Kudos to Emily for her exquisite timing of the Waldorf Astoria Presidential Suite post yesterday! I had never really heard of the luxe accommodations until she got bumped up to them last week. Yesterday, in perfect synch with her post, the Suite was all over the news because President Obama had checked in. Sadly, too much of the blogosphere was asking “Should President Obama stay there at taxpayer expense?” Hello, it’s the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE, although I prefer to think of it as the Mothers of Brothers Suite. All the chief executives stay there. Finally, Chris and I nearly fell off our barstools last night while watching MadMen from Sunday, in which Don Draper goes to meet Conrad Hilton at yes, the Presidential Suite at the Waldorf Astoria. A perfect storm.
Kudos to Emily for landing on the Huffington Post, the Deal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer sites yesterday! And here, at a Wall Street Journal blog: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/09/23/the-daily-start-up-ipos-emerging-from-icu/
And here: http://joshmadison.com/
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In line in the grocery store, have you ever let people with fewer items go ahead of you?
On an airplane, do you recline your seat even if there is somebody sitting right behind you?
While waiting to turn left on a busy road, have you ever felt guilty for inconveniencing everyone else behind you, given up and made a series of rights instead?
If your answers were yes, no, yes….you’re just like me!
Does that mean we’re wimps? Or are we just incredibly thoughtful?
Are we spineless, or are we saints?
I struggle with this.
When Chris and I lived in the first house we ever owned, the sweet old lady next door relied upon the kindess of friends for rides to the Acme, Clover Day sales at Strawbridge & Clothier, and the post office. Marie would always sigh and roll her eyes on the days she was waiting for her friend Helen to chauffeur her.
“Why?” we asked. “What’s the problem with Helen?”
Turns out, Helen refused to make left turns. Everywhere Marie nand Helen drove involved a series of rights. Helen was a Right Turner Only.
I always thought that was fabulously eccentric, like something out of a Tennessee Williams or Lanford Wilson play. But then a friend said she was pretty sure drivers for UPS, Fed Ex and the like were under official instructions not to waste time turning left – to just do the series of rights instead. This not only saves time, it minimizes the chance of accidents. I checked on snopes.com and while there’s a lot of commentary on whether or not this is true, I couldn’t find the bottom line.
Perhaps Helen was merely a civilian UPS agent, doing unheralded research work on efficiency & safety in driving practices. But I prefer to think of her as fabulously eccentric.
