My Hang Up

It’s been nearly 25 years since I worked in production control management at Ricoh, a Japanese mega corporation. I enjoyed working there and learned many things. I practiced and preached a lot of line scheduling, supply chain management, fancy schmancy ‘just in time’ production, and oh yeah, how to HANG things up!

Well more to the point, I got things up off the production floor and learned to make room for ONLY the stuff that our company really needed to become efficient. Interestingly, it is my wife who NOW practices more of what I preached in those early days. She loves hanging things up and making everything efficient and easy to get to. In fact any long handled tool or pole, if I don’t intercede, will find itself being subjected to perforation by my wife and hung up on some wall. For the most part I love the organization and the relative ease to find any tool at any time.

Recently however, my wife went too far. In the garage, she drilled a hole in a TOILET PLUNGER, and mounted it at eye level so it is the very first thing that greets you when you enter the house. Now I’m realistic about this tool. I know that it is necessary on occasion to have this thing handy for the random 4 inch pipe constriction, but GEEEZ, why must it be easier to reach than a flashlight or a fire extinguisher? What kind of emergency is my wife expecting that requires ‘gunslinger’ access to a stinking potty plunger?

I don’t really think I am going out on a limb crying ‘foul’ here. Who wants a wet- wand in your face when you are groping around in the dark for a light switch? Why can’t this crappy commode un-clogger find a happy home, in some distant corner recess on the garage floor with the spiders, and THEIR restroom utensils? What kind of bathroom mass production is my wife expecting that requires a throne-thruster just in time, or any time, in THAT much of a hurry? Yes I may pout for awhile but I won’t plunge into a porcelain depression over this issue. Don’t worry my wife is privy to my concerns, but even though this ‘hang up’ of mine ‘sucks’, I CAN learn to go with the flow!