A leg up

Some of you may know I recently damaged my leg. If you didn’t, you do now. Let’s move on. This week, I had my last doctor’s appointment. She said it was my last, but I’m betting I’ll be in her office again. You see I do stupid things, and she’s the doctor who fixes a person when stupid things happen. Consequently, it ain’t even close to the last time.

All this being said, yesterday I got an email from the clinic.  It asked how their service was. There before me were several questions I had to rate from one to five. How am I supposed to this?  If I give her a bad mark, she might refuse to fix my leg next time. Or worse, put my foot on backwards.

Some serious thoughts

This woman holds my life in her hands. I’m certainly never going to tell her she did a bad job. That would be like telling your wife you don’t like her cooking. It can only make things worse. Remember too, she has friends and colleagues. This isn’t like giving a bad mark to a restaurant you’re never going to visit again. Doctors talk to each other. They have meetings, and attend huge conferences.

What if I’m in Nairobi and get attacked by a wild tiger? Then, when I go to a local doctor, they say they won’t treat me because I left a bad mark for Dr. Jensen. What do I do then? Of course, there’s the likelihood he won’t believe me about the attack, because there are no wild tigers in Kenya. But this is entirely beside the point.

No Comment

For this reason, and many others, I hate giving comments. So why does everybody keep asking for them? In my inbox I currently have seven requests for feedback. Two are from places I made orders, but haven’t received anything yet. How in the world can I rate them? They haven’t given me the service yet!

I guess, I could say something like, “Ten-stars out of five. Your site was great. It had pictures! I was able to click the icon!! Let’s hope you actually shipped my item. But that’s a minor point when compared to your colorful company logo. It’s so cool! You even deleted the pumpkin icon and added a pine tree!” This may be a little excessive, but I’m certainly not giving a bad rating before they ship my stuff. Even Mr. Ohh! isn’t that stupid.

This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t the holiday season. Everywhere I shop, eat, drink, play, or even relieve myself wants to know my opinion. Don’t believe me? I was at the shopping center the other day. There was this little podium just outside the restroom asking me to rate my experience. I honestly gave a good rating, as everything came out all right. Then again if I had eaten several bean burritos the night before, they wouldn’t have gotten the same rating. It’s not their fault, but it’s just how it is.

Problems with the rating system

Frankly this is getting ridiculous. I’m afraid to leave cookies out for Santa, for fear he’ll only leave me four stars. A good friend of mine, baked those cookies. If I have to tell her Santa said the snickerdoodles had too much cinnamon, she’ll probably hurt me. That’s her grandmother’s recipe.

Also, we only use almond milk at our house. What if the big man doesn’t like it. I could lose points for something totally not my fault. Like when I had that sneezing attack in an Uber ride. Without going into details, there just wasn’t enough tissues. Remember as well, when a cheap tissue had a blow-out, things get very messy, very quickly.

That driver gave me a very poor rating. Even though he was the one who hung the licorice scented air-freshener. I’m allergic. After that I had to switch to Lyft, because no Uber would pick me up. But I digress.

Don’t Judge me

Worse yet would be if Santa didn’t like my tree. Everyone knows St. Nick prefers real trees. I like artificial. First, he places me on some random list ‘Naughty / Nice’ without ever hearing what my lawyer has to say about the extenuating circumstances. Next, I’m being criticized for my cookie choices. I left the treat there out of the goodness of my heart. How judgy can one guy get? What if he hates my carpeting, or my faux wood paneling? Am I being penalized for my decorating choices? Maybe? Maybe not? It’s just not fair.

I went to a place advertising visits with Santa, and tried to talk to the guy. Sadly, he just told me to get out of the way of the kiddies. Eventually, security threw me out of the place. Is he so afraid of a little criticism that he can’t even talk to reasonable adults? I think he’s been hanging around with children a little too long.

Finding solutions

I thought about sending a letter to the north pole to air my grievances. The thing is, you never know just who gets those letters. I can’t believe the big man reads them all. He has to have a bunch of clerical help. Elves probably input the letters on a computer system, which is later cross-referenced to the Naughty and Nice lists. These undoubtedly go to shipping for order fulfilment. If those low-level employees saw my letter-of-explanation, they’d probably just toss it in the furnace to keep the place warm. Somehow, I don’t think recycling is very big at the north pole. But I could be wrong.

Another thing, I had to have my roof replaced on the house, this year. It cost a bundle. How am I supposed to communicate the fact that I really don’t want reindeer prancing and pawing at my new shingles? It’s a real problem.

Then again Maybe I can make you better

Then again, perhaps I’m looking at this the wrong way. Santa is, after all, a service provider. Perhaps, I should be looking to rate his service instead. I’ve never found any comment cards left next to the cookie plate. What if they all got thrown away with the used wrapping paper after the morning frenzy? Has he gotten a bit loose on his regulations because he feels nobody would give Santa Claus a black mark?

I mean, it’s easy to see he’s not on top of his game anymore. Every holiday season, there are more and more movies about someone having to get his but out of the fire. I recently saw one where a dog saved Christmas. Maybe we need to start filling out some surveys. The big man seriously needs to get his head back in the game.

I’m telling you a modern upgrade might be just what the guy needs. That whole sliding down the chimney thing is so seventeenth century. Folks may have liked that sort of thing back then. I mean in the famous poem the hero saw a guy in red and the man’s smile told him he had nothing to dread. I would’ve called the cops, but that’s just me.

And the song

Lastly, as a gift, I have created another Christmas song called “Twas A Different Night Before Christmas” I hope you all enjoy it.

Merry Christmas.

Here’s the link to share the song with friends

mysidewaysview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/sorry-mr-moore.mp3?_gl=1*uei5cb*_gcl_au*NzYxOTU5MDYzLjE3Mjc1NTIyNjU.