Splendors that out-glitter gold

If grandma really does have a heart of a gold you might want to rethink that humanitarian organ donation. Her 10-ounce ticker’s worth about $18,250.

Crime will take a disturbing new twist if a really good human heart ever becomes considered as valuable as stuff we dig up from the dirt.

Fat chance of that.

Who’s buying all this commodity gold? What besides base hoarding can you do with it?

You can’t eat it. You can’t cuddle it.

In those regards, a pound puppy ought to be worth more, especially in desperate times.

I don’t want to do anything that would instigate a harangue from Ron Paul supporters, but the mania for gold strikes me as more than a little crazy.

Yet gold and the possession of other earthly baubles drive the economy and has been at the heart of so much great cinema and literature.

I just finished re-reading “The Pearl” by the peerless John Steinbeck. Based on an old Mexican folk tale, the story’s about how oyster-diver Kino finds the world’s most magnificent pearl while diving for simple sustenance. The discovery leads to all the world’s worst miseries being unleashed on him and the family he adores.

The novella ends with godforsaken Kino heaving the pearl back into the ocean.

Similar devastation awaits nefarious Auric Goldfinger in “Goldfinger,” still maybe the best Bond movie. Goldfinger’s Midas-like lusts lead him to try and radiate all the gold in Fort Knox so it will be worthless for 58 years, thus driving up the worth of Goldfinger’s stash.

His greed is his undoing and Bond saves the day and winds up with Pussy Galore.

And the resolution seems to please Bond.

I’ll resist embracing all the nudge-nudge puns the name solicits, but I must be Bond-like in at least that regard.

Agent 007 never cared about money.

Me neither.

The problem is people pay me in money and other people immediately begin lining up to take the money right back.

Like Goldfinger, they all want treasure without soul.

I’d like to get paid in something I enjoy, could share with others and be ephemeral enough that no one could ever snatch it from me.

I’d like to be paid one quarter in cash and three quarters in three-hour lunches.

The lunches don’t have to all be at fancy restaurants, but most of them had better be.

And I can bring a guest. And we can enjoy two bottles of wine and anything on the menu. No restrictions.

And I want at least a 20 percent tip included to keep the pretty waitresses smiling.

The three-hour lunch might be the world’s most perfect splurge.

I enjoy golf, but a day of golf always leaves part of me sad and part of me sore. And I enjoy a long sumptuous dinner, too, but after a long dinner I feel like going to sleep.

After a long lunch, I feel like going to a tavern.

I’ve enjoyed splendid three-hour lunches with Val and friends around the country. I remember one in particular in New York.

It was me, Val and a buddy at the Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center right in the heart of Manhattan. Our al fresco table was at the center of what in the winter is the famous ice skating rink.

The NYC Visitor’s Bureau had set the whole thing up so I could write a Big Apple travel story. It was among the most convivial three hours of my whole jolly life.

The second bottle of wine is key. With one, most everyone is relaxed and pleasant. But the magic starts once the second one is uncorked.

We all become more witty, more relaxed more charming.

Really, if I had the budget and time for the logistics, I’d send everyone who reads my blog a couple of bottles of hootch with instructions they guzzle it on down before clicking on my latest post.

I’d be sensational.

Sort of like Bond, James Bond.

Ah, the two of us have so much in common.

The only reason either of us would ever step inside Fort Knox is if someone told us they’d opened up a really swanky restaurant amidst all the ungodly billions in bullion.

That’s not all. He’s agent 007.

And right now my balance shows there’s about $0.07 in my savings account.

There’s Goldfinger and then there’s me.

Goldfingernail.

Ban straws! They, er, suck!

I’m convinced I could construct a built-to-scale Kiddieland sort of Gitmo with all the unused straws that have passed through my hands on their way to the godforsaken landfill.

I’ve never understood the custom of restaurants handing out scores of straws to able-bodied people with at least one working arm. Yet, guaranteed, sometime in the next day or so I’ll be eating out at a family restaurant and the overworked/undertipped waitress is going to bring me and my squad four drinks and four straws.

The first thing that’s going to happen, decorum be damned, is that both kids (and likely my wife, too) are going to peel one end off the wasteful little paper condom holding the straw and shoot the missile directly at my eyeballs.

Then, while gleefully chuckling at my girlish squeals, they will set the straws down on their placemats and pick up the drinks with their hands.

Once the girls outgrew their sippy cups, they had the sufficient motor skills to pick up a drink with only the occasional little spill. The girls may one day need training bras, but no child needs a bridge device between sippy and adult cups.

So that always gnaws at me, not to mention leaves me all twitchy whenever the waitress brings the drinks.

But that’s not the worst of it. That’ll happen when I’ll be in some tavern and order a soul-soothing Jack Daniel’s on ice.

I would never desecrate a Jack with Coke or some other soda. I drink my bourbon straight.

That means it defies logic that it would need stirring. Still, guaranteed, it’ll come with a little red straw. Sometimes two.

Heck, even the heathens who order mixed drinks understand that gravity alone can achieve a suitable mix between liquids. I stare cold-eyed around the bar at all those wasteful little straws and wish I had a license to kill like that renown environmentalist James Bond. He insisted his dry martini be, “Shaken, not stirred.” I can’t imagine a straw ever touching his lips.

And instead of stirring, I stew.

“What’s the deal with all the *&$#@ straws?” I fume. “The only thing more unnecessary than an adult drink with a straw is a mute button on the remotes down at the school for the deaf.”

I instigate so many crackpot crusades (vanity zip codes to reduce federal deficit, edible newspapers to save daily journalism, etc.) that I’m loath to launch another one.

That’s why I was happy to see a giant entertainment complex is taking the lead.

Singapore Airlines called me straight out the blue (get it?) and asked me to do a story for their inflight magazine about the world’s must-visit theme parks.

Of course, the opportunist in me was thrilled. This could lead to bigger gigs with this prestigious publication (doubtful). And the crabby malcontent in me was circumspect. With a December 23 deadline, this could disrupt my last minute holiday plans (a certainty).

Still, I couldn’t pass it up.

My internet research led me to Ocean Park in Hong Kong. It’s a wonderland of rides, marine and zoo exhibits and looks perfect for my editiorial needs. But that’s not what really got me revved up.

What did was a pop-up that said in English, “Come visit us on No Straw Mondays!” They see straws as disgraceful inadvertent litter and are phasing them out.

I was thrilled and momentarily thought about jumping on a carbon-devouring monster jet and zooming clear around the world just to thank them for their environmental sensitivity.

Further research -- I told you this would disrupt my holiday -- revealed Sea World in Orlando has banished straws altogether. I doubt the place is now stained with spills although, really, at Sea World how could anyone tell?

I feel a righteous fire to spread the anti-straw gospel. I hope you’ll join me in a movement to remove this ridiculous waste from our drinking landscape.

I know I can count on you because people like me and you are like James Bond in at least one respect:

We don’t suck.