Computers ruining simple cash transactions

(725 words)

Momentarily forgetting where I was, I wondered if the man staring so intently at the computer screen was coordinating a manned space flight to the distant Red Planet.

His furrowed-brow calculations seemed so painstaking.

Or maybe he was immersed in his daily hardcore.

Then it hit me, I wasn’t in Mission Control. I was in one of the local tire stores waiting for the store manager to present me with $3.17 in change from the $20 I’d given him for $16.83 worth of routine maintenance.

I’d been standing there three minutes. Seemed more like thirty.

And every second of it was just dead time. I couldn’t read my book or return phone calls. I couldn’t even make small talk about things like the weather or if he thought the tires Fred Flintstone once used would have made his job easier or more difficult.

It was just me staring at him as he stared at the computer.

He’d move the mouse and click, move and click, move and click. The mouse seemed destined to move more than I would.

To what multiple prompts could he have been responding for a simple tire rotation and oil change?

I raise the point because this is becoming a common frustration in our daily lives. People who used to run routine cash transactions out of beat-up old cigar boxes are now being tasked with uploading information like we were at the garage to have our gallbladders removed.

They want to know where we live, our e-mail addresses and if we’ll please like them on Facebook.

I imagine security and theft-prevention is the stated impetus for computerized cash registers to be showing up even in places like tire shops and Mom & Pop pizza joints.

Because everyone knows it’s impossible to defeat the security presented by a competent computer system. 

For goodness sake, these things have passwords! 

I thought for a moment I’d just tell him to keep the change. It would be worth $3.17 just to get on with my life.

But I persisted. So did he.

I was struck by the irony we were in a room full of radials and the man in charge was incapable of getting on any kind of roll.

I was reminded how just days earlier we’d been marooned at our table at a Pittsburgh restaurant when it took forever to get the bill, which is more human than computer error.

And, gee, that almost never happens either!

It was at Jerome Bettis’s restaurant in Pittsburgh. Me and the family enjoyed a wonderful lunch. Friendly, attentive service. Relaxed atmosphere.

Plus, I love being anyplace where there’s an increased chance of seeing Bettis, who for my money might be the most cuddly looking Steeler ever.

I’m not saying I’d cuddle #36 if we saw him, but I can guarantee I’d nuzzle in for a picture and hold the pose for so long it’d awkward.

So the waitress asked if there was anything else. We said, no, just the check, please.

She disappeared. And I mean disappeared.

She was gone long enough to have a child. And I don’t mean just conceive one. I mean conceive and carry one to full term. Even a Bettis-sized baby.

It felt like nine months.

“You know,” I said, “maybe they enjoyed our patronage so much they’re giving us the meal for free.”

I suggested we get up and slowly start for the door. The dine and dash seemed like an invigorating solution.

I say to hell with the Iran peace treaty. I’d like to see Congress agree on set times when a consumer could legally get out of having to pay for services rendered.

If the tire guy takes more than three minutes to make change, it’s free.

If the waitress doesn’t bring the check in five minutes, you can split.

Think of how it’ll improve efficiency. Think of the fun of watching the big clock behind the register tick down as they frantically try and figure out what the damned computer wants.

Computers are ruining the world.

We need to reduce their usage in any instance where tried-n-true, less complicated methods got the job done.

I think I’m going to start writing my blog in long hand and just reading it aloud to passing strangers.

We’ll see how that works.

Related . . .

Why do so many things suck so bad?

Well-rounded thoughts on tire purchases

Now they’ve ruined jukeboxes

Bigger than Jesus & “Rodell’s Law of Facebook Conundrum”

Let’s make the Bible fun to read!!!

Thoughts on circular pizza & horny Hut waitresses

Fanning vs. shark: We need a rematch!

(639 words)

Crafty producers have finally divined a way to make televised surf competitions more compelling than the Super Bowl.

Just add shark.

I wonder if they got the idea from Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance, the one where the infamous “Left Shark” nearly stole the show.

A shark at a world surf competition in South Africa nearly one-upped the Perry shark.

It nearly stole surfer Mick Fanning.

Surely, you’ve seen it by now. One moment, Fanning is there kneeling on his board, then you see a giant black fin.

What happened next was too rapid to even cue the theme from “Jaws.”

The shark hits him and down beneath the waves he goes. He disappears for about 12 seconds. 

In those slim seconds, I began to wonder if surf contest handicappers ever factored potential shark attacks into the odds.

Then the rescue craft race in, retrieve Fanning and take quick inventory of his essentials. He is whole.

He later said he’d ferociously and relentlessly punched the shark in the face until it meekly swam away.

It’s a potentially life-saving lesson for a pacifist like me whose instinct when confronted with an attacking animal is to first acknowledge its challenging upbringing and then attempt to reason with it.

The clip then continues and three shrill siren blasts signal the competition is over.

Who ever made that arbitrary decision should at the very least be fired.

Fed to the shark with the still-rumbling tummy, maybe.

Fired, certainly.

Cancel it? Right then?

Heck, the announcer should have caught his breath and said, “Don’t even think of changing that channel! Competition will resume right after this word from Old Spice!

The entire world would have tuned in.

Surfing in shark-infested waters would have really raised the stakes.

I think the surfer dudes would be game, too, and I don’t mean “game” in the predatory sense.

Fanning was jazzed. 

“I’m just totally tripping out,” he said. “To walk away from that, I’m just so stoked. Oh, man.”

Seeing world class athletes motivated by something more than a paycheck is utterly thrilling.

Take it from me.

I once performed under similar circumstances.

It was the fourth grade at Mt. Lebanon’s Julia Ward Howe Elementary School in Pittsburgh’s South Hills.

It was something called, I think, the Presidential Fitness Challenge. It was a grade-school staple administered during the Nixon administration by a president who was later deemed unfit for office.

It a torturous week of sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, etc.

And there was the 100-yard dash.

I remember we went off in sets of two and I remember my opponent taunting that he was going to beat me.

I think I shrugged. I guess I hadn’t yet learned to give a guy like that the finger.

I couldn’t have cared less.

That’s why what happened that day was so remarkable.

The gym teacher said “Go!” and I sort of sauntered out of the blocks.

I went about 25 yards and noticed the guy already had a sizable lead.

Then I heard a roar of alarm, not unlike the buzz you hear when Fanning saw the fin.

I looked back and saw a large dog was loose on the field. In my memory, it was a a fire-breathing Rottweiler — and it was coming straight for me. I remember being terrified.

That was the day I set the 4th grade 100-yard dash record.

I’d have the ribbon to prove it, too, but I didn’t stop running till the 7th grade.

Fanning has vowed to return.

Will the shark? 

I have to think so. He’s probably being roasted on shark social media for his failure to close in the clutch.

Savvy promoters must be aware of the possibilities.

The three “Jaws” sequels weren’t any good, but they still made money.

Related . . . 

Jump the Query Shark

Piranhaconda on Copperhead Road

Shocking news! Snake handler dies from snake bite

Teach fish to eat oil

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Re-Run Sunday: On chicken fingers, breasts & nipples

This was from last July and my quest has yet to end. I’m still seeking my first plate of tasty chicken nipples. Once again, we’re having chicken breasts, but no nipples. What happens to all the chicken nipples? I’m dying to know.

Enjoy your Sunday!

(725 words)

I always make a point anytime we’re out at some family restaurant to ask the waitress if she has chicken fingers. The answer is always yes.

“Oh, you’re being too hard on yourself,” I say. “Your fingers are ugly, but they still appear human!”

I do this knowing it embarrasses my family and ups the odds my order will now be seasoned with waitress spit.

Chicken fingers are one of the world’s most popular menu items, yet I’ve never seen a single fingered chicken. Chicken don’t even have arms or hands.

How can they possibly have fingers?

If chickens had fingers you can imagine they’d be giving us the middle one for eating so many of them.

Chicken anatomy has always confused me.

One of the most desirable parts of a chicken is the breast.

It’s the same with women. Many shallow men revere breasts, more even than the women to whom they’re attached. And how come you never hear chicken breasts referred to as chicken boobs? Is it out of respect for the chicken?

Breasts of women are referred to with many colorful nicknames. They’re hooters. Jugs. Frost detectors. Jell-o molds. Dingle bobbers. Dairy pillows. Gerber servers. Bazoombas.”

But with chickens it’s always the same delicate wordage the romance novelists use. It is the chicken breast.

Well, la de dah.

It’s a lot of deferential dignity for a part of a yard bird that’s destined to be deep fried and dipped in honey mustard.

I’ll wager no one in history has ever approached a butcher counter and said, “I’m looking for a nice juicy set of chicken tits.”

And breasted women all have nipples. Us dudes, too. And for every human breast there’s at least a little nipple.

So chicken have breasts. Women have breasts. Women have nipples. How come we’ve never heard of a nippled chicken? Is it a delicacy? I’d imagine chicken nipples would make a tasty snack.

The Nippled Chickens would be a great band name, too, I think.

Given gourmet eating trends, you might soon see chicken feet at a food truck near you. Chicken feet are very popular in China, Korea, Vietnam, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean.

Me, I don’t care how exquisitely you prepare the dish, I’m nervous about eating the feet of any animal that walks barefoot through where it poops.

So I’m fine with chicken wings and fingers. In fact, the so-called chicken “finger” is actually the tender white meat under both sides of the breast bone, the pectoralis major.

I’m going to order a set of breaded pecs at the KFC drive-thru next time I’m there just to enjoy the confusion it causes.

My mother’s absolutely nuts about chicken fingers. She’s 81, has dementia, and recently called me at 11 p.m. to say she had an emergency: She was out of wine and toilet paper.

I asked if she had enough of the one would she not need the other.

But for the last two years or so she just craves chicken fingers. It’s all she’ll eat. She without fail orders them out in restaurants and insists I bring her a big bag or two from the frozen food coolers during my weekly grocery visits.

That’s how I became acquainted with the newest trend in chicken part consumption. There’s now a chicken nugget that comes in what is described as “fun dinosaur shapes.” Mom says they’re great.

It’s almost enough for my sanity’s sake to consider becoming a vegetarian and I would, but I know I’d miss steak-shaped beef too much.

I can only guess fun-shaped food is for kids so refined that deep-fried microwaved nutritionally desolate crap must have an aesthetic appeal before he or she shoves it a down their throat.

I don’t know what’s so fun about dinosaur-shaped food. Haven’t these kids seen “Jurassic Park?”

If dinosaurs ever come back — and, you watch, that’ll be yet another result of catastrophic climate change — whole generations of chubby children will march right into their rapacious maws tragically thinking anything that fun shaped is sure to be friendly.

So I’m hoping introducing novelty items to Mom’s diet doesn’t backfire next time we dine at some family restaurant.

I wouldn’t want her stealing my thunder when I ask the waitress if she has fun-shaped chicken breasts.

Related . . .

Wingin’ it at The Pond

Breast facts, by the book

Mom’s hip nipples & Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Mom’s making crazy contagious by a nose

Hillary Swank & all my neighborhood nipples

My new office!

(1096 words)

The critical criteria for selecting a new office space were two: Would it allow opportunities for fun? And would it be a good place to fend off the marauding zombie hordes?

Because you just never know.

So my office search loosely paralleled the plot from the uproarious 2004 zombie Brit flick, “Shaun of the Dead.”

See, I’m not at all like the fancy writers, and by fancy writers I mean ones who earn their livings getting paid to write.

No, all I need is a quiet place I can make loud.

I don’t want interruptions or chat mates. I just need a small, still room for me, my laptop and my Bose wave radio. Then I just sit down, plug in and crank up (right now it’s alt-country/blues/rocker/folkie/geriatric hellraiser Ray Wylie Hubbard).

Loud music for me seems to vacuum away all the mind clutter that gets in the way of necessary thoughtfulness. I don’t know why that is so and I just hope my daughters don’t inherit the trait or else I’ll soon know the lyrics to all the songs by the band One Direction.

Because of past happy experience, I confined my search to places that served hootch.

Who knows? Maybe I’d write better if my office were above (or below) a place of worship.

But I know if someone religious-minded wandered by and heard me playing Ray Wylie Hubbard’s blasphemous “Conversation with the Devil” it might lead to a long, philosophical discourse that would sidetrack me from writing about important blog topics like how sad I feel when my socks don’t match.

And who the hell needs that?

So after about two days of exhaustive research, one of which I did while hungover, I found two places that fill those needs.

The first is Little Rock, maybe the world’s greatest bar. It has great live music, eccentric clientele, chummy bartenders and is owned by my old college roommate Quinn Fallon, who’s endeared himself to me by never once having charged me for a single libation.

But Little Rock — so named because Quinn believes every bar needs a “little rock” — had two logistical drawbacks.

One, it has no second floor. I didn’t ask, but I’m sure Quinn would have let me put a card table and a lawn chair up on the roof. I might have become a local tourist attraction.

But without walls, I might one day blunder right off the roof and OSHA would have its first case of a writer being hurt while in the act of writing.

Second, Little Rock is in Columbus, Ohio.

If I could pull it off, I’d gladly make the 3 1/2-hour drive to Columbus, spend an hour blogging, an hour drinking with Quinn and then heading home — really, being gone 9 hours a day is a typical existence.

But I’d miss daily watching “The Price is Right” and let’s be honest: I haven’t been able to confine my convivial drinking to one-hour-a-day since the 4th grade.

That left one obvious choice.

Hello Tin Lizzy!

My commute has been cut in half. I’m now just 1.2 miles from home.

My wife said I could walk.

“Hell,” I said, “I’m gonna zip line!”

Won’t that be cool? The historic Tin Lizzy is Youngstown’s landmark building.

Youngstown, remember, is the one-stoplight town just outside of Latrobe. Before moving up the mountain, Val and I lived just 1/4 mile from the Tin Lizzy from 1992 through 2007. It’s a great town and, in fact, is the birthplace and home of Arnold Palmer and summer residence of Fred Rogers.

Locals know Latrobe Country Club isn’t in Latrobe. Neither is Palmer. They’re both in Youngstown.

For seven wonderful years, my office was above a really great bar.

Now, it’s above three of them.

The basement is the Rathskeller (live music); the ground floor, a perfectly cool townie bar; the second floor is Flappers, a 1920s-themed martini bar. 

I’m now the entire third floor.

To enter I need to pass through four locked doors. It's like Maxwell Smart from the iconic “Get Smart” opening sequence.

It’s 79 steps to the third floor and I have it all to myself.

There are 11 rooms, but not 11 doors. It’s perfectly maze-like. I can get my daily exercise without ever having to leave the building.

There’s no shower, but the restroom gives the discerning urinator the choice of either bowl or wall-mounted receptacle.

I’m weighing an even/odd calendar routine.

Most of the rooms are like being in a bar’s attic. There’s old chairs, tables, paint leftovers, work space. One room has all the Christmas decorations so I can commune with Claus anytime I need a jolt of holiday spirit.

The actual office is one slim room overlooking Main Street. It’s a great view. 

The floors are badly warped so writing while seated on my wheeled chair is like writing on the pitching deck of a ship.

I was very pleased when my friend, Buck, offered me the space. He’s been running the building for, I think, 35 years. He’s gone way out of his way to make me feel welcome, as have his staff.

I got an unexpected call at 7:30 this morning. It was Sandy offering me coffee.

How sweet.

I screamed at her to not bother me again until she’d prepared a three egg-white, all-organic Western omelette with Bavarian goat cheese.

She hasn’t called back. She’s either insulted or is having a difficult time securing a Bavarian goat.

The most awkward aspect of moving has been answering so many questions about where I’m going to get drunk.

While I (mostly) exaggerate my drinking for blog purposes, people are concerned I’ll abandon The Pond.

It’s a tough call. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. All my buddies are at The Pond and I have loyalties there, but The Pond did evict me and I should convey some loyalty to the people who are welcoming me in.

I endure long stretches where my writing is roundly ignored, but I’m never lacking for interest in people who want me as a drinking buddy.

I feel like a highly touted college QB being fought over by competing NFL teams.

Not a draft pick.

A draft beer pick!

I guess there’s only one thing to do that won’t hurt anyone’s feelings among all the people who’ve been so nice to me.

Columbus, here I come!

It reeks of pretentiousness, but the reaction is convincing me what every bar really needs is a little Rodell.

Related . . .

Germanwings & The art of living suddenly

Excessive traffic lights drive man to drink

My history of drinking at or near work

Drunk on the job

“Office” Christmas party recap

I am being evicted from The Pond

Farewell Pond! I am outta here

My Social Security number exposed: identity at risk

(659 words)

It wasn’t the kind of thing a spouse usually writes on what was clearly an envelope containing a paycheck.

“This could be bad.”

But the reason she wrote that was because what was on the address wasn’t the kind of thing you usually see included on envelopes.

It was my social security number.

It was a paycheck from a London publisher.

My invoice is standard boilerplate. It’s brief, to the point and contains no extraneous information that might lead to an aggravating pay delay.

That’s why I include the social security number right beneath my name and above my street address.

An English innocent thought it was just part of the address.

I wasn’t angry. It’s an understandable mistake.

The editor was very apologetic and explained that a new guy didn’t comprehend the potential ramifications of what he was doing.

Of course, I’m anxious.

My exposed social security number traveled about 3,700 miles and passed through the hands of who knows how many postal employees.

If even one them is of a nefarious bent, I’m screwed.

My identity could be stolen.

In the eyes of the government and all the financial institutions, I’ll become a ghost, a real nowhere man. If someone becomes me, it’d like I never existed.

I have to tell you, I’m seeing some upsides here.

Who wouldn’t like to start all over at 52?

I’ve always disliked having a February 15th birthday. The weather’s miserable, it’s the day after Valentine’s Day and that’s just too much silliness for two consecutive days.

Plus I share the birthday with suffragette Susan B. Anthony and she sucks up all the attention.

Bitch.

I declare my new birthday will be May 5.

The weather’s usually pleasant and I’d enjoy the idea that lazy thinkers are bound to believe bottles of high-end tequila are the default gift for any booze-hound born on Cinco de Mayo.

So my new DOB will be May 5

1990!

Yes, in my new identity I’ll be just 25 years old.

If I could apply the wisdoms I’ve acquired through 52 years in just half the time I’m sure I’d be a real world beater. 

And because siblings can present so many pesky family challenges to one another, I’ll be a single child.

Better, I’ll be an orphan single child.

Sorry, Mom. Been nice knowing ya.

I think the new me will list his occupation as “carpenter.” I’ve always loved working with wood, it’s a great trade, and it’d still leave me plenty of time to opine.

Sort of like Jesus!

The new me would like to have the old me’s same wife and children, but only after about 10 years of test driving the new me and all the great pick-up lines I’ve dreamed up years after they were any use to me.

For instance: “My, you have beautiful skin! How can I see more of it?”

Or, “Was it as difficult growing up beautiful for you . . . as it was for me?”

I think those lines would work better on some stranger than they did on my wife, who just rolled her eyes and told me to either change the channel to “Seinfeld” or just shut the hell up and go to sleep.

That may all sound like a lot of change. Really, it’s not.

I’m very satisfied with my little life, understanding that any identity thief is bound to be disappointed when he or she tries to hack my meager bank account.

Sorry, pal, I’m not too thrilled about that one either.

If I could change one thing about my new identity, it’d be to have the 25-year-old me be more relaxed, to understand that things usually do work out and that worry is our most unnecessary emotion. I’d like new-identity me be more kind and cheerful in the face of despairing circumstances that crowd all our lives.

And I’d like him to have more Samson-like hair.

Related . . .

Pa$SweRd thieves running amok!

Iranians heart Valentine’s Day

For big profits, USPS needs to really deliver

Why today you should write someone a letter

Isn’t it time we resurrected another carpenter?