The Parent Trap

Living your life as a perpetual child is never a good idea.

Being born last in any family is a liberating experience. Not only do your older siblings take all the heat from your parents and have to deal with their unrealistic expectations, you can sit back and observe the family process from a more detached view and understand the family dynamics better.

Also, as youngest, the odds are, your parents will do the honorable thing sooner, rather than later, and take a dirt dive in the churchyard by the time you are 40. Yes, once your parents are safely in the grave you can really start living.

Now, I know what you are going to say, "That is so crass!"  But the reality is, for many people the death of their parents is accompanied by a very giddy feeling of freedom. Even people who have a good decent loving relationship with their parents have expressed to me their feelings of guilt when their parents die. "This shouldn't feel so good," they say, but the feeling is so overwhelming that the guilt doesn't stay around for long.

Simply stated, with your parents out of the way, you can start living your own life, as an adult, and not as a perpetual child. For older siblings, parents may not pass on until you are well into your 60's, meaning that you end up being a child that much longer. Your period of "freedom" may be only a decade or more, before you kick the bucket as well.

Now a very few folks out there DO have a constructive and healthy relationship with their parents. This article is not addressed to them (and yes, the rest of us hate you!). But I rarely see this types of relationships in real life. For those of you who view your Father and Mother as your best friends and co-equals (and are not living in a fool's paradise) more power to you. But for others, the parent relationship is crippling and can often affect their entire life in a very negative way.

Parents, of course, don't set out to smother their children. And yet, many engage in a slow-motion form of infanticide over the life of their child. Parents will say things like "I've always wanted my children to be more successful than me!" but actually want the reverse. Parents will say things like "I want my kids to have all the things I never had!" not realizing that deprivation can build character. Parents may SAY they want what's best for their children, but often by insisting they KNOW what is best, do great harm to children.

Many adults, well into their 30's 40's - even 50's and 60's - struggle with their relationship with their parents.  And they make this relationship the centerpiece of their lives, and remain miserable and unhappy for decades.   They refuse to grow up - and are reduced to a crying, sniveling mess, whenever they visit their parents - which is often.   They cheat themselves out of their own lives, in an attempt to satisfy parents who will never be satisfied.

As a child, the best thing you can do is to grow up, not merely physically, but mentally as well, and stop being a child in the parent/child relationship. What do I mean by this? Well consider the following scenarios:

1. Parents Give the Worst Career Advice on the Planet

Never take career advice from anyone over 30, parents in particular. Parents, often under the rubric of "I want what's best for my child" try to push their children on particular career paths.

A Korean friend of mine, for example, was told by his Father to become an Engineer, like his Dad. It was not open for discussion. Dad is an Engineer, Son shall be so, too. The problem is, he was not happy with this career and as a result lived a very unhappy life and was never very successful. His dream was to open a Korean grocery store. Perhaps not a grandiose dream, but nevertheless his. So rather than living his own life, he now lives the life his parents felt was best for him.

A decade ago, a young man telling his parents he wanted to be a web designer no doubt mystified them. "This Internet thing is a fad, son" Dad would say, "You need to get into something more stable and secure". The worst thing a kid could do is take that advice. And many would, falling into the Parent Trap - assuming their "older and wiser" parents know more and know better.

In some cultures this goes beyond mere career as well, and spills over into arranging or approving marriages and planning other details of an adult child's life. How many families do you know, where one or both parents have "disapproved" of a child's choice of spouse?

A young Indian friend of mine returned to England at age 26 after completing her Master's degree, walking away from permanent residency, a relationship and a job offer, in order to marry a young man her parents arranged her to marry when she was 7. She claimed she had to do this, and spent the rest of her life arguing about the injustice of it all. But was that really the case? Or did she really have choices? You can stand up for yourself and your own life.

My Mother insisted that getting a Liberal Arts Degree was the best career path anyone could take, because that's what she did. My siblings followed this advice and ended up unemployed. They all had to go back and get advanced degrees to pursue real careers as a result. Being the youngest and seeing all this, I decided to do what I wanted, which was to program computers and get an Engineering degree. My Mother would go on drunken tirades as a result, shouting angrily that "who will use all this computer garbage, anyway?" Great career advice, Mom!

But such things are the norm with parents, who feel that because they are a few years older, they know better than you as to what you like and what you'd like to do. The reality is, old people are the worst in forecasting the future. You will have to live in a world of your future, not theirs. Their static ideas of the past will undoubtedly be swept away, just as their generation swept away the preconceived notions of their own parents. Funny thing, too, you'd think they'd remember that. But they don't. They created their own future, and now they wanted it frozen in time and for you to live in it. Don't fall for that trap.

2. I Want My Kids to Be More Successful Than I Was!

Every generation claims they believe this, but don't fall for it. Many parents take a perverse and secret pleasure in having dependent children all their lives. Children with ruined lives give the parents something to bitch about (the Friend with the Perpetual Problem, see also, Emotional Vampires) and they secretly relish the control they still have over their kids who are well into their 30's.

You see, when you have kids, they are like possessions or chattel in legal terms. And to some extent, minor children are property (and still are in many parts of the world). Growing up is difficult for a child, but harder on the parent. Most parents cannot let go of their image of the child as property - as something smaller and dumber than they are. Perhaps the image of the child as an independent adult drives home their own eventual mortality.

To some extent I also think it is because parents want an audience for their lives, to validate their existence and experiences. Movies are full of scenes such as this, where the great patriarch of the family, on his deathbed, is surrounded by admiring children and grandchildren, who all laud "Papa", telling him how great he is and how he made everything possible. The reality is, of course, far different than that. Papa was an abusive drunk who derided his children and took every opportunity to stand in the way of their goals. Oftentimes, parents stand in the way of their children's progress, if not actively inhibiting it, which is an interesting phenomenon. Children, as a result, are inclined to turn away from their parent's lives, not wanting to be an audience to a horror movie.

The worst thing a child can do, in many instances, IS be more successful than their parents. If the parent cannot let go of that superior/inferior relationship, the success of the child appears to them as a threat. Oftentimes, you will see this manifested quite plainly, where a parent will run-down a successful child's career, the jealously plainly evident.

I ran into this with my Mother. As the youngest, I was quite successful as an Engineer, working at GM and United Technologies. Yet she would belittle my accomplishments at every turn as a "mere tradesman".   My oldest brother was pushed to go into law school and my parents even offered to pay his way (he never did. To his credit, he finally discovered his career path lay elsewhere, such as it was). Ironically, I was working my way through Law School at the same time. My Mother would go on and on about how my older brother SHOULD go, but my actual going apparently didn't register on her Richter scale.

Which was probably a good thing. I went to Law School for my own reasons, and as the youngest in the family, my career plans were hardly scrutinized. My elder siblings, on the other hand, were harassed and counseled by my parents, even when my siblings were well into their 40's. Being under the radar has its advantages - you can do what you want.

3. I Want My Kids to Have All the Things I Never Had!

I had a boss like this. He grew up in a poor neighborhood and worked his way out of the ghetto by studying hard at technical high school and getting into a good college. Kids beat him up every day on the way to school. It was a hard life. But it gave him the resolve to do better.

He told me he didn't want his kids to lack for anything, and he kept his word. As a result, his children were like kept wives. They relied on Daddy for money, well into their 30's and even 40's. He bought them cars, paid their rent, found them jobs. They were some of the most boorish and spoiled kids I ever met.

And not surprisingly, they had no careers of their own. He took a perverse pleasure in regaling me with their failures in life, as if it were some badge of honor. As if affording failed children was a luxury item. A Psychologist probably could answer why he did this. All I can do is identify the trend, as I have seen it elsewhere.

It is ironic, but being a spoiled adult child can be the ultimate trap. If your parents are well off and indulge your every need, you cannot develop a life of your own. And since they control the purse strings, you have to sacrifice your independence in order to live this "luxurious" lifestyle.

Trust fund kids know all too well what I am talking about. Grandpa set up a trust for them, but made it damn near impossible for them to access the funds in the trust. It is a left-handed gift if there ever was one. From the grave, Grandpa says, "I want you to have this staggering sum of money, but, since I think you're a total idiot, I'm going to tie it up legally so you can't have any real access to it." Gee, thanks gramps, for that vote of confidence.

Inherited wealth can thus be crippling, as the recipient may not develop the Independence and self-reliance that the donor had. I knew a number of trust fund kids when I was growing up, and for the most part (with one exception), they ended up listless and lazy, and severe emotional and substance-abuse problems. Paris Hilton is not some anomaly, but the norm.

My one exception friend went out of her way to get her own job, career, and live independently of her parents. It was not easier, but I think she is happier than her siblings as a result. But it takes a strong personality to free yourself of the parent trap, and when the trap is baited with dollar bills, even more so.

4. I'll Be Home for Christmas!

One interesting aspect of this Parent Trap is the inability of some children to shed the child role, well into their 30's and 40's - if ever. I ran into a friend of mine a few years back, and asked them how she was. "Oh, well, you know, it's almost Christmas" she said, letting out a sigh.

"Yea, I know, holidays can be depressing for a lot of people," I replied, trying to be supportive.

"Oh no, it's not that," she replied, "It's just that I have to go home to my parents house for Christmas, and I know my Mother will get drunk and call me a failure and run me down, and I hate all that."

"Well," I replied, "Don't go, then".

She gave me a blank stare as if I had just suggestion treason or told her the Earth was flat. Now bear in mind this woman was 35 years old, a successful lawyer and married. But she felt that she was obligated, no required to return home every holiday, like a small child, and spend Christmas with her abusive family.

This seems to be a recent trend with our generation, too. My parents, at that age, had their own family, and I do not recall that we spent more than one or two Christmases or other holidays with grandparents. When you grow up, you form your own family, and that becomes your primary relationship, not the parent/child relationship of your upbringing.

"Well," she said, clearly thinking, "Where would we go, then? My Husband's parents are psychotic, too!" And she was right on that point. Merely going to the in-laws was no solution, only jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"Go to Aruba," I said, "Or some other romantic getaway, just you and your husband. Drink cocktails with little umbrellas on the beach and have great sex in some charming little bungalow hotel. It would be a lot more fun that the drunken abuse at your Parent's house, trust me." I explained to her that she was an adult now and had her own life to live, not her Parent's life and expectations.

I could see a little light bulb go on in her head. They went to the Caribbean that year and had a good time. She broke the cycle of dependency and suddenly Christmas was a time of year she looked forward to.

Of course, her Parents were none too pleased. She was expected to return home and be an audience for their more important lives! Her Mother was the classic audience parent. Successful in her own right, she trivialized the accomplishments of her children and expected them to return home to pay homage to her greatness. Suddenly, there was a new world order.

When you are an infant, you rely on your parents to change your diapers and feed you. And as a child and young adult, you rely on them for all of your physical needs. But as you become an adult, a funny thing happens. You no longer need your parents (or shouldn't, unless you have devolved into a parasite) but your parents now need YOU more than ever.

Being elderly is often not much fun. It can be lonely. And if the major accomplishment of your life was raising a family, and you are estranged from your kids, then you have to wonder what it was all about, anyway. Parents desperately need their kids as they get older - for moral and emotional support, and also for validation of their lives.

In short, they need YOU more than YOU need THEM. The power balance shifts at that point, which may be one reason so many parents try to keep the relationship balance of power the other way, not realizing that their very actions are driving their kids AWAY from them.

And that is exactly what happened to my friend. Once she established the rules and set the boundaries, the parents fell into line. No longer was she some slave, "obligated" to return home periodically and endure abuse. If she was to visit, it was to be as a peer, not as a child, and she was entitled to be treated with a modicum of respect.

And, not surprisingly, her parents got the message. Her relationship with her mother is better than ever, as it no longer is couched in terms of parent/child as a master/slave type of thing. She never had the Norman Rockwell kind of family Christmas that so many people talk about (but few have) but she is closer to that sort of thing nowadays.

I recently visited someone well into their 60's who was crying in their soup about having to "go home for Christmas" to visit her nearly 90-year-old Mother, who was abusive and manipulative.   For 60 years, this lady spent every Christmas with her parents - paying the highest possible airfares and spending countless hours stranded in snowed-in airports.  I suggested to her that maybe she should visit another time, perhaps.  Or perhaps don't even go - if the visits were so unpleasant and stressful.   Again, I was given that look like, "What freaking planet are you from?  Everyone HAS to go to their parents house for Christmas!"

Well, not really.  Did her parents go to their parents house every Christmas?  No, of course not.  For some reason, our generation seems to be the only one brainwashed in this manner.  

If visiting your parents seems like a chore, a burden, or turns out to be an ugly shouting match every time you visit, the best solution is to not visit. You are not required by law to spend time with unpleasant people. You'd be surprised how many people fail to grasp this. My friend, when I first broached the idea to her, said "Well, you HAVE to go to your parent's house for Christmas!" as if it were some sort of law.

Live your own life. Enjoy yourself. Stop being a punching bag. Don't wait for your parents to die before you can enjoy yourself and live. Pulling back from your parent/child relationship can actually result in a better relationship on a peer-to-peer basis. And if they don't come around, well why bother torturing yourself?

5. You Never Come to Visit!

I live on a retirement island, where the average age is 74. Like many retirement communities, elderly people build or buy houses with multiple guest rooms for their kids and "the grandchildren", convinced that they will come visit them often. And some do, of course. Those with healthy relationships with their children do visit and get along. But they seem to be few and far between.

(The grands! The grands! for some reason, grandparents obsess about grandchildren, perhaps looking at them as a second bite at the apple, or a chance to "do over" their first horrible attempt at parenting. In many instances I've seen, grandparents try to insert themselves into the rearing of the grandchildren, creating more friction between themselves and their children by usurping the parent's role.)

Many are estranged from their children or see then very little. Why is this? As I noted above, the problem largely exists because the parents can't let go of their parent role and treat their adult children as co-equals. As an adult, you would not want to go back to high school and have to obey all the silly rules they inflict on teenagers, would you? So why would any adult want to do the same with their parents?

Once the adult child returns to the family home to visit and sleep overnight in the guest room, they are reduced again to the level of child. Usually, after a few days of such visitations, friction starts, and the visit goes sour. Not surprisingly, the adult child doesn't want to return again anytime soon.

So, what Can you Do?

Well, it is not easy, particularly for young people. For my young Korean friend, as for many others, the college years are difficult, as you are still dependent on your parents for support, and cannot afford to go against their wishes.

However, once you turn 21 and graduate from college, you are on your own and can call your own shots. Surprisingly, few do, instead taking more and more bad advice from their parents, or believing they "had to" do as their parents said. And like the friend with perpetual problem such folks will regale you with what a lousy deal they got in life, never realizing they do indeed have choices.

Being independent and following your own course is never easy. But as I have noted before, staying in the middle of the herd only insures that the grass is matted down and pooped upon. The eating is better at the edge of the herd - but that's also where the wolves are. Rewards go to the risk-takers, not the risk-averse.

There are specific things you CAN do, to take back control of your own life and forge a better relationship with your parents:

1. Taking control of your own finances. Setting money aside and building your own estate and nest egg are important. If you are relying on your parents for money well into your 30'sand 40's, then something is wrong. Oftentimes, parents try to get around your financial planning by offering to pay for occasional big-ticket items, such as furniture, cars, or your children's college educations.

For the latter, consider one of those pre-paid tuition programs that are available in many States. Not only would you get a tax deduction out of the deal, but as it is "pre-paid", your parents no longer have the sword of Damacles hanging over your head. You see, that is the whole point of the financially helpful parent - they dangle out the bait of money, but then later use that as leverage to manipulate your behavior.

Frankly, no matter how lucrative the cash offer, many folks would prefer their independence. And the "I'll pay for your children's college" gambit is particularly odious, as for one to refuse such an offer to help the children would appear to be unseemly. But if you think back, did your grandparents pay for your college? Chances are, the answer is "No." But for some reason, in my generation, it seems to be the norm that many parents rely upon their own parents to pay for their children's college. No wonder this generation has never grown up.

2. Control the Parental Visit: The parental visit is one area where you can reduce a lot of stress in your life. If your family is dysfunctional, keep visits short. And for God's sake, don't stay in the house. Once trapped in your teenage bedroom or guestroom, you are flung back into the role of child again - a role you will chafe at as an adult. I have found it much better to stay at a local hotel and then visit for short periods of time. Old folks get tired and cranky anyway, so keeping the visits short makes it better for everyone concerned. And if Mom or Dad start going off on your career choice or spousal choice, it's "Oh, look at the time, I have to go freshen up at the hotel, BYE!" ALWAYS have your own car or vehicle at any family outing as an "escape pod". NEVER ride in the back seat of your parent's car - you are trapped if they decide to "go off" at a remote location.

And don't be afraid to turn down such visits. If a parent has misbehaved during a recent visit, be up front with them and say that there will be no more visits unless they agree to a minimum standard of behavior. Yes, they are like small children at this point - the relationship has inverted. But you'd be suprised. Many a lonely parent will "clean up" their act if threatened with a cutoff.

But for many folks, the best parental visit can be the 10 minutes you spend once a year putting flowers on a grave. Sad, but true. But a lot less hassle.

3. Don't be Afraid to Walk Away: While you may be able to take charge of your life and live it on your own terms, chances are, your siblings may not be so inclined. There are people in this world with such low self-esteem and low ambitions, that they would gladly trade their independence for the occasional help with a car payment or whatever.

For example, a friend of mine was able to reorganize his relationship with his parents along the lines set out above. He told them in no uncertain terms that he would no longer tolerate the abuse he was subjected to. And, not surprisingly, being lonely and isolated, they agreed. The relationship, redefined as a peer-to-peer relationship, became more pleasant and even enjoyable.

But, after his Mother died, his Father remarried a widow with three dependent children. By dependent, I don't mean in the tax sense, but in the sense of failed adult children who barely scrape by, constantly "borrowing" money from their Mother. Suddenly the Father found himself with a willing audience of step-children, who, in return for financial assistance (and a potential inheritance) were willing to put up with his nonsense. It is surprising, how, for a very little bit of money, you can control people.

In that situation, there was nothing to do but walk away. The Father's old abusive habits came to the forefront again, as he now saw himself as "in charge" of other people's lives - doling out money, advice, and control. He had a new audience for his life.

If your relationship with your parents causes you no end of grief, then don't be afraid to walk away from it, once you are an adult. Many people do. Unfortunately, the popular culture (Movies and Television) treat such things as an anomaly or some horrible situation that needs to be "remedied" by a Hallmark ending.

This latter phenomenon is very disturbing and damaging. Many well-meaning folks will say platitudes like, "Well, you should get along with your parents, after all, they raised you!" To a child who has spent years struggling with physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, such statements are like daggers in the heart. Their own friends are telling them that it is their fault, not the parent's. Before you offer such "helpful" advice to a friend or stranger, make sure you know the whole "back story". If your friend is struggling to recover from an abusive childhood, you should be supportive of them, and not castigate them for failing to reconcile with an abuser.

What Can a Parent Do?

If you are a parent, and are estranged from your children, or are finding their visits fewer and far between, or finding each visit devolves into a shouting match, what can you do? Well, assuming you really want to change things (and not just bitch about them, which so many elderly people prefer to do), I have the following suggestions:

1. Recognize That You Represent the Past: Every generation has its own ideas, goals, styles, music, and tastes. Recognizing that is a first start. No doubt when you were a teen, your parents hated your dress, your hair, your friends, your music, and your choice of spouse. No doubt they expressed skepticism of your career plans as well. Parents today decry rap music, tattoos, piercings. Parents of a generation ago decried rock and roll, long hair, the hippies. And so on and so on. My Grandmother took a lot of flack from her parents for bobbing her hair, wearing "flapper" dresses, going to speakeasies and (gasp!) dancing the Charleston.

How the world will be in 50 years is anyone's guess. I will be dead, and you will be likely, too. Decrying all change as "bad" because it is something you don't understand or are uncomfortable with is not constructive, and moreover is a waste of your personal energy. The kids will do OK in their world. And it is their world now, not yours. Yes, I would not want to be a kid today and live a more crowded world of (what appears to be) reduced expectations. But you know, I would not want to live in my parent's world, either (I'll take a pass on Polio, thanks). While we may think the future is cloudy and uncertain, the kids today think otherwise. Let them live in their world and let ours die with us.

2. Stop Trying to Micromanage Your Adult Children: Letting go of CONTROL over your children is probably a good first step. You can't force your children to be small clones of yourself, and you shouldn't try. They are separate living beings and have to make their own decisions - and own mistakes. Trying to enforce your antiquated notions about the world on them is likely to backfire in a big way.

Children, even adult children, do give a lot of weight to their parent's opinions (which is often their biggest problem). Realize that you have this power, use it wisely and sparingly. Trying to micromanage your children's lives will surely backfire in a big way. They will make their own way in the world, with or without your help - and in most cases go further without. Sometimes just getting out of the way and being supportive are the best things you can do. 

3. Stop using Money to Control your Kids: Stop using the promise of small (or large) sums of money or gifts to influence them or elicit visits. Gifts with strings attached are no gifts at all.

4. Never try to Pick Your Child's Spouse: As my friend's Sister's example illustrates, this never works. She married a man who, while a decent fellow, was an ill-suited match. My friend's Father opposed the marriage. Guess what? They got married anyway. His sister stayed married to her husband to spite her Father. How weird. You have to let childern make mistakes - even big mistakes.

5. Stop Trying to Raise Your Grandkids: This seems to be a problem for my generation in particular. The "Helpful Grandma" (See, Emotional Vampires) inserts herself between the parent and child, offering advice and money to the children. The children get mixed signals, as two sets of parents (parents and grandparents) are often saying opposite things. Since Grandma doesn't have to deal with the day-to-day issues of child rearing, and since grandma doles out cash and gifts like an ATM, guess who the kids like better? Your generosity and kindness serves only to underscore the "meanness" of their parents, who are charged with enforcing rules.

The other day, we were camping in our RV.  Most RV'ers are older folks, who are retired.  We met a couple who were in their late 60's, and they had a young child - their grandchild with them.   The lady gleefully reported what a "rotten mother" her daughter was - with the daughter's daughter standing right there.   It was, to say the least, appalling.   Helpful Grandma doesn't win any parenting awards, either.

Let your kids raise their kids, even if you think they are making horrible mistakes. Inserting yourself into the process and spoiling your grand-kids only makes things worse.

* * *

There probably is no way out of the Parent Trap. A very privileged few have a decent relationship with their parents, based on mutual respect. However, most people I meet have quite the opposite, with relationships ranging from mere antagonism to emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse. Many spend years struggling to break free of their childhoods.

Often, too late, they discover that while they were struggling with the parent/child relationship, their entire lives passed by, and they missed out on living their own lives as a result.

And in far too many cases, I've seen well-meaning people try into interject themselves into such situations, with blandishments such as "Well, you'll always have your family!" and the like. Such statements, to the victim of child abuse, are sharp wounds to the soul. Before you decide it is your job in life to reunite an "estranged" child with an abusive family member, be sure you understand the whole back story.

Updated December 13, 2013.

The Marijuana Trap

Is there any harm in being a "pot head"? Yes, unfortunately.

This is another post I hate to write, as I am not sure it will do any good.  One thing that is consistent about marijuana users (or any drug user) is the certainty they have that they know what they are doing, and that the drug use is not harming them in any way.   I know this as I used a lot of marijuana in my early youth, and no one could tell me anything, as I thought I knew it all.

I ran into a friend of mine the other day, and they like to smoke pot.  That's their business and all, but unfortunately, in most cases, the business of marijuana users ends up spilling out into everyone else's business in short order.  In my article "The Unwritten Social Contract" I advance the theory (or fact) that everyone has a duty to take care of themselves, to the best extent possible.  Marijuana users often end up falling off this wagon, as their actions tend to make them dependent on others. And they often end up starting trouble with others as well.

Marijuana users will bore you for hours about how safe their drug is, and how users of marijuana have been persecuted through the years and how it should be legalized, etc.  As I pointed out in my "Emotional Vampires" article, this is nothing more than a variation of the "Friend with Perpetual Problem" gambit and the "Political Junkie" gambit. How can they be expected to get a job and settle down while marijuana is still illegal!  There are, we are told, "greater issues at stake".

The nature of the drug plays into this effect, and causes other effects as well.  It is not hard to spot a marijuana user, even without a urine test.  They tend to socialize only with their own kind, have difficulty interacting with others who are not stoners, get into contretemps with neighbors and coworkers, are always "starting something", are often unemployed or underemployed, and often end up in trouble with the Police or have other long-standing legal problems.

Many stoners would argue that many of these problems are caused by the illegality of marijuana itself - that if the gange was legalized, their "hassles" would not be as many.  This argument fails on a couple of grounds.  First of all, marijuana is not likely to be legalized in our lifetime, or at least the next 10-20 years.  The political climate in the US and even the world is such that legalization is political suicide for politicians.  So it isn't going to change, and regardless of whether it is a staggering injustice, you have to get used to that fact and work with it.  Tilting at windmills does not accomplish much.  Secondly, even if marijuana was legalized, stoners would still be getting into all sorts of "hassles" as the nature of the drug causes them to do odd things.

One of the aspects of marijuana use is that when you are stoned, you tend to become more introspective and contemplative.  To some extent, this is instructive and "mind-expanding" in that one realizes what one's own motivations in life are (which can sometimes be difficult experience, but one that can be easily forgotten with another bong hit).  When you are stoned, however, being around "straight" people can be almost painful.  Straight people seem overly demonstrative and loud, and their petty motivations seem to be apparent for all to see.  It is almost embarrassing.  Stoners are not necessarily as catatonic as they seem, just more subtle in expressing themselves sometimes, as the masks we all wear in daily life are all too apparent to them.

These masks, however, do serve a social purpose.  Yes, we all play games in life, putting on an act, trying to be "nice" to people we don't like (well, sometimes, anyway) and being sociable when we don't want to be.  We say "Hi, how's the weather" to an acquaintance, when we really want to be left alone. The stoner can't play that game.  They appear withdrawn, and thus anti-social.  People react accordingly, and it spirals into more and more withdrawal from society.

As a result, most stoners end up "starting something" with co-workers and neighbors.  The "paranoia" induced by the drug tends to cause them to conjure up petty grievances with people they meet, which fester over time, accumulate into a laundry list, and finally explode into a bad episode of "COPS".  As such, stoners are not fun to be around, nor do they make fun neighbors.

My friend's hapless brother is a good example of this, as he has been a 40 year career "chronic," mixing marijuana, cheap beer, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotic medication in a nightly cocktail.  You would not want to be his neighbor.  After college, he got a job with local radio station.  It was not long before he decided that his boss, who owned the radio station, was an asshole.  Always "harassing" him for being a few minutes (or hours) late, and then yelling at him for doing stupid things like turning the transmitter off.  I mean, can't the dude give him a break?

Needless to say, every time you went to see my friend's brother, you were treated to the "Perpetual Problem" monologue about his boss and what an asshole his boss was.  This made him very unpopular with his friends, and his isolation increased.  After many passive-aggressive incidents, which escalated into confrontations, he went on-the-air to give an editorial about how the station owner was a corrupt individual and businessman.  What a great stoner trick.

Unfortunately in the small town my friend's brother was living in, the station owner was very popular and also the brother-in-law of the police chief.  My friend's brother was fired, of course, and the police chief was happy to pull him over and find marijuana in his car.  Not smart.  Like most stoners, my friend's brother found himself in yet another incident of legal trouble. Yes, this was not his first time, of course. And of course, this just fueled more paranoia, the persecution complex, and another "chronic problem" for him to bitch about.  And to the stoner, it is everyone else's fault, of course

What causes such behavior?  Well, I think in part that marijuana, while "mind-expanding" in some senses, is also "mind numbing" in others.  I found that when I was an adolescent, I used it to forget my troubles, rather than confront them or analyze them.  As a result, the drug creates a sense of stasis, and people end up stuck in bad situations, totally incapable of action to pull themselves out.  So they sit there, like deer in the headlights, waiting to get run over.  The best the stoner can hope for is to keep a low profile and be left alone.  It rarely happens, though.

So, the stereotypical stoner is living in his Mother's basement, and can't find a job. Why? Because he's STONED, dude!  If you are stoned all the time, you aren't going to look for a job, and if you are stoned during a job interview, you aren't going to GET a job, and if you are stoned on the job, you are likely to LOSE you job.  And when Mom hollers down the basement stairs, you'll do another bong hit to bury your troubles, rather than confront them.

In my friend's brother's case, he used pot to anesthetize himself from the reality of his life (and probably still does).  Rather than see the radio job as the dead-end it was, and plan on moving on, he stayed at the job, hating it and his boss, and subconsciously sabotaged his job and career until he was forced out - in a very bad way.

A better approach would have been to do the job well, realizing all the time that the job sucked and had no future, and at the same time, send out resumes and make job inquiries to try to get a better job.  Eventually, he would have landed one, and had a good reference on his resume.  As it played out, well, he's not in radio anymore.

It's called ambition, and its one of the first things that is sacrificed to the altar of ganga.  Stoners not only do not have any ambition, they despise it in others.  The mentality is that anyone who tries to "get ahead" has "sold out to the MAN" and only those who sink to near-subsistence levels are morally pure.  This is, of course, a comforting philosophy if you have no ambition.

The "us versus them" mentality quickly manifests itself when you start using marijuana. Using marijuana is one way of volunteering to become part of a minority group.  Stoners tend to congregate together, use their own language and code words, and consider themselves apart from society and "Straights" (an odd term, also used in the Gay community).  Stoners thus tend to reinforce each other's behavior, listening to each other's long-winded stories of injustice, and nodding in agreement when bosses are characterized as "assholes" and Police as "pigs".

This blog is devoted to financial issues, so how does stonerism affect your finances?  Well, it does, big time.  First of all, pot is very expensive. Stoners will argue this is because it is illegal, but I suspect it would not be cheap even if legalized. (UPDATE:  It is not)  Despite the staggering cost and their inability to hold a job, stoners seem to be able to find the money to buy pot on a regular basis.  Often this means sponging off parents or others for basic daily needs (Food, clothing, shelter, transportation).

But not only will using marijuana affect your finances in the short term, it will sabotage your life in the long term. Very few stoners become successful in life.  Yes, it does happen, but usually such tales of stoner success are success "in spite of" the drug use, not because of it.

My story is typical. My late Sister decided that she should "turn me on" when I was 13 years old. I was a typical hyperactive kid, and she felt that pot would "mellow me out" and "expand my mind". Unfortunately, this sort of attitude is typical of stoners - the drug becomes like a religion. "If only everyone smoked pot, the world would be a better place" they argue. So to my 23-year-old sister, giving drugs to a 13-year-old seemed to her, like a favor. Thanks, Sis!

This attitude is reflected also in news reports of parents giving pot to children, or to pets, to "mellow them out". Stonerism becomes almost like a religion, and converting the masses to the cause becomes part of the lifestyle. So to my sister, getting her kid brother stoned was not an irresponsible act, but, to the stoner mind, an act of kindness.

It is hard to say scientifically how the drugs affect your life, as you cannot go back in time, and then NOT take the drugs as a controlled experiment, and then compare the two outcomes. (UPDATE: Some studies suggest pot can cause or aggravate mental health issues among young adults).  But certain patterns do emerge. While I was a successful student up until that time, once I started smoking pot, my grades dropped. It is not hard to figure out why. Trying to study while stoned is like trying to see through the fog. Going to class while high was a "bummer" (and a sure way to start a trip to the Principal's office) so I skipped classes more. I became more withdrawn and alienated from the other students at school - except the other stoners, which became my new social group, such as it was.

The adolescent years are difficult enough as it is. You have to struggle with sex and sexuality, how you are going to fit into the larger world, how to make a career and a living. It is daunting and scary stuff. It is no wonder that schizophrenia manifests itself during the late teenage years. Some kids just freak out at the prospect of no longer being a kid. Growing up is painful.

Smoking pot was a way of forgetting about all of that and remaining a child a few minutes longer. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the stasis induced by stonerism ends up causing more harm than good, as a teenage user ends up not confronting these issues - and as a result ends up unemployed or underemployed, bumming around well into the 20's or even 30's.

In spite of heavy drug use, I was able to get reasonable grades and good SAT scores. Why is this? Well, not because the marijuana did NOT affect my abilities, but only because I had some abilities to begin with, and while even impaired by marijuana, I was still able to perform at a level better than most. For other folks not as advanced on the intelligence scale, pot use tends to be more devastating, pushing them far down the economic ladder. For intelligent people, it merely pushes them into poverty, or at best, a lower-middle-class lifestyle.

And since I was socializing only with other potheads (or po-theads, as I now call them), I tended to acquire a lot of "interesting" new friends, more often than not far below my own social, class, and intelligence level. (Dave Sedaris has written at length on this effect - how a stoner suddenly finds himself hanging out with questionable people, just to get high.) While these were usually decent people (with some very notable exceptions) hanging around with them was a total loser's game. I felt constantly pulled down to their level, and perhaps at the same time, using this group to enhance my own stature in comparison. Not a very nice game to play, the big fish in the small pond.

And some in this group started to do very odious things. Marijuana users will love to tell you that marijuana is not a "gateway drug" that leads to "harder drugs". But my own experiences negate that. While I realized that some drugs were more dangerous than others (cocaine, methamphetamine) others did not make such fine distinctions. To them, drugs were good. If marijuana got you high, then cocaine would get you higher.

One friend decided that prescription drugs and alcohol were the answer. He started breaking into local pharmacies and stealing pills. He got arrested and served a short sentence. He then started stealing cars, to drive into the city to buy drugs and go to bars. On the way home one night, he passed out, hitting another car head-on, killing the driver, who was on the way home from her wedding rehearsal dinner. She died the day before her wedding. My (former, by that time) friend was largely unrepentant. He served a short prison sentence for manslaughter, and continued to hang out at the local high school, smoking pot with the kids, well into his 30's.

By the way, every town has such a loser - a guy old enough to be married, who hangs out and smokes pot with the high school kids. When your son or daughter brings someone like that home, don't wait to take action - your kid is in trouble.

Another pair of friends decided to get into cocaine. The one fellow was married and had a child, but he would "hang out" with his pals until late every night, smoking pot, and doing whatever other drugs were available. One day they called me up and said they had a "new drug to try" called "rock cocaine". This was before the crack epidemic took hold or the name "crack" had even been invented. I never liked cocaine, and the idea of setting it on fire seemed fraught with peril. I walked away at that point, both from my friends and drugs.

The list goes on and on. My drug friends who stayed with pot ended up trying other drugs down the road. Most lost jobs, careers, marriages, relationships, all because of drug use. One was living with his parents, and after 20 years, I discovered he still is. That is totally sad.

While I continued to be "functional" while using marijuana, it was not helping my life. It caused me to drop out of college, instead of recognizing that I was unhappy with my college and transferring. The net result was the same, but if I had transferred, I could have improved my academic record considerably. Again, marijuana anesthetizes the user, so he ends up staying static, rather than taking action. I passively let events happen, instead of taking control when I could. It's like letting your car go off a cliff, when you could turn the steering wheel slightly to avoid disaster. The stoner would argue that even trying is pointless.

Also, when on marijuana, it seemed like I was perpetually poor. One reason is that the drug sort of puts you in a poor mindset - that everything in life is unobtainable, other than to those who "sell out to the MAN" of course. Marijuana causes you to squander large amounts of money on stupid things as well. If you can't think straight, it is hard to manage your finances, much less balance your checkbook. I was the sort of person during that time who wrote checks until the bank sent bounce notices. Not very smart.

The breaking point came with my family. Again, many parents actually have a perverse enjoyment of this (see the Emotional Vampires article and a future article, The Parent Trap).  It is comforting for some parents to know they are more successful than their kids, perverse as it might seem, and they enjoy lording over their children's ruined lives.  They would never say this out loud, of course, but it is deeply seated, psychologically.

My parents (now safely in the grave) were alcoholics - chronic alcoholics.  My childhood memories are of my parent's violence, arguments, shouting, and drunkenness.  My brother and I even pledged never to drink ever, based on watching our parents fight.  Oddly enough, I ended up using marijuana before alcohol, and it was marijuana that lead me to a harder drug - booze.  Yes, marijuana can be a gateway drug.

Living in a dysfunctional family is never fun.  As a pothead, I found it hard to get away from my family and view my life in my own terms.  I was in stasis, playing the role of the child (as were my siblings) rather than living my own life.  Living your own life is scary and involves risks. Stoners prefer warm fuzzy insular comfort.

After one particularly nasty Thanksgiving visit, I decided something had to change.  Family visits had evolved into a pattern.  My Mother would drink to excess, and then start screaming at everyone. Instead of doing the smart thing and leaving, we'd all stand around like so many emotional punching bags (sometimes physical as well) then then blame each other for the incident.

"If only you hadn't set Mother off!" my Sister would say. My crime? I mentioned the nation of Canada in a sentence.  My Father had previously had a mistress in Canada, and mere mention of that country was enough to trigger a tirade from my Mother.  Well, that and four or five Martinis. But, according to my siblings, it was my fault, because I didn't carefully curtail my speech and let slip one of the "forbidden" topics.  In my family, there was no country to the North of the USA, just another coastline.

I was angry and frustrated.  This wasn't right and it was also depressing and unpleasant.  I decided that I wanted to change my life.  I attended some Al-Anon meetings (for children of alcholics) and read up on the subject.  The best advice I got from one of the counselors was that, while I could not change my Mother's behavior and my sibling's responses, I could change my own.  And not being stoned during these encounters was a good start.

(A note on Al-Anon and other groups: Such groups can be very helpful, but they can form an addiction of their own. The "-Anon" groups all insist that theirs is the only cure for problems in your life, and that you must perpetually attend their meetings.  The science behind this is somewhat lacking).

The other motivation was that I was tired of being poor and beaten down.  I wanted a secure future for myself - one based on my own earnings and money, and not be perpetually living on the margins of poverty and relying on parents for occasional handouts, as my siblings were doing well into adulthood.  I gave up smoking pot and also drinking beer.  This meant, of course, that I also had to give up my drug friends, and they did not take this lying down.

When I started smoking pot, my grades suffered, I became more withdrawn, listless, wasted money, became anti-social, etc.  When I stopped, it was as though I had been dragging a cinder block behind me all my life and I suddenly realized it and let go. I had been making some progress on my Engineering Degree before, but it was slow progress.  Suddenly, I shot ahead.

My grades went up.  I made the Dean's list and won an academic scholarship.  Suddenly, things started seeming possible, instead of pipe dreams.  I asked my employer for a leave of absence to finish college - something I never would have dreamed of as a stoner.  To my surprise, they granted it. The Engineering degree I had been toying with for nearly a decade, I completed in 18 months.

I sold my house in a run-down neighborhood and left Central New York, which was an economically depressed area.  I found a job with the Patent Office and started law school.  Success wasn't that hard, I discovered, once you got rid of that cinder block called marijuana use.

And my relationship with my family improved, at least from my perspective.  I realized finally that you have to grow up and live your own life and not remain someone's child forever.  I kept my visits with my parents short and sweet and let them know on no uncertain terms, that our relationship was on a peer-to-peer level, not that of parent and child.  If they wanted to start drunken brawls, that was their business.  But I would leave. Surprisingly, they had little trouble with this new order, and I had many happy hours with them during short visits before they died.

My siblings, still using drugs, still got sucked into arguments and drunken disagreements with my parents, and still viewed themselves through the prism of the parent/child relationship.  Up until her death, my Sister still "struggled to understand her relationship with her Mother" - reading volumes and volumes of books on the matter, such as "My Mother, Myself".  She never did figure it out, and to some extent, never lived her own life.  She confessed to me before she died that she remained married to an alcoholic husband, ten years longer than she wanted to, only to "prove my Father wrong" about him.  How sad.  She never grew up and lived her own life on her own terms.

Once you stop smoking pot, the desire to restart is not that great.  From the outside in, you see all the difficulties it caused you.  And unfortunately, you can only see these from the outside in.  That's why, to some extent, this blog entry is totally ineffective.  A pot smoker reading this (presuming they could get this far before switching over to funny cat videos on YouTube) would not be convinced to stop smoking pot.  Nothing can convince a pot smoker that their troubles in life might be related to their drug use.

As for my friend I ran into the other day, her story is typical.  She got caught up in a "controversy" with her neighbors, and instead of moving somewhere else or merely ignoring it, she found herself stoking the controversy with small, passive-aggressive actions.

Passive-aggressiveness is one of the most annoying things about pot smokers. They do little shitty things that they think are Soooooo subtle.  When you call them out on them, they act all innocent and persecuted.  "Who, me?" they say.  Yes, you.

Anyway, the end result was her neighbor was evicted, and it looks like she'll need a new place to live, too, as the landlord is not too enamored of her tendency to "start things" with the other neighbors. As the conversation progressed, she related her past legal problems related to pot (felony conviction, which really limits your employment opportunities), relationship problems, pet problems (See, The Pet Trap), and the like.  She also treated me to the 15-minute political junkie diatribe on "legalize it" which as I noted before, ain't about to happen.

Not smoking pot would solve her relationship, employment, and other problems fairly easily.  But as I noted before, trying to convert the pothead is a waste of time.  You just have to hope they figure it out before too long. And in the meantime, stay out of their way and avoid them.  Trust me, having potheads as friends is problematic - they will always be "starting something" and will be the biggest emotional vampires in your life.

I should note that quitting marijuana doesn't mean that you will return to "normal" in short order. Marijuana proponents claim that the drug has no long-term effects, and some reading this blog might argue that my experience proves this.  After all, when I quit marijuana, I was able to get my life back on course, right?

Not exactly.  To begin with, I didn't get the 10 plus years back I wasted (figuratively and literally) on pot.  And also, I think the drug tends to induce long-term effects such as paranoia and difficulty in personal relationships.  The drug negatively affects the ability to socialize and interact with others, and even after quitting the drug, the effects seem to linger on - for a lifetime.

So the idea that you can "just try" pot for a few years and then quit and "go back" to the way you were, is fraught with hazard.  Once you start smoking pot, your life is affected, and there is no way to go back to the way you were before.

Is marijuana negatively affecting your life? Consider the following indicia:

• Are you having trouble in relationships with your family members?
• Are you having trouble in your own marriage or relationship?
• Do you tend to get drawn into controversies at work or in your neighborhood?
• Are you always "starting something" with a co-worker or neighbor?
• Do you have trouble holding a job?
• Is your boss always an "asshole"?
• Are you chronically late for work?
• Are you always out of money and/or have no real money management program?
• Are you always looking for more pot?
• Are you hanging out with people far below your social status and intellectual level, because they smoke pot?
• Do you spend huge sums of money on tattoos, piercings, drugs, and paraphernalia, but can't pay the rent this month?
• Have you dropped out of, or been thrown out of school? More than once?
• Have you had one or more problems with Police and/or legal issues?

If you are a pothead, chances are, you can answer "YES" to several of these questions. The question you have to ask yourself is, do you really want to live this way for the rest of your life? Does the mild relaxation of marijuana outweigh the negative effects it has on your life?

You have to find the answer yourself. No one can "convince" a pothead to give it up. And sadly, unless you have a strong personality, like mine, chances are, once you start on pot, you'll stay on it a good long time - perhaps for life.

Party on, dude!

UPDATE:  January 2017.   Since I wrote this blog entry, pot has been legalized in a few States.   For how long, is anyone's guess.   You see, the stoners all forgot to vote, or voted for Jill Stein in "protest" or attended Bernie rallies and attacked Hillary.   Some even voted for Trump.   With Sessions as Attorney General, I suspect the DEA will be let loose pretty shortly and legalized pot will go away.   When will stoners learn?   They won't.

DITCH your FAX MACHINE!

These things were long-ago obsolete!

NOTE:  This is an older posting from 2009 - more than a decade ago.   I ditched my fax machine and went to a virtual fax service called MAXEMAIL for several years.  But eventually, I found I was no longer sending and receiving faxes anymore - the USPTO went to online submissions, and my clients all went with e-mail attachments.  Only the medical industry (and it is an industry) still is stuck in the fax era today.  And we wonder why health care costs so much!  Nevertheless, it is interesting how once in a while, I see someone with a "fax number" on their business card, or a company asking me to fax something to them - even still!

* * *

In this era or Internet communications, the fax machine seems almost like a quaint anachronism. In the next 5 to 10 years, you will see the fax machine go the way of the floppy disc, the LP album, and the 8-track tape (UPDATE: And the flip-phone, the CD, the DVD, the iPod, and just about any piece of tech these days more than 18 months old...)

However, in the meantime, there may be occasions where you may need to send or receive a fax, particularly if you run a business. Some people still refuse to go online, and others, out of habit, prefer to send faxes, as opposed to attaching a .pdf file to an e-mail.

For some folks, the inexpensive "all in one" printer serves as a useful fax machine. These printers, typically made by Hewlett-Packard, combine an inkjet printer, scanner, and fax interface. They can be used to scan in documents (which can then be stored as jpeg or pdf files). They can also be used as primitive photocopiers, printers, and also as a fax machine.

However, while such devices may be useful for the occasional fax or copy, they are horribly expensive as printers, due to the high cost of the printer cartridges and the low quantity produced by each cartridge. As a result, each page printed can cost 25 to 50 cents or more. This may sound fairly inexpensive at first, until you come back into your office and find a 30-page "junk" fax in your machine from some helpful fellow selling fax cartridges.

I kid you not in this last regard. When I had my Office in Alexandria, a local fellow decided to SPAM FAX all of Northern Virginia with his 20-page price list for fax paper and tonor. I guess his strategy was to run everyone's machine out of paper and then sell them more. Such faxes are illegal, and the remedy authorized by Congress allows individual victims to sue the perpetrators for up to $250 to $500 per fax. I sued this fellow and won $1000 (after the third fax. I warned him twice, and he told me to fuck off both times).

Of course, that didn't put an end to junk faxes - they just moved overseas. So I continued to get faxes from unknown numbers advertising "$100 DISNEY CRUISES!" or "LOW COST HEALTH INSURANCE!". As set forth in my "SCAMS" article, anything that is sent in such a manner is not a good deal, and often an outright fraud.

Now of course, today, the volume of junk faxes has died way down, as the fax machine has lurched toward the junkyard. Junk e-mails are cheaper and easier to send. Actually, they cost nothing to send and can be sent to millions of addresses in a nanosecond. A junk fax, on the other hand, requires the cost of a phone call and can take minutes to transmit. So the "junk fax" business is nearly dead at this point.

Even without the problem of junk faxes, however, the fax machine has other difficulties. These devices require that they be connected to your phone line. Some of the more advanced units will monitor the line when your answering machine picks up and if an incoming fax is detected, pick up and accept the fax. However, this may mean you have to give out your main number as your fax number, resulting an a lot of ear-splitting calls from fax machines, when you pick up the phone.

Adding a second phone line for faxes is very expensive, and can cost $18 to $50 a month in added fees to your phone bill. Since few people actually use faxes anymore, why bother?

But since the fax is not totally dead yet, many small businesses are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They cannot get rid of their fax line, as they still get occasional orders and documents from it. On the other hand, they are paying $50 a month for the fax line and maintaining an aging machine that sits idle most of the time. How can this cost be reduced or eliminated?

The Virtual Fax is the answer for more and more people. The idea behind the virtual fax is simple: You pay the virtual fax company a fee, and in return, they assign you a fax number. when faxes are send to this fax number, they are converted to .pdf files and e-mailed to your e-mail address. You can save the pdf files on your hard drive for later use. For things like sketches and drawings, this works out well, as I can often take these faxes and incorporate them right into a Patent Application, for example.

In this manner, you can receive faxes from anywhere you receive an e-mail. I have received and read faxes on my laptop at the airport. It works well. To send a fax, it is a little more complicated. You can either create a WORD document or a PDF file and then upload these through their website. You then select a recipient, either by entering their fax number, or selecting their name from your address book. Then you hit "send" and it goes. You can also add a cover page and cover page text from the website.

When virtual faxing started out, there were a number of players in the field, and some of them were not very nice to their customers. One of the most aggressively marketed was efax. And as I noted on my SCAMS page, anything that is aggressively marketed is usually a bad deal, and it was in this case.

I was all set to sign up for efax when I decided to type in "efax sucks" in my GOOGLE search box. I'm glad I didn't sign up. For what efax wanted a month, other services charged per year. Moreover, efax charged pretty onerous fees for sending and receiving faxes. They also reserved the right to charge unspecified extra fees if I had "excessive" faxes, but failed to state what this limit was, in terms of pages or number of faxes. Worst of all,they used a negative option signup, which made it hard to quit the service, and a number of complaints on the various sites related to credit card charges made long after people said "I quit".

At the time, too, efax was using a proprietary format for the faxes, so when you got a fax, you had to use their viewer to view it. This meant that it was hard to import faxes into other programs, such as adobe. My understanding is that they have switched away from that model, due to customer demand. But even then, their pricing is onerous:

"eFax Plus costs only $16.95 (USD) per month, with a one-time $10.00 (USD) fee to activate your number. You get 130 pages of incoming faxes free each month. Outgoing faxes cost $0.10 (USD) a page to numbers in the U.S. Incoming faxes cost $0.15 (USD) a page."

$16.95 per month? What's the savings in that?

After searching around, I found a better service, maxemail (http://www.maxemail.com/). They charge $14.95 a year (as opposed to $16.95 per month) and charge minor fees for sending faxes as well. Maxemail is about 1/13th as much as efax!

I have had the maxemail service for 5 years now, and it has worked out well. I sold my fax machine at a garage sale, and got rid of a phone line ($50 a month) and the need to buy all that fax paper and toner (which I sold on eBay).

Of course, as time progresses, my need for maxemail will decline. I have one client who refuses to use the Internet, and prefers to send everything by fax. He's 78 years old. When he dies, probably my need for maxemail will die with him. But, as a stop-gap solution to keep a "legacy application" going, maxemail works out well. I have a dedicated fax line for only $14.95 a year.

Sometimes a company delivers its promises on a product or service, and when that happens, all too often, we take it for granted. I am very happy with maxemail because they simply did what they said they would - delivered a product as specified. Kudos to them.

Note that there are other virtual fax sites out there and I am told that some are even cheaper than maxemail. Since I am happy with my service and the cost is reasonable, I do not plan to switch. But if you are in the market, you might consider shopping such a service around. There is no reason to be overcharged for virtual fax service!

Isn't it interesting that two competing companies can coexist, where one charges over THIRTEEN times for the same service as the other? It just goes to show you, you can save a BUNDLE if you are willing to shop around!

Grocery Shopping at Wal-Mart

 Should you shop at Wal-Mart?  Why Not?

During the recent financial downturn, many folks are looking to save money on purchases. For many, cutting monthly expenses, such as food bills, is a first place to start. Some are discovering that discount stores, such as Wal-Mart, can really provide significant savings in their monthly expenses. Others view Wal-Mart and other discount stores as either low-class or as unfair to workers or to competing businesses.

Taking EMOTION out of the equation, let's examine Wal-Mart shopping from a financial viewpoint and see if it really is a good deal.


1. I'm too good for Wal-Mart

One friend of mine refuses to shop there, even though he is on a strict budget and really needs to save money. His reason is purely emotional. To him, only "poor people" shop at Wal-Mart, and he doesn't want to be stigmatized as "poor". His preconceived notion is that there are no good products to be had there, other than off-brands of foods, food past its "sell-by" date, and dented cans of generic soup. Pride goeth before the fall.

The reality is, in many areas, the best produce and products can often be found at Wal-Mart supercenters. In New York State, we have a chain called Wegmans.  If you are lucky to be near a Wegmans, you understand what I am talking about. They have a great selection of food and the prices are, well, somewhat reasonable compared to the boutique stores such as Whole Foods (whole paycheck), Harris Teeter, and the like. But prices at even Wegmans can be fairly high compared to other chains, such as Publix, Safeway, IGA, and the like.

In rural Georgia, Wal-Mart is often the best bet for produce and baked goods. Why is this? Well in produce, volume is key. If you don't sell a lot of produce, it is hard to keep it fresh and to keep prices reasonable. If you have to throw out half your stock every day, prices are going to be high. On the other hand, if you have a large volume of customers, it is not hard to keep fresh produce or freshly made bread in stock. Our local Wal-Mart supercenter in Brunswick Georgia has the best selection of produce and the freshest produce of any of the markets around - even the "high end" stores like Harris Teeter. And ironically, it is one of the best places to get fresh-baked specialty breads. Who knew?

And selection of other foods is often surprising. The expectation from food snobs would be that all they would carry is bags of potatoes and chicken feet, or frozen entrees. The reality is, while they do sell a lot of prepared foods, many "gourmet" items are now found on the shelves at Wal-Mart, mostly because these items have entered the mainstream.

So the myth that Wal-Mart has crappy food aimed only at trailer trash is just that - a myth. Refusing to shop at Wal-Mart because "I'm too good for that" is purely an emotional argument, and an idiotic one at that.


2. They Treat the Workers Poorly at Wal-Mart

This is also an emotional argument, although on the surface, it may appear to be factual. Some folks view their responsibilities as shoppers as a political statement in addition to a financial transaction. As I have noted before in my blog, using non-business criteria to make business decisions is often fraught with peril. And often, the motivations to make such decisions based on non-transactional criteria are driven by special interest groups who are using you (See, "They're BAITING you!" and "Organizations") to promote their own agenda.

For example, during this recent downturn, the hoary old arguments about "buy American!" are being raised yet again, with some very unsmart people promoting the idea that we should (if we are true PATRIOTS) buy only "American" made products, particularly cars. The problem with this argument is twofold. First, these orchestrated "buy American!" programs are very obviously run by the United Auto Workers union, and thus, by participating, you are basically promoting their political agenda using your own personal finances. Second, if the cars made by American automakers (and UAW labor) were so great (as they claim) then why don't they sell more of them? Falling into someones political game means only that you end up squandering your own money advancing someone elses cause. And given the horrible depreciation and quality of American cars, you will spend quite a lot of your own money helping the UAW. If this is worthwhile to you, go for it.

Similarly, it should come as no surprise that Wal-Mart is engaged in a long-running battle with unions, and thus, the stories about workers being mistreated and abused are bandied about. Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States (perhaps the world) and a chance to organize the place would be a unionist's dream. Refusing to shop at Wal-Mart because of someones union agenda seems like an odd thing to do.

And are the worker's really being "abused?" The common complaint from the Unions is that someone working at Wal-Mart "can't support a family of four" on their income. For some reason, we are to be lead to believe that all jobs in the world should pay sufficiently to allow someone to get married, have children and be the single breadwinner for the family. The idea that some folks might want to work part-time to make some extra cash, or that young people (without children or even housing expenses) need that kind of income to survive.

While it is true that no one at Wal-Mart is being overpaid, neither are they being overworked. A friend of mine went to work there and quit after a day. He quit, not because he was overworked, but because the work was too boring and silly. He reported that the amount of goofing off and standing around, other than for the checkout clerks, was astounding. And from my experiences in the store, I can report this is true. Does it really take five clerks to re-stock one shopping cart of misplaced items? (with one clerk saying "I'm not re-stocking that, it ain't my department!"). If Wal-Mart does unionize, it probably won't change much other than the wages.

The truth of the matter is that the bag-boy at the "gourmet" store probably makes about the same as the greeter at Wal-Mart - about minimum wage. There are a few union grocery stores out there (Safeway, for example) where workers are paid a little more. But for the most part, no one gets rich, or even supports "a family of four" working as a checkout person in a grocery store. And the reasons for this are very simple: It takes little or no skill to work in a grocery store as a clerk. Most folks learn on the job. You don't need to go to college. As a result, the wages are correspondingly low.

If you believe that unskilled labor should be paid as much as skilled labor, perhaps boycotting Wal-Mart might have some effect. But as we shall see, you will end up paying almost twice as much for your groceries as a result. On the other hand, if you believe that people should have an incentive to get an education (better pay and better jobs) maybe it doesn't bother you as much that crappy jobs have crappy pay.


3. Wal-Mart Drives the Competition Out of Business

This argument has a kernel of truth to it. A friend of mine ran a small chain of grocery stores in Indiana. He was pretty successful and plowed all his money back into his business. Then Wal-Mart came to town. In retrospect, he says he should have cut back and closed down or sold out right away. As it unfolded, he ended up selling off one store (which later closed) and closed down his whole chain over time. He lost a significant amount of money.

It is true that Wal-Mart is aggressive in pricing and strategy, and the chain was founded on this principle. They carefully research their markets, they get the best prices they can for items, using their size as leverage, and they carefully study their competition to see how they can snag more business from them. Using computers and technology, they try to provide the products their customers want at prices lower than the competition. And it is a formula that works.

To a capitalist, this is how the system is supposed to work. The competitor who provides the best service at the lowest prices "wins" in the marketplace - and should be rewarded with winning. To others, this seems "unfair" as the small competitor cannot compete with the bulk pricing discounts that Wal-Mart can obtain.

However, smaller chains and stores still continue to flourish across the country. Why is this? Successful competitors survive by not trying to compete. If you want to go head to head with Wal-Mart in the general grocery business, you'll probably get creamed. But if you are running a specialty shop that sells things Wal-Mart doesn't (and can't afford to carry) chances are, you'll do well.

For example, a friend of mine ran a stereo store. Back in the day, every town had a stereo store (or two or three) where you went to buy "HiFi" equipment. But the design and manufacture of such equipment changed over the years. Solid state components (i.e., receiver-on-a-chip) and CD sound meant that once "high end" audio was within the reach of everyone. Moreover, since such equipment could be mass-produced very cheaply and was pretty generic, there was no longer any need to go to the "stereo store" and spend thousands of dollars on audio equipment. Big box stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City could offer such products for a fraction of the cost. Wal-Mart could offer them for even less (Goodbye, Circuit City!).

My friend quickly realized that "low end" audio was not going to be profitable for him, as he could not afford to buy in the bulk quantities that the "big box" stores did. However, the demand for ultimate high-end home theater and audio systems, as well as custom installation services and acoustical space tuning, were something that Wal-Mart could not, and could never provide. Moreover, the mark-up on such products meant that he could make a good living selling them in an area where a lot of well-paid Engineers lived.

Niche markets still exist, and entrepreneurs can still exploit them. But arguing that the little guy can't compete with the bulk seller is "unfair" strikes me as a loser's argument. And the solution so such "unfairness" - propping up small sellers by inflating prices, is not workable.

Japan tried such a technique for decades. If you wanted to buy a television in Japan, you went to the neighborhood television shop. He ordered the television from a local distributor, who in turn ordered it from a regional distributor, who in turn ordered it from a national distributor, who in turn ordered it from the factory. The idea was to provide "full employment" by creating make-work jobs. Japan's "elevator ladies" were a prime example of this. They would ride the elevators in hotels and press the buttons for you. No real work was done, but someone was kept off the unemployment line.

To some, this form of quasi-socialism is a good thing. And that's a fine political and emotional argument, but not a very sound financial one. If you are concerned about your own finances, you have to seek out the best deals at the best possible prices.


4. Are There Any Real Savings at Wal- Mart?

Yes, surprisingly, there are. If the savings were mere pennies or nickels, it probably would not make much of a difference. But in the six months we've tried Wal-Mart, our grocery bill has been cut nearly in HALF.

The secret to shopping at Wal-Mart, of course, is to carefully look at prices, particularly prices per pound (or other unit of measure) before buying. Sometimes you have to look closely, and sometimes this means experimenting with off-brands (house brands, Sams club, etc.). In most cases, we've found that the house or discount brands are as good as, if not better, than the "Brand name" product. In only a few instances, have we been burned.

For example, Triscuit crackers are over $3 a box at most stores. The basic cracker is hard to find, as new flavored versions (and triangular ones) populate the shelves. Wal-Mart brand "double cross" crackers are $1.50 for the same size and weight box. Not only are they half the price of the brand name, they have much less SALT than the Triscuit brand, and thus in my opinion, are superior. They taste more like the Triscuits of 1970 than the gussied-up "flavored" brands of today.

It helps to keep in your head the prices of items when shopping, so you can spot a good deal and understand whether it is a good deal or not. Like any good merchant, Wal-Mart often puts out "impulse buy" items, usually in the center of the aisles, to temp you to buy something that "seems like a good deal". However, in many instances, the heavily promoted items are not as good a deal as you'd think. And since it is something you didn't plan on buying anyway, definitely not a bargain. See my article "SHOP 'till you DROP!"

It is distressing, but not unexpected, to see many of the poor people shopping in Wal-Mart stocking up on prepared foods (By poor people, I mean folks paying with food stamps). Frozen entrees and the like are never a "bargain" in terms of cost per serving. Many "convenience" foods can cost 2-5 times as much as the basic foodstuff.

For example, sharp New York State cheese in a brick may run $4 a pound. Pre-sliced or shredded, it runs $8 a pound. Want "organic" pre-sliced? A staggering $18 a pound (at Wegmans). Checking the cost per pound can save you from costly mistakes. A few moments with a cheese grater or knife can save you hundreds of dollars a year.

One of the funniest items I saw sold at Wal-Mart was buttered potatoes. For nearly $4, a package of about eight small red potatoes was packaged with a dollop of butter, in the refrigerated section. The scheme was that the user was supposed to microwave this package, and then have a ready-to-eat meal of buttered potatoes. Of course, for $4, you can buy an entire sack of potatoes (one of the cheapest foodstuffs there is) and a pound of butter as well - enough to feed a family of four for a week, instead of one person for one meal.

But many folks fill their carts with frozen entrees (such folks are called "Eskimos" in grocery parlance), soda pop, potato chips, cookies, candy, and other junk food. Not only is this food very costly, it is also horribly bad for your health. You don't have to eat organic or "free range" or vegan to be healthier, you only need to eat real food, not prepared garbage.

Of course, Wal-Mart sells other things as well. Again, some can be bargains, and others not so much. Buying "stuff" and "shopping" is a sure way to waste money at Wal-Mart. And you should carefully investigate the quality of items before purchasing. I recently bought a roll of Wal-Mart duct tape, and kick myself for not getting the brand name. The store brand was thin and poorly made and did not serve my needs.

However, other things, such as Mercruiser brand oils, are offered for prices about 1/4 of the boating specialty stores. Basic consumer-grade electronics can be had for far less than specialty stores or even competing "big box" stores. Where else can you buy a laptop for $500? And not a "stripped" one, either.

Note that recently, Wal-Mart appears to be changing its strategy from "always the low price, always" with the smiley face, to a more TARGET type star logo, with the phrase "Live Better". Perhaps with unionization on the horizon, Wal-Mart is trying to reposition itself as less the "low price king" than the "better living" chain. As a result, low-end poorly made products seem to be disappearing from the shelves. Badly made junk from China is no bargain, no matter how low the price is.

The Nightly NOOZE

 The nightly news is entertainment, not information.  Don't confuse the two!

Ten years after the Columbine massacre, the television news reports to us that, well, everything they've reported to us over the last ten years about that "story" was, um, wrong.   The story about two Goth teens in the "Trench-coat Mafia" who were bullied by "jocks" and out to get "Christians" was, well, wrong.   No such "Trench-coat Mafia" existed at the time, the two kids were not members of it, they were not "Goth" freaks, they were not bullied, and they did not single out any specific person or group.  Rather, they were just two mentally ill people with guns.  Not a very exciting story is it? Just tragic.

Yet most of us believe the other story - the made-up one, as it has a lot of "hooks" in it.  It was sold to us by the media, and we bought it.  Why is this?

As I noted in my other articles, "Kill Your Television", "They're BAITING you!" and "Emotional Vampires", the television is the largest source of time-wasting and squandering of emotional energy in most people's lives.  And it was designed this way.  Turning it OFF is the best way you can improve your life and finances.   Energy, both physical and emotional, drained away from you by up-to-the-minute news watching represents a real financial drain on your life as well.   The energy you squander watching the "news" can be better spent improving your life.

When I told my neighbors and friends I gave up watching television, many of them were aghast. "How will you keep up with the NEWS?" they asked. To them, watching the "nightly news" was the most important part of their day, as they needed to "stay informed" as to "what was going on".

But as the Columbine example illustrates, the late-breaking news stories are often the least accurate and thus a highly suspect source of information.   Moreover, knowing what is going on at this very minute is often not useful information.  If you are a sailor on a tanker in the Gulf, knowing about a pirate incident is probably useful information.  But if you are a housewife in Idaho, the odds of a pirate attack for you are slim.  So why do we want to know what is going on "right now"?

To some extent, this was not always the case. Before the "News" there was something called JOURNALISM.  As its name implies, Journalism was more of a sedate profession, where one could write long and reflective articles on a subject.  Many great authors started out as Journalists, and in fact, back then, most Journalists were not professionals at their trade. The idea of studying Journalism or going to school for it were fairly alien.  Journalists were people who had experiences in life and wrote about them.

Back in the day, most "Newspapers" devoted only a small portion of the paper to "News".  Since constant communication was not the norm, or even physically possible, getting "up to the minute news" was hardly practical or even in demand.  If you read some of the old newspapers from the turn of the Century (the last one, not this one) it will astound you as to how long the articles are, and how complex the vocabulary is.

But television changed all that. And the change occurred, I believe, around 1965. Vietnam was the first "televised war" and every evening, I recall the "body counts" reported, much in the same way we report the Dow Jones Industrial Average.   In financial matters and in wars, the day-to-day fluctuations of the market or battles is not really the indicia of victory or defeat.  As financial advisers keep telling us, you can't time the market, and monitoring the market on a daily basis is of little use to the long-term investor.

Yet with Vietnam we lapped up these nightly stories, which, being only a few minutes in length, often did not give us any real insight as to what was going on. The Tet offensive was a defeat for the North Vietnamese, tactically.  But as reported on the nightly news, it was a victory for them. The compelling images made it out to be more than it was.   Similarly, if you went by the nightly body counts, there was no reason we should have been losing that war.  Every night, it seemed, the stacks of dead VC were piling up - they would HAVE to give up soon, right?  But it didn't work out that way.

Financial news reporting fell into a similar trap. We now monitor the market on a day-to-day basis, often hour-to-hour, or minute-to-minute, and the shouting man screams at you which stocks to buy.   Long term trends, which are far more important and revealing, are often forgotten or played down.  How the Dow did last week is more important.  Such "information" is of little use to the investor, and in fact, gives all the wrong signals to the investor.  As a long-term player (which we all should be) the overall trends are more important.  As a result, we have become a nation of short-term investors and day-traders. How a company does in one quarter is more important than its long-term prospects.  Our economy, fueled by this demand for short term gain, tanked as a result.

In short, there is nothing in the "News" that you need. My neighbor's horror that I would somehow be "uninformed" was unfounded.   In fact. my neighbor is the one who is more likely to be poorly informed by her nightly 22-minute "newscasts" which are full of misinformation, rumor, and "facts" that turn out later to be wrong.  And the stress levels caused by television watching, particularly the "news" can be rather high.  The heart rate increases, but no exercise is done. It is a recipe for a heart attack.

A week after any event, reading about it is often more informative and in-depth. Most of the initial speculation, rumors, and outright lies, have been stripped away and you can find out all you need to know. A month later, you learn even more.   And, as in the case of Columbine, a decade later, we learn the whole story.  When you step back, you learn more - you learn the big picture - and more comes into focus.

The mainstream media isn't going to change its stripes.  The advent of the 24-hour news channel promised an era of more in-depth reporting -taking the 22-minute format of the Nightly News and expanding it to include more in-depth reporting.  The reality is, the 24-hour news channels have ended up just repeating the same 22-minute format over and over again, spicing things up with more short-attention-span theater, such as car chases and plane crashes. We are poorly informed, but "up to the minute" on "what's happening".

Many folks watch this stuff for hours at a time.  And of course, nearly every airport, bar, and lounge plays these 24-hour news channels continuously (often with the sound off). The "news" is not only available to us, it is inflicted on us.   And you can't ignore it.  A television playing in a restaurant is like a small child with a trumpet saying "hey, look at me!  watch me! look here!"  And the reporting is all done at the equivalent of a sixth grade level - dumbed down and stripped of real facts and details.

Since the news channels are not about to change, the only thing you can do is just walk away from it. The latest hostage drama will be resolved without your intervention.   The latest "controversy" will evaporate in a day or two and no one will remember it, anyway.  And you will have all that ENERGY you wasted on "keeping up to the minute" on things that really don't directly affect your life on a day-to-day basis.

READING about events, later on, however, will provide you with real insight into what is going on, and make you a better informed citizen and voter.   It will also provide you with useful information to be a better consumer and to manage your finances better.   Moreover, it will take far less time and cause a lot less stress.

Who knows?  Maybe if enough people do this, the media will see ratings drop and they will change their tune.  I doubt it, though.

* * * 

UPDATE:  January, 2010

In case you don't believe me, even the news organizations consider their shows to be nothing more than "entertainment" that is not to be taken seriously.  Take this Federal Trademark Registration for Fox News, for example:

Word Mark	FAIR & BALANCED
Goods and Services	IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: entertainment services in the nature of production and distribution of television news programs. FIRST USE: 19961007. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19961007
Mark Drawing Code	(1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number	75280027
Filing Date	April 23, 1997
Current Filing Basis	1A
Original Filing Basis	1B
Published for Opposition	March 3, 1998
Registration Number	2213427
Registration Date	December 22, 1998
Owner	(REGISTRANT) Fox News Network, LLC CORPORATION DELAWARE 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York NEW YORK 10036
Type of Mark	SERVICE MARK
Register	PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text	SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20080823.
Renewal	1ST RENEWAL 20080823
Live/Dead Indicator	LIVE