I was doing my weekly checking of the mail and a pretty pregnant lady yelled out, “Are you guys catching this elevator?” Little did she know that we were purposely taking a long time at the mailbox area so we wouldn’t have to ride it with her.

We darted to catch the ride with her just to make her happy. She told us that she hates when people don’t hold the elevator doors when it’s obvious someone wants to go up!

I asked her how her day went. She said “bad!”

I told her that her day would get better startiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing (elevator doors open) NOW!

She smiled sooooooooo hard when she walked out of the elevator. My friend told me that was one of those unforgettable moments that we were talking about earlier. (I’ll let him write about that.) And it wasn’t something I even thought about doing. It wasn’t even a thought!

When she said her day sucked, I knew I could make it better even though I only had 5 seconds to accomplish my mission.

I feel like I can do so much to make people happy and I spend a lot of my time doing things that don’t even matter.

I think if I keep myself as happy as I can, I can bring that happiness to everyone that I am in contact with.

What are some ways that you have brought or can bring happiness to someone that you know can’t do anything for you? Share your stories in the comments and let’s spread happiness together!

I’ve been saving coins in a huge water bottle almost since I first got to Korea.

Once the water bottle was full, I lugged it to the nearest bank (it weighed quite a bit more than I expected). I figured they could handle it and just give me my bills right???

I found out (through the decent english of the bank teller) that I had to sort the coins so they could pour them into the machine denomination at a time.

That wasn’t what I had planned at all. But it’s way better than them saying “NO!!!” and making an X with their forearms (which makes the hulk angry). I went ahead and sorted them and got my money.

I got a few coins under $200 (USD). I was expecting way less! It was like getting money for not wanting to jingle from my pockets everywhere I went. That’s a win/win!

Why not see the original post on my blog here?
http://www.jermilsadler.com/blog/2009/10/the-easiest-savings-plan-ever/

This is the long awaited follow-up to my extremely old post titled Rock Climbing Hurts.

[3:08:47 AM] CM: wait i don’t think i ever read “rock climbing hurts” lol
[3:10:22 AM] CM: LOL at you jamming your paper shredder LOL
[3:11:12 AM] JS: yeah that was silly of me
[3:11:28 AM] JS: i poured cooking oil into it to try to soften the paper and get it going
[3:11:30 AM] JS: didn’t work
[3:11:38 AM] CM: you were in a shredding frenzy
[3:11:38 AM] JS: i think i blew the motor after getting it jammed
[3:11:43 AM] CM: wait
[3:11:43 AM] CM: what?!?
[3:11:45 AM] JS: LOL
[3:11:48 AM] CM: oil?
[3:11:52 AM] CM: on the shredder?
[3:11:53 AM] JS: yeah i read about that online
[3:12:00 AM] JS: to make the paper all soft and get it running again
[3:12:03 AM] CM: LOL
[3:12:08 AM] CM: hmmm
[3:12:11 AM] JS: by then i wasnt going to do anything else
[3:12:15 AM] JS: i was ready to throw it away
[3:12:18 AM] JS: so i said why not
[3:12:19 AM] CM: ok so mechanical engineering is not your thing
[3:12:28 AM] JS: LOL
[3:12:37 AM] CM: lol
[3:12:40 AM] CM: i can’t stop laughing
[3:13:02 AM] CM: LOLOL
[3:13:05 AM] CM: ahhhhhhhhhhhh
[3:13:27 AM] CM: i’m picturing you dumping all this cooking oil on this machine with crumpled paper all in it
[3:13:34 AM] CM: bits of paper on the carpet
[3:13:53 AM] JS: LOL i guess i may have looked a bit silly
[3:13:58 AM] CM: lol

I woke up at 5am to make it to my 8:12am flight from Detroit to Chicago. After all of the extremely last-minute things that I did during my last morning in America, we left at about 6:45. I made it to the check-in computer at 7:13 and the screen told me it was too late for me to check-in. I figured it wanted me to be there one hour early and I was only one minute late.

I talked to someone behind the counter and got my bags checked. I asked the lady if the problem was that I had to be there an hour before my departure time. She told me that I had to be there 2 hours early (because of my international flight) but since they weren’t busy, I was okay. I had assumed that since my first flight was domestic, I didn’t have to be there 2 hours early. This story could have ended right here!!!

I made it through security and to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Snow started falling in Chicago and my flight was delayed a bit. While I waited, I noticed on the screens at the other gates that all of the flights to Chicago after mine were cancelled!

When I called STA Travel to book my flight to Korea a few weeks ago, I was originally given a 10:55am flight to Chicago. I had gone to the University of Michigan with my sister later that day and stopped by the STA Travel office there to finalize everything. One of the agents there suggested that I take the earlier flight in case of delays. If it wasn’t for her, this story would have been over here!!!

We boarded the flight in Detroit and had to sit on the plane with the engines off for 30 minutes because of delays at Chicago. If I had kept that later flight and even if it wasn’t canceled, the delays would have caused me to miss my flight to Korea because my layover would’ve only been 45 minutes. Again, this story would have been over here!!!

During my flight to Korea, we stop in Tokyo to change planes. The flight to Tokyo was also delayed due to plane maintenance and we left at 1:15pm instead of noon. I overheard someone saying we would not make the flight to Seoul that night! But during the flight, the pilot announced that all of the connecting flights out of Tokyo would be held so we wouldn’t have to worry about missing out flights. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made it to Korea until the next day (if I was lucky).

We landed in Tokyo about 15 minutes before my flight to Seoul was scheduled to take off. But that flight was delayed for an hour to ensure we all made it on.

All of the events that occurred during that really long day feeds my belief that this is something that is meant to happen for me and I am exactly where I am supposed to be in life. What do you think???

101 Things to Do Before You Die

My roommate in college considered doing one of those but never followed through with it. However, a very close friend of mine did one of these when she needed money in college. When she told me that, I thought she was CRAZY. I never considered doing that but I also didn’t need money bad enough to let someone test crazy pills and shots on me.

She said that the only lasting effect from the experiment was that she never has to wear deodorant. Even during the hottest days of the hottest summer, she doesn’t make a stink at all.

I’d say she rolled dice that were setup for her to lose and somehow she beat the system. I always figured these clinical trials were pretty much guaranteed to make your life stay the same or end up worse. Then again, that’s how Wolverine from the X-Men got his adamantium skeleton. I doubt anyone has come out with Spiderman-esque powers. But I could be wrong and I would be sooooo jealous even though my super powers rock!

What do you think? Do you know anyone who participated in one of these experiments and came out better than before?

One thing we used to do whenever the situation presented itself was have elevator races.

I’ll first explain what I mean by elevator race…

It starts when two or more people (usually who know each other) are waiting for an elevator. One person presses the button to call the elevator. The elevator approaches that floor. Coincidentally, some random person is on the other elevator and is coming to that same floor. Both doors open at approximately the same time. The two people who were waiting on the elevator make eye contact and immediately run inside separate elevators and press the button to the same floor. The first one to make it to that floor jumps out of the elevator and yells out that they made it in hopes of doing so before the other person.

I was reminded about this childish practice when I was leaving my apartment building last week.

I was getting off the elevator at the first floor and some 7 year old kid came running in yelling ELEVATOR RACE!!! I looked in the other elevator and his mom was in it smiling. It gave me fond memories of a more carefree time in my life. Then I was repulsed at the thought of being 18 or so doing the same things that a 7 year old does.

In the end, the warm glow of the fond memories won and I basked in it until I got to work where a dark storm cloud followed me for the rest of the day.

Have yourself an elevator race today! It’s quite a rush and takes away from the monotony of riding an elevator.

On the flight from Denver, a young couple sat next to me. A slim young girl and a big, burly, football player type guy. They looked to be high school aged.

The flight was about 2.5 hours and they didn’t bring anything to occupy themselves. I had Narendra‘s book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra. Life was good.

The guy eventually got his laptop out and played on that for a minute or two. Then he passed it to his ladyfriend and she started playing that lame pinball game that comes with Windows XP. She quickly got bored of that and started playing Solitaire.

She seemed like she didn’t know much about the game except how to play it. The guy had to tell her to double click on cards and they’ll pop up where the aces are.

After a few games, she was finally getting close to winning. All she had to do was click on all the cards and make them pop up to where the aces are. That’s when I decided to step in.

I told her that if she hits ALT and F4 at the same time, it’ll put all the cards up there and she won’t have to double click them. What it really does is closes solitaire completely similar to going to File > Exit.

After she did it, I couldn’t stop laughing!!!

Unfortunately, she didn’t get pissed. Her and the boyfriend laughed cheerfully.

I guess sometimes… Evil Is Good.

Two other casual carriers worked there besides me. One guy who was younger than me got fired. He actually was “asked to quit”. They ask you to quit because if you get fired from the post office, you can never get hired again. They asked him to quit and he whined and complained and they said he cried because he didn’t want to quit. They eventually explained to him why quitting was better than being fired and he conceded.

But he usually did the same route while he was there. After he was gone, they had me do that route.

It went pretty smooth. Not too many abandoned houses or houses that were destroyed by fire. No random dogs walking around the yards or barking at me through the mail chute. It was a pretty decent neighborhood overall.

One day while I was delivering mail along that route, I had to get a signature for a certified letter. Some guy came to the door and started talking all friendly to me while I was waiting for him to sign.

He asked where the other guy that usually delivered the mail was. I told him I wasn’t sure what happened to him. (I didn’t want to spread around that he got fired.) The guy started telling me he was a music producer and he gets the hookup in the clubs in Detroit. I said “oh cool”. Somehow we exchanged numbers and we were supposed to hang out eventually.

I didn’t think much about it until he called the next evening.

During the phone conversation, he started asking all of these “getting to know you” type questions. Questions like “where are you from”, “where did you go to college”, “how old are you”. Awkward questions for a guy to ask another guy. At first it was cool, but he kept asking more and more personal questions. It started feeling like he was a young lady I just met and we were getting better acquainted before our first date.

It started getting really weird. He then asked me when I would be delivering mail around his block again. I told him I didn’t know. I actually didn’t know but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him. The whole thing was getting WEIRD.

I asked him why he wanted to know. He said,”Because… I want to see you.” I almost dropped the phone.

I said, “WHAT?” He said, “Because I want to see you n***a!”

Right when he said that, my mom walked in the room. I looked at her dumbfounded. She looked at me and said, “What?” I didn’t know what to say.

I told the guy that I’d call him back and hung up.

I told her the whole story and she laaaaaaaaughed and laaaaaaaaughed.

I never saw him when I did that route. He called back a few more times but I didn’t answer. He stopped calling. All of this happened in November. I ended up quitting around the beginning of December.

THEN!!! He called me on christmas and of course I didn’t answer. He left a voicemail wishing me a merry christmas and happy new year. I got creeped out all over again. I had nightmares for the next 3 months!!!

Not really but it was creepy all over again.

I didn’t hear from him again after that.

After I graduated from college, I got a job offer from a company in Virginia. It seemed great and I was all for it. But, for various reasons, I had to wait a little while before I could actually start working. During this time, I was sitting at my parents’ house in Michigan while those things got sorted out. I was bored and did nothing all day.

My dad was retired and he kinda wanted another job. He was thinking about applying for the “casual carrier” position for the Detroit post office. What casual carriers do is fill in at a particular post office wherever they’re needed. They do a lot but the position is only temporary. A casual carrier works 90 day cycles and can only do 2 of those cycles per year. The goal is to do so well that you’ll become a real mail carrier.

My dad had applied and really wanted to do it. Since I was sitting around the house, he suggested that I apply too. I told him I shouldn’t because I’d end up taking his job. I also didn’t want to drag sacks of mail around. He said “hogwash”. I applied.

I got a call not too long afterwards that said I can come down to the main post office in downtown Detroit. My dad was a bit upset that I got the interview and didn’t even want it. But I think he was more upset that they didn’t give him that same call.

The interview was an information session where they gave all of the rules of being a postal carrier. They made me fill out a fat application packet where I had to give background information and such. They also gave me a date to meet up with a driving instructor so they could make sure I was able to drive with the steering wheel on the right side.

I went through the process a little too smoothly and ended up getting the job. The job was a lot of hard work, a lot of walking, and a lot of fun. I met some interesting people in the post office that I didn’t keep in touch with. I also met a lot of people while I was delivering mail that I couldn’t get away from fast enough. Friday’s story will be about one of those people.

Whenever he gets his horrible burger and bucket of french fries, he heads back off to his girl scout cookie crumb-covered desk. I bet he eats those things with one hand (masturbation joke).

But as he walks back through the halls to his horrible, disgusting, smelly desk, he is stuffing his fat face with whatever garbage he just bought in the worthless cafeteria.

I think it’s gross when someone is so physically fat and soulfully gluttonous that they can’t wait until they sit down somewhere before they start stuffing their muzzle with their nauseating meal.

I could slightly excuse if you want a sampling of the garbage that you just bought and decide to chomp on a greasy french fry. But to stuff fry after fry into your fat gullet is just unclean and nasty and filthy.

If you need to eat that bad, eat in the cafeteria! Pay for your food, sit down 10 feet away from the cash register, stuff your smelly, fleshy face, and go back to your grimy desk with pictures of your fat wife and dumb kids.

So gross.