The Decline of Civilization, Part 4: Are Humans the Answer?

Remember the salesman with the jokes about large families while we were washer-shopping? We ignored him, but let's go back and revisit that subject: 

I have been told that the replacement rate for the population of the US of A is 2.1 children per woman.

We are on a decline at 1.7 children so we currently will not be able to meet our replacement rate. 

All future workers have been born already at this rate. Sure, computers can take over some of those future human jobs, but do we want them to? (Even Elon Musk, the AI genius who wants to go live on Mars, thinks we need more humans on planet earth to be able to function.)

If I had been quick-witted, I would have informed the man that yes, we have a big family (actually I consider 6 kids a medium-sized family), but we have nearly tripled the required replacement rate to help pay for government social programs. That family with 10 children he was joking about? They had more than done their duty for our country. 

Furthermore, the large families I know are trying to train responsible, God-fearing citizens.  They are raising people who are honest and can do some mental math (so that businesses don't lose money from computer or computer operator mistakes, hmm?). Most of my friends are raising their many children to also stay out of debt, be a steady, faithful worker, and to perpetuate morality and common sense. They are raising men who will be in a good shape financially to support families, meaning that their wives can stay home to raise the kids and provide a stable society, while their husbands are contributing to the stability of the economy by showing up to work with thinking skills. Yes, these are usually religious families and/or yes, a large percentage of them are homeschooling. Yes, they are usually the ones trying to grow their own food to meet costs and no, they are not burdens on society but rather trying to avoid getting messed up with the rest of it.

If any of the young folks I know from large families had taken one of those jobs for a month, they would have had it down pat and been promoted quickly, and learned to work for customer service around the computer glitches.  Like most teenagers interested in computers, they also could have written the code to fix them. But folks, even large families only have so many to go around. The lady with 10 kids can do more, but still only distribute them so far into the workforce. Maybe we need more people to join us making humans so we can save civilization. 

We could start with promoting the old-fashioned marriage with family approval. That way if a large family is to come into being, it isn't a welfare situation, and that way the whole family is more inclined to help each other. No more career shame to the mother who is willing to stay home and raise children with common sense.

Let's celebrate and thank anyone who has children, even if they just have one. Maybe we can help and encourage them so they won't feel overwhelmed at the thought of more.

Let's take the stigma out of large families and re-label the labels, so that they are not "fat-shamed" with words like "big" or "large."

A Family: 0-1 child (or "minimalist family" if you like; that sounds more on-trend than "small")

Adorable Family: 2-3 children

A+ Family: 4-6 children

Amazing Family: 7-10 children

Awesome Family: 10+ children

Then the 1.7 society could do some appreciative gestures, maybe even celebrate the fact that future customer service workers are being born. Perhaps manufacturers could start making vehicles in "cool" designs to carry around more children without people making jokes about "school buses," and revamp (and re-name) "mini-vans." In some cases rental laws need to be a little more lenient for families who may have to put 3 children per bedroom not 2. Architects, developers and builders need to re-think housing for the trending A+ Family, who may also be living with multi-generations. Let's get used to neighborhoods with bigger back yards again. Perhaps new home designs should expand the kitchen and laundry rooms so that double appliances could be housed for Amazing and Up Families (how's that, washer salesman?). 

And please, don't throw any government programs at us. That is the surest way to aid in the decline of anything! 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/total-fertility-rate

https://ifstudies.org/blog/half-the-worlds-population-is-reaching-below-replacement-fertility

The Decline of Civilization Part 3

 The next morning, I talked to my brother to relate all of our adventures. As usual, he had some stories to swap. 

He was in his local big box hardware store trying to get some paint last week. It was the same paint he'd been using for a project, from the same place, purchase recently; he just needed a couple extra gallons to finish up. The conversation went something like this:

Paint counter lady: "Computer says there is none of that paint left."

"What about in the back room?"

"Nope."

"Have you checked on the shelf?"

"I didn't see any. Computer says there is none here."

Other paint counter lady comes up. "Oh hi! You were the one painting your barn, weren't you? We have some of that paint left, I just saw two more gallons on the shelf." Helpful Other lady gets him the paint.

First paint counter lady shrugs and says "The computer says we don't have any."

Going to purchase lumber was worse. He needed twenty 2x4's. The bill rang up at $41.00. My brother tried to explain to the gal behind the register that although he would love a bargain like that, the bill should be around $300 given the price per foot. Young Gal says "$41 is what the computer says it is." Round and round it went. Finally after getting nowhere with her and the number on the computer, a manager shows u. The manager, pushes her out of the way, rings up the proper price, and then leaves. Young Gal is left embarrased, mumbling "That was, like, not very helpfuuulll...."

It sure wasn't! 

Then to top off the morning's stories, he had told me about someone who had recently been at a restaurant. The man went up to pay his bill and the cashier lady gave him $1,000 in change! He had to explain to her that it was the wrong amount. Can you guess her reply by now? 

"That's what the computer says it is." 

I realize that it is hard for employers to find workers nowadays. I think these employees would be excellent in their jobs, if they were to receive more and proper training. Lesson #1 is Customer Service tops the computer! Give employees some options around the computer if it is not cooperating. Train in whatever math skills needed so that the business will not be cheated by electronics! 

Perhaps new management is in order, if it could be found. Pulling capable people out of retirement to train the new workforce and be managers might be an option, if they could just face those computer programs.

(I am glad that we had none of us had reason to enter the medical system during these few days, we might have had a computer-diagnosis to argue with...)

The Decline of Civilization part 2

Sunday night, our car died on the side of the road.

It was a blessing that we had ended up taking two vehicles to town that day, and come home caravan-style from Bible class. My husband managed to drive on until the end of at a very easy-to-find intersection along our country route and a major highway. 

Thankfully we were within cell phone service. I begin to examine the insurance app on our smartphone, but was stopped when they asked me to log in. That is my fault; I do not have that password memorized. Rather than spend 10 minutes trying to reset the password, we decided to call the insurance company and talk to a human being. Next problem: nowhere on the app was there a phone number to be found! Finally got one from Google and dialed it. 

"We will connect you with an agent to give you a quote!" said the robot on the other end of the "line." 

While my husband attempted to get to the correct department for roadside assistance, the rest of us moved into the other vehicle to see what would happen. It was about 27F outside but we were close to home, as soon as we knew what the plan was we could know whether we could all go home send a few back, how long the wait would be, etc.

The first trouble was finding a human who had the roadside assistance inside information (as in, how to contact them in the first place). All of the humans kept transferring the call to the wrong department. My husband quickly told the last salesman, "Wait! Are you going to transfer me to ____?? Because that is the wrong number." 

At last, ten minutes later, the right department! The conversation went something like this: 

Insurance rep: "So you're in ______ town..." 

Husband: "No, I'm not; I'm at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy."

"Well, the computer says you are in _____ town."

"No, I'm within 15 miles between these two towns, at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy"

"The computer says your phone is located at _____town."

"No, it is not."

"Sorry, I cannot get the computer to change your location." 

"Well get me through to the local town's towing company, they'll know exactly where I am."

A little while later: "I'm sorry, the tow truck companies are all booked up.  You'll have to call someone yourself. Send us a receipt."

By now 30 minutes had passed (I'm not kidding!). Husband told us all to go home, he was going to stay with the vehicle, although he was wondering how far the towing companies were booked out... till April??. He eventually found one tow truck 40 minutes away, who was not booked but could do one more tow before closing time. 

(Interestingly, the tow truck driver was from a town 2-1/2 hours away, who worked down here... I didn't know we had a shortage of tow trucks/drivers???)

Two hours later all was done and husband was home. Thankfully it was not a worse situation; it worked out as best as it could be for all of us. 

There are a few things I will always wonder about: why didn't the insurance dispatcher just look us up on Maps on her smartphone? I can understand that she couldn't get the computer program to cooperate, but was she allowed to do some manual work and just figure stuff out on her own? I guess you can't get around the "proper" way that business has to be done with the computer for records and things, but what, oh what are they going to do if we mail them a paper receipt? 

The Decline of Civilization part 1

 We had an interesting couple of days. 

It started when the washer was in pieces on the laundry room floor-- yes, I was trying to fix it. After some phone consultations with a repairman, it was advised that we had to get a new washing machine. 

Now you think this would be a happy event in a homemaker's life to get a shiny new appliance, but I am usually reluctant to spend on large purchases. I'm not the one to make those large decisions. The only ones in the family available to do this purchase were my daughter and I, however, so off we went to a Lowe's. I will preface this story by saying I used to know all the employees in Lowe's by sight, but all the workers I encountered were new to me (they seem to have had a big change-over during the pandemic) and it feels like I am in a different town whenever I go there nowadays. 

I went straight to the washer that had manual controls and was the lowest price, as is my wont. The one lone employee lady was busy with another customer, but promised to be with us when they were done. After wandering around the appliance section for quite a long time, I realized that the employee and the other customers had been gone quite a while. I saw a couple employees in the neighboring plumbing aisle, who were in casual conversation. One was the Manager Lady. So I went over there, and as much as I hate to interrupt I knew that I was a purchasing customer, so when they paused to acknowledge me I explained that I was here to buy a washer, and the appliance employee had disappeared. Manager Lady: "Oh, I don't know anything about appliances. You are better off talking to the lady in that department." Plumbing guy said something similar to brush me off and I was sent back to wait while they continued their conversation. 

I told my daughter, "You know, they could have just got on their radios and called someone." So after politely wandering some more in the appliance aisle, I went across to the decorating department, asked the employee there to call someone to help with appliances, which she promptly did. An knowledgeable, older employee appeared in astonishing rapidity, answered my questions, got the appliance up to the front, managed my purchase, and loaded it in my van for me. Although the Manager Lady's lack of interest puzzled me, this fellow made up for any complaint I had!

When I got home I realized that the washer I bought was too small in capacity-- I totally forgot that I needed one that could wash all those sleeping bags and camping stuff in the summer! My husband thought a front loader would be better anyway, and why not a matching dryer? It was about time for a nice pair. He talked me into it. The new store policy meant I only had 48 hours to return or exchange, so as the next day was a Saturday I was able to get my husband to come with me (yay-- a date to Lowe's!). We had not even unloaded the washer from the van. 

This time in the appliance department we were told to wait again by employee who was beyond retirement age. He was the only one there, covering everyone's lunch break, and was helping other customers. We spent time looking at our choices, and picked a front loading machine. Thankfully the man didn't disappear on us, but came and helped us understand that anything we saw online that said "in stock" was a lie. This one here had no washer available. This one here had no dryer. Furthermore, all of our choices were out for weeks. 

So we went over to look at one of the new, large capacity top-loaders. I made my choice: it had all manual dials and only one computer-button, and was as retro-looking as a classic car. I took a shying to those white-and-silver dials. Anyway, the employee checked stock. Not in here, not in at the other store either. One of the washers we were looking at came with  the most astonishing news:  "I don't have any here, the next town doesn't have any there, my warehouse has none and as a matter of fact, none are available. I cannot sell you the floor model, I cannot sell you this model at all."  I did not scream "Then why is it sitting here with a price tag!!!" but went over whatever "choices" we had left. Older employee asked about our family size, cracked a few jokes that were not in good taste about another large family he met while we shopped, but it was best to ignore that and just keep the employee close by. 

We ended up with an all-computer run, flat panel buttons, large capacity top loader, that smacked of 1980's styling (including the dark tinted window). At least it wasn't beige. Not what we wanted, but it was one of the few we could actually take home that day. The matching dryer was out for another week and a half. "Everything you see here is a lemon," the employee offered. "They don't make them to last anymore. My Maytag lasted 30 years before I sold it. You won't get that now. Nothing here is going to work after a while. You just have to accept that." We knew that in the back of our minds, but we needed a washer at home pretty soon, not two weeks later. Although we would have loved to spend a month researching, finding, traveling for and purchasing a Speed Queen of large capacity, we neither of us had the time. 

Like the fellow the day before, this employee was determined to take care of us from start to finish. He went up to the customer service desk to make sure that we got an exchange. Who should we see but Manager Lady, and I didn't hold out much hope for help from her. Older employee told her what he wanted her to do for us, and we went we went out to haul the previous machine in. We had parked so close, we were only gone a few minutes, but that was sufficient time for Manager Lady to disappear. Older employee went around to try and find someone else to help us. As we were standing there waiting, I noticed another couple next to us in customer service who had been standing patiently longer than we were. They gently spoke to their cashier and enquired, "Do we need to go and help them find it?" I felt for them, really I did.

Finally the older employee came back with another manager, who had to leave his "team meeting" to come and help us. He was a younger guy but super friendly, as if we had not interrupted him at all. He proceeded to find out that he couldn't get into the computer, but took it all with a smile. He found out he couldn't get into the other computer, but continued to smile although it surely was annoying to him. He eventually got our return done, our new purchase made, and helped us out to the car. We all begged the older employee to go and take his lunch break, otherwise he was going to to get that washer in our van for us. Never saw Manager Lady again through all this, but wonder how she ever got to that position. First impressions, but she seemed the most unhelpful employee in the whole store (besides her companion the plumbing guy, perhaps). 

If there is any joy in buying a new home appliance nowadays, it was dashed by the end of the purchase. The "date" with my husband was the only fun I got out of it. I was trying to find the most straightforward, manual, repairable model, even though I knew that our only choices were throwaway junk. I knew that before the employee even told us, but hearing it spoken aloud was extra discouraging. Towards the end, my husband had to keep patting me on the shoulder and telling me it will be alright, it will work, and if it breaks we'll get a new one again. 

My new washer is extra large capacity, extra choices and features, and in some ways much better than my old one. In the end, the only thing to cry about is purely cosmetic, because of the lack of white-and-silver dials. My only hope is that because I think this machine is so ugly, it will last as long as orange shag carpet, avocado green refrigerators and harvest gold ovens. 

Light the Way

 

After hours and hours looking for just the right wall sconces, we decided to go with the cheapo Lowe's ones. They are kinda western looking, but we ended up really liking them. If I ever take them down and paint them matte black instead of the current brown "bronze" they will match our other fixtures better. Put that on the to do list... we were just trying to speed things up with the "temporary" install. 

(Note to readers: at this point wild laughter should accompany anytime you see the word "temporary.")

We put "Edison" bulbs in them since the the bulbs would be seen on the way up the stairs, and since they were some of the dimmest we could get (thinking of their use in the middle of the night, since they will shine into the bunk room). 

On one of the Electrician's visits, he left a long list of things we needed to buy. When I got to the store I saw items in the electrical department that I had wanted in the house, but didn't remember when the house was being wired. The boys were able to swap out some outlets and switches to accommodate my wishes (example: nightlight switches in the bathrooms!) but the little tiny side lights to illumine each stair at night? Too late. 

I thought that finding, choosing, and buying light fixtures would be the fun part of this whole construction process, but it ended up feeling like another big waste of life! Not because we were looking for organic, free-range light fixtures (thankfully, we know nothing about toxic light fixtures... yet), but because there are MILLIONS of choices, and NOTHING is matching the picture you have in your mind's eye. And, after hours of looking, when you find just what you want the items are out of stock. 

We toyed with making our own wall sconces out of wood, which would add yet another potential DIY burden to our list. 

Then one day out of the blue, a lighting consultant showed up! She had a list of new builds in our area and was visiting every single one offering free consultation. Was I ever impressed! Now someone else could spend hours on the internet finding our lights for us! What a luxury, so I thought. When her recommendations came in with NO prices, I had to get online yet again and figure those out myself. Alas! "Back to Lowe's we go." 

Second Floor

 

Now lets go and see what the flooring progress was upstairs to forget the struggles of plumbing...

We used tongue-and-groove wood (not engineered) and although there were a few rough spots, I did not spend a week on my hands and knees filling in all the knots. We would just fix any rough edges as needed. We tried wood filler in a few places, but it didn't work out. So we have the pioneer look, knotholes and all.  

When I come upstairs, I feel like I'm in a 100 year old farmhouse. 

I still get excited looking at this-- well any room this clean is exciting. 

Now for the finish...

In a way the second story feels so different from the first story. More drywall, a bit brighter, lower ceiling. The flooring is narrower than my "general store" style downstairs. Our idea was that the upper rooms would be a bit more "refined" than the all-wood look of the first floor, but it still has a feel of an old, established house up there. 

We did a couple wee floors. The reading cubby 

(which still needs to be stained, along with the stairs... you would not be impressed if you knew how long I have been putting that off...)

And the "dollhouse." I think I may have blogged a while ago about our struggles with the builders over the necessity of a built-in dollhouse so I won't elaborate here. It has a nice, matching floor like the rest of the house. 

"Just don't drink the [lead-free] water."

(A long rant today, skip it if you are not in the market for a faucet!)

When we decided to go as healthy as we could with building materials for this house, we were surprised at the lack of resources in this day and age of "awareness" about so many things.

Since we had gone to all the trouble to have reduced-chemical plumbing pipes (in the house at least, can’t control what was outside), we naturally wanted our "finished" plumbing fixtures to be as free from toxins as we could. That, my friends, was not an easy task.

Trying to keep excess toxins out of this house build is just as frustrating as when you go on a special diet and try to avoid certain things– only to find out that they are everywhere and in everything and you can’t eat anything but lettuce. 

And as long as I’m complaining here, I’ll tell you about the many days of labor that I have no pictures for. It was too boring for photographs. Days of combing through the web looking for lead-free faucets.

 If any of you have done the research, you will know that in the USA lead-free doens’t mean exactly that. I’m not even sure “zero lead” means that either. The rules allow for a little bit of lead to be present in all potable water faucets. It's no big deal, according to almost everybody, but since we had had a cancer scare, things like that are a bit more of a thought process for us. What other parts are we connecting to this? Do certain metals react and leach? What about the chemicals to glue things together? This part isn't regulated by that law yet, is there a substitute for that part? Etc Etc. We were looking for more than an ordinary person would look for.

Somewhere along the way, I found out that all the pretty, $30 Chinese faucets on Amazon aren’t in compliance with the low-lead law, and indeed are illegal to install in a new build. So as long as we had to look at faucets three or more times the cost of what we had hoped, we may as well buy the most  absolutely lead-free faucet we could find. When I did find one, it was rather ugly or hugely expensive (or both). 

Making your own faucet is not exactly a DIY project you want to take on when building a house, although that thought did cross our minds.

For the kitchen, thankfully there was an acceptible option at the big-box store (Delta Diamond seal). I was able to find ONE bathroom faucet for under $100 from an obscure company that claimed it had no lead. My next dilemma is to find a tub-filler that has little or no lead, because there is no regulations on tub fillers. Yeah yeah, I know, "just don’t drink the water…."

Looking for lead-free plumbing was exhausting, demoralizing and frustrating.  Although you can find completely lead-free kitchen faucets and restaurant faucets (not just saying “lead free” and meaning “minimum allowed by government” but all lead-free), there’s no such thing for the shower or tub faucets. And to top it all off, people think you are really a nut-job if you dare to even look for no-lead plumbing. 

We had gone to a lot of trouble to keep our water supply as low-chemical as possible, but could not control the one little plumbing connection (that is fully leaded because the gov’t hasn't regulated it yet) or this or that portion of the system that allows some lead. You just can’t escape it. At least we have minimized it to even beyond “government minimum” levels. (And wouldn't you know it, our area had a water emergency for a short time which necessitated us putting in a drinking water filter anyway. So we are pretty sure our water is safe to drink, if you want to come over for tea!)

Moving on from the faucets, we had other bathroom fixtures to find. How about a replacement for my claw-foot tub? 

We were initially sold on a few acrylic freestanding tubs. Acrylic is light weight, warm to the touch, etc. You just have to be careful cleaning it. If it gets scratched though...hmm...oh dear.

What is this stuff made out of? They mix things with the acrylic… what do they mix in? Chemicals? Does it leach if scratched? What do you use to repair it?  Sometimes you have a simple question about something, maybe you never thought about questioning before...We reached out to companies and people who watchdog toxic house materials, with no results. Apparently no one had thought these thoughts before.

The little bit we could find out about things made out of acrylic mixtures (mostly baby cup research) made us shy away from having plastic anything as a surface material. We were sick of the whole thing– tubs, showers, water bottles, baby cups, pacifiers. Bah!

I felt that we were wasting our life trying to figure it all out. When you look at the time spent in the course of your life researching things on the internet (because local building suppliers are no help on this subject)… it’s depressing.  We could used all that time to compose a symphony, write a novel, or run for President. I find it hard to believe, but either we were pioneers in non-toxic house building, or Google wasn't smart enough back then to give us the results we needed! 

The Clawfoot Tub Saga

I'm sure when we started this project, my family expected to have some heavy lifting to do. I'm not sure that they expected to carry a cast-iron claw-foot tub up and down hills and stairs as often as they did!

 We had created a place of honor for it under the arch in the Master bathroom, but it was too tight of a squeeze once the wallboard was on (measure twice, I know... ). And just as we had realized that new difficulty, my husband read something that said 75% of tubs made before 1970 contain lead. It is not a problem unless there are nicks, scratches, or any damage to the tub, and ours had quite a bit of those. One lead test later and this thing had to go! 

Yes, I know that the water would dilute the lead. Yes, I know that if we didn't drink the water it would be okay. Yes, I know we could have told that to the toddler twenty times per bath. 

We looked into re-glazing it, but we had to consider what our priorities were with getting in this house, expenses, time, etc. and at the moment we were not up for that. You have to reglaze every ten years or so (and knowing us, we would have to find out what chemical soup was involved in the reglazing process). We decided to be done with it; maybe someone would like a DIY project. 

I listed the tub online as "free," stipulating that football players were needed to lift it. My husband figured it was worth giving it away if he never had to lift that tub again. 

I then spent time fielding the most objectionable takers! "Oh just don't drink the water." "Just don't lick the tub." There were also a lot of folks who thought they didn't need to bring help. I guess not too many folks know football players.

While I was answering texts and emails about the tub, giving out our address to people who didn't show up, reading mocking comments about our listing, and other things that make for a nerve-wracking week, the builders decided that they needed to finish that floor underneath the tub. Forget the football players, my fellows would be carrying that tub again. Downstairs, off the porch, down the hill, to the bottom.

We re-listed it for $100 after that. 

(I should have had it listed for $200, with $100 going to me for emotional distress!)

Eventually a man and his young son came to get it. He didn't care that it was all scratched up and contained lead. He wanted it for an outdoor bathing experience. So, the tub went full circle. And of course my boys had to help lift it for him.