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Around Town

Locals celebrate empty parking spaces after Labor Day

September 1, 2013

Labor Day is defined as the federal holiday to celebrate the contribution of the workers, but most of us around here consider it The Fat Lady Has Sung Day. Seriously, while we love our workers and appreciate all their skills and hard work, on this day we have come to pay tribute to the empty parking space, someone driving a car without tinted windows and using a turn signal, and dare I say it, a line with only one person ahead of us. Hey, don’t knock it; it’s especially important if you are a hemorrhoid sufferer and every other customer ahead of you doesn’t have a doctor’s prescription phoned in yet. Just saying.

We also appreciate our many tourists who visit the area and help the economy. But most of us have topped out by July. I used to be able to hold onto my hair at least until August, but lately my nails have stopped growing, my facial tic has increased to the point where I feel like I have another head and I no longer care that my shoes don’t match.

This will happen to you after weeks of staying up late at night going over peak traffic times and patterns, reading by a single light bulb in your basement so you may go out and buy a quart of milk and be able to return to your home in the same week.

Sure, there are a lot of anxiety and problems in the world today, but it doesn’t diminish the number of people who have to take a Xanax just to maneuver down Rehoboth Avenue on a busy summer day.

Between the bicyclists, walkers, scooters, those things with three wheels and out-of-town drivers looking for an ATM machine, it looks a lot like Tiananmen Square. And then there is the roundabout on a rainy afternoon…let’s just say there isn’t enough Advil in the world to cope with a tour bus, a three-wheeled scooter and a Fiat all meeting at the same point. Yes, you could say the Italians are coming!

Still, Labor Day is a time to celebrate with barbecues, picnics and great cookouts with family and friends. OK, it may also mean a trip to the emergency room between the potato salad aftereffects and the third-degree burns from forgetting that metal can heat up to the temperature of the planet Mars, but hey, you have Monday off anyway.

It’s better to get this stuff taken care of before Obamacare kicks in and you find out your medical coverage consists of taking a self-help course in human anatomy.

But let us get back to the worker we honor this day. Believe me, it is not easy to own, run or be employed by a business today.

With all the government rules and regulations, you would have to hire an army to fill out forms, reply to rejected forms and stay on hold while you negotiate with some clerk. This is why ants form colonies and bees have hives; they are the most successful in filling out government forms.

Here’s an example going around: The Colorado Wage and Hours Government Department claimed Mickey was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent to interview him.  “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” said the agent.

“Well, there’s my ranch hand who has been with me three years; I pay him $600 a week, plus room and board,” said Mickey. “My cook I’ve had 18 months, $500 per week, plus room and board.

“There is the half-wit, works 18 hours a day, does 90 percent of the work, makes $10 a week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night.”

“That’s the one I want to talk to, the half-wit,” the agent said.

“That would be me,” replied Mickey. And so it goes this Labor Day.

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