​Sung to the tune, Dust in the Wind by Kansas: 
 
Same old song
Just a drop of salt on the snow-bound road
All we do
Salts the water, though we refuse to see
Salt in the wind
All we are is salt in the wind
 
Last week we got a minor dusting of snow. Temperatures the next day were forecast to rise in the snow melting range. Did that stop the salt trucks from pouring it on during the morning commute?  Nope.
 
They were out in force, laying out the road salt in chunks, parking lots getting salted and sidewalks crunchy under foot. All to get rid of that dang snow for about 3-4 hours.
 
Keeping our roads, sidewalks and parking lots safe during winter snowstorms is important. I get it. But there’s overdoing it with the salt thing. There has to be a better way that doesn’t impact the environment so treacherously.
 
When you live in Wisconsin, once the snow flies, you drive a car that’s encased in salt. As that washes off your vehicle, and mixes with the salt on the roads, the runoff goes where? Into the grass, siphoned into pools, ponds, streams, lakes and rivers. It increases water salinity, a silent negative for our waterways, greenery and animals.
 
I watch this over-salting and it really gets to me. Recently after an inch or two of snow, and the consequent massive salting disproportionate to the snowfall, the roads dried quickly in the sun the following day and started to create salt storms (similar to a dust, sand or dirt storm).
 
Driving down I-94 towards Milwaukee, you saw clouds rise from the interstate. A white banket billowed from the wind and speeding cars along the three lanes headed east as the salt broke into powder and blew along.
 
Though I have no proof, I found my eyes burning, and presumed it was salt in the wind. For several days, my eyes hurt, stinging, then it went away when rain washed the residual salt powder off the streets.
 
Isn’t there a better way to keep our roads safe and clear in the winter (and, quite frankly, reduce the rusting of our vehicles and the cracking of asphalt and pavement from salt infiltration)? With our entrepreneurial talent and know-how, I’m sure the engineers can come up with a reasonable solution the reduces our salt intake. Wouldn’t that be healthy? Sounds like a slogan.

Here are a few thoughts from this non-engineer. All you entrepreneurs can take it from there:
 

• Heated coils in the asphalt (I’ve seen this technology applied in sidewalks, but not roads, so I guess it’s too costly. Maybe you can figure out how to improve the technology and lower the cost.).
• Develop salt spreaders with minimal settings (only dropping light amounts rather than massive dumps). Alternately, have several settings based on the snow amount, type and how cold the temperature is so that only the most minimal necessary amount of salt is applied. Use AI to figure out the gauge.
• Invent a new snow melting mixture better for the environment, roads and vehicles.
• Build a blast furnace that trails the plow trucks to super heat the pavement so it burns off and evaporates all the moisture instantaneously.

I’m no engineer, so I freely acknowledge these are likely to be technically difficult. But hey, use this as your personal nudge. All you creative engineers unite and get this done. We’ll all benefit.

​Many years ago, when our dad was about my current age, there was a discussion around our house and Oprah Winfrey came up in that discussion. My dad said at the time, “Oprah who?”
 
Now, even back then, Oprah was a household word and had been for years. Famous to just about everyone except our dad. We were stunned when he showed a total lack of recognition, “Dad, where the heck have you been the last 10-15 years?”
 
Who knows? He wasn’t following popular culture.
 
Scarily, I can now relate to him. There are several examples that demonstrate how culture is passing me by.
 
One is the brouhaha over Bad Bunny playing at the Super Bowl. Let’s backtrack. Bad Bunny gets announced as the halftime musician. My response, “Who is Bad Bunny?”
 
Perhaps I have vaguely heard the name. Most likely, because he didn’t pertain to my life, I flushed that data. Not enough brain space to let him in.
 
All the hoopla followed with people taking sides on patriotism. I had no frame of reference. Since 2021, I have never heard of three of the Super Bowl halftime performers: BB, Weeknd and Usher.
 
Does the Super Bowl make them culturally  relevant? I’m not sure, but there are certainly a lot of testy people who think it’s the biggest deal on the planet when it’s not.
 
I don’t know any of those three bands. I don’t know their songs. I couldn’t sing along with the lyrics. Couldn’t imitate the guitar solos or drum rolls (if there were any). This doesn’t diminish their talents or elevate any of them to stardom. It just means popular culture is passing me by.

This happens to many people once you get past the age of 60 or so. You have other things to focus on, perhaps your health, a hobby or grandkids. You may still be working your butt off to pay the bills and not have time to focus on music or movies or sports to divert your anxieties.
 
I caught a bit of Green Day opening before the Super Bowl. I know them. I can sing (badly) some of their refrains. I like the beat. If they were given the halftime show, yeah, I would know them. But all that means is I know of a band from my limited cultural forum (mostly from my past; I don’t listen to much new music).
 
Your brain fills up with age. Perhaps that’s why we hark back to the music we know. It’s familiar. It provides good memories. We know the riffs and lyrics. We stick with the culture we know. It’s a familiar refrain.
 
And that, I believe, is what revved so many engines about BB on social media. One side doesn’t want new culture. The other side embraces it.

I like new culture. It invigorates our society, pushes us, forces us to examine assumptions and beliefs. That’s extremely healthy for an individual and for society at large.

Others want to stay mired in the past. I like my old music. When new music comes along that gets me singing the refrain and imitating the drum solos, tapping my knees, I buy in. Please let me know when you hear the next J. Geils Band enter the scene. I’ll be their biggest fan.
 
The Super Bowl is probably the single most over-hyped event in the United States. We turn it into a battleground. It’s not. It’s a professional football game. We should take that for what it’s worth: entertainment. Turn it on or turn it off. Your choice. Stop ranting and frothing at the mouth.

There’s a guy I talk to regularly at the fitness center where I work out. He turned 82 a while back. When I overheard this in conversation, I asked him, “How does it feel to be 82?”
 
Without missing a beat, he replied, “I don’t know, I’ve never been this old before.” I cracked up. I want to be that old guy.
 
I am the old guy, having just turned 70. I know some things I didn’t know before and lived through enough history the past 50 years or so (that sounds weird to say) to have learned a few things.
 
Because I’ve failed so many times, or had something go wrong, those events/situations have taught me what may work the next time or what should be avoided. For what it’s worth, here are some thoughts that stay with me and might help you at some point navigate life’s difficulties:

• Take care of your skin (and your feet and teeth).
• Stretch like a cat. Watch how they do it. Increase your stretching with age.
• Read (in-depth, not in short bursts)
• Make new friends. There are many good reasons for this. The saddest reason is losing an old friend.
• Hang out with younger people. They’re fun and get you out of your comfort zone.
• Challenge yourself somehow mentally, intellectually, physically, psychologically. I do this by refereeing basketball, continuing to play old codger baseball and setting golf goals that I never attain.
• Laugh. As much as possible. Hang out with people who make you laugh.
• Practice mental agility. There are more than enough options in today’s electronic world to find several games that force you to think. I play 3-4 every day.
• Travel within your personal financial parameters.
• Hang out with people you enjoy spending time with, and, conversely, avoid pound-offs (they take you down).
• Recognize online scams and stay away from them.
• Find a team you care about and root for them.

The list is not exhaustive. If I’m blessed to reach 80, this list will likely expand. There will be new challenges, new hurdles to leap over. I’ll share one amusing story before signing off that deals with prepping yourself to improve.
 
In this case, I was looking to strengthen my knees to handle the pounding of running the basketball court and baseball field, and squatting to line up putts on the golf green. I watched many people at the fitness center place an elevated mat in front of them, squat and jump up onto the mat and then hop down. Looks easy. It’s not at age 70.
 
Start small. That’s my first tip. I took a mat down last week that was six inches thick. So my leap had to get six inches into the air. A vertical jump. In my basketball playing hey day, I had a 38-inch vertical jump and could dunk two-handed. Now, I can barely slide a piece of paper under my feet when I rise.  This new exercise will hopefully help me build on that.
 
I did the first jump, then hopped down. I did it again, and my feet didn’t come up high enough and I lost balance and almost fell. I laughed at myself, “Hey old man, can’t even jump six inches anymore, eh?” I focused harder, then did five more successful reps for a total of six. That was enough. The next time I did 10 reps, all successful. This week I hope to raise it to 15. We’ll see.
 
Do the work, and you progress. Don’t expect miracles (probably another bullet that could be on the list above). If you keep after something though, you might surprise yourself.

​If you live in Wisconsin, you know January can be brutally cold. This year we had a run of almost seven weeks with temperatures not rising above freezing during the day, and several stretches of sub-zero temps combined with heavy winds for tortuously frigid days.
 
During one of those ultra-psychotically cold days (15-degrees below zero with 20 mph winds, for a -35 windchill), the heat in our house went out. We have a cast iron stove and several space heaters. We called our furnace guy, cranked the space heaters and fired up the stove.
 
Despite all those fingers in the dike, the temperature in our house continued to plummet from 63 degrees to 61 to 60. Our teeth weren’t chattering, but my wife and I wore extra layers, sweatshirts, stocking caps and pulling blankets over our legs while sitting.
 
Soon after we took those measures, the furnace came back on. It warmed up nicely. We called the furnace guy and cancelled the visit. As expected, the heat went out again soon afterwards and the house temperature began dropping dramatically again. We called to have the technician to come in again.
 
When you face this type of situation, you realize you’re close to the edge. You’re not about to die, but you think about how easily you could be in seriously dangerous circumstances. It’s about survival.
 
Your instincts kick in during times like this. You immediately consider consequences. “What’s the worst that can happen? What do I need to do next? What should we do about the pets?”
 
When modern technology fails, we’re back to those survival instincts. Think how lost you feel when you lose your internet connection. It may only last for an hour or two, but if you’re like me, you feel lost without connectivity.
 
Losing heat in the middle of an arctic wave is one of those occurrences that gets you back to your primal instincts. “Fire, heat, warmth, mmm, good. Give me animal hide to cover body,” says neanderthal man.
 
We are all close to living on the edge. You can lose a job that pays your mortgage with no savings to cover food, clothing, transportation, housing. If you have a life-threatening illness with no health insurance, what happens next? Your car can slide off a one-lane country road during a snowstorm with no hope for an emergency vehicle to rescue you.
 
We don’t think of these things on a day-to-day basis. We send them to deepest recesses of our brain to forget. If we worried about survival consistently, our heads would explode. We couldn’t function. More people around the globe grapple with survival every moment of every day than we can count. My small example of one day briefly losing our heat doesn’t measure up to their constant struggle.

While our heat was out that day, I took a hot shower. I could not believe HOW GREAT IT FELT. I let the water stream over me for far longer than I should have. My hands and feet warmed up; I was invigorated; it relaxed me and got my brain functioning again.
 
Most people around the world don’t have that luxury. Life is dangerous every day. We’re all close to living on the edge. Be thankful.

This past week, I officiated a boys basketball high school JV and freshman doubleheader here in the Milwaukee metro area. The freshman game was very sloppy. Lots of fouls. Kids were taking an extra step and we had to put a whistle on them to curtail traveling. Bad decisions abounded.
 
When that happens, as a basketball referee, it is hard. I’m not sure how much fans, coaches and players recognize this.
 
When you finish, your mind is worn out (to say nothing of your body). You’ve been making instantaneous tough decisions for over an hour – yes/no, let it go/blow the whistle, inbounds/out-of-bounds, contact that doesn’t affect speed/balance vs. contact that does affect speed/balance. In what other job must you be highly effectively (correct, consistent and judicious) in an intense emotional and physical environment? Not very many.
 
You cannot rest physically or mentally. You cannot rest in the game, nor can you expect someone to give you credit as you enter the next game because you must perform again.

You must be a lunch bucket guy. You must bring your lunch bucket EVERY day to EVERY game and perform. There are no days off.

I’ve use those statements often in describing what I do to others. When you enter a school, you start a new day, a new game, and what you did yesterday doesn’t matter. Your reputation doesn’t matter. You better bring your lunch bucket because you go to work again and must prove yourself.
 
At the freshman game noted above, there was a father in the stands who clearly appreciated how my partner and I officiated the contest. You might be surprised, but observant officials recognize these things. You see certain body language things that stand out. After the game, before the JV contest, he was down near the scorer’s table and he had a brief enjoyable interaction with me.
 
He immediately spoke in sincere appreciation (you know when it’s sincere) of the job my partner and I had done on the court. I thanked him and mentioned how tough the game was.
 
I said to him (more or less), “I’m not sure people understand how hard a game like this is to officiate. There are so many decisions to make on the court. The kids are sloppy. You have to let some contact go. You also must stay consistent. It doesn’t work well if you and your partner aren’t on the same page. Parents, coaches and players can complain and want a certain call to go there way, and you can’t blow your whistle all night. That would exhaust everyone.”
 
The point being that you are working hard every minute of that game being the lunch bucket guy, grinding it out, getting it done to the best of your ability. The next night you will do it again. And the next.
 
For the record, two other fathers that night came up to me and thanked me and spoke about how well-officiated the contest was, something my partner and I appreciated. There’s a lot written about the lack of support for sports officials, and there is no question there are nasty fans with unrealistic expectations, and coaches who act out rather than coaching their kids.
 
I’m not sure those fans or coaches understand the lunch bucket nature of what sports officials do. If they did, they might thank us a little more often. We’re not in it for the money or prestige.

​When someone recruits you, it feels good. You are flattered. Someone sees something inside you that perhaps others (maybe not even yourself) see in you.
 
You can be recruited for many things – a bridge partner,  a new job, for a sports team. That recruitment can be for a multitude of reasons, but in essence it’s still about them wanting you.
 
Recently, fairly suddenly, I found myself being recruited. I didn’t seek this. In fact, the recruitment was something I was not interested in.
 
As a player on two senior men’s baseball teams in separate leagues, I’m reasonably busy with games during the Wisconsin summer (Tuesdays and Saturdays, May-September). I don’t make every game, but I’m committed and participate in as many as possible.

I love the games, practice, hanging out with friends/teammates, appreciating the challenges of still hitting a sharp breaking ball or making a one-handed stab on a scorching liner. That pumps me up.
 
The games also take a toll. Stiff joints, sore and pulled muscles, aching elbows and knees cause you to pause and say inside your head, “Is the added pain worth the fun?” So far in my aging years, that answer has been “yes.”
 
Two weeks ago, the call came. A guy from one of the other teams called me. There is a new league in the Milwaukee metro area, which started recently (the only such league in the United States to my knowledge), for players age 70-and-over.  I hit 70 this month.
 
The manager was waiting. He knew my birthday and wanted me to join his club. It was nice to hear. He tried to sell me on various options – just play enough games to qualify for the playoffs; play only when they need an extra player. They know how to draw you in, then wham, you’re playing every week.

That’s what those recruiters do. They get inside you. They get you thinking, playing various scenarios through your head.

I remained steadfast as he ran through his list on how I could participate and help them out. I mentioned all my negatives: already playing in two leagues; need time for the body to recuperate; want time to play golf; three days a week ties up too much time; potential injuries; other things I want to do during the Wisconsin summer months.
 
He accepted this, ultimately, but it didn’t stop from another inquiry coming in (those recruiters must talk to each other). This one I jettisoned even more quickly, as I had my reasons already articulated.

I get it. Guys who play sports at this stage of life are totally into it. I enjoy most aspects (standing on an astroturf infield for 25 minutes in a long inning during 88-degree, 90 percent humidity is not one of them) of the game. But I don’t rage to play. I’m competitive and want to make the plays in the field, jack the ball at the plate, imbibe a bit afterwards and shoot the breeze. Twice a week is enough.

When someone comes after you in the recruitment process it can be a good or bad thing. Weigh your options. Make sure your decision covers the good and bad. It was flattering and a bit weird for me getting the phone calls. Not gonna happen this year, but you never know.

​Does the outcome of a live sporting event really matter? Not really.
 
Over the past several years, I’ve developed the habit of recording any sporting event I plan to watch on television – golf, college basketball, college football, Major League Baseball, the NFL. For the most part, this is done to fast forward through commercials and dead time in games (see: video review situations).
 
Those time wasters/killers (along with commercials) add tremendous length to any televised contest. When first recording pro football years ago, for example, I only programmed to the actual length of the game. It soon became apparent (due to the reasons noted above) that not enough time was being allocated to see the whole game. I had to go to the extended time. Rather than ending the recording with the expected finish to the game, I had to click additional buttons to extend it 15 minutes, then 30 and now one hour extra is the standard to be safe you get the full game. Whoooo boy.
 
Appreciating the joys of fast forwarding through commercials, timeouts and video review, these recordings became mandatory. Slowly, insidiously, it became quite difficult to watch a sporting event on the tube in real time. Advertisements got in the way. Dead time in the game bored me.
 
Another factor was at work though in terms of why recording became more important. I started to find it just doesn’t really matter who wins or loses. Yeah, we all root for certain teams. We care. We want them to win. And, I am rabid at times.
 
It’s that rabid feeling that makes recording sensible. Let’s start with a short story.
 
My dad, Herm, played football for Bucknell University after WWII. He was their starting center for three years. He rooted for the Bison until the day he died, giving money, reading their newsletter regularly, knowing who the star players were.

Near the end of his life in his mid-80’s, we went to see a Bucknell game in-person, including spending time in the locker room to hear the coach do his thing. Herm was like a kid, his eyes sparkling, unable to stand still, all hyped up. Once the game started, it got worse. I did not know these things about him. He couldn’t stop his leg from jiggling.
 
His leg bounced up and down like a pogo stick the entire game. You could see him hyper-ventilating. He shifted continuously in his seat. I couldn’t figure it out. I asked if he was okay, and he looked at me with saucer pupils and nodded, “I’m just nervous about the game,” he said.
 
I thought to myself, “This is my 85-year-old father and he can’t sit still for a football team because he is so pumped up.”
 
We have blood of our parents inside us, and when I root for a team I care about these days, I better understand my dad’s jumpiness. I get wired. If the game is on late and it is close, I can’t sleep afterwards. I’m too drained.
 
What do I do? I turn the game off, knowing I have it recorded and will watch the final in the morning. And, egads, as I have done this more and more, I’ve found I’m not wired about the win or loss. I still care, but winning or losing doesn’t cause me to lose sleep. Instead, I sleep, then find out the score the next morning and watch the delayed game. All is good. The sun rose.
 
Does the outcome matter? Yes, emotionally. No, in the grand score of life. The game may be your passion. Recording it gives you perspective and some distance. You wake up refreshed from a good night’s sleep, then when you access the score online you scream in joy or pain.

​We all have many opportunities to meet new people. That can occur through day-to-day experiences, randomly, through business, meetings, introductions by others, at our place of worship, and a multitude of other ways. The point being: we can put ourself into new situations or stick to our current relationships.
 
I’m going to throw a statistic out there. For those regular readers of this column, you know I referee basketball. As a basketball official, I’m thrown in with new partners over and over and over. To me, that’s a good thing. It’s a learning experience to work with someone new, and they almost always teach you something (which could be good or bad). And, you may make a new friend (wasn’t it Roy Rogers who said something to the effect of, “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”).
 
Here’s the stat. Over the past three years, I’ve tracked my basketball officiating partners. During that time, I have reffed with 147 new individuals. Breathe that in.
 
Now, step back. Think about your work situation or your neighbors. Have you met someone new in either of these venues in the past few years (or weeks or months)? No value judgment about this. Just an interesting exercise to consider who has entered your life during this time period in any significant way (doesn’t mean you must have an ongoing relationship; just someone who you’ve hung out with or done something with, worked on a project together, things like that).
 
If you have new people you’ve met and engaged with, have you picked up something new from any of them? Have your grown through those meetings?
 
Back to my basketball partners. The fascinating thing to me, first of all, is the large number of new officials I’ve been introduced to the past three years. That’s about 50 individuals a year. I must work with them closely. I must trust them. I must get to know them (at least in a perfunctory way because we’re going to be making high intensity decisions in a very emotional environment over the next 75 minutes or so in a high school varsity game).
Beyond trust and getting to know each individual, secondly, I pick up something from every new official. They may explain something verbally during our pregame that prepares me for the upcoming contest. They may step forward on a play during the game that we discuss afterwards and it helps me understand a rule better. They may handle an explosive coach with a special phrase, and I add that to my repertoire afterwards.
 
Third, and this gets into aging a bit, as I get older, there seem to be fewer situations where you are introduced to new people. The basketball court gives me those opportunities.
 
I also learn things not to do, like not adopting a bullying or know-it-all tone of voice with my partners or coaches. I recognize situations where I need to hold back or step forward based on what I see and hear from my partners.
 
Finally, you develop new friends through meeting others and the relationships that ensue. You may find someone you hang out with for years and years.

It’s important to keep meeting people throughout life. They help us grow and develop. Sports officiating is a great venue to experience this.

​Hard to believe it’s 2026. As like 2024, in 2025 I kept a Jar of Positivity, writing down good things that have happened in my life. It helps identify what’s important in the day to day, and with focus on enjoying those things important to you. The list follows. As like last year’s column, it is interesting to note that almost all these involve relationships, experiences and being with friends.  In no particular order:
1.Visiting two friends in Peshtigo, WI, playing trivia night and going to the Wisconsin Girls High School Basketball semi-finals in Green Bay.
2.Long-term friend came up to visit from Chicago after joining our senior baseball team. Hanging out with him for the night and going to indoor practice to introduce him to his new teammates.
3.Our two nephews’ weddings. Went to NASA, got some great barbecue, wild man dancing, saw a childhood friend for drinks, drank some great coffee, caught up with some cousins and friends from Dallas. Explored downtown Chicago, hung out behind the band watching the drummer and lead singer. Super.
4.Golf with my younger brother on a nearly empty course near Harvard, IL, temps around 55 degrees, cloudy. We scrambled to one-over par with two mulligans. I hit the crap out of the ball.
5.Trip to Maine and seeing my wife’s side of the family, along with two of our kids. Two rounds of golf at a scenic seaside course, shooting 7-under in a 4-person scramble, ferrying to an island for an e-bike tour; great dinners, sights, companionship and smells of the ocean.
6.Annual Wisconsin Security Association golf outing.
7.Annual reunion of our Kankakee, IL Traitor softball team at Oak Springs Golf Course.
8.Shooting 80 on the golf course with two buddies. A thunderstorm forced us off the course while I was playing great. Two of us waited it out, went back to play the last five holes and I missed a 17-footer for a 79 on the last hole.
9.Went from a 46 on the front nine to a 39 on the back nine at the Mayville Golf Course and had back-to-back birdies.
10.Ran the 800, 400 and 200 for the sixth year in the Wisconsin Masters Games, bettering my time in each event from the previous year. Training helps.
11.Boat trip down the Chicago River for our younger daughter’s birthday.
12.U.S. Women’s Open with my two daughters, and seeing the Comedian Nikki Glaser along with a good dinner out for a father-daughters weekend.
13.Summerfest with my younger brother and his wife. One of Milwaukee’s fun events on the lakefront. Riding the gondola, food, beer, bands.
14.Serving as a clinician in Pennsylvania for basketball officials seeking to move up to the collegiate level.
15.Annual golf, eating, drinking, storytelling, campfire reunion with my two brothers and our three sons.
16.Reunion in Chicago with college friends from our freshman-sophomore year, along with some golf. Cruised out to Lake Michigan.
17.Continuing quest to break 80 on the golf course, shot 82 at Mayville again, with three tap-in birdies. No wind, no clouds, 50 degrees out. Played in two hours.
18.Going to the NCAA golf tournament with two friends in Urbana, IL.
19.Multiple coffee chats with a good friend. It’s like therapy.
20.Morning catch-ups with three guys at the fitness facility where I work out. More therapy. Great conversations.
21.A friend of mine from Chicago who I interviewed years ago for a story who has since written a book, and said my writing inspired him. Wow. Never expected that one.
22.Officiating South Milwaukee High School on the road, and they get blown out in the basketball game, and the coach chases myself and my two partners out of the gym to shake our hands and tell us what a great job we did.
23.Younger bro and wife driving up from Illinois for my birthday.
24.Officiating the annual Badger basketball games, where 5th-8th grade teams from all over the state bring teams down to the Milwaukee metro area to compete for the state championship.
25.Hanging out with a long-term officiating buddy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee basketball game.
26.Reunion with three college buddies from the University of Illinois, doing some bowling, having them watch me referee, and the four of us continuing our jinx of making sure Illinois loses the football game against Wisconsin that Saturday.
 
If you don’t keep a Jar of Positivity, I suggest you start in 2026. Write things down. Put them in a jar. Reread them at the end of the year. Your life will be enhanced.

​Have you heard of the Exploding Head Syndrome (EHS)? It is rampant in modern society.
 
Older people are particularly susceptible. You may have had EHS and not even known it, because the symptoms are confusing and insidious.
 
Me? I’ve been infected many times. It hurts. Feels like you’re going nuts.
 
And, of course, because your head pulsates and throbs, it feels like it’s going to explode. EHS is similar to PABVIYF disease (popping a blood vessel in your forehead).
 
How do you get it? The answer to that is easy. Is there a cure? The answer to that is no because EHS is complicated by many variables.
 
The symptoms start slowly, typically on a day that seems normal. You’ve gone online to take care of business. While you haven’t explored a new app that you must now use to get paid for services you’ve performed, you’ve been assured it’s simple, quick, easy to download and apply. Yup, sure thing. Is your forehead sizzling an egg yet? Mine was.
 
First step was to access the system. This, for some odd reason, didn’t happen. I’d used this site many times before, but “access denied” came up the first two times I clicked it on. Through my massive powers of deductive reasoning, I figured out you had to go to the bottom of the page to click on “About” and then go to the top of the page to hit “My Account.” Okay, only a slight pounding in the forehead so far. Irritation.
 
To step back for one second, you have to know that I thought I’d already set up the payment system, which is designed to electronically transfer a check to this site, where you then transfer their payment to your bank. I’d successfully – so I thought – set this up a couple of months back. Getting on to transfer the funds, I found out I hadn’t so successfully inputted my bank information so I could complete the electronic transfer. My brain started to feel fuzzy.
 
From there, the onslaught of EHS symptoms grew exponentially. Where do I input my bank information? No matter what or where I clicked, nothing came up that allowed that data upload. Try this, try that. No way.
 
I click on the video, which demonstrates how to put in the bank info. The person talks so fast that I can’t process the information and go back and forth from the video to the site to make the changes. You can’t pause the video, so I start to become a crazy man.
 
I look for other directions, tapping the keyboard, sending it to confusing drop-down menus into the dark mineshaft. Nothing there.
 
Twice I send emails asking for help, once to the direct address they list, and a second time in response to the video when it asks “was this helpful” and I wrote, “hell f….cking no.” Of course there is no quick response to either of these emails.
 
I attempt to calm down. That’s no help. I yell up to my wife, “I’m very angry. I’m raising my voice and it has nothing to do with you, please understand. I’m raging.” My blood pressure continues ascending.
 
Breathe deeply. Focus. Think about where you haven’t gone yet on the site. There must be a way.
 
After almost an hour (that may not sound like much, but with EHS it feels like 3-4 hours), TADA!, there it is. I could not replicate how I got there, but I got there. Put in the banking information. Downloaded in seconds. Yahoo. Transferred the funds to my banking account. So dang easy.
 
It really was. You just needed to know how to get there. It is simple to use. It’s just not a simple process to get there. That’s the indication you could face EHS. Then you flush the return email from the website three days later asking if you still need help resolving your problem. Thanks for that excellent customer service.