Tag Humor

Life is Like a Roll of Toilet Paper

Michael 2 Comments

Memo to self: read those memos you write to yourself sometime! Sheesh! You almost missed it.

What did I almost miss? National Toilet Paper Day. Would it have been worth missing? Most assuredly. But my memo said if I could not come up with a post topic for today to rerun “Shopping Math” because of toilet paper’s predominant role in that post I guess. Who know what I’m thinking when I write these memos? Who know when I write these memos?

So, since I almost always do what I tell myself to do, especially now that I’m older and put up up fewer arguments in general, I will repost Shopping Math below. But first…did you know that toilet paper, although mass produced, in China by the 1300s, was not introduced to the US until 1857. In 1883, Seth Wheeler patented rolled toilet paper and the rolled toilet paper dispenser, forever instigating the argument, do you roll you paper over the top or to the bottom? Sometime today thank Seth for his inventiveness. You shouldn’t need to write a memo to yourself to remind you.

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SHOPPING MATH

It was approaching the mid 1960s and I was nearing third grade in elementary school. Rumors began circulating around town that the school would be moving to “New Math.” We who would be the beneficiaries of such a momentous shift saw it as a bright star in the heavens of learning. Particularly those of us with older siblings who would gleefully taunt us with “wait till you have to learn long division!” Ha! We showed them. Arithmetic is dead. Long live new math!

Yeah, well, that’s why I spent 25 minutes in the toilet paper aisle Sunday afternoon trying to decipher Ultra Strong Mega Rolls and come up with the best buy for my cash challenged paper products budget. I might have once aced the exam on the difference between a number and a numeral but that didn’t help while I was trying to mentally multiply 348 sheets times 9 rolls divided by $9.45 all the while having visions of bears singing about how wonderfully clean their charming toilet tissue makes them feel.

tpIt doesn’t help that there are no federal guidelines for bathroom tissue roll sizes. Double, triple, giant, mega, mega plus, and super were the adjectives in use in that aisle but even when used by the same brands, the same moniker did not represent the same number (numeral?) of sheets per roll. One package of Mega Rolls boasted 308 sheets per roll while another claimed 348 sheets per roll. Double Rolls had either 148 sheets or 167 sheets. None of that made it easier to figure out if 9 rolls for $9.45 was a better value than 12 rolls for $11.45. New math said “x is greater than y when the intersecting sets represent the lesser value of the total compared to the greater value of the sum of the variable(s) represented by the equation,” but old arithmetic said “Hold on there, Baby Bear. That’s not just right.” (If you are trying to follow along without a program, although everybody used it as a basis for comparison, I never found a roll claiming to be “Regular.” Not a good thing not to be amidst all that toilet paper.)

By the time my daughter entered third grade I was happy to see basic arithmetic had returned to the school curriculum and I could look forward to having help balancing my checkbook. Unfortunately even old math was not her passion and anything other than straight addition, subtraction, or division by ten was, though not a challenge, not actively pursued as a Sunday afternoon diversion. And so, now these many years later, I was left standing in the toilet paper aisle pondering if I would rather have “ultra soft” or “ultra strong,” whether the shape of the package would fit in my closet, and finally just going for the greatest number of sheets per roll figuring that equals the fewest number of times I’ll have to change the roll on the holder.

Satisfied I made the most logical if not the most economical choice, I checked my shopping list for the next item up. Hmm. Paper towels. I have to start shopping with a calculator.

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Memo to self: Rerun this if stuck for a post on August 26, National Toilet Paper Day. Really, August 26, not the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Who knew?

New Math

Michael 5 Comments

This morning I was in the car at with the radio on and as is often the case with commercial radio, a commercial came on. This particular show was a sports talk show with call in segments. I had it on because I am interested in listening to sports on the radio the same as those who listened to the first commercial broadcast were interested in election returns. It’s something to pass the time with and you spend lots of that time saying to yourself “what did he say?”

I mention this because those who sponsor sports talk radio shows must feel there is a lot of testosterone floating on the wavelengths and most of it needs supplementing as many, if not most of the commercials are for products said to enhance this or delay that or maximize thus and such. The particular commercial that pulled me from my musings over the wonderment that the people who call in to sports talk shows can actually use a phone was touting the prowess of those who need help with their prowess. It was for what I can best describe as an online EDC or, pardon my frankness, an Erectile Dysfunction Clinic. This particular “clinic” was quite proud of their success rate of 85% — now read carefully here and see if you too are jolted by this figure — and that 90% of their clients are happy with their results.

If I’m working the numbers right, and I think I am but I pulled out a calculator just to make sure, at least 5% of their clients are happy with failure. Do you think we should tell them?

Calculator

What A Dump

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that time again, the time when if you don’t pull the mental chain your brain will back up and then you’ll have to get out the big plunger.

Misunderstanding

You’ll recall my recent discussion on non-dairy butter, not the concept but that the package read “butter.” Not “plant butter,” not “soy butter,” not “butter tasting butter substitute,” but “butter.” I guess I have a wider readership than even I could have imagined. Shortly after that post – ummm – posted the ACLU filed suit against Arkansas claiming the state’s new labeling law stipulating that only meat can be called meat, only milk can be called milk, only rice can be called rice, and presumably only butter can be called butter violates the manufacturers’ of the ersatz products free speech. Hmm. Now this is just a thought, but if American chicken and hog farmers actually came up with green eggs and ham and attempted to market them as “broccoli” and “kale” would that same ACLU step in to protect them?

Although I don’t like it and have said so, there is no stopping American stores from running back to school sales in July. I’m sorry but in my mind that is just way too early. And I’ve been one of those parents with a calendar on the kitchen wall crossing off the days until those kids go back to school! But I get it, it’s a once a year marketing opportunity and they have to make hay, or money, while the sun shines. But now I have a real issue with those stores. Two days ago I was in the local supermarket and at the end of the “seasonal” aisle where all the back to school items were located was a big display of Halloween candy. Come on now!

This morning a man was stopped at the local airport for carrying a loaded gun in his carry on bag. It was the 23rd such seizure this year. Today is the 210th day of 2019 so a little more frequently than once every 10 days somebody is trying to sneak a gun into the secure area of the airport. Ours is not a particularly large airport with about 400 departures a day. I can’t imagine what TSA agents at a big airport find. I said those people carrying weapons are trying to sneak a gun past security. They claim they “forgot” the gun was in their carryon or they “had it when they were at the range last week.” Did they really? Did they really bring their travel carryon to the range last week? The gun confiscated this morning had 14 bullets in the clip, the clip in the gun, and an additional bullet in the chamber. Doesn’t seem like something one could, or should “forget.”

The lawyers at Publishers Clearing House are really good. You’re not going to see them okay an ad that calls margarine butter, I mean that says “You are a winner!” No, they say you could be a winner or you might be holding the winning entry. They ain’t gonna get sued for stretching the truth. I got another one of those mailings last week. Not from PCH. From the dealership where I bought my car and have it serviced. That would be Car #2, not the daily driver although the last letter I got was in reference to my everyday vehicle. Car #1 is a ten year old Chevrolet Malibu and earlier this year the dealer sent me a notice that it was time to “exchange” that car for a new model. I agreed with them but when I went over to swap keys and registrations they really wanted me to exchange money for a new car! I knew all along they weren’t serious but I had to go over for a state inspection anyway so I thought I’d see how much I could get out of them. Not much it turned out. Last week’s letter was from a different dealer about a different car. I know it’s a marketing tool just like back to school sales in July but the letter says they need cars like mine to “fulfill special used vehicle requests.” This particular car is not a 10 year old Chevy. It’s a 20 year old Mazda Miata with not quite 31,000 miles. I bought it from this dealer and they have serviced it since it was in the internal combustion engine equivalent of diapers. They might very well have a request for such a car. But when they say “We would like to exchange your 2000 Mazda MX-5 Miata for any new or Certified Pre-Owned Mazda from our inventory,” I doubt their sincerity. But as fate would have it, Wednesday I have a service appointment there for that very car. I know just the new Miata in their inventory that would make a dandy exchange!

I feel better now that I held my occasional brain dump. Thank you for tolerating me. I’d be happy to exchange your new reading for my old writing any day!

Miata

Money for Nothing

Michael 1 Comment

This has been an odd week money wise and it’s only Thursday. I think it really came to mind this afternoon when I was trying to buy something on line and could not find an option to check out on the site. More on that later.

NoMoreMooneyOdd Week Exhibit A. If you were anywhere in the “48 states, Washington DC , and Puerto Rico” (more on that later too!) or even close by (and maybe even in one of those other two states) and you were seduced by “Black Friday in July” (oddly held on Monday and Tuesday) like I was, you might have purchased an all the rage, newest and hottest, must have, can’t live without item of the year, or an air fryer. In my case it was the air fryer. A week earlier I hadn’t even considered an air fryer but coincidentally Big Lots held its quarterly 20% off weekend immediately before Black Monday/Tuesday. If you don’t have a Big Lots in your state or country think of your favorite discount/buyout store. I saw an air fryer in the ad that came out in advance of the sale and thought “at that price I’ll try one” that price being almost half what it was in a department store plus an extra 20% off. Short story long, by the time I got there they were out. I’d not have given it a second thought except on Monday afternoon I was busy deleting emails when I came across a Macy’s ad featuring that very air fryer at exactly the same price I missed, extra 20% and all, at Big Lots. To make a shorter story longer, when the package came this week it included instructions to submit for a rebate for an additional $10. Just fill out the on line form and they’ll send me a VISA card with $10 loaded on it. The on line form included several fields, all required, including a space for “rebate code.” The instructions noted 6 or 7 countertop appliances each with its own rebate code. Except for my air fryer. Of course.

Odd Week Exhibit B: You remember a couple years ago Equifax, one of the big three credit bureaus who continually tell us how important it is to protect our credit, suffered a security breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 150 million people. They announced a settlement this week. The $700 million settlement includes $100 million in fines and $425 million in money set aside to reimburse associated recovery and corrective action costs for the affected people. Right away you can see some things wrong with these numbers. The fines and restitution amounts total $525 million leaving $175 million unaccounted for. Or more correctly unspecified. Well I guess those lawyers deserve something. They worked out a pretty good deal. The settlement specifies reimbursements of up to $125 per person for money spent on credit monitoring or identity theft protection after the breach as well as the cost of freezing or unfreezing credit reports at any consumer reporting bureau. Payments of as much as $20,000 also will be made for time spent remedying fraud, identity theft or other misuse of personal information caused by the data breach. The payment also covers up to 20 hours spent purchasing credit monitoring services or freezing credit reports at a rate of $25 an hour. So far that comes to $20,625 per claimant but there’s more. The settlement also cover out-of-pocket losses caused by the breach and as much as 25% of the amount consumers paid to buy credit or identity monitoring services in the year prior to the breach. That could raise each persons allowable recovery to $21,000 or more. Except the total specified in the settlement ($425 million) divided by the number of people whose data was compromised (147 million) comes to only $2.89 per person. The article didn’t suggest where the extra $20,997 per claim might come from. (And you thought you’d never use algebra in the real world.) It’s a good thing those lawyers got their couple million up front.

Odd Week Exhibit B-2: It was in the article about the Equifax settlement that I read the following:

“The settlement was reached between Equifax and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission. It covers all 48 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.”

What do you think – writer, editor, proofreader, or modern version of type setter? Or practical joke to see if anybody notices? Yes, I know it’s not exactly money related but it’s just too good to not mention!

Odd Week Exhibit C: That website way back in the opening paragraph. I even had my daughter check on her computer thinking the mobile site I had opened on my tablet was truncated. Indeed, no “cart” and no “check out” button or icon was on the desk top site either. We did find a “continue” button the opens a pop up window with a brief order summary that included “back” and “continue” options. Sure enough, “continue” was the choice to get the order finalized.

You wouldn’t think it should be that hard to give money away .

Signs Point to a Slippery Slope Ahead

Michael Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I read a post that reminded me of signs around town (physical signs not harbingers of things to come) we used to see but now have disappeared. Perhaps they were non-inclusive or offended the sensitive driver. The referenced post alluded to drivers (safety challenged drivers apparently) who ride in the left lane with little or no intention of ever moving out of the left lane. (For America Driving Style challenged readers you may consider instead the “passing” lane (or perhaps known as the non-speed challenged lane).)

Trigger warning. The remainder of this post will directly quote signs designed in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, also known as the Age of Darkness or the Sensitivity Challenged Era (SCE).

A sign I miss more often every day is the one I never see any longer, “Keep Right Except to Pass.” I mean, come on, this is a pretty darn straight forward direction and observing it can result in improved traffic safety and a reduction of highway violence or the threat of violence every time I come up behind Speed Challenged Driver (SCD) #1 doing 42 mph trying to pass SCD #2 going 41 mph in a 65 mph zone. I think the disappearance has something to do with the perceived Freedom of Choice (not one of the classically defined Four Freedoms yet often cited “freedom”) being violated by instructing drivers to maintain a conservative viewpoint. Either that or complaints were voice that keeping “right” meant there existed a “wrong” and thus non-inclusive of those identifying as “badasses.”

The next sign we need to bring back is going to be controversial. “Cross At Crosswalk.” I think the trend of crossing “willy-nilly,” ummm, “non-gender specific appellation – non-gender specific youth who politely refuses the company of others identifying as youths,” began as stores and shopping centers established building wide crossing areas from the parking lot to their doors and marking them with semi-official looking “Yield to Pedestrians” signs. A check of all of the state traffic laws that are easy to locate on-line (which number a mere three but I’m pretty sure the other 47 states and the variety of territories are the same) clearly state that drivers are to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks (emphasis added). Oddly enough, at least in my local area, the roadside traffic sign “Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk” abounds marking nearly every traffic-pedestrian intersection but the corresponding pedestrian signage “Cross at Crosswalk” has faded into history. A possible reason is that “pedestrian” is being viewed as “commonplace” or unimaginative” and since everyone is special, pedestrian rules are offensive and contrary to woke thinking.

Another sign that has disappeared from the local landscape is “Curb Your Dog.” Although classically an urban oriented signage, it was once seen across the country in parks and at highway rest areas. “Curb Your Dog” has two acceptable meanings, keep your dog under control or clean up after your dog has despoiled the landscape with its bodily by-product. Perhaps the sign offended those who feel man is not to control other living things on the planet but are to share the space, or perhaps cat owners resented that dogs get all the attention and even though the sign’s intent is more or less lost in the feline sense they weren’t going to stand for the continued second fiddle playing dog owners continued to foist upon their beloved companions.

“Road Closed” is disappearing much faster than roads are being closed. Again, this may be a regional thing but here the state Department of Transportation and all the little municipal road crews seem to prefer you just stumble across an impassable road rather than providing forewarning. I supposed it’s the totalitarian nature of “closed ” that offends sensitivities. If the road wants to identify as open let the road be open. Drivers will discover soon enough that the bridge has been wash away.

I could go on…”Do Not Enter” (too authoritative), “No Left Turn” (ideologically stifling), and the sorely missed “Do Not Block Intersection” (assumes intersections have less rights than through roads) …but the sign I miss most is “End of Construction.” I don’t think there is anything particularly offensive about it, they just never seem to finish any road work around here.

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Color My World

Michael Leave a comment

First the good news. I’m out of the hospital. Now the bad news. We are in a color rut.

While I was in the hospital my daughter would bring get well cards that popped up in either of our mailboxes. I don’t know about anybody else but I have hard time with cards in the hospital. There’s so little room to begin with and what space is there is loaded with stuff. Hospital stuff. Bags and bottles, water and tissues, and those funny machines you breathe in on to keep you from getting pneumonia. But it was nice to see them, read them, and call the well wishers when I had a few moments. But the cards went back home so they would not be lost or thrown away.

When I got home I had a chance to take them all out and really read them and the notes so many had added. Then my daughter noticed it. “Are they color coding greeting cards?” She had observed, and observed correctly, that the vast majority of the get well cards were contained in yellow or some shade of yellow envelopes. There were also about half as many white, two brown, and one lowly blue card cover.

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Naturally this led to other occasions and what is used to wrap those greetings. Some were easy and unanimous (although with only two of us participating in the survey, unanimity was hardly conclusive). Envelopes for St. Patrick’s Day cards while we aren’t certain why they exist exist in green, usually swaddling a card portraying a drunken cartoon leprechaun or somebody presumably more than a little tipsy wearing beer goggles. Yellow envelopes when not paired with get well cards wrap themselves around Easter cards. Valentines come with red envelopes, Hanukkah cards are festooned in blue, First Communion, Confirmation, and Wedding cards get white envelopes, and Halloween cards, which confound us as much as St. Patrick’s Day cards, are distributed with orange envelopes. And although we’d think a black envelope for a sympathy card could catch on, they always seem to be in a plain white wrapper.

Some cards have standard colors but more than one. Christmas cards can be counted on the be in red or white envelopes with an odd green cover tossed in now and then. Thanksgiving is usually celebrated in brown or other earth tone shade although an orange envelope apparently left over from Halloween may pop up. Baby shower cards have the predictable pink or blue or the unpredictable white enclosure.

And some cards make no sense at all. Although you can almost count on a Mother’s Day card being in a pink envelope, a Father’s Day card might be in almost any color cover. And birthday cards exist with a rainbow of choices of envelope color.

I suppose somehow it all makes sense and although it’s rather formulaic it’s the system we’ve gotten used to. My question is who responsible and if I want to corner the market on Waffle Iron Day cards (which is coming up on May 29) do I have to submit an envelope color proposal before I willy nilly make them maple syrup amber?

 

Lighten Up! (Hospital Style)

Michael

It’s high time to lighten things up around here. Just because I am still, yes still(!) in the hospital doesn’t mean there aren’t things to poke fun at. In fact, much of what goes on around here is worth poking fun at.

So far, nobody woke me to offer me a sleeping pill. Yes it has been done. However I have had the same person offer me a laxative literally (seriously I’m going to use literally as it literally is intended) right after helping me back from the bathroom with … well, you figure it out but Adrian Cronauer would have credited it to a cup of strong cappuccino.

Diets are an interesting phenomenon in hospitals particularly when one has abdominal surgery. You start out with nothing but sips of water. You progress through clear liquids to full liquids to soft and then regular food. All the while each step gets modified to meet your specific health needs like a cardiac or renal or diabetic diet. I have yet to figure out why. When you’re on clear liquids you barely have the strength to left spoon to mouth so that goes right back barely touched. By the time you can eat solid food you’re chowing down on the sandwiches and cookies your family is smuggling past the nurses station and you’re too full to bother with the hospital’s offerings. And their food always tastes bad. You know it’s bad but if you had to describe what is bad about it you find those words have yet to be invented. I’m on Day 17 of this hospitalization so I’ve had some time to think about this. I’ve decided it’s the taste equivalent of when you walk into an elevator and you know somebody was there wearing a cologne more suited to a Turkish whorehouse than anywhere else on earth. So I suspect.

20190610_185905-2You recall my rants regarding remote controls. Too many buttons, too little function! Back in the 70s (yes, I really am that old) nurse call bells were pretty much that. In fact, the first hospital I worked at kept actual bells to distribute to patients in the event of a power failure. Today’s call bell alert mechanisms control lights, television power channel and volume, bed position, sleeping alarms, and might actually summon assistance by way of a two-way radio communication with a disembodied voice from somewhere deep in the building. My particular remote control/Dick Tracy wrist radio gets a lot of abuse pulled across the room, dropped on the floor, and otherwise tortured. This is an absolute true story. All of them are but you are going to say “Oh come on now!” when you read this so just keep in mind, this is an absolute true story. Among other things, my call button controls the room light (button A), controls a reading lamp (button B), controls the TV (TV), and summons assistance (stick figure of some bald dude). I was ready to call it another unsuccessful day and pressed button B to turn the reading lamp off but instead the main room light came on. Checking that I was indeed pressing the right button I tried again and the main light went off. Then I pushed button A because why not and the TV came on. Pressing button A a second time yielded no results so I pressed the stick figure button to report my equipment malfunction but instead of lighting up indicating a call had been initiated, the TV went off and the reading lamp came on. At this point I was back to having the reading lamp on and everything else off. I figured I could fall asleep under those circumstances and left well enough alone. Eventually someone would be in to check my blood pressure and I would report the broken control then.

I could go on with other curiosities like footwear particularly among the anesthesia staff, status boards, and isolation procedures but I might need some lighter topics next week too.

By the way, if I follow you and you haven’t heard a peep from me and are concerned, some sites I can reach through the hospital guest WiFi, some I cannot, and some change day to day. I am better and just waiting for some labs to stabilizer before I can be set free on the world again. I’ll catch up with my required reading then.

Hurry Up and Wait

Michael 3 Comments

It is annual exam time and I’ve been spending a lot of time in doctors’ offices this week. A fixture of doctors’ offices is the waiting room. Some waiting rooms are actually nice pleasant places to be that make lasting impressions on the patients there. I recall from my youth the dentist who had fish tanks, aquaria even, with sunken pirate ships, treasure chests, and probably fish but as a six year old boy I mostly remember the pirate stuff. Some waiting rooms are actually one eyebrow raising (which I have never been able to master) like the gastroenterologist’s office who had an aviary, a bird cage even, where several colorful birds and pages noting why they were actually beneficial in a doctor’s office and probably plaques to identify the birds but as a sixty year old waiting for a colonoscopy I mostly remember just that there were birds. But mostly doctor’s office waiting rooms are sort of bland with sort of cheap furniture with sort of old magazines with small screen TVs hanging in an upper corner of the room sort of over there by the sliding glass window that somebody opens at irregular intervals to check in new arrivals, copy insurance cards, and distribute privacy notices. To me waiting rooms seem almost oxymoronic. Not much waiting goes on in them, and except for the one with the birds, most don’t have much room. The real waiting goes on in “the other room.” The exam room. The surgery in 18th century colonial speak. Back there.

We all know the drill. The office nurse sticks his or her head out into the waiting room, calls out a first name hoping there is only one Augustine (thank you HIPPA), leads Mr. X down the hall to the scale, then places him into “the other room.” There things start optimistically. A blood pressure is taken, the little finger thingie that measures oxygen in your blood is put on your finger, maybe some questions about changes in meds or general health are asked and answered, notes are made on the computer, a smile is flashed, the line “The doctor will be right in” is sing songed your way (sing sang?), and the door is pulled shut behind her. Or him. And now we wait. There are never any old magazines in the little room. Maybe you brought your phone or tablet and still have enough battery power to play a game or thirteen. But you don’t because you know you’ll be moving up to level 57 when the knock on the door comes.

DoctorSignSo I play a different game while I wait in “the other room.” Guess The Footsteps. For example, if I know somebody ahead of me went in with a walker and I hear the slide of it I might figure that person is on the way out so then from recalling how many patients went in between him and me I can guess if I have enough time to finish that crossword puzzle. If I hear two sets of footsteps that’s the nurse and new patient coming in so that doesn’t help with figuring out how much longer it will be. A single set needs evaluating before I can determine its significance. A slightly hesitant pace might be a patient leaving making certain to take no wrong turns. (I’ve noticed that although you are always escorted to the exam room it’s about a 50/50 chance somebody will accompany you out. And yes I have gotten lost along the way.) (Sigh.) A fast pace barely heard through the closed door is the nurse returning to the waiting room to bring back another patient. A fast pace clearly heard approaching and receding is the office person who handles the billing and probably the only staff member other than the doctor not in scrubs and tennis shoes. A purposeful step that pauses outside your door with an accompanying rustle of paper is the doctor arriving at the wrong door and putting your chart back in the holder mounted on the wall next to the door. And somehow with all that marching up and down the hall, when the doctor does knock once and open the door to finally get on with the main event, I never hear those steps.

So that’s how I spend my time waiting. It might not be all that much fun but I got a whole blog post out of it! I wonder if this was how Milton and Bradley got started.

No Business Like Shoe Business

Michael 2 Comments

Have you ever had a day when to want to say something but are sure it will unwarrantedly ruffle someone’s feathers? You don’t mean to. You really just have a thought you want to express but, particularly in the now when every thought, let alone action, regardless of intent is either forgiven or vilified depending on the political affiliation (real or perceived) of the thinker and/or actor, you hesitate. So I’ve been very concerned about bringing this up but I just can’t hold it back any longer. Where the hell are all the brown shoelaces?

I don’t need new shoelaces right now but there is a pair (are a pair?) (no, is a pair) fraying and will surely and shortly break. I’d like to be proactive and have the replacement on hand if not actually on shoe before that happens but I can’t find laces for brown dress shoes. White for athletic shows yes. Hundreds of any length and thickness imaginable. Thick black laces in lengths clearly for boots most probably fitted with steel toes are everywhere. Those rawhide looking things for hiking shoes hang on racks by the score of scores. Some places seem to begrudgingly devote a hook, maybe two, to black laces appropriate for dress shoes, but brown…um, nope. Not out there.

I think it started with Casual Friday. I never understood that. Why should somebody making an appointment with a banker, broker, car dealer, or human resource manager on the last day of the week be made to feel like the appointment maker has already started on his or her weekend? Why do Tuesday appointments get treated more formally than those who scheduled on Friday? I guess others felt the same way because it seems there is no more Casual Friday. It is now Casual Week. (I think I also once mentioned an off shoot of this. That is, why everybody who has anything remotely to do with medicine now feels the need to wear scrubs. If I hit the next billion dollar Power Ball jackpot and feel the urge to endow a hospital nephrology department, I do not want to meet with an administrator in a Looney Tunes scrub top to discuss my multimillion dollar gift. Just putting that out there.) Anyway, that’s how it all started – when men shed their suits and ties.

Women can be just as casual but a woman knows there are times when “dress” means more than the garment. And still have them in their closets. The garments that is. (That are?) I am certain if women’s dress shoes required laces there would be sufficient stock from which to choose.

BrownShoesI guess we men just lost our will to dress up. And stores responded. The Men’s Department yielded space to The Active Male, Sports and Leisure, and You’re Only as Young as You Feel departments. And the space they gave up used to be occupied by shoelaces for dress shoes. Even brown. Well I want it back! I want that space that used to hold tie bars and pocket squares. I want a belt that isn’t reversible. I want shoes that need polishing. And I want brown shoelaces!

I sincerely apologize for feathers that have been ruffled and trust this won’t result in some social media frenzy. But one last thing … if you should happen to have knowledge of brown shoelaces appropriate for a men’s dress shoe with 4 eyelets please email me their location. I will not share your information.

Thank you

 

Just a Number

Michael 2 Comments

Welcome to Major League Baseball 2019. Today is opening day. I remember way back when I was a kid, a youngen, a tyke, a small fry even, on opening day we would sneak our transistor radios into school with our earphones surreptitiously threaded up our short sleeves so the teacher would not know we were listening to the game instead of conjugating irregular verbs. Like she really wasn’t going to notice that hunk of plastic on the desk. But we were young and stupid. Much like the players we cheered on. Oh, not the stupid part. Young. They were young, just like us. Younger than I ever, even to this day, realized.

BaseballOf the four major American sports, baseball has often been maligned as the old man sport. It’s slow, it’s boring, nothing happens for long stretches, anybody can play baseball. Eh, probably that last part is true. It does not take much to play baseball. A bat, a ball, a glove, and an open field and you have the minimum requirements for the game. But it’s not an old man’s sport. No, not at all. You see, also of the four major American sports, baseball is the only one opening this year’s season with nobody playing who was playing MLB baseball in the 20th century. Nobody taking the field today was there on opening day in 19-anything. No one. Not one. Nary a soul.

That’s only been 19 years. That’s one less than 20. For some of the younger folks reading those words 20 years could be a large percentage of their lives and might still seem like a long time. But looked at from a regular job perspective, twenty years doesn’t even get you a commemorative watch. Apparently for Major League Baseball, less than twenty years gets you retirement. Even for a government job you need to put in the “whole twenty” to cash in on a cushy pension.

Only 19 years. If a player started his major league career at the seemingly ancient age for a rookie of 25, he is among those sitting in lap of retirement luxury and not yet 45 years old. I had dreams of retiring at 55. I figured if that was old enough for the government to say I could start drawing from my IRA without penalty, and considering “retirement” is right there in the name of the account, then it must be the perfect age to target for retirement. Of course I knew I would more likely work until I hit 75. But 45. Forty-five! Wow.

I’m old enough not to be impressed by terribly much but that report really floored me. I’ve watched hockey players playing the game for over 20 years still this year. There is considerably more physical contact in hockey than baseball. Football and basketball both still have players who were wearing the uniforms from way back in the last century. Nobody ever called either of those an old man’s sport. Of any of them I’d not have pegged baseball as the first sport to lose everybody from the pre-2000 days.

As “they” might say, time marches on. It just doesn’t circle the bases.