At the factories I visited abroad, the average working age was around 20. At the factory in NY, it was probably in the late 40’s. In developing countries you are pretty much washed up as a garment worker when you reach the not-so ripe ol’ age of 25….
The average garment worker I met in Asia makes my clothes for somewhere around $60/month, or $720/year. Let’s say I make $30,000/year (not counting my stipend from my sugar momma wife). Their annual income is 2.4% of mine. Crazy, huh? I’m rich!
Now let’s move to the factory in Perry, NY, I visited that makes jerseys for the NBA. Let’s say that the workers making the uniforms make $30,000/year just like me. While at the factory, I saw Jason Kidd’s name being stitched on his uniform. Kidd makes $17.2 million/year. The workers that make his jersey earn about .14% of his annual salary.
I’m not sure that these comparisons are immediately useful to my purposes here. But what it makes me…
If only I could rock cultural arenas like my buddy Dalton.
Yep, he’s not afraid to self-promote….
Ain’t she gorgeous?
And what better time would there to be to share this reading that Annie and I wrote, which was read by a friend during the wedding? None. Here you go…
10 years ago…
Bill Clinton is starting his second term.
In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce they cloned a sheep. Her name is Dolly.
Chicago Bulls win their 5th championship. Michael Jordan is still awesome.
There is no Google.
The world is introduced to an 11-year-old magician in training named Harry Potter.
Titanic rocks the box office.
I walk Annie across the “Old Gym” floor during lunch to ask Kelsey if he’s going to the homecoming dance. I still take credit for hooking them up.
Annie tells Kelsey to pick her up at her house to go to the…
Where’s your banana from?
If it’s from Colombia it might have a bit of blood on it.
Banana producer Chiquita will pay a $25 million fine and serve five years’ probation for once paying millions of dollars to groups in Colombia considered by the U.S. to be terrorist organizations, a Department of Justice spokesman said Tuesday.
Colombia ain’t Ohio. If you are going to do business there, you are going to have to get your hands dirty. I’m not for hiring soldiers of fortune, unless they are these soldiers of fortune, but to me it seems as if our government isn’t entirely above the practice either.
I like bananas in my smoothie, on my cereal, split and topped with ice cream,…
“ACO Welcomes Kelsey and Annie Timmerman”
The sign is weird. It’s the first time we’ve seen Annie’s new name.
We’re greeted by a reporter from the local newspaper. Lorraine is excited that we came all the way to Perry, New York, to see where my shorts were made. She doesn’t act like this is a weird thing to be doing at all. She thinks it’s neat. I like Lorraine.
Lorraine describes Perry as such: “I always tell people that the south side of town smells like cookies and the north like manure.”
The cookie smell comes from the Archway factory and the manure smell comes from the surrounding dairy farms. Archway cookies remind me of visiting my grandma Timmerman. I’m not sure if the woman ever…
“Unless the context otherwise indicates, words importing the singular number shall include the plural number and words importing the singular number shall include the singular number.”
I read this today while reviewing a contract at my 3-day a week Day Job. After which I poked out my eye with a knife. And of course, in this case the singular use of “eye” means both eyes and the singular use of “knife” means one knife.
Like other things, too much legalese will make you go blind….
I’ve always liked not having been to Canada. It gave me a comeback to people who refer to me as a world traveler and say things like, “Where haven’t you been?”
“Well, I’ve never been to Canada.” I’d say.
Everybody knows that you ain’t no world traveler unless you’ve been to Canada. The response would shut them up pretty fast. But here I am in Niagara Falls, Canada. Crap.
Annie and I haven’t been more than from miles from the US border so really that shouldn’t count as having been to a country, especially a country the size of Canada. Maybe, if we were 5 miles into Luxembourg, it would be a different story.
So, officially I’ve still never been to Canada. Unofficially, I have been….
“Do things, not think things.”
Visit the humor writers website for more Dave on writing.
In the interest of full disclosure, Dave and I are pals. Okay, maybe not pals, but I did wait in line to meet him at the Erma Bombeck Conference in Dayton. See…
Registration is now open for the conference in April of 2008. Last year it sold out in 12 days. If you are interested in going, better sign up now….
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