I'm Thinking…No!

As the house fills up with new arrivals and takes on an industrial warehouse look obscuring the house decorations we put out in a nod to tradition. I don’t really like to reuse material that I’ve written before, but sometimes events just overcome the need for originality.  So you’ll know, I did add some new bits along the way to make it seem “fresh”. I figure that if J. S. Bach can steal his own best stuff for his Christmas Oratorio, causing us to have a “wait . . where have I heard that before” moment, I can keep that tradition alive. For that reason, and because in rereading this much still works, I’m sharing the joy once again. Continue reading “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

Having bought a new printer recently, I’m at a new experience, attempting to print mailing envelopes.  My old printer did this fairly easily.  It smudged its way through. This one, not so much.  You may have inferred from previous writings that I’m not particularly comfortable in the world of technology, having butt-dialed home about 15 times in rapid succession one day from the grocery store without meaning to or even realizing it.  I was having coffee with some friends a few days ago, and one commented that he missed his old flip phone.  I smiled sympathetically.  I totally get it.  All new electronic devices should have a “moron” or “two steps above plant life” setting for people like me, and this setting should be activated by the sales staff before we walk away. Continue reading “Tech II – Accosted by Engineering”

It happens sometimes that topics just leap out at us and demand that we have to have some type of reasonable discourse.  The current climate of fear surrounding the issue of immigration is one of those, as some Americans choose to place blame and point the finger of their life frustrations on those coming to our country.  When fear and ignorance combine to overtake reason and logic, as they may have in the recent election, we are all the worse for it.  My late grandfather used to say, tongue-in-cheek, “My mind’s made up.  Don’t confuse me with facts.” Continue reading “When Fear Controls Us”

Ah, the season has officially begun.  Up to now, the catalogs came in a steady stream – maybe five or six a day from companies I’ve never heard of.  Today, however, is opening day of the catalog playoffs.  It’s kind of like the league playoffs in baseball, except more intense. Twenty-one came in today, all jammed somehow into a six-inch square mailbox.  I know, I’m not sure how that happens either.  Totally defies the laws of physics. All I know is that somewhere in the world glossy trees are dying needlessly to provide us with information we can’t begin to absorb.  Gone too soon. Continue reading “Cavalcade of Catalogs”

In the history of interviews, perhaps going back to Julius Caesar being interviewed by a reporter for the Roman Forum, this is perhaps the most absurd question of all time, in just about any context. Presidential candidates that have just lost the election, for example. We’re pretty sure how the winners feel – although the incumbent could be a noticeable exception. He didn’t look too happy two years ago. It was more a “holy crap” expression both on his and his wife’s faces. So I need somebody to tell me, in what context is this an appropriate question?   Continue reading ““What were you feeling when . . .?””

In recent days, I’ve found that I’ve sent email messages to some unintended recipients.  Thankfully, none of it involves national security, and if Hillary Clinton is reading, please disregard, Madame Secretary, and my best to Bill.  Continue reading “Technology is helpful-until it isn’t!”

This may be a bit more serious than my usual brilliant yet humorous insights. It was inspired by a local newspaper feature in which specific questions are posed to a group of people. The audience is probably not a diverse sample, so it tends to be by my guess a collection of high school students in a parking lot, children at a fair, or folks out of the grocery store. Most of the questions are not particularly worrisome, like “What’s your favorite family Thanksgiving tradition?”  It has that spontaneous, unscientific feel to that either puts a smile on your face or in some cases horrifies, much as Jay Leno’s “Person on the street” interviews a few years ago. Continue reading “National Truthiness”

They fly into our lives.  We see them individually and small clusters, hovering over bananas and apples, pears and nectarines.  Since our daughter, our resident health expert, began remarking on the amounts of fresh fruit we weren’t buying and consuming, we’ve attempted to create a facade that it’s happening on an ongoing, sustained basis. In fact, it’s become part of our household fruit culture.  Each purchase stays a while, and some actually gets eaten.  Most important, it provides a veritable wedding feast for the fruit flies.  They seem to be proliferating at an alarming rate, so I’m presuming there is a ritual involved for which we’re supplying the reception banquet. Continue reading “Stalking the Wily Fruit Fly”

It’s actually been a year since I started these ramblings, and I take this opportunity to thank my legion, (or maybe it’s just a dozen, but I can dream) faithful readers that have brought me to this point.  Not quite Hemingway, but it’s a start.  With the new Fall season, it seems appropriate to comment on the magical, joyful changes that nature brings. Continue reading “Ode to Fall”

Every day, you read about someone that has saved half their grocery bill using coupons, or the friendly couple on tv that eat out every night for next to nothing with the coupons they’ve found.  Some people use their coupon savings to purchase a vacation home at the beach.  They buy designer clothes at major outlets for what similar shoppers pay in a thrift shop. So, why doesn’t that work out for me?

My wife clipped a coupon to a place we’ve gone for breakfast.  Half off – one entrée for free when you buy two.  Won’t say what the chain is.  Let’s just say that pancakes are their specialty.  To paint the full picture, this was a chance for this place to redeem themselves.  We’d been there before.  In fact, Labor Day, when it was moderately busy but not standing room only or an hour wait.  We were seated promptly.  That was pretty much their last act of promptness.  We waited, and we waited, and we waited for someone to take our order. Finally, the young lady that was obviously in training came and got us something to drink – coffee for me, water for my wife.  More waiting for orders to be taken.  Meanwhile, of course, people that had come in long after us had their orders in and their breakfasts were pouring forth from the kitchen.  I finally asked another waitress who was supposed to be our server.  She went to find out and never came back.  This was awkward, as she was serving the tables right behind us, and had to repeatedly walk right by us.  It took us an hour and a half to have breakfast.  I expected they’d be paying us for coming, but no.  No compensation was offered or forthcoming.

So, now back to the coupons. In we go, expecting significant savings. My wife had her fall favorite – pumpkin pancakes with a side of something.  Most likely corned beef hash.  I had one of the combo specials.  Now you know that, when they offer “buy one, get one free”, that they’ll comp the lower priced one.  No surprise there. It usually says that on the coupon in teeny, tiny print that you can see plainly under a microscope.  Anyway, we have our breakfast – served not swiftly, but better than the Labor Day fiasco. The bill arrives.  I proudly present my coupon, expecting that the bill will be next to nothing.  Wrong. The server points out that, again in miniscule print, “two entrees and two drinks” must be purchased.  My wife’s water didn’t count as a beverage purchase. Of course not.  So, she orders a coffee, which she won’t drink because she doesn’t particularly like coffee.  So, bottom line is that we’re now paying $2.89 for the second coffee, and they subtract the cost of her pancakes only, $4.99 – the corned beef hash is a “side” and doesn’t count as part of the entrée.  Major bonanza.  We’ve saved a whopping $2.10.  I know what you’re thinking.  That’s better than nothing, and money off is money off.  So our breakfast tab plummeted from $23 to $21.  I guess we won’t be paying the electric bill this month on our “dining out” windfall.

Some people do miraculous things with coupons.  I’m usually the one behind them in the cashier line.  Folks come in with a wad of coupons at the drug store.  They’re getting $5 off hair spray, $4 off toothpaste, 40% off everything when that’s done.  One lady really impressed me.  She saved almost $30 on $50 worth of purchases.  And that was after several coupons were rejected by the register.  The checkout machinery is very fussy.   This one said, in a pleasant voice, “coupon expired”.  In the near future, we’ll get one that says “This is expired, you fool. Please check it before you get in line so you don’t waste my time.”  That same pleasant voice, by the way, is the same one telling me my lottery ticket “is not a winner”. It’s not enough that the cashier points it out to me – the machine has to triumphantly announce it too.

I don’t know what it is about coupons that make us giddy at the thought of savings.  There’s a home accessories chain that has very impressive coupons.  They’re big and bold – announcing 20% off in a font that takes your breath away. Then, in tiny print beneath it, “on one item”.  I marched up to the counter one day with some new bathroom towels we were buying and a cover for the kitchen mixer.  With my 20%, I saved a truly amazing 80 cents on a hand towel.  We clip coupons out for stuff we don’t even use or like.   That shampoo makes my skin break out, but I can save $1.50.  Neither of us uses skin care products, but at these prices, they’re practically giving them to us. Most of the coupons are for name brand items. I can save $2 on the name brand dish detergent, which is only $4 more than the generic store brand. They pretty much do the same thing, although the name brand is like a skin lotion for my hands. It’s like the sale flyers.  I see people pouring over them in the grocery store as if the store is giving away free stuff.  Didn’t they make a list, clip their coupons at home, and plan their shopping carefully like I do?  The latest trend in coupons is bulk savings.  They dramatically announce $2 off on cereal.  Great, except you need to buy 4 boxes.  Right next to it, or below it, is a coupon for 25 cents if you’re only buying one, which unless you have twelve children, you typically are.

Every so often the person in front of me has a coupon that they printed from their computer.  That, in some cases, is disallowed, for whatever reason.  Perhaps these customers are operating a home printing press and receiving thousands in discounts, draining corporate profits and causing a dip in  the Dow Jones average.  No, that isn’t an official, honest-to-gosh “printed” coupon.  It’s the coupon equivalent of a fake driver’s license.  Oh, some of these folks will fight it – the manager comes over, a discussion and debate ensues (“but the online coupon people assured me I could print this – why would they lie?”), my ice cream is melting, you get the picture.

Part of my problem with coupons, is that often, in a burst of ingenuity, I cut out a bunch of them, with absolutely the best of intentions and dreams of vast savings.  Most are lost along the way.  I put them safely in a kitchen drawer, where they stay comfortably for six months or so, well past the expiration date.  At one point, I devised a brilliant system.  I’ll put them in an envelope, and put the envelope in the side pocket of the car door.  That way, they will handy and at the ready.  Except that I get out, gather up my reusable bags (of which I have many for every supermarket in a ten-mile radius) and head in, completely forgetting to check the coupon envelope.  I’ve even put coupons in my pocket and still forgotten to get them out at check-out.  So I put them back into my coupon envelope until next time, when they’re three days past due.  You’d think that when I see someone ahead of me in line using a fistful of coupons, it would trigger something in my tiny brain to reach into my pocket, but no. I’m too afraid that the winning lottery ticket I bought on the way in will fall out and the person behind me will, in a few days, be on tv vacationing in Belize, telling the viewers how she “found the winning ticket on the floor at the grocery store.”  Wait, I know that lady.  I gave her my stamps for that floral china we’re not saving because it clashes horribly with our placemats.  No, no, hold on.  It was the game pieces for Grocery Monopoly that I’m not saving because I put the game card in the envelope in the car and it fell out in the parking lot when I was getting out my coupons.