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Where’s my Discount?

October 25, 2010 / / 0 Comments

It happened this morning. Turned another page in the life thing.

At the convenience store for my morning caffeine – Mountain Dew, if you must know – the tall clerk looked down at me and said, “Good morning, young sir.”

You’ve heard the same sort of thing, I’m sure. My mother is called “young lady” by one of the waiters when we visit. She’s flattered by it. He’s a handsome waiter.

I’m not sure I’ve reached the feeling-flattered stage, just yet. The Quik Trip clerk didn’t say “young sir” in a condescending tone; in fact, it rolled off his tongue as if I really was the ten-year-old street urchin I imagine myself to be. On the inside, I’m the Artful Dodger – only without the shoplifting and pickpocketing part. Street-wise and ready to take on the world.

Trouble is, at some point I turned into the old guy who enters the store and has the door held open by a young gang member. He had tattoos that had tattoos. His ball cap had a bill that looked the size of a carport and was shifted slightly to the side, probably to help him get it throught the doorway.

Maybe he held the door open because he recognized the Artful Dodger in me, except I’m guessing he wouldn’t recognize a character from a Dickens novel, if young Jack Dawkins led Oliver Twist right out of the book and they both picked his pocket.

The whippersnapper sacker at Reasor’s asked if I wanted to have him help me carry out my purchases – two little bags that could have easily been one medium bag. “I think I can manage,” I said, suddenly unsure.

There is bound to be an up-side the the whole aging thing, and I’m hoping it is more than the senior discount at Taco Bueno. I once thought that over the years I was storing up wisdom, but it turned out to be an after-effect from the tacos.

At least we (the Dodger and I) can laugh about it:

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Ghost in the Machine?

October 21, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I was standing at the counter behind the cash register. “Hello?” someone said. It startled me, I’m not ashamed to say. I knew no one was in the store.

It was assumed that no one was under the counter. That’s where the voice came from. I looked down.

“Hello?” I replied, after some hesitation.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m here,” I answered. “Where are you?”

“Here.”

Good thing we got that settled. Except it wasn’t really. Where was here? The voice was coming from under the cash register, down with the boxes and bags and stuff. It seemed to come from the paper shredder and I thought of K95FM.

When I worked there, the transmitter, all 100,000 watts of it, was on the top floor of the Liberty Towers condos. People who lived there could pick up their favorite country hits on their toaster, dishwasher, or electric toothbrush. The condo-owners sued. The transmitter got moved. Maybe it had been moved again – to somewhere near my shredder.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Trying to find you,” I answered. “Keep talking.”

“Have you lost your phone or something?”

The phone. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know why not, really. At the moment, I was trusting my ears and the probability that her voice was rising up out of the paper shredder. Come to think of it, where is that darn cellphone?

It wasn’t in any of the regular spots, and as I made myself lower to get better reception on the shredder, my hand bumped the front of my pants. The phone was in my pocket. Ah, I thought, the phone has gone sentient. Calling people on its own now.

I finished the conversation out, speaker-phone style – since I don’t know how to change it without hanging up, or clicking off, or whatever it’s called these days. Disconnecting, I guess. I’m disconnecting now, I said, frivolously.

Time to read the manual and figure out how the phone sends its voice through the paper shredder.

Up in the Air about Security

October 21, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I’m a better driver than passenger. Not talking about the driving skills, really. I’m just more comfortable behind the wheel than in the passenger seat. Something about giving up control and trusting the driver. I can do it, no problem. I’m just saying I’d rather drive.

Jet airplane? Nah.

I’ll let the pilot do that, and trust that he (or she) has the skills or someone else would be behind the controls. I trust.

Apparently, the airline industry doesn’t. CNN reports that

Michael Roberts, a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, refused a full-body scan last week at a Transportation Security Administration check point at Memphis International Airport in Memphis, Tennessee.

Roberts wanted to protect his privacy and thinks that security folks get too gropey while doing their “pat-downs.” I feel his pain on this one. I remember when I used to think flying was fun, sort of an adventure. Now – I consider it more of a beat-down. The whole process of getting on an airliner makes me think of cattle trudging through the chutes to slaughter.

I never get through security without having to be trotted off to the side, removing shoes and undergoing the extra measures that my co-travelers miss. It’s the subversive-looking shape I wear – gotta be smuggling something under that shirt. Hey, it’s just extra me.

Likely, Roberts wasn’t on-the-job or in uniform, but you’d think there would be some professional courtesy extended to a trusted member of the flying elite. Would a golf course charge Phil Mickelson a green fee to play a round? Does Lady Gaga have to eat in the walk-in cooler when she’s wearing the meat-dress? I don’t think so.

A writer named John Nance used to write some great suspense novels about the airline industry, but they’re hard to read anymore. In his stories, people are smoking in their seats, wandering up to the cockpit and chatting with the pilot, and – the security? I don’t think that word appears in a single one of his novels. It was a naive pre-9/11 time.

Horse and buggy days were a lot simpler for the security department. It was the sanitation boys that had it rough…

The way it used to be:

Mo Info:

Is Your Name Famous?

Find a Book!

Tulsa Hispanic Community

Real Home Based Job Ideas

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