Happy Complainer

I’m a fan of rear view mirrors. Before rear view mirrors were invented, the blind spot behind your car would have been half the world, the 180° that you can’t see with the back of your head. Before rear view mirrors, this was all you could see:

But even with rear view mirrors, there are some parts of the world behind you that you can’t see, your blind spots. I want to show you how you can get rid of your blind spots.

Here is what you can and can’t see with one central rear view mirror:

For some reason, I think most people position their side rear view mirrors so that they can see the car that’s directly behind them, like this:

Maybe it’s because they think they want to see “what’s behind them”, or maybe it’s because they came positioned like that, or maybe it’s because someone told them to position them like that. Who knows. I used to do it that way too. But no more. When you do this, your blind spot stays almost just as big as it was before, with one mirror. And if you think about it, why would we want to do this? Why would you want to see the car that’s directly behind you in three different mirrors when you could be pointing these mirrors at three different areas behind you? If you can see the side of your own car in your side mirrors or if you can see the car that’s directly behind you in your side mirrors, then there is some redundant overlap between your center mirror and your side mirrors.

This is how they should be positioned:

Notice that there’s no overlap at all and there aren’t any blind spots that are larger than a car, which means that you’ll always be able to see any car that’s behind you. You might not be able to see the whole car, but at least you’ll see some of it.

Here’s how to set it up:

1. Find a quiet street and stop alongside some parked cars.
2. Position your central mirror so that you can see what’s directly behind you.
3. Pick out a particular car behind you and keep an eye on it in your central mirror.
4. Go in reverse toward that car and when you start to lose sight of that car in the central mirror, make sure that you can see it in your side mirror.
5. Keep an eye on that car in your side mirror and when you start to lose sight of it in your side mirror, make sure that you can see it out of the corner of your eye in your peripheral vision.

That’s it! Now you and I can stop complaining about our blind spots.

Here’s a video I made of the instructions:

Whenever someone on the phone tells me my confirmation number for a reservation or a purchase, they say a letter and then they add these clarifying phrases after each letter. They say things like, “A, as in alpha”, “B, as in bravo”, or “F, as in foxtrot”. It’s helpful to add these phrases after letters that sound similar, like M and N or F and S, but for the letters that no one will ever confuse, like W, speaking/hearing the phrase that follows the letter is kind of pointless. I’m just trying to save everyone involved a little bit of time here. I don’t want to spend part of my time on planet Earth listening to someone say “as in bravo” unless they’ve got a really nice voice.

Here are all the letters grouped by whether they rhyme with each other or not.

Now, not all of the ones that rhyme with each other have a good chance of being confused with each other. Look at the first group—A, J and K. It’s pretty easy to hear the difference between A and J even though they rhyme with each other because J has that consonant sound, “juh”, in front of the “ay” sound. And although J and K both have a consonant sound in front of the “ay” sound, the “juh” sound and the “kuh” sound are different enough from each other that they’re not likely to be mistaken for each other. So instead of “A, as in alpha”, “J, as in Juliet” and “K, as in kilo”, I suggest “A”, “J” and “K”. That way we can save our breath for singing love songs.

With the same reasoning applied to the other groups, the only letter pairs that are likely to be mistaken for one another are F/S, M/N and maybe B/P.

In distinguishing which letter we mean, we should use the shortest words possible. And, of course, the word should not work with both letters. “Fox” would be a bad choice to clarify the letter F from S because “socks” is a word. If you can’t hear the difference between “F” and “S”, then you probably also can’t hear the difference between “fox” and “socks”.

So how about:

Or we could just use numbers.

Another option is to not mention any clarifying phrases until it’s obvious that someone’s been misunderstood. When I call them and they ask me for my confirmation number, I don’t say all this “as in bravo” stuff and they usually understand me just fine.

I don’t like standing in lines but if I had to stand in a line, I’d rather stand in line at the bank than at the supermarket because at the bank there’s only one line. This means that I don’t have to choose which line to stand in. At the supermarket, I have to look at how many people are in each line, how many items each person has, how bulky those items are and whether they are the same are not (standing behind someone whose cart is full with 8 gallons of water is better than standing behind someone whose cart is full with 100 different types of candy bars), how fast each checker is checking, how much time I am losing by walking around making these calculations and not waiting in a line, and whether or not I will make it to the optimal line before someone else who has also done these calculations and has also identified the optimal line. And then I have to wonder how much of my life I want to spend thinking about such things.

At the bank, there’s no question of which line to stand in because there’s only one line. It’s a great system because (1) I don’t have to think about anything, and (2) It’s fairer. I’m not going to get stuck behind someone who needs a price check or pulls out a bizillion coupons or finds out that one of their eggs is cracked and has to go back and get a different dozen. Or at least, I’m not going to get stuck behind this person by myself. Everyone’s in the same boat. We might get stuck behind a slow person but we get stuck collectively. The slowness of that person affects everyone who is waiting in line equally.

So, Mr. Supermarket, I wish your many unequal lines were like the simple single line at the bank.

And so does Larry David. This video was posted in the comments:

Here are the rules: No complaints without action. Or, at least no complaints without suggesting a solution. Complaining about the rain isn’t helpful unless you can figure out how to control the clouds. Complaining about being wet is just some sour noise unless you’re designing an umbrella or some waterproof pants. Okay. The glass is half full and I’m thirsty. Let’s go outside and see what we find.