. In just one week I have noticed that my stress is lower and I’ve gained three pounds. Mmmmmm. Pie.

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We have a lot of days in this country. I’m not talking about the 365 (6) 24-hour segments in a year, I’m talking about all of the “special” days. For instance, we have Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Grandparent’s Day. When asked by a child why there is no Kid’s Day, every adult will give the same answer, “Every day is kid’s day” That may be fine and true but there’s nothing on the calendar and the calendar lists all of the days.

We have Secretary’s Day, Boss’s Day, and Labor Day which should cover anybody that works for a living but alas, it is not good enough for one organized labor group. The doctors of the world have gathered together and proclaimed March 30th as National Doctor’s Day. Apparently doctors don’t receive enough money or attention and want to draw everyones attention to the fact that our lives are in their hands.

So far, I don’t have a big problem with National Doctor’s Day but I do have a few questions. Does it apply to all doctors or just specialists? Are dentists included in National Doctor’s Day or are they lobbying for their own day. Will there be National Doctor’s Day cards available at the Hallmark store?

Also, is National Doctor’s Day just for medical doctors or can owners of PhD’s also get in on the celebration. What if you have an honorary doctorate? Are these posers included with all of the real doctors. And speaking of real doctors, how far away are we from having a National Chiropractor’s Day? National Psychologist’s Day? Or even a National Oculist’s Day. The lawyers association has already sued to get a National Lawyers Day. I think April 1st would be good for them.

There are a lot of questions to be answered before I can jump on the N.D.D. bandwagon but that won’t stop them from fundraising.

I learned about National Doctor’s Day through a mailing I received from a major Chicago hospital. The hospital, in their mailing, suggested that I honor my doctor by sending a donation in his name to the hospital. Excuse me, a donation? I send my doctor money on a regular basis. It’s called paying the bill, but I see no reason to add a gratuity.

Then there’s the size of the gift requested. There are only 3 check boxes on the included donation form, so I can give either $500, $1,000, or $1,500. They even allow me to make the donation in the form of a monthly credit card charge. Thank you but I think I’ll pass.

I will continues to appreciate, and pay, my doctor for services rendered. And, I will recommend him to anybody I know who is looking for a physician. But I will not fork over $500 to say, “Good job, Doc” unless the hospital throws in some sort of free gift. I would suggest a free set of x-rays but they’ll probably offer a complementary proctoscopic exam.

I guess they’re out to do it to us any way they can. Happy Doctor’s Day.

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