The Vine: March 12, 2004
Hi Sars.
I have a response to the question about pet “lemon
laws.” Just yesterday The People’s Court (yes, I watch
too much TV) had a case about these laws. In the state
the litigants were from, breeders have to allow 14
days for people to bring back sick animals. If an
animal gets sick, the breeders have to either refund
the purchase price, let the owner pick a new animal or
pay for vet bills. The places that sell pets are
required by law to post the terms of the “lemon law”
where customers can see it — either a sign in the store
or on the receipt.
The poor kitty owner should
definitely check up on this because she might have a
legitimate claim to either a refund or the vet bills.
Court TV addict
Dear Court,
Good to know — thanks for writing in.
Dear Sars:
Love the site and hoping for some practical ideas that have eluded me.
My wife and I want to leave New York and can’t figure out how to do it. We are in our early thirties and have a wonderful two-year-old son. I work as a curator in a media museum (you participated in one of our panel discussions and rocked!); she is an assistant to a literary agent. We are financially comfortable enough, with a nice apartment in Queens, but between life in the city and raising the Pooh Bear, we don’t have much left at the end of the month for savings.
We’ve been here for about six years and want a change. We’ve settled on Portland, Oregon, where we have some friends and family. We fell in love with the city after some extended visits and want to raise our child there. I know you love New York, but we’re done, for all of the obvious reasons: expense, inconvenience, pace of life, terrorism paranoia, et cetera.
How do you move? It sounds like an idiotic question, but we’re tied up in knots over it. How do you get a job in a city 3,000 miles away? Just picking up stakes and hoping for the best, giving up a salary and insurance and the rest seems horribly irresponsible, particularly with a toddler to consider. We’ve considered the idea of me taking a leave of absence from work and staying out there for a month or so to look for work, but the prospect of being away from my wife and son is just gut-wrenching. Our friends are keeping their eyes out for opportunities, but how would that work? I can’t just fly out for an interview.
How do people do this?
Signed,
Big City Shoes Longing to Stray
Dear Shoes,
Two things strike me here. The first is that, while I can’t tell you moving your family cross-country is easy by any means, it is in fact doable. It’s not the most fun you can have with your clothes on — I barely got across the East River without having a nervous breakdown — but you can do it. The trick is to break the task down into a whole passel of smaller, more manageable tasks; figure out which ones need to get done first so that the others can fall into place; and start ticking stuff off.
Which sort of leads me to my second point, namely that you need to start thinking more flexibly about it — the “I can’t just fly out for an interview” thing jumped out at me. Why not? If an Oregonian company likes the cut of your jib and seems ideal to you, why couldn’t you arrange to fly out there for a couple of days? Of course you’d have email communications and a phone interview or two first; I don’t know if I see the problem there.
Look, it’s going to get expensive; it’s a move across the continent. Stuff isn’t necessarily going to time itself like you want it to, but don’t get ahead of yourself and kibosh the whole thing just because it seems like a giant hassle — it is a giant hassle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pull it off. Start checking job listings in that area and sending your c.v. to the promising ones. Look at real estate listings; draw up a budget and figure out what you could afford on various salaries. Research storage facilities, cheap flights, local weather, state tax laws — arm yourself with information.
You need a plan, I think — I wouldn’t just pull up stakes and move out there hoping for the best, not when you’re responsible for other people — but you need to be able to change the plan as you go along, too. Sit down with your wife and start writing things down. There’s a way to do this; all you have to do is find it.
Sars,
Like many others, I have a grammar question for you. I realize that one
uses “which” when following a comma, as in: “The store, which is on the
right…” rather than “The store that is on the right…” My confusion comes
from deciding between “that” and “who” when the noun preceding it refers to
people.
People who like cats…
People that like cats…
The team who scores first…
The team that scores first…
Do you see my problem here? Can you help?
A Girl [Who? That?] Has A Problem With “Who” And “That”
Dear Girl,
The rule as most of us learned it in school dictates that “who” is used for people, while “that” is used for things. I confess that it isn’t a rule I remember to enforce on myself most of the time.
The examples you cite, though, raise an interesting question: How do we treat collective nouns like “team” or “country”? Strictly speaking, a team isn’t a person, but it is composed of people, so which is correct — “who,” or “that”? …Garner?
Hmm. Garner seems to feel that 1) it’s acceptable to use “that” to refer to humans (as well as “who”), and 2) it’s preferred to use “that” in reference to a team or a company.
Short form: Unless it’s a specific human being, use “that.”
Hi Sars!
My issue involves a former girlfriend of mine
that I’ve known for a little over a year, who I’ll call “R.” We recently
made a trip together to visit some of her hometown friends. One of these
friends was a guy who she stated had a crush on her since high school, but
nothing has ever come of it because she never wanted a relationship with
him. She felt he was more like a brother than anything else.
Well, while
we were there the hometown friend made it known to me that he found me
attractive and would be interested in doing certain things to my person.
One night and into the next morning we fooled around and had a great time.
The next morning I immediately informed R what had happened, which in
hindsight may not have been the best thing, and asked if she was okay with
it. Her words said yes, but her actions the rest of the trip definitely
said no.
We get back home, and I email her to see what is bothering her even though I
already knew. I tried to explain that it was just mutual physical
attraction and I didn’t do it to intentionally hurt her. She ended up
writing some things to me that I considered unforgivable and I’m sure I
wrote things to her that she didn’t like. I basically chalked up her
reaction as being immature and insecure on her part and we both decided to
terminate our friendship with one another.
This is where my problem essentially begins. I am fine with not having a
friendship with R. I feel that she has issues she needs to deal with and
I’d rather not spend my energy trying to be a friend to someone like her.
What concerns me is that we run in the same circle of friends. These are
people that I’ve known for years, since college, and she has known them for
a year, if that. I’m worried that she has given them some distorted view
of what went on and has portrayed me as some kind of whore, while she comes
up smelling like roses. R is also the type of person who can’t be alone,
so I know that she will constantly try to snag everybody to hang out with
her. I have yet to ask anybody what she has said about the situation for
fear that I will be seen as guilty or worse, insecure, but I can’t help but
notice that most of my “friends” have not been in contact with me since our
return.
Okay, Sars, what should I do? I love my friends, but if they don’t want to
hang out with me because of what R has told them, then they obviously
aren’t my true friends. I need to know how I can ask them what R has
told them and make sure that everything is still all right with us, but I
don’t know how. Please help.
Losing Friends Fast
Dear Fast,
Here’s how: You don’t. It’s only going to inflame the situation and turn it into an ugly, childish she-said she-said thing — and besides, have you tried to contact your friends since you got back? Or did you just decide to sit back and see what happened?
You hurt R, but you didn’t mean to; if your friends want to choose up sides over it, well, you can’t do much about it. It sucks, but if that’s how they want to play it, let them, and get new friends.
Dear Sars,
I need your help, basically to figure out whether I need more help. To start off, I’m a sophomore in collge majoring in engineering. It’s hard. I know it’s supposed to be hard, I knew that when I started out. But I’m sure I can do it and I honestly enjoy learning everything, especially since my classes are getting beyond the basics and into the cool stuff.
I also have a boyfriend that I met two months into college. I love him, he loves me, we’re attached at the hip, AND we’re cute as anything together. Oh, and did I mention that my parents are paying for everything I need because they want me to focus on schoolwork and not have to work?
Sorry…the purpose of this isn’t to brag about how wonderful my situation seems, I promise I’m getting to the problem. I’m stressed out beyond all belief. I pick fights with my boyfriend an average of once a day over things I absolutely know are stupid, and then after we fight awhile he has to comfort me because I’m crying over the fact that I know I’m being stupid. Then, just when I’m getting over that, I cry over being stupid enough to cry about the whole thing. We’ve only been in class for one full week and already the homework feels overwhelming, although I’ve been able to keep up so far.
The other night, I spilled all this to my boyfriend, and he thinks I should get some sort of counseling. He said he was concerned about my severe shyness in social situations, the fact that I’m startled extremely easily, and I’ve had a headache since the second day of school. All the stuff he’s noticed has been going on since about tenth grade. I just don’t want to fight with him anymore, and I think I do it because I’m so stressed over everything else and can’t figure out how else to vent. And it’s true that I really can’t deal with interacting with strangers well at all.
So my question is, do I have something wrong with me, and does it need professional help to fix, or do I just need to chill out more?
Wishing to return to Normal, assuming I was ever there
Dear Wishing,
I wouldn’t use the word “wrong”…but yes, I think you do need to see a professional, because you’ve tried “chilling out more” on your own, and…it isn’t working. You don’t manage your stress, and it’s severe stress, so going to a counselor for a while and learning some strategies for calming yourself down and handling tough social or academic situations will make your life a lot happier.
Call up the campus health center and get an appointment. It doesn’t mean you have something “wrong with” you. It means you need some help, as everyone does in their lives from time to time — not the same thing.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats friendships grammar
