The Economy Has Forced Me To Take Drastic Measures

I think it’s safe to say that no one wants to lose their jobs or carry around a beverage mug bigger than their head. So far, I have been faced with one of these grim realities. I have become one of those women you see toting those giant plastic insulated mugs filled with carbonated soda. And you just know that these women are trying too “even things out” by filling that sucker with diet coke, only mine is filled with regular coke. Ha! Fooled you.

As far as the losing the job thing, I sure hope it doesn’t happen, but the construction industry has been hit hard by the troubled economy. In turn, the architectural community (our job field) is experiencing a slow down and some companies are laying off employees or even asking employees to take a reduction in salary. Most likely, Jeremy and I will have our salaries slashed in 2009, and that’s if we’re one of the lucky ones.

I say we’d be lucky because just the other day I threatened to light my co-worker’s chair on fire. And you should know that we all have Aeron chairs at work, so yeah, it was a pretty big deal. People go nuts for those things.

In my defense, my threat was only in jest, but perhaps my timing was not the best. I think management took it pretty well, all things considered. They even pulled me in a closed-door meeting to make everyone outside the closed-door meeting think I was in serious trouble. My superiors even went so far as to have the HR department type up a paper, which I signed, stating that I would not threaten to cause harm to any Aeron chairs so long as I was employed by the firm. Apparently I’m free to put a flame to the cheap Costco chair in the break room, but not the fancy designer chairs. See? I told you it was a pretty big deal.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten side-tracked here. You see, this post is about how I discovered a small way to tighten the old purse strings whilst still indulging in the occasional fountain beverage.

Allow me to explain. I am only in the office three days a week. On those days I require a 44 oz carbonated beverage at my desk in order to successfully make it through the day without “allegedly” threatening to inflict unprovoked harm to inanimate objects in the office. The price I pay for pleasure/sanity in a plastic cup? A cool $1.47.

Now, you coffee drinkers out there are probably scoffing at me right now as you sip your frappuccino from Starbucks at just over $5 a cup. But think, people. I live in Utah. Coffee is barely legal here and if you’re caught drinking it in public, you can be subjected to a hefty fine. Don’t even get me started on what happens to you if you’re caught dancing in public. You do know that Footloose was filmed here don’t you? Remember how those kids won in the end and got their dance? In public? Yeah, that trouble maker Kevin Bacon and those evil dance-seeking kids would never be able to so much as do a jazz square in Utah.

Anyway, back to my fountain drink addiction. If you do the math, at $1.47 a pop, three times a week, adds up to $4.41 per week. If you multiply that by four (average number of weeks in a month), that winds up being a whopping $17.64 in soda pop.

Notice that I wrote if YOU add it up you’ll end up with 17 bucks and some change. When I added it up, it looked as though I was spending $176.40 on soda per month. I immediately freaked out and phoned up Jeremy hyperventilating to him that I was spending almost 200 dollars a month on fountain sodas and that I could see no way to rectify the situation because I wasn't willing to give up my sugar-filled caffeine high. After Jeremy did some deep breathing exercises with me and showed me exactly how decimals points work in multiplication, eventually I settled down. Moments later, my dear husband walked past my work desk and slammed this sucker down with such great force that it shook my family size bag of M&Ms to the floor.


Yep, it’s my Maverick 44 oz super insulated soft drink mug. When it’s filled up with soda, it’s a chore just to lift the thing. I count it as part of my resistance routine whenever I lift it to my mouth to take a sip. A gal can never have too much wrist definition, you know? Annnnnnd, it costs only 59 cents to fill up. It’s a win-win really if you think about it.

As an aside, ‘Maverick’ refers to a local convenience store chain throughout the Intermountain West. Their slogan is “Adventures First Stop!” But I submit that it is actually adventure’s last stop. I’ve been in our local Maverick at odd times and the folks that show up there at the wee hours of the morning are definitely on their way home after an adventure gone wrong. I mean, who shows up to work wearing no pants and only a coat? Let me clarify: who shows up to work wearing a coat holding their pants rolled up in their arms? Someone who doesn’t want a job, that’s who. Ironically, the pant less person I saw at Maverick was an off-duty Maverick employee. I never saw him at that particular store again. Pity, he was one of my favorites and he had great legs.

As a second aside (as if this post wasn’t chock filled with tangents already) I’m totally counting this as a HASAY post because since that giant sucker of a mug came into my life just over a month ago, I have filled it up with ice water. Healthy. Also, if you were paying attention, you would have picked up that I use it as a weight when doing resistance exercises. Again, win-win.

*A third aside, everything in this post is true except for the part about me being pulled into a closed-door meeting. When I threatened to set a chair on fire, my boss only looked at me for a few moments then went back to working. After eleven years, he's pretty much heard it all from me.

A Rambling Post That Goes Nowhere Really Fast But Mentions Urine, Poison And The Economy So You Might Want To Read It Anyway

The other day, Jeremy told me that our love reminded him of a song by Ratt titled You’re in Love, but when I heard him say those words I thought he said Urine Love and I was all, “Why the h*ll would our love remind him of urine?” Offended, I then gave my husband the silent treatment for about three hours and thought of ways to poison his food without implicating myself in any way. I realize that by writing this here, I may cause myself some problems in the future if Jeremy does accidentally choke on a burrito or eats bad hummus that does him in. All ten of you will likely turn me in, and since I have a previous record, the law may not look too kindly on me.

But rest assured, before I actually purchased the strychnine for my husband's hummus, I had a moment of clarity and realized that I need to keep focused on the bigger picture here. Urine doesn’t bother me, not one bit. The fact that he still listens to Ratt, a second-tier 80's hair band at best, is perhaps the most troubling thing for me.

This got me to thinking, if urine doesn’t bother me, then I am either very laid back or I have much bigger troubles. I’m definitely not laid back, so what else is bothering me? Well, for one, the economy is in the crapper and the entire construction industry has taken a giant dump. This does not bode well for the Steenky family who make their livelihoods in architecture.

Can I confess something to you? The economy has me terrified. Jeremy and I both feel so lucky to have our jobs right now. We’ve had to have some pretty pointed discussions lately and have yet to decide which one of us should be voted out of the family in the event of hard times, barring any unforeseen tragedy with a burrito or poisoned hummus. I’m pretty sure if the family had to take a vote at this point, it would be extremely close. Jeremy buys Henry lots of treats and he’s got one of the dogs on his side too. I, on the other hand have both cats firmly in my camp and, depending on the day, the other dog. Reese is the wild-card here. On the one hand, she really likes her cuddle time with me, but that's no match for the thrill she gets when she plays with Jeremy's eye glasses. In order to preserve my position in my family, I have resorted to wearing my glasses as much as possible and throwing candy at Henry whenever we're together. Henry's never been happier but Jeremy is starting to ask a lot of questions. Every vote counts, right?

But for now, no vote is needed because Jeremy and I both still have our jobs. But I'm not sure for how long. I'd like to think we're safe from any layoffs, but you just never know. Lucky for Jeremy, he's been working several angles to preserve his position at work. For example, Jeremy has himself a work husband. And this work husband? He has some clout. He's the CFO of our firm and Jeremy's closest friend in the office. I often find them huddled together in the corner talking about baseball, fishing, cars and tennis shorts.

But I'm fearful that Jeremy's recent antics may have jeopardized any favored status he has with the CFO. You see, a few months ago, Jeremy sneaked down to the parking garage at work and switched out the rear license plate frame on his work husband's new convertable Mustang from the stock frame to a custom-ordered one that reads “My other ride is your mom”.

Oh, we all had a good laugh a few weeks later when the CFO eventually found it, but now I'm just a little nervous. I told Jeremy last night that I thought maybe it was a bad idea that he switched the frame on our boss' car and let him drive around for weeks advertising that he's hot for mothers. He nodded in agreement and confessed that the frame was a tad bit inappropriate. He went on to explain that since his buddy drives a convertible, it would have been better to order the "When I get hot I take my top off" frame instead. He assures me that he'll never make that mistake again.


Folks, I now must leave you with that rambling story for pretty much the remainder of the month. I KNOW. What am I doing? Well, let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm going to take a short breather and spend some quality time with my family. All that 30 posts in 30 days stuff just wore me ragged. I didn't even participate in that beast of a challenge, but visiting you all that did participate and reading all your amazing posts led me to neglect my home and personal grooming habits. Seriously, I think I went two weeks without shaving.


I have two guest posts scheduled for this month (Oscarelli and Tracy Kaply, Inc.) and I'll post links here on the days that they run. I'm sure I'll give in and sneak a few posts in here and there, but for the remainder of the year it will be at random. Even though I'm taking a mini break from writing, that in no way implies that I'll be taking the same sort of break from stalking all of you and harassing you endlessly.