New material coming soon so buy a book on Amazon Kindle while you are waiting

Exploding Eggs and Broken Panda

Exploding Eggs and a Broken Panda ©

By

Michael Casey

As I said yesterday I’m home alone while my girls go off to Shanghai to visit grannie, with a side trip to Japan as well. And yes it’s so quiet here. So how is the home alone dad coping? I’m fine, I’m perfect, it’s not as if I never looked after myself before.

I had bought some extra eggs as my wife believes in going to work on an egg. Then I noticed the best before date, 6^th August, or so I thought. I had 27 eggs in the fridge. 27 to 1, when normally it would be 27 to 4. So I improvised and boiled 7 of them. I don’t eat eggs regularly myself, they come and go off my eat list.

Microwaved eggs are a quick and easy meal for hungry daughters, if you can get them to come downstairs from their “penthouse” suite upstairs. Just remember to stir halfway  through, and don’t overcook or like a soufflé they can burst. While the microwave is cooking you can get the toast done, as I tell my daughters cooking is all about finishing at the same time.

So yesterday while they were at Birmingham airport I was hard boiling my 7 eggs. By the time they got to Amsterdam for their connection to Japan I had started on my breakfast of hard boiled eggs in garlic wrap. My daughter popped up on the computer screen, zooming in on her 13 year old spots. Then she asked me, what was I eating? So I showed her my breakfast and she said I was disgusting. All of you with 13 year old daughters will understand, the rest of you will just have to wait for your own girls to get bigger.

And then they were gone. So I finished my breakfast in peace. I still had 3 eggs for today. This morning I shelled the last eggs and put them in the microwave, I even put a plate on top to cover the bowl of eggs, see I’m domesticated. But not domesticated enough, the eggs exploded and blew the lid off the bowl and scattered egg everywhere.

I laughed and started to clean the inside of the microwave out, as we have a galley kitchen I leaned on the sink as I cleaned the microwave out. Only this was a mistake, I leant on the plastic cutlery drainer thing. This sent our Panda flying through the air and onto the floor, the Panda was dead. No not a real panda, but a panda mug, the one I usually use to make scrambled eggs in. So exploding eggs and broken panda.

So much for my intended breakfast, so I had toast and Aldi marmalade instead, and 2 cups of tea. As I ate this, up popped my family, and grannie too, in Osaka at a banquet. My wife’s friend had driven them to the mountains near Kobe and his house. While I had toast, 3 slices, they were having 5 star Japanese/Chinese food. Even the dog, a beautiful Labrador had better food than me. How did I know, they showed me it online. Daughters can be cruel sometimes.

They are 8 hours in front of us there, so while I had my toast my wife had a banquet, she and my 2 daughters and Shanghai grannie who’d popped over to enjoy the fun. They’ve finished teasing me with food now, so they are returning to the hotel, it’s an hour’s drive away.

15 friends and family, one banquet in Osaka/Kobe, dog included, while I have toast in Birmingham. So thank you very much, no seriously, thank you for the most kind hospitality. One bizarre thing though, some of the teenage female guests think  that I am “cool” and good looking, it must be the breadcrumbs covering my face. 

cool and good looking to Japanese eyes

Writing Sumo to mine

For Bankers in Japan

AUGUST 1ST, 2014 18:06

For Bankers in Japan

By michaelgcasey

Did you know that in Japan they don’t take DEBIT CARDS, they prefer Credit Cards. Not a lot of people know that, as Michael Caine would say.

So if you are fiscally good, they think you are bad, and will refuse payment from a DEBIT card, they will direct you to the post office where you will get cash from a machine, which is then accepted.

How do I know this? My wife and 2 daughters are on there way there as I speak, so I’m Home Alone, just me and Arthur my arthritis. Just squirted Movelat on my pains. So BEWARE bring something else.

We discovered this 48 hours before the trip, we were SO HAPPY NOT . Luckily my wife could parachute into the middle of the Pacific and within 5 minutes 2 or 3 nuclear submarines would surface. USA, USSR and it feels like USSR once more, plus CHINA and all three would offer dinner, just as James Bond would pass by on a speed boat. She’s very networked, I think her name may really mean lucky.

SO JUST BEWARE, DEBIT NOT LIKED IN JAPAN.

My daughters told me on route that they felt so tall next to the average Japanese, my 13 year old said she was a giant in comparison, though she is 5’4″ now.. My small daughter has brought loom bands with her for the journey. She refused to continue learning piano, though big sister will soon reach Grade 2, she was thinking of the Saxophone, copying Bart Simpson no doubt. Would this be a good instrument for a 10 year old? I did say she’d have to practice in the entry. So any musical people out there please leave a comment. You can only imagine the Chinese Mum reaction to dropping the piano. So I’ll finish there for today.

Can I help you, Sir?

Can I help you, Sir? ©

By

Michael Casey

So you have a problem so you fill in a contact form or send an email, it’s easy, its simple isn’t it? You just write everything down you even put it in order, in bullet points, so you’ll get a helpful answer immediately.

Only Customer Service never reads your email, they just repeat what you told them already. You are told to do XYZ, then everything will be ok, but you told them already, you’ve  put it all in your email or on the contact form, you’ve put it down for a 5 year old, you’ve done XYZ already.

Only a 5 year old would have understood, you did XYZ already, their system does not work, they need to change the system. But the system never fails, it’s impossible, it’s the height of technology. Which is where the system fails, because they won’t even believe that their system can be improved.

So you have a series of emails back and forth, until they hope you will give up. And have a nice day too, they always say. American companies always say “have a nice day”, don’t they realise over here in England we think this is corny, worse that corny its meaningless because the people don’t mean it. How can you have a nice day anyway, their system does not work. I could segway into the Parrot Sketch from Monty Python…..

I was talking to somebody recently and guess what he had the same thing, in the end he had to email the CEO to get his simple issue sorted. I’ve done it a few times myself, don’t waste your time with the organ grinder’s monkey, talk to the organ grinder himself, though I may need to explain this for any American readers.

I should remind anybody who works in customer service that I did work in a 4 star deluxe  business hotel for 3 years, so I do know how it should be done.  The thing you do is get a result for the customer, if you haven’t done that, then you haven’t done your job.

However you can be honest and say you will get somebody to help who really can do it. So long as the customer gets a result then you have done your job.

It’s too hot to write any more, bad customer service just saps your strength, like the heat, though sometimes it is tempting to throw a bucket of cold water over them. Maybe there is an App that can do it.

this is my hotel look CPNEC 2002 to 2005

Summer Sale 99p each for 5 of my books

5 books for 99p each,  Summer Sale so be quick


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


3 other books also available

me and my girls 9 years ago

The Dead and The Living

The Dead and The Living (c)
by
Michael Casey
I first saw a deceased when I was nine years old ,my father said not
to worry as the dead are the same as the living , only the laughter
has left them , the sparkle has gone from their eyes , the worry has
been lifted from their shoulders , and their voice has vanished to
eternity .
In paradise the sparkle will return for it is the twinkle of the
stars , the laughter will return too for it is the morning breeze and
the turning tides are their sides shaking with laughter .
I treat the deceased with the same courtesy as I give to the living ,
though I find the deceased are always more polite . My father also
had a few words to say about the living .
He said that the living are only the caretakers of the soul , yet
they think their existence is everything , that they know everything
because they experience many things with their senses .
What the living don't acknowledge is that their time is short and
when I lay their bodies to rest then their souls continue without
them , without their strong , without their weak , without their
beautiful or even ugly temporary form , to where I cannot say , only
that it is a better place .
Percy the undertaker placed the lid on the coffin ,the soul was free
THE BEGINNING

180 and Counting

180 AND COUNTING

By michaelgcasey

I decided to do more recording today. I’ve recorded another 10 of my stories. So I have 180 recordings now. I have 530 stories in total so that’s another 350 to record, I'm a third of the way through. Though I’m still writing new material all the time. Some i’ll have to rerecord but I have enough to impress any radio station should I get past their gatekeeper.

Perhaps I’ll be discovered at 55, and finally get my slot on the radio, I could be a feature, like something in a garden. Though buried under  the patio is more likely. www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com has 50 or so samples, so tell all your friends. Or force your children and grandchildren to listen. If you are at Eton it could be some kind of punishment, very harrowing punishment

my pretentious writer's pose

I am available for after dinner speaking