Thursday, December 02, 2004

How well do you know me? (IV)   This morning I had the oil changed in my car. As I was paying the cashier, it was the usual shuffle of papers to sign while minding my credit card, backpack, keys, coffee mug. I had also purchased a new set of very expensive wiper blades (everything VW is expensive) and I was consciously trying to keep from forgetting them. In the end, of course, I walked out of the car dealership leaving something behind. It wasn't the wiper blades, though. It was my travel coffee mug. I didn't realize it until I was parked at work. There was the sudden sneeze-like "oh shit" reflex reaction. This was my favorite travel mug. Stainless steel. Well-insulated. Nice cylindrical shape that fit snugly in the car's cup holder. And most importantly, it didn't leak. The cap screwed on precisely making a rubber seal noise like a squeegee on glass that I found most reassuring, especially since I have known the horrors of travel mugs that dribble coffee onto nice clean shirts (usually on days with important meetings). It is also worth noting that this was a $15 travel mug, not one of the cheapy disposable mugs. So there you have it. The moment of realization. The extent of the loss. One final point: the car dealership was 8 miles away. So, did I:   A) turn the car right around and drive back to the dealership to pick up the mug?   B) decide, after a careful cost-benefit analysis, that my time was worth too much to go back (also there was the seventy-five cents in tolls to pay), choosing instead to suck up the fact that I was going to have to buy myself a new mug?   C) call up the car dealership and ask them to ship it back to me, playing the "given how much I spend in this place it's the least you can do" card?   D) call up the dealership and ask them to hold on to the mug until I can get over there to pick it up, knowing full well that the next time will be in three months for my next oil change, and by then the mug will be a toxic waste site inside?   E) come to the brilliant realization that I could buy Wifey a new travel mug for Christmas, which I could then borrow on a long-term basis?   F) weasel out of the matter completely in a controversial manner that some would find objectionable but none surprising – if they knew me. 9:08:02 PM    comments []

	Thursday, October 21, 2004

How well do you know me? (III)   I bought a new battery for my cell phone on eBay. My phone is getting kind of old and the battery doesn’t hold its charge very well. The battery cost me $6 and so did the shipping. I don’t really know how PayPal works. I’ve never bothered to figure it out. In my mind, if you are selling a lot of stuff on the internet you should accept credit cards. Why do I need a special account just for the occasional purchase on eBay? In the interest of simplicity and not having to fill out a hundred questions, I once again opted to pay for my transaction by personal check. I’m not in a hurry for the battery, so I can wait.   This afternoon I wrote the check and addressed the envelope. The seller of the battery is a small technology company in southern California. I imagine it is run by some geeky guy out of a warehouse in an industrial park. I licked the envelope and started looking for a stamp. I dug down into the bill box and pulled out the only packet of stamps in there. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them. They were “I Y you” stamps. Cynde bought them. I assure you I had nothing to do with this.   There was an uncomfortable pause as I thought about the implications here. How could I possibly put a I Y you stamp on a business envelope and send it off to a guy running a cell phone accessory shop? This is where the title question of this piece comes in. How well do you know me?   Did I:   1)     Put the stamps back in the bill box, drive to the post office and stand in line to buy some respectable stamps, like the John Wayne series, suitable for sending to a geek in California? 2)     Whoop up on my wife for buying the stamps in the first place and make her go to the post office to buy the John Wayne stamps? 3)     Put the stamp on the envelope and write a little note next to it (“I don’t really love you, so don’t get any sick ideas you pervert!”)? 4)     Go back to eBay and try to figure out PayPal? 5)     Proudly put the stamp on the envelope because love is good and we should all love our fellow man and what better way to let someone know that simple message than with a I Y you stamp? 6)     Tape 37 cents in coins on the envelope?   Damn, I made this one too easy. The answer is, of course, #2. 12:44:18 AM    comments []

	Monday, June 28, 2004

How well do you know me? (II)   I turned the corner at the grocery store and was met head-on with one of those grocery-cart-children’s-ride-along-pretend-fire-truck combos that take up the whole damn aisle and make it impossible to get your own cart around. There was a 2 year old boy behind the wheel of the fire truck.  He looked up to see me and said, “Hey, that’s not Daddy.”   Did I:   Politely ask the Mom if she could scoot the cart over and then compliment her on her cute little boy. Lean down and say to the kid, “Oh yeah? What do you really know about your Daddy?” Lean down and say to the kid, “Don’t go to sleep tonight. Kitty cat is planning on sneaking into your room after dark and sucking the air from your lungs.” Drop a box of ribbed tickler condoms into their cart when Mommy turned her back. Look for a Swedish nanny to ogle while I was waiting for the cart to move. Do nothing but wait and wonder what the condoms were doing next to the bread crumbs on aisle 12. 6:01:51 PM    comments []

	Sunday, June 27, 2004

How well do you know me?   Late this afternoon I was driving down a two lane suburban road on my way home from an errand. Suddenly, a flock of Canada geese decided to take a walk across the road in front of me. Flock is probably the wrong word because a flock of birds implies flight. These birds walk. They always walk. This is my local flock. They’re lazy. They live on a drainage pond that was dug out of regolith to catch the storm water runoff from a new housing development. Seems they stopped for an overnight rest while migrating south one winter and decided that migration was overrated. They’ve been here ever since. This pond is good enough, they decided using their own goose logic. It gets cold here in the winter, but apparently not cold enough to warrant the long flight to warmer equatorial climes. Now, they spend their days floating on the pond and walking across the road to the county park on the other side. The county maintains the park as a working farm. A museum to farming where the high tech geeks who bought the half million dollar houses across the street can bring their children and show them cows and tractors – children more accustomed to seeing golden labs and Audi TTs.  The geese don’t know about the park being a museum. They only know that the county grows corn over there (so the children can see where corn comes from before mommy picks it up at the Safeway). These geese like the fact that the corn field is so close to the pond. Food and shelter side-by-side. It’s a good goose life. So they’re not in a hurry. They walk.   That was kind of a long introduction to ask this question. Driving down the road and facing a dozen or so lazy, good-for-nothing geese that have lost their instinct to migrate, laggardly crossing the road to feed on the corn, grown and paid for with my tax dollar, so that rich, over-privileged children can learn about farming from the comfort of their imported Italian baby strollers, do I:   Stop the car and wait until they are safely on the other side. Hit the gas and kick up a cloud of feathers and goose guts. Slow down so as not to cause the birds any harm but maintain enough speed to force them to fly and remind them that their lives are too damn easy. Reach in the glove compartment, pull out my 45 caliber handgun and bring home goose for dinner. Check out the Swedish nanny in the tube top who is watching the spectacle from the sidewalk. Wish I didn’t fixate on the minutia of life and just talked on the cell phone all the time like everybody else. What did I do? If you know me, the answer is obvious. 12:02:17 AM    comments []

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