The shocking truth about how we need others

Maybe a month after the pandemic began, what had been obvious to psychologists forever became clear to the rest of us: We don't really like being alone.

Unless it's totally on our terms, perhaps. Maybe not even then.

You hear the claims all the time: "I wish I had more time alone." "I'd love to just go away and have no interference." "I wish I could get away from the world." "Brad, quit doing dumb things to get cheap laughs."

Most of those statements (75 percent of them) have the same basis: The thought that if only we could get away and be alone, things would be better. Solitude is desired. The fact that we say that while checking our smartphones every five minutes for social media updates should be enough evidence that it isn't true, but being shut in at home for weeks proved it.

We like interaction. Few of us want to be around people all the time, but most of us would go crazy if we lacked interaction.

I realize there are people who are fine being away from everyone. There's a reason some people are hermits or Miami Marlins fans. But even those people probably need some interaction.

We learned that from the pandemic.

Of course, the experience of our lifetimes should have taught us that. The fact that prisoners are punished by solitary confinement should have told us that. Putting kids in "time out" or making them stand in the corner when they misbehave should have taught us that.

A 2014 study at the University of Virginia should have proven that to us.

The 2014 study involved hundreds of volunteers who took part in "thinking periods," where they were placed in sparsely furnished rooms and were asked to . . . think. Some were told what to think about, others weren't. There were no cellphones, books or anything. Just them in a chair, thinking. Time in solitude.

They rated the experience and most gave it middling scores. They didn't love it, but it wasn't the worst thing ever.

Then they were put in a room, not given anything to think about and shown a button.

The button would shock them. A literal shock.

Before the test, most participants said they would pay money to avoid being shocked.

Yet . . .

Left alone for 15 minutes with nothing to do but think, 67 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women shocked themselves. They shocked themselves rather than sit there for 15 minutes, alone with their thoughts. They wanted to do something.

So they shocked themselves.

Humans!

Of course, there's something entirely unsurprising in the results: Men shocked themselves at a rate of nearly three times women did. Two out of every three men in the study shocked themselves out of boredom. In 15 minutes!

That tells you how much men don't like to think. And how much men enjoy toying with danger.

Really, the pandemic's early months shouldn't have been a surprise. The fact that we were told to stay home until further notice led to predictable results: Put 21st-century people in their homes and tell them to stay and pretty soon they'll get restless. They'll demand to go out and shop. They'll want sports back.

Heck, there were plenty of times in March and April that – had Mrs. Brad not been around to hear my dumb musings – I might have shocked myself to avoid boredom. There were no sports! We couldn't go out!

Dumb? Yes. But at least I know this: Among men, I'm in the majority.

That's the shocking truth.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

All my childhood expectations for death were overblown

While growing up in a time of disaster movies and three television networks, I thought there was a decent chance I'd experience a pandemic at some point.

Nothing like COVID-19, of course. More likely because some secret government lab allowed a virus to escape, this time one that couldn't be stopped by the Six Million Dollar Man or Jim Rockford (Of course, I presume that's not what happened in 2020.)

A pandemic was on the list of how I feared I would die, but it was low on the list. Because growing up in the Nixon-Ford-Carter era meant that there were plenty of horrible ways to die, displayed regularly at the theater or on TV shows. Turns out most of the ways don't really happen much, but you couldn't have convinced the 12-year-old version of me of that.

Now I realize I'm most likely to die in some boring, conventional way. But when I was young, there were a series of dramatic ways I expected to meet my demise:

Quicksand. It's become a cliche for people of my age group to refer to the amount of quicksand in childhood TV shows, but it's true. Here's what I learned: Quicksand can be anywhere and if you struggle, it only gets worse. The secret is to wait for a cowboy to come and pull you out by a rope. Note: I've never seen quicksand.

Rattlesnakes. If you walk in the forest – or in the desert or across the plains or around a campsite – there's risk of being bit by a rattler. At least that's what I thought: They're always ready to strike and if you get bit,  you have to suck the venom out immediately. Note: I've never seen a rattlesnake.

Army ants. Frankly, I never saw a movie with army ants, but my friends did, which was enough. Do army ants eat you? Carry you off? Put you in a prison camp? I don't know, but I know that army ants are a menace and they may come for us at any time. Note: I've never seen army ants.

Killer bees. These are a real thing and in my childhood, they were menacing. I spent a fair amount of time considering my escape plan if a huge swarm of bees worked together to kill me (by stinging me to death? That wasn't clear). When my sister and I crashed into a wasp's nest while sliding in a cardboard box down a hill (the 1970s!), we had a bad bee experience, so I didn't want killer bees. They seemed worse. Note: I've never seen killer bees.

A blow to the temple. A persistent legend of my childhood was that if someone hit you in the temple – your head, not a Jewish place of worship – you would die. A baseball could kill you if it hit you in the spot just in front of and above your ear. Apparently a dodgeball couldn't, because I was hit there by more than one dodgeball. Note: I've been hit in the temple and survived.

Dying in a dream. If you die in your dream – if you hit the ground while falling or get shot or drown – you die in real life. That's what everybody said in those days and I believed them. I had few scary dreams, so that wasn't a big deal, but still . . . it was something to worry about. Note: I've never died in a dream.

Now it's 2020. Decades after fearing killer bees and army ants and quicksand and rattlesnakes and being hit in the temple by a baseball, I'm living through a pandemic. While it's dangerous, it turns out that it's much easier than avoiding quicksand or a rattler while walking around a campsite. Note: I've now seen a pandemic.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

We make fun of the U.S. Postal Service, but we trust it

Perhaps President Trump picked the wrong organization to target a few weeks ago.

The United States Post Office, the butt of jokes for Americans for most of my life (complaints about stamp prices, lazy postal carriers, bureaucratic apathy, "going postal") was the most trusted brand in America, according to a survey done earlier this year by data intelligence company Morning Consult.

Yes.

The USPS came in first out of all the brands in America. More trusted the Apple. Most trusted the Microsoft or Amazon or Ford or Coke or Pepsi. More trusted than IBM or Walmart. More trusted than cultural favorite Chick-fil-A and Netflix.

And in what had to be very satisfying to the USPS, more trusted than UPS or FedEx.

The folks at Morning Consult asked Americans (more than 16,000 Americans were asked about more than 2,000 brands), "How much do you trust this brand to do what is right?" People could choose from "a lot," "some," "not much," "not at all," or "don't know." The brands were ranked on the percentage of respondents who said "a lot."

Forty-two percent of people said USPS can be trusted to do what's right a lot.

Which says something: Our most trusted brand has less than half of us trusting it to do what's right "a lot."

In case you're interested, Amazon was second, Google was third, PayPal was fourth and The Weather Channel was fifth.

Among the top 25 were some interesting brands, at least to me: Cheerios (ninth), Ziploc (13th) and Campbell's Soup (21st).

The author of the Morning Consult report pointed out that the most-trusted brands are more trusted than . . . Tom Hanks. Seriously. Only 34 percent of us trust Tom Hanks to do the right thing "a lot."

The Morning Consult study had some bad news for a lot of brands and people, including the media, which is trusted by only 8 percent of people (excluding the Daily Republic and me, presumably).

According to Morning Consult, only the respondent's primary doctor and the military rank ahead of the USPS when it comes to our perception that it will do the right thing "a lot."

But the results weren't absolutely clear. For instance, there was a generational split.

Among Gen Z members (ages 8 to 23), technology is trusted – Google, Netflix, Amazon and YouTube were the most trusted brands. Millennials (ages 24-39) ranked Google, USPS, Amazon and PayPal highest, while Gen-Xers (ages 40-55) ranked USPS, Google, Amazon and Hershey (!) at the top and Baby Boomers (ages 56-74) ranked USPS, UPS, Hershey (older people love Hershey!) and the Weather Channel at the top.

For all those rankings, there is a significant disclaimer: The younger the respondent, the less trust they had. Gen Z members were routinely 10 points lower on everything than baby boomers. Boomers are a trusting group.

Also, brands take time to build trust. Only two of the 100 most trusted brands (Android and YouTube) were formed after 2000, while three were formed before 1850. Forty-five of the top 100 brands were founded between 1926 and 1975, which makes me feel good because I was founded then, too.

So what's the point?

It takes time to be a trusted brand.

Younger people trust less

Even really trusted brands still are expected to do the right thing "a lot" by less than half of the population.

And the older you are, the more you trust Hershey. Even more than Tom Hanks.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

 

 

 

 

Protests, mattresses, cereal, ants: Emptying my notebook

It's Labor Day Weekend, which means we're at the unofficial end of the summer of the strangest year of our lives. It seems like we were commemorating Memorial Day just a few days ago, with the pandemic persisting and national anger over systematic racism.

Three months later, we're . . . still there, I guess. But we're three months closer to the end, if my math is right.

Right?

Please?

Well, it's time to empty the columnist's metaphorical notebook, which is actually a virtual notebook on my smartphone.

•••

Whether these months of unrest have moved us in a positive direction is open for debate – we may be no better off than we were in the spring – but we seemed to have learned at least one thing: The point of protest is to create discomfort.

For years, Americans complained as people protested or boycotted because it made things inconvenient. We said that those protesters would be fine if they didn't block traffic or if they didn't make it impossible to go to my favorite restaurant or if they didn't make it difficult watch a sporting event without thinking about politics.

It feels like we've finally accepted that inconvenience is one of the purposes of protest. Protest are partially to challenge those doing wrong and to force those of us on the sidelines to consider the issue and maybe get involved.

That we're complaining less about the inconvenience of protest and talking more about the subject is one sign of growth, I guess.

I guess.

•••

Having helped with three moves (from home to home) in the past year has made something ridiculously clear: Mattresses should have handles.

When I was a kid, our mattresses had handles. At least my twin-bed mattress had them: Plastic straps on the side.

Mattresses are hard to move. They're heavy, awkward and often bend. We pay hundreds of dollars for a mattress. How much would it cost to add a simple strap to hold when you move it?

I'd even pay extra for that. Wouldn't you?

•••

As long as we're talking about improving products, how about this: Breakfast cereals should come in resealable bags.

Instead, they come in plastic bags that are either too hard to open or don't close easily. Or both.

Want to be the breakthrough breakfast cereal company: Keep your boxes, but improve your bags.

You're welcome.

•••

The NFL season starts this week with no "bubble."

What are the odds that the league makes it through January without a coronavirus-caused shutdown?

I give the NFL a 60 percent chance of making it. Mostly because that league will power through some outbreaks.

•••

I recently had an ant invasion at my house and had to get some spray, which reminded me of one of my favorite work-related stories.

Several years ago at the Daily Republic, a veteran copy editor convinced a young colleague that ants were baby roaches. "Ants turn into roaches when they get older," he said. "Why else do you think they sell ant and roach spray? Roaches are adult ants."

I started laughing in the store when I remembered that.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Trip to the dentist teaches me about SLR

Do you remember when you found out about SLR? I found out when a dental assistant told me I suffered from it.

It was during my recent trip to the dentist, the semiannual torture during which I sweat through a T-shirt and try to act like it doesn't make me anxious.

"Are you all right, Brad?" the dental assistant always asks, reminding me that I'm not skilled at hiding my anxiety. "Let me know if it gets to be too much."

I think: "And what? What will you do then?" It's not the pain. It's the anticipation of pain, even though there's generally not any.

But this trip was different, because I learned I have SLR.

"Your teeth look pretty good except this one spot," the dental assistant told me through two masks and a face guard. I think she said that. It was muffled. And I had a mild chill, from my sweaty T-shirt. And my pupils were probably dilated, too. She continued: "Are you left-handed?"

"Mnmnmno," I said, struggling to speak with metal tools and that inefficient spit-sucker in my mouth. I hoped she realized that meant that I'm not a lefty.

"Well, that's interesting," she said. "Usually . . . wait. Oh, now I see. You have strong lip reflex. Has anyone ever told you that?"

What?

What?

Has anyone told me I had strong lip reflex? Not only had I not been told that, I had never heard that phrase.

Strong lip reflex? What the heck? Now in addition to having Type 1 diabetes, a dearth of hair on my legs and lower-than-normal ears, I have something else?

I answered her question: "No."

"Well, you do. Particularly here on the left side. See?" She pulled out my lip. It felt like someone was pulling out my lip. "That probably makes it tougher to get this spot. I'd recommend you pull your lip out when you brush. Do you use an electric brush?"

"Mnmnyes." The spit-sucker was falling behind again. I meant yes, but I didn't want to drown.

"If you pull your lip you, you'll see. It's a strong lip reflex."

Wait a minute.

She had me in a position of weakness. I was laying prone, there were sharp metal objects in my mouth, a suction device falling behind as she shot water into my mouth to combine with my overactive salivary glands. But seriously? If I pull out my lip, I'll see how strong the reflex is?

Compared to what? How could I tell? These are the only lips I've ever owned. When I pull them out, they feel LIKE I AM PULLING OUT MY LIPS.

How is that supposed to show me that my lips have a strong reflex? I didn't argue, though. You know, the sharp metal object and all.

Finally it ended. My appointment finished, I staggered to my car, exhausted from the tension of anticipating pain that never came (and almost never does), relieved that I don't need to go back for another six months.

I survived metal picks poking around my teeth. I survived gallons of water being shot into my mouth while a tiny hose sucked out a fraction of it. I survived discussion with a talkative dental assistant wearing two masks and a faceguard.

But I emerged with new knowledge. I am one of the few. I am part of a small community in America and the world.

I am someone with strong lip reflex.

If only there was a way I could test it.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

 

I know this much is true: Music transcends time

The song was "Wasted on the Way," by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

It was nothing special to me, except for a memory.

"This reminds me of delivering pizzas," I told Mrs. Brad.

She's heard that before, when I've heard "Rosanna," by Toto. "Eye in the Sky," by the Alan Parsons Project. "True," by Spandau Ballet. "What's Love Got to Do With It," by Tina Turner.

None of them are special songs for me, other than being pizza delivery songs. I don't love them, I don't hate them. They were the soundtrack of that time of my life, indelibly linked to driving around my hometown in a Volkswagen Rabbit, dropping off family-sized pepperoni pizzas for a 75-cent delivery charge and (hopefully) a $3 tip.

"Jump," by Van Halen. "How 'Bout Us," by Champaign. "Queen of Hearts," by Juice Newton.

That's the power of music, I guess. We all have songs that take us back to a specific time. Every generation has specific songs that they identify with fun times in high school. Or heartbreak in high school. Or alienation or self-realization or one specific weekend. Or a special friend or a first girlfriend or boyfriend.

There are songs we associate with specific moments. The song that played at a wedding. Our mom's or dad's favorite tune that they would turn up when we were in the car.

Those are magical songs.

"Wasted on the Way" isn't at that level for me. Nor is "Queen of Hearts," nor even "All Those Years Ago," by George Harrison.

They are tunes I associate with a stage of life. Working at a pizza parlor at night. Going to college during the day. Working with teenagers at church. Dating Mrs. Brad before she was Mrs. Brad. During that era, I spent hours and hours in my car, taking pizzas to homes and motels and workplaces. I spent hours and hours in the pizza parlor, with the radio turned on in the background.

Always a top-40 station. A mix of the Rolling Stones and Sheena Easton and Chicago and Air Supply and Loverboy.

There were artists that I loved in that era: The Commodores and Earth Wind and Fire. Billy Joel. Huey Lewis and the News. Their music doesn't remind me of delivering pizza. When I hear those songs, I think of MTV and dating Mrs. Brad and hanging with my friends.

Not background music. Foreground music. But the rest? Still memorable.

You may well have music that has similar associations for you. Maybe it's the music that played at your workplace. Or in car where you were a passenger. Maybe it's the music that you listened to while commuting or walking around wearing ear buds.

"Wasted on the Way," is a fine song that sounds a lot like other Crosby, Stills and Nash songs. If it was popular at any other time, I'd probably know it, but not remember it. But it was popular during a time I spent hours and hours every week driving around town, listening to top-40 music and not worrying about much.

It wasn't a special song, it was just a memorable song.

And I guess that's what makes music special. Even songs that aren't magic for us retain a level of magic in our memories.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

 

Kongonaphon kely changes our view of dinosaurs

 

It's "Jurassic Park" meets the "The Borrowers:" A fossil found in Madagascar is of a 237-million-year-old dinosaur that was 4 inches tall.

Four inches tall! That's shorter than Tom Cruise! Hiyo!

The dinosaur is known as Kongonaphon kely (K. kely), which means “tiny bug slayer." (Coincidentally, that was the title of the song on the flip side of "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John in 1972.)

By dinosaur standards – or really any standards – K. kely was tiny. It was so small that when it rained, the K. kely was the last to know. That's tiny! Hiyo!

(I'm preparing for my standup comedy routine when the pandemic ends.)

The discover of the little dinosaur grabbed headlines because it was different than the stereotype of a dinosaur.

The articles I read about it used a classic journalism trick, comparing the size of K. kely to something familiar. Instead of "a ship that's the size of four football fields" or "hail the size of golf balls," K. kely was described in one article as "the size of a mobile phone" and in another as "the size of a coffee cup."

Both descriptions work for me, since they're the first two things I grab every morning.

The K. kely skeleton was found in 1998. Actually, that's not true: The bones were dug up in 1998, but there were so many bones mixed together, it took a while to realize this was a dinosaur.

That makes sense because K. kely was so tiny, it would use a toothpick as a pool cue in the dinosaur billiards tournaments. That's tiny! Hiyo!

Finding tiny versions of big things are fascinating. Discovering a mobile-phone-sized dinosaur is like finding out that there are microscopic 747 airliners or miniature giraffes. Or that there's a 3-foot-5 Shaquille O'Neal clone.

Impossible, right?

Scientists needed to find out how K. kely survived. Well, K. kely ate insects, so it wasn't a competitor with its larger cousins. Scientists knew this by looking at its teeth, which is a level of dedication beyond me.

Scientists think it's possible the K. kely adapted its small frame as an evolutionary advantage, allowing the mini dinosaur to go to places other dinosaurs couldn't. That could mean K. kely helped advance other traits that were important to dinosaurs, such as bipedal movement, fluff to warm their bodies, the beginning of flight and how to chase people in "Jurassic Park" movies.

For a little dinosaur, K. kely had a big impact. And it was small. In fact, it was so small that its driver's license photo showed it head to foot! That's tiny! Hiyo!

The good news from this discovery is twofold: First, we're still learning from the past. The fact that we can still be surprised by science (and history. And math. And anything.) means we're still learning and advancing as people.

The other good news is further proof that you can make an impact regardless of size. K. kely was small – in fact, it was so small that other dinosaurs would ask him how the weather was down there (hiyo!) – but still played an important role. More than 2 million years later, we're talking about K. kely.

That's good news.

The bad news?

In 237 million years, we've gone from K. kely to R. Kelly. That's not an advance, right?

The fun-sized dinosaur was much better.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

 

Seven secrets to writing a column

When I speak to young people about writing columns, I generally tell them the No. 1 secret: Don't be afraid to use a made-up story as your opening paragraph. Readers don't know it's not true.

For instance: Pretend that "young people" care enough about what you do to ask about it, let alone want to know your "secrets."

Bingo bango.

Which is the No. 2 secret to writing a column: Have a catch phrase.

All great columnists have them. Herb Caen called San Francisco "Baghdad by the Bay." Tony Wade always writes, "me like Raiders very much." I'm sure Mike Royko, Jimmy Breslin and Maureen Dowd had catch phrases, even though I don't know what they were. Catch phrases are crucial to keeping your readers connected.

Bingo bango!

I've been writing columns for the Daily Republic since 1986. Seriously. To make it clear how long ago that was, 1986 was closer to Korean War than it is to today. More practically, it was so long ago that the Dodgers have won a World Series title since then! (Column secret 3: have ongoing inside jokes in which you insult rival sports franchises.) During that time, I moved from the young, idealistic sports writer to the sarcastic sports editor to the ridiculous "humor" writer to the old man who writes about column tricks.

That's column secret No. 4: Have self-references within a column. Allow your column to be self-aware and make jokes that readers think they get because they're insiders. If you don't believe me, bingo bango! Get it?

Secret No. 4 is a little more sensitive: Be fully aware of controversies before you wade in with a dumb joke. Unfortunately, that's something I've done a few times – and then blamed editors for not warning me.

For instance, there was the time when the local high school band (Editor's note: Rest of sentence deleted) and the time when the Malaysian Airlines plane (Editor's note: Rest of sentence deleted). Boy! Lesson learned. Especially when I discovered that readers weren't amused when I compared Gilligan's Island to (Editor's note: Rest of sentence deleted).

Which is secret No. 5: Use ancient pop-culture references, which allow readers to either laugh along with you or feel sorry for you. The winning side of that is the ability to look down on young people for not getting your jokes. Sure, they can make Tik-Tok videos, but they don't get Gilligan's Island references!

But perhaps the best lesson – one I've taken to my non-newspaper jobs, so it holds up outside of traditional journalism – is how to end a column.

A former boss used to occasionally call me over to help her finish her columns, because she knew it was perhaps my only area of expertise. I never told her the secret (which is No. 6: Protect your job by keeping secrets from your boss), but it was simple: Just rewrite the first sentence in a different way. Readers will think you've gone completed the circle, even if you haven't.

So that's the seventh secret: Circle back.

Which is what I always tell young people who ask me about my column.

Bingo bango!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

20 thoughts from 20 weeks of COVID-19 life

Monday marks 20 weeks since this COVID-19 thing got serious, 20 weeks since March 16, when most Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place order. Two days later, Solano County joined the order.

Over the past 20 weeks, we've endured a lockdown, flattening of the COVID curve, a reopening, the expansion of the pandemic and more.

Sports stopped. Theaters, restaurants and most retail stores closed. Schools and churches shut down.

We wear masks in public. We hoard toilet paper. We drive less. We stay home more. We argue about every issue.

Twenty weeks.

Here are 20 of my weekly thoughts from the pandemic.

Week 1: Is the world ending? Going to my office to get equipment so I can work from home feels like I'm in an apocalyptic movie.

Week 2: A Facebook friend (who previously only posted memes about food) cites an obscure scientific website that insists COVID-19 is like the flu.

Week 3: Sports stopped three weeks ago and it's agonizing. No March Madness, no baseball, no NBA playoffs. I created a putt-putt course in my home.

Week 4: The shelter-in-place order was extended. The mask Mrs. Brad made me works, but I'd like something more comfortable. Off to Amazon!

Week 5: When will the toilet paper shortage end? Ridiculous.

Week 6: My Facebook friend claims COVID-19 is a plot by the deep-state government to control us. How shutting down businesses benefits the government is unclear.

Week 7: Things are stable. I'd make a "flattening the curve" joke, except they've all been said.

Week 8: It doesn't seem so weird to go to the grocery store with a mask. We're ordering to-go food from restaurants. They're talking about opening up again, but we'll see.

Week 9: My Facebook friend calls people who don't see a conspiracy, "sheeple." He cites obscure data that more people will from a recession than COVID-19.

Week 10: Mrs. Brad is now my barber. Unfortunately for her, I can't cut women's hair, so she's on her own. I haven't thought about sports much lately.

Week 11: Demonstrations are sweeping the nation. I stopped wearing gloves while grocery shopping, but boarded-up windows due to looting makes it feels apocalyptic again.

Week 12:  My Facebook friend insists that the political demonstrations prove that COVID-19 is a political scam and cites a report on an obscure website that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a fraud.

Week 13: Sports have been gone so long that I don't really remember what it was like to have them. Will their return be good news?

Week 14: Zoom fatigue continues. Video calls seemed good for a while, but now they just make me weary. My unstable WiFi doesn't help.

Week 15: My Facebook friend says that the fact that the Center for Disease Control's changing approach on masks proves that the government doesn't know what it's doing. He won't wear a mask.

Week 16: Schools may reopen. Or not. With no school-age kids, I feel for both sides: Parents forced to teach and teachers who don't feel safe. There's no easy answer.

Week 17: My Facebook friend cites a study about the low death rate of COVID-19 among younger people and says we should just treat it like the flu. It's not that dangerous.

Week 18: Baseball returns this week! How did I live without baseball?

Week 19: The Miami Marlins had a COVID-19 outbreak, but the NBA returns this week! How did I live without basketball?

Week 20: Will this be over in 2020? Will we get a vaccine? Will sports continue? My Facebook friend says . . .

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

I could use a tip on when and to whom to provide a tip

Before the pandemic hit and changed everything, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about tips.

Pre-pandemic, I was of the opinion that establishments where you pay at the counter had found the perfect way to inspire greater tips: Shame.

In recent years, the "cash register" (I show my age) evolved to a person behind the counter spinning a tablet toward you, where you insert your credit card and sign with your finger. The trick? It routinely has an option to tip. Kind of an option.

More like an expectation.

Because there are people in line behind you. Everyone behind you can see the screen (to be fair, they're probably not looking, but you can't tell).

We almost always tip, paying extra for someone to stand at a counter and take our order to avoid shame.

Tips are complicated. While some been on hold for the past several months – and may remain so for several months – there are a host of people who we are supposed to tip. More than I knew before doing some research.

Of course, you tip waiters at a restaurant. You tip a pizza delivery person. You tip a cab or rideshare driver. However, you're supposed to tip nearly all service providers, something explained by an article in Business Insider.

Some are obvious: airport shuttle drivers, bartenders, bellhops. People who cut hair. (All things that have largely disappeared since mid-March.)

But that's not the end.

We're supposed to tip bathroom attendants (I'll consider this if I ever go somewhere that has one. I would think someone standing around in the bathroom is just a random creep). We're supposed to tip babysitters. Dog groomers. Furniture delivery people. Garbage collectors. Hotel housekeeping staff. Mail carriers. Package delivery people. Plumbers.

I always figured plumbers, mail carriers, garbage collectors and dog groomers received enough pay for doing their jobs. Am I supposed to subsidize what they earn from their employers? If I'm doing so, am I just allowing the fat-cat owner of the dog grooming place to get rich by underpaying his staff? Probably.

If I'm supposed to tip service providers, do I only tip people who earn less annually than me?

When I learned that many people tip the housekeepers at hotels and motels, I felt like a stooge. I have never even thought about that.

Babysitters? The Business Insider article suggested a 10 percent tip – although it's suggested as a holiday bonus. (My workaround: Don't hire a babysitter during the holiday period.)

I'm not sure how I could even tip a garbage collector, since I live in a place with community bins (I presume money I left would be taken by someone or sorted into the correct recycling container). Same with a mail carrier (would an envelope with cash wind up in the dead-letter bin?).

Maybe if babysitters, hotel housekeepers and plumbers just had one of those new cash register tablets, it would be easier. I might not want to tip, but the possible shame of embarrassment would force me to do so.

Problem solved, once we figure out this pandemic.

Until then, tip mask-wearers.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.