Blogservations

I heard a radio ad on Saturday. Yes, radio. I am usually an iPod guy but while dutifully scrubbing the dishes and listening to a super cool block of 80’s metal, there it was. The ad described a 50’s style diner located near the airport. It conjured up images of white paper hats, waitresses on roller skates, a neon rainbow-topped jukebox and more chrome than you can shake a stick at. For the record, the music that kept me glued to the radio included ACDC, Autograph, Scorpions, Rainbow and Dokken.  Nostaglia worked its magic.

The next day while mommy enjoyed a day off from child-taming duties, I marshaled the youths into the Malibu. We sojourned to Skooter’s Restaurant and basked in the blue & chrome exterior. We just beat the approaching rain showers and settled into blue cushioned seats and matching blue/chrome table.

The burgers, dogs, fries and onion rings filled our bellies, producing smiles and questions like, “Can we come here again?” and comments like “Can we make onion rings like this at home?” Between the friendly staff and delicious eats, we’ll be back. Next time we’ll leave room for milkshakes. Make sure you have cash if you stop in, no plastic allowed.

On Saturday night I stopped by our local walk-up burger/ice cream joint for some quick grub. A grandmotherly looking woman was treating her entourage to ice cream. When she tried to hand her credit card through the window, the teenage employee announced her obviously rehearsed reply, “Cash only, ma’am. See the sign?” She pointed a rigid arm, index finger extended to a 5”x7” Sharpie-on-paper sign, adroitly taped diagonally across the corners.

I cringed, preparing myself for grannie’s response. Grandmotherly in age she was, but with age any volume or poise filters must have broken down and crumbled to dust. Loud and tactless, she ensured everyone within fifty feet of the restaurant knew she was paying and how generous it was for her to do so.

“Reaallly?” she said. “Can you believe that, Harold? They don’t take the card!?” she asked the unfortunate man standing beside her. She turned back to the counter girl, “You know, the ice cream place I usually go to takes the card for orders over $10.”

The girl behind the counter proved unflappable. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We don’t take any credit cards here.”

“Well, Harold, have you got any cash left?” Harold nodded silently and shuffled a step forward in obedience. While Harold counted out his money with arthritic hands, Grannie cranked up the volume.

“Well this is embarrassing. Can you imagine? They don’t take the card? You know, the place I usually get ice cream takes the card for orders over $10?” The counter girl bit her tongue. The stress pulled at the corners of her lips and eyes, raging yet under restraint. Several customers shifted their weight between their feet or visibly backed away from Granny’s troupe lest they be mistaken for one of her party.

Granny continued her exclamations as she and the entourage walked to the outdoor seating area. I think she made the “under $10” comment a third time. The girl behind the counter exhaled at last, venting amongst her co-workers. It couldn’t be helped. She lacked the discipline to hold off until no customers were around.

Driving the kids around for a few more stops after our hip & cool lunch, I set my sensors on high alert. The rain always transforms a multitude of drivers into idiots fleeing from a common sense vaccination. Carrying precious cargo, I scrutinized the driving habits of approaching cars. Possessing powers of observation on par with super-humans and demi-gods, I put them to work. It appears that Sunday is the official day for citizens to talk on their cell phones while driving. Twice I was nearly side-swiped by the distracted driving of cell phone chatting “fooligans”.

Yes. I just made up a word. A fooligan is a person possessing poor judgment and zero common sense who endangers others by plowing through life with no regard to laws, other warm-blooded organisms and their own damn safety.

My blood pressure leapt as I glimpsed the laughing faces of the fooligans, chattering through their conversations. Phone pressed to their ear, they drove one handed or with their knees while slurping coffee, soda or water (at least it wasn’t booze). One guy ate a Subway sandwich while driving and blabbing on the phone. That must have been a quality conversation for the doofus on the other end of that call. They swerve out of lanes, don’t use turn signals, stop short at red lights and roll through stop signs.

Since I’ve been running a Monster cable from my phone to my car stereo, I’ve had zero issues with phone distraction. I prefer not to have a phone to my ear since I can control the call volume with a huge knob on the dashboard. Freedom from ear buds and Bluetooth earpieces is joyous. It can be uncomfortable if I have a passenger in the car, but I try not to take calls if either the caller or the person in the car with me shouldn’t hear the conversation. Whatever did we do before cell phones and the ever-connected culture we plug into today? 

An Open Letter To The Woman At The Bus Stop

Dear Woman At The Bus Stop,


I passed by you today free from negativity. But you changed all that. I cannot think or feel things the way I had before seeing you. And it's all your fault. You will be taken aback by what can seem like nothing else but an accusation, but it is your fault.


I was less than two minutes from work. Pressed white shirt. Tie knotted in a half-Windsor. Polished shoes. Hair gelled and coiffed. But then I approached the bus stop and there you were.


Your matted, shoulder-length hair hadn't seen shampoo in days. The mottled gray skin of your face forced Wikipedia images of sea mammal hide into my consciousness. Your hunched shoulders, stout legs and chubby arms screamed nosetackle. The faded chartreuse tank top could not hide your soiled bra, whose straps fell to straddle your ample, jiggling triceps.


All these things I could accept and forget in passing. But for the shorts. Those brown baggy knee-length shorts. Rumpled and worn. They hung down the outside of your thigh as best they could. But the fabric caressing your inner thighs lay trapped in the vise-like grip of your crotch. Wrinkled and pinched the shorts received no quarter from your pelvic clutch.


You pulled a hot drag from your Misty Light cigarette as my Chevy rolled past. My breath wheezed in short gasps the rest of my ride. For several minutes I composed myself in the car at the office parking lot. Drawing on reserves of courage, I staggered the hundred feet across the blacktop. It would be hours before I could look myself in the mirror.


Woman at the bus stop, you'll never know the havoc you caused casually waiting for that bus. I now question my choices and decisions of the last decade. How could you stand there so free and uncaring of the world's scorn? True freedom. I salute you and curse you in the same breath.


Regards,


Robert 

BlogOrama

I was using a public restroom the other day and extra toilet paper sat stacked on a shelf. The rolls, individually wrapped caused me to snap a double take when I read the name. Written across the TP label was the word CONFIDENCE in all caps.

First reaction? Snorting laughter burst from my lips. Then I thought about what confidence and toilet paper together meant to me. Yes, it all made sense. Tissue paper that won’t fail, always there in a pinch and most importantly, won’t inflict pain upon the user. I nodded in silent agreement to the producer of such noble toilet tissue.  

A few months back I discovered a roadside diner along a heavily traveled road where I often work. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but several cars were parked in the lot and it was almost lunch time. When a stranger enters a diner full of regulars there are two types of reactions I’ve noticed over the years.

1. Wary skepticism. You might get a nod from the first couple people at the counter. Sometimes it’s the “elevator eyes” where they look you up and down, inspecting you for who-knows-what. The hostess and wait staff smiles appear forced and their questions, “Table for one?” or “How are you today?” lack the proper warmth.
2. Warm acceptance. Conversations at the counter don’t skip a beat. The hostess greeting has all the sincerity you’d need. People in the booths smile and nod as you pass by.

In the B-diner, I always want to sit at the counter. You’ll sometimes get pulled into conversations or debates more often than not. It makes for a different experience than sitting alone in a booth playing with your smart phone or reading the paper.

So this diner, Brodie’s Diner is a B-diner. Even though I was the only person wearing a collared shirt, never mind a tie, it didn’t seem to matter one iota. But one thing made me hesitate sitting at the counter. The footrests. If I’m going to perch up on a stool while I eat, I need either a bar stool with support slats I can rest my feet on or a step that usually runs the length of the counter.

But Brodie’s had neither of these features. They decided it would be more cost effective to use milk crates. Yes, milk crates. Now I’m all for cutting costs but in this case the logic is flawed. You see, since I decided not to sit at the friendly counter I was guided to a table where I could view everyone seated there from behind. And what I saw failed to inspire.

The top of each milk crate sported a slight depression from the weight of the patron’s feet. And trapped amongst the open spaces and gaps in the plastic was, you guessed it, abandoned food. Bits of bread, egg, pickle and other unidentifiable consumables hung suspended like bugs in a spider’s web.

The rest of the diner appeared clean enough for me. Yet the space of floor under each crate looked sinister and shadowy. Maybe they glued them to the floor so they wouldn’t get kicked around by the customers? I looked for a suggestion box when I paid at the cash register near the door but they didn’t have one. A pity. The food was good. The table top was clean. Ketchup bottle and salt & pepper shakers were full. Cups, forks, knives, spoons and plates – all clean with no water marks or crusty food that the Hobart missed in hot wash cycle.

So next time you visit a diner, check the greeting you receive. If you’re in B-diner try the counter, but check the footrests first!

Odorific Ramblings

So I’m sitting in the sun room facing the backyard here in quiet Hampden, MA. Coffee steams from a cup resting close at hand. My notebook perched on my lap, I watch as two of the gutters on the rear of the house overflow. It’s quiet time here (see my past blog on what "quiet time" means in my brain design), though the kids are up. Casey is playing in her room, probably drawing and making cards. Jake is wrapped up in Phineas and Ferb or Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney. Mel gets a rare chance to sleep in.

The rain hammering the room's roof soothes me, giving me ample time to think. If only there was more silence in this life so we could stop and think. Never was this more on my mind than on this past week’s trip to Las Vegas. Talk about extremes. The 5 hour plane ride out of Hartford featured the vocal stylings of a screaming baby and the intense body odor of the passenger beside me. My noise-canceling earbuds muffled the howling infant but nothing could defeat the cadaver-like aroma producer buckled in beside me.

I did manage to read about 65 pages in a favorite novel of mine, “The Initiate Brother” by Sean Russell and wrote about 6 pages of short story material plus some additional plot outlining. I tell you that the smell of the man beside me could only be described as insidious. It never let up.

About two months ago I passed a man at a customer service desk at the grocery store. I walked past at a distance of about 8 feet. His body odor assaulted me so violently I stopped walking to confirm the source. He was buying about fifty bucks worth of lottery tickets. You know what the joke to follow is, right? Maybe he should pay his water bill? Maybe he should be buying soap? Yeah, yeah. The point is, the lack of hygiene required to create such a smell can only be described as intentional. You can’t tell me these individuals didn’t notice how rancid they must smell!

In college, a beloved history professor of mine, Dietrich Schlobohm once lectured us about the power of marketing in our modern culture. He explained that many things we are told we must buy are pure crap. Their only intrinsic value is to make money for those who manufacture and distribute this waste of resources.  His primary example was deodorant. Yes, deodorant.

Deodorant, Dr. Schlobohm explained, only masks our true selves. If you buy soap and use it daily, not only are you clean, but you smell like you ought to smell. The scent of deodorant is not natural therefore making it unnecessary. It is not essential thus you can live without it.  I have to give Dr. S credit for his logic because it makes total sense to me.

However, there many times in the too-warm lecture rooms when I needed to speak to the good Dr. after class that I couldn’t help but notice his pungent, natural odor. He never approached offensive or rancid levels of aroma, but I guess the best description is natural. And to most of us, if you can smell the "natural" on somebody that’s just gotta be bad. Or is that just what we’ve been told to believe?

How long has deodorant been around, anyway? What did we do before we knew we smelled "natural"? Where exactly is the line between natural and unnatural? I don’t think I’m skilled enough to describe that line, but I know it when I smell it. When someone’s B.O. keeps you from sleeping, concentrating, stops you as you’re passing by, makes your nose wrinkle, forces you to gag or squeeze a little bile into your mouth – you have arrived at unnatural.

Reclining on a lounge chair beside a satellite pool at Mandalay Bay in Vegas, we rest. The fun and joy of the wave pool behind us, Mel and I relax under the 105° sun. We arrived early and balked at the $50 rental of a beach chair with an accompanying umbrella. Instead we found chairs beside a tree that provided a small degree of shade while being three steps to the pool. An unexpected benefit of this spot appeared in form of an intermittent breeze. Just when my skin approached the brink of sizzle, the refreshing wind cooled my skin. 

Here, under the swaying branches and its dancing leaves I relaxed. I thought about nothing and reveled in it. All the responsibilities and worries faded into the subconscious for a time. An occasional dip in the pool kept me cool. Staring up at the towering hotel, undulating palms, puffs of clouds I became a resident of the oasis. Then a sight-seeing helicopter would pass by to remind me of the space I actually occupied in this world. Ah, the state of temporary.

I rose from the pool and the breeze actually made me shiver. By the time I lay back in the chair the chill left me and a cool equilibrium returned. The cycle repeated again and again.

Inside the resort, at the gaming tables, along the strip, in the restaurants, riding the elevator, in the restrooms, in the helicopter above the strip, at the bar – each mini-environment etched its mark upon my mind. As an observer of people, this was my Valhalla. Perhaps in another entry I’ll share more of my observations, but I’ll close with this. I love my children and missed them soon after I boarded the plane to leave. But I spent the precious few days away from normal life with my best friend, my wife Melanie. I don’t go on many trips or outings with "the boys". I don’t know if I’m missing anything. But I know this: most of the cool stuff I’ve done or things I remember most fondly I’ve shared with Mel. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you, babe. And Happy Birthday.