Typing Out Loud

Arsenio Hall used to have a schtick on his late-night program where he would talk about things that struck him as odd. He’d precede each bit with: “Things that make you go hmmmm….”

Well kids, that’s me tonight. The past several weeks have been very busy for this sedentary one. I bought a house and have been busy doing my preliminary move-in (that means getting my meager apartment stuff into the house) and preparing for the primary move (that being the one where a Mayflower big-rig pulls up and disgorges itself of my life’s treasures).

Dealing with lots of people, agencies, situations and entities these past many weeks has generated many a “Hmmm…” moment.

STUCK ON YOU

Adhesives are good. They hold stuff together. I’m a woodworker so most of my work relies on a good glue to hold Part A to Part B. This is especially important if Aunt Nellie is going to sit on the bench I just made. But there should be levels of adhesion, and well-understood rules about when to use each level.

For example, if you’re going to stash some very volatile radioactive waste in something, please use some really strong, permanent, impervious adhesive to affix the “WARNING — THIS STUFF COULD MESS YOU UP” warning sticker. But on the other hand, if you are the bank that owns a foreclosed house and you want to winterize the plumbing, do NOT, I repeat do NOT use that same adhesive to affix warning labels to every faucet and toilet in the house. It is not necessary.  A simple sign that says “The plumbing in this house has been winterized. Please call us before using any plumbing fixture.” would do the job.  Simple. Easy. And that sign should be attached to the front door with an adhesive that comes off very easily. Otherwise you risk making Aaron really extra-special ornery when he wastes money and time trying to de-stick these very important porcelain pots.  His level of frustration only grows as the urgency of his need to return his India Pale Ale to Mother Nature grows.

And to those of you who make windows…same rule applies to you. I (or the builder) bought your glorious glass gateways. You got your money. You win no extra sales by having a PERMANENT sticker of your logo on MY windows. I will try to pull them off and will fail, leaving a fuzzy, ugly, sticky piece of paper on the glass. Nobody likes that. And it isn’t getting anyone else to stop in to the Andersen Window Showroom. It is not.

And can someone at Oven Central ‘splain to me why the energy-use label has to be permanently stuck to the oven door? I mean, I want an efficient appliance, sure. But I don’t see the need to advertise my oven’s 2009 energy score for the next 25 years. I’ve tried to remove it and short of breaking the glass and ordering a new panel…I think it’s going to be there through turkeys, cookies and casseroles.

CUSTOMERS FIRST

The customer isn’t always right. The customer is not king. I know that. But the customer is the one paying the bills. But a couple of recent experiences have made my brain twist in its bucket.

The first incident was with a local plumbing contractor. The water here isn’t as bad as it was in Virginia, but I still wanted a water softener and water purification system in my kitchen. I contacted the company that provides drinking water in my office. I called on a day to schedule an appointment and surprise, surprise, they could be at my new house the very next day! Now that is service, indeed!

I met the sales dude at the house and talked about what I wanted and made my selection from several options. He called to the office to get me on the schedule. Guess what? No, I am not wearing a cowboy hat right now, be serious! No, they were able to be out at my place the very next day to install the system! Isn’t that something? My level of satisfaction was quite high before I even spent a dime.

So they came and they installed. The plumber dude said the softener would run for a few hours after he left then it would shut off. After that it would run every third day at 2 a.m. Cool. I wrote a very large check and was quickly distracted by the 2,744 other chores that I was neglecting.

Several days later the softener had not stopped running. The water was great, but hundreds of gallons were going down the drain…plus the thing made noise in my basement. And even at my age, I’m still afraid of things that make noise in a dark basement. (He’s down there. With an axe. I just know it!). So I called the fine folks at the plumbing place to let them know I had a problem.

“Oh, Mr. Kuehn, I am so sorry you did not experience a perfect result from our visit!” the distraught lady on the other end of the line cried. “We need to get that fixed! Did the installer show you how to bypass the system?”

“Yes.” I said. “I have it bypassed and turned off.”

“Oh, goooood!” she gushed. “Let me get our service calendar here. Hmmm…. Uh, huh. Well. Yes. Okay, we can have someone out there in two weeks, Thursday the 22nd between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Would that be convenient?”

I paused, counted my fingers and toes a couple of times, then replied, “That’s a long time to wait…especially after just having this installed.”

She didn’t have to count her digits before making her reply “Well, sir, we are very, very busy. That’s the first appointment I have. Of course if someone cancels, I’ll give you the first opportunity at that appointment.”

So, only days before they were able to hop-to and take my money. Now that something is wrong and they have to come back on their own dime, they’re suddenly “awfully busy.”

Another “Hmmmm…” moment involved my temporary apartment. I accepted a new job in Utah back in November of 2008. While still in Virginia I was trying to find a Utah apartment to live in until I sold my Virginia house and found something out here. I knew the area fairly well having made business trips out here for the past 10 years. I found an apartment complex that fit my desires so after clicking the “Contact Us” link on their website, I made known my wish to become a tenant.

Well, they were unable to “process my application” until I had paid them an up-front processing fee. That fee would be deducted from my initial deposit if I chose to sign a lease. I paid. I applied. I was accepted. I signed a lease. In late January I moved in.

Yesterday I moved out. My lease stated that I needed to give them 30 days’ written notice that I was leaving. I did that…wrote it up nicely, printed it more nicely and nicely hand-delivered it to the lady in the office. It was all very nice and cordial and stuff.

Yesterday, with a different lady on duty, I went to tell her that I was finished cleaning and to return the key. She said I needed to fill out a “Tenant Departure Notice Form.” It was three pages long. It had a lot of writing reminding me of my “duty” to give them notice, to clean the apartment, to leave it as I found it, that if they found dead bodies in the under-sink cabinet they might deduct monies from my security deposit and etcetera. It also asked of me all the same information I had included in my letter: my name, my apartment address, my social security number, my lease number, the date of the notice, the date I planned to vacate and my shoe size. Okay…so I copied the information from my letter onto their forms.

I sorta thought the lady would walk-through the apartment immediately to make sure it looked okay and then give me my security deposit. Nope. Someone else does that, she told me. Okay, I was fine with that. Maybe sometime next week I’d get my money. But she tickled my “Hmmm….” nerve by saying that I would have my security deposit back “…within six to eight weeks…”

I know, my math isn’t very good But I think that’s something like TWO MONTHS!!! Not that long ago they wouldn’t even give me the time of day until I paid them to “process my application.” Now after eight months of rent, fees and other extortions, they need two months to give me back money that is mine to begin with.

That seems odd.

YOU SUCK

Throughout my life I have had a love-hate relationship with vacuum cleaners (Linda, you know what I’m talking about!). One of the last things I did before leaving the Norfolk newspaper was to write a review of a new vacuum cleaner. The freelance assignment didn’t pay by the inch…I simply got to keep the model that I reviewed. I gave it a good review because I was really impressed with the device.

Well, after moving it from the apartment to the house (a treacherous journey of some 15 miles over the freshly-paved Interstate-15), the vacuum started to be very finicky about when it would vac and when it would not. Over the past few days, it was of the opinion that it would much rather “not.”

In addition, I recently purchased the smallest, least-expensive Shop-Vac for use inside the house. Somewhere in the Mayflower Storage Abyss is a larger Shop-Vac Wet/Dry for the shop. But I wanted one for in the house. So I bought one. Yes I did. So there!

Friday night I was using the Shop-Vac and flipped the power switch and it made a noise, blue flame shot out of the switch, and there was no motory action. She, too, had decided to not suck.

Now, the upright vacuum for which I wrote the review owed me nothing…so I had little heartache about tossing it (shhh, I threw it in the Dumpster at the apartment!). But the Shop-Vac was nearly new…but I had no receipt. And I almost NEVER return stuff. I just hate doing that. But I was peeved. Blue flames shooting out near my fingers tends to do that to me. I have a short fuse, I know.

So I went back to my friendly local Home Depot. The lady behind the counter was very nice. Because I’d used my debit card she was quickly able to produce a duplicate receipt. So I was all ready to return or exchange it but she educated me that I would in fact NOT be doing so. Nope. Vacuum cleaners and sweepers get returned to the manufacturer…not the store. Hmmmm…? That’s right. That’s the policy with Shop-Vac and many others she said. She felt really awful about this. But she happened to have a photocopied form ready for me to fill out that I should include with the vac upon return. I took the form and the vacuum back to the truck. I then went back inside to buy a new upright vacuum. The purchase of the new vacuum (one of those clever models with a cyclone) went off swimmingly.

Then I went to the United States Postal service in order to send the Shop-Vac back to the place from whence it came (I still had the box…can you believe that?)

The Shop-Vac was on sale when I bought it. I paid $24.99 (I told you it was the cheapest model they sell). Shop-Vac requires that returns be sent “First Class.” Want to take a guess at the postage costs? $19.99.

Hmmmm….

Part of my daily web-surfing routine involves browsing a site called Neatorama (www.neatorama.com).  It has all kinds of “neat” things from the internet.  This week the headline Normandy Photos:  World War II and Today got my attention.  I’m a photography enthusiast but it was the contrasting photos they chose that pulled me in.  On the left is a 1944 photo depicting a scene of horrific and traumatic war-time destruction.  On the right is a modern-day shot of the same location:  rebuilt, clean, enticing.

I followed the link and took my time examining the 100+ photos that contrast the aftermath of war with scenes of today.  It was humbling and sad and encouraging.

Picture after picture I was more and more impressed that it had been rebuilt.  The buildings and the lives.  Out of that hopelessness and despair and devastation, it was rebuilt.   It made me think that as long as we, as a people, have hope, what can we not do?

I have to think that many of the people living in the rubble did not have hope.  Or they only scraped together the fragments and dust of hope.  But it was enough to drive them forward.

Tom Brokaw wrote an amazing book entitled No Greater Generation, which I strongly recommend.  He makes the case that the generation of World War II is the greatest generation not only because of what they accomplished, but what they survived.  And what they built after the war was over.  I grew up surrounded by people of that generation and there certainly was something different about them that I understood without reading a book.  It was their strength.  And I think before the strength, came the hope…the belief that no matter what today is…tomorrow will be different.  Better?  Who knows?  But we won’t know unless we press forward into tomorrow to find out.  And it certainly doesn’t stand a chance of being better if we don’t work at making it so.

I have never been through a war nor anything comparable to what those folks went through when their homes, towns, regions, nations and lives were destroyed.  The closest was when Kalamazoo, Michigan was devastated by one of the worst tornados on record (http://www.vanishedkalamazoo.com/tornado/tornado.htm).  I remember thinking, after the tornado, that “life was over”.  I could not see the way back to “normal”.  Being a worrier by nature, the tornado had a huge and lasting impact on me.

Kalamazoo was rebuilt.  Just six years after the tornado I started a 13-year stint working in the downtown that had been wiped out by the storm.

Our ability to use hope as a fuel to move on, survive and rebuild amazes me.  Of course while the storm is beating against the walls, hope and strength are difficult to muster.  But history can teach us that life “after” is possible.  Better.  Worse.  Different.  Life.

While I write this, it is raining.

Not a hard rain.

Not a stormy rain.

Just water dripping, dropping, splatting from the sky.

I like a good rain.

I like storms, too.  A good rainstorm, thunderstorm or snowstorm makes me feel good.  Judging by the fact that most people I know do NOT share this feeling, I am left to assume that my internal barometer was installed upside down and backwards.  But whatever the reason, a rainy day puts me in an “up” kind of mood.

Right now for example I have the patio door open and I can hear the water hitting objects.  There’s almost no traffic.  The temperature is just right.  And there’s a slight movement of air through the door.

Rainy days put me in a creative mood.  Today I could write a bestseller, build an awe-inspiring bookcase or throw a most incredible pot.  Rain raises my spirit.  I think it’s a reminder that God and nature are in control.  It is nature replenishing the earth and cleaning off of the dust of everyday life.

Snowfall has a similar effect on me.  Everything gets a fresh, white covering.  Made clean and brand-new.

It doesn’t matter if you are man or beast, tree or brick, you get the same treatment.  Equality like none other.

I also like the fragrance that rain puts into the air.  No matter where in the world I’ve been, rain tickles the same buttons in my nose.  And they are good buttons indeed.

During a rain like this my day-to-day concerns and preoccupations seem lessened in their importance.  They’re still there, but the rain is a good drug that moves them to the side and helps me to see around them and ponder the goodness in life.  And there’s plenty of it.  There is plenty of badness, I’m not arguing against that, but there is goodness, too.

The non-human creatures out there seem to approve as well.  The birds are singing and a few stop by the shrubs near my window to give me a song and to bathe in the cascade.

I like a good rain.

I’ve been noticing more and more lately the “empty” words and phrases in advertising.  Of course, the very fact that it’s in advertising makes it suspect…they’re trying to get our money so a dose of skepticism and buyer-beware attitude is just smart.  And I know they’ve always been there, but maybe I’ve been bored lately and paying closer attention.

When we speak we often make grammar errors or say things that we later realize were wrong or of incorrect style or just silly.  Print is a different thing in my opinion.  Especially advertising.  Advertising goes past the eyes of many people before it sees the light of day.  There are more opportunities for questions to be asked, for modifications to be made and for the message and meaning to be analyzed.

A word that has caught my interest lately is “certified”.  You can buy a “certified” used car and you can buy it from a “certified”  sales professional/sales consultant/customer service representative/High Priest.  Plants are “certified” to grow and thrive.  Sellers “certify” their products.

What does all this mean?  What body is doing all of this certification?  Or are they being really extra-super sly and just saying they gave these people and products a “certificate” — a piece of paper with some decal on it — and that makes for a certification?  I suppose in court that would pass muster, but they’re messing with us and we know it.  I don’t like to be messed with.

If someone is a Microsoft Certified Server Administrator that means something.  They studied/took classes and passed a standard test that everyone with that certification must pass.  There’s a testing body that administers the testing and holds people to a standard.

But if you are a “certified used car salesperson”…what school did you go to?  What training did you take?  What independent organization tested your knowledge of the subject and bestowed your certification?  Or was it sales manager Bobby explaining to you where the keys to the cars are kept and what margin to shoot for and what your commission will be and how to play with the numbers of a prospect’s trade-in?  Was that the certification process?  Or was there really NO certification process at all and the people making the commercials just threw out the word because it sounds official and comforting?

I fear it is the latter.

I’ve never seen schools advertised where I could get all of these certifications.   If I wanted to pursue a new career selling home electronics and I wanted to be a “certified home electronics specialist”, what community college offers that training?  Where are the tests administered?  How much do they cost?  For how long is the certification valid?

I suspect it’s all a lot of hooey.

And if those begonias are somehow taking a test and being certified I want to see that!  I can’t figure out how their branches can hold onto a Number-2 pencil in order to complete the test….

Believe it or not, dinosaurs did not roam the earth the last time Americans experienced the full-service gas station fill-up.  And by “full” service I mean that they pumped your gas.  There was a time when they would check the air in  your tires and your oil level, but I think those were just lightly-disguised ploys to up sell the driver on a quart or two of 10W-30.

With apologies to New Jersey and Oregon where full-service is the law, most fill-ups in this land are pump-it-yourself.  For a while, when gas stations were phasing out full-service, you had your choice:  park at the pumps nearest the building and you’d get your gas pumped for you; park away from the building and the joy was all yours.

I remember the arguments that people had about this change.  Some liked it because they wanted to fill and be on their way.  Others were against it because now they would be the ones getting petrol burps on their skirts.

Along with full service was a special dialect that was used to make your gasoline order.  This special way of speaking has has all but evaporated.  In days past you would hear drivers shout “Fill ‘er up,” meaning fill the tank full.  Or you might here “Give me five worth,” meaning once you’ve given me five dollars’ worth of gas, stop.  It reminds me of the style of banter one would hear at a farm auction:  “Who’ll gimme five, five, five, five for this whosie-whatsis…do I hear five, five, five?”

With the fill-yourself model you had the privilege, after finishing the dirty deed, to walk into the store and pay for the amount on Pump 7.  I always wondered how long that would last.  I mean, upon seeing old Frank over there filling up his little lawnmower gas can at Pump 3, how easy would it be for one to prance in to the store and pay Frank’s two-gallon bill and then drive away?  That would leave the young felon behind the counter wondering who pumped the 25 gallons on Pump 7…and Frank looking stupid.   At $3 an hour, that little escapade would have eaten up said felon’s earnings for the day.  He probably made up the difference by stealing beer and selling it to the 10-year-olds gathered out back…so let us not feel too awfully sorry for him.

The next big change at the gas station was the inclusion of plastic processing equipment right in the pumps.  I think this is one of the best consumer benefits to come along in years.  With a card reader at the pump the customer could now buy whatever quantity of whatever grade gasoline they wanted and pay for it with a credit or debit card right at the pump.  Faster.  More efficient.  And it allowed the customer the opportunity to avoid the delicious Klondike bars calling their name at the cash register inside.

So today was gas day for the ole Hemi pickup.  I count myself lucky when I can make it a full week in the mountains between fill-ups.  It’s a major financial transaction and one that is not one of the high points of my life.    But today I had a thought (it does happen).

For years we bought gas with some consideration for the amount of cash we had on our person.  If you had five dollars (or in today’s economy, $30), you might fill your tank to that amount, even if that didn’t fill the tank.

Similarly, wanting to be as efficient as possible, rounding up was (and is) very popular.  If the pump shuts itself off at $27.83 we often squirt and spurt our way to an even $28 (even though they tell us we’re killing our cars and whales by doing so).

When we were using cash that sort of made sense.  We wanted to be in and out and on our way.  We didn’t want to force the poor kid at the register to have to make incorrect change.  It was a good thing.

But now it seems everyone is using plastic of some sort or another.  The gas station I used today in particular was quite busy.  It takes a while to pump 25 gallons so I had plenty of time to people-watch.  (I am convinced that they’ve decreased the flow rate so that we are forced to stand there longer and listen to the ads for the stale doughnuts on sale inside).  Without exception everyone that went inside to pay was getting something in addition to gasoline.  Most of them were buying water to drink.  But the majority of clients during my visit were paying with plastic at the pump.

I had that thought in mind when I was getting ready to top off to an even dollar amount…when it struck me!  Why am I doing this?  I don’t have to worry about change.  Whether I make it an even $59 or $58.93 I’m going to be on my way in exactly the same amount of time.  Why do I still try to make it an even amount?  It’s silly and stupid!  Much like my own self!

I mean, when you go to Olive Garden do you keep adding appetizers and desserts trying to make an even amount?  At the shoe store?  At the Piggly Wiggly?  Of course not!  You buy what you want, you pay and then you proceed with your sad life!!

So I decided to start today, being a little more sane and little more wise and a little less captive to habits.  I am not going to round off my gasoline purchases.  I won’t!  So the truck has gas and it cost $58.93.  Period.  Done.  End of story.

(Just for the record, I could have gotten that last $1.07 in there…I could have if I wanted to).

Back in the 1970s, if my memory is up to the task, there was a nationwide advertising campaign that featured an owl exhorting the message “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.” The owl was named Woodsy.

There was also a series of adverts featuring a Native American crying about the way Americans were polluting the land.

Of course today we have the very strongly-worded messages on our McDonald’s waste: “Please dispose of properly.” Who could ignore such a threat from the Hamburgler? Certainly not this fast-food junkie.

For most of my life I didn’t give litter much thought. I came from a family that more or less picked up after itself. When I was a rotten kid it didn’t occur to me to toss my Quarter Pounder foam box out the car window.

Litter as a scourge on society didn’t occupy many of my brain cycles until a little more than a decade ago when I moved from my native Michigan to Norfolk, Virginia. I moved to the steamy swamp of Virginia for a job. A great job, mind you, but up until this past February when I moved to the mountains of Utah, the state of Virginia and I never became close, personal friends. I disapproved of the weather in Virginia (I still do, in fact). But one of the first things I noticed back in the winter of 1999 while in Norfolk for the job interview was the litter. Trash. Everywhere.

Norfolk is purported to be the largest naval port in the world. It sits on the Chesapeake Bay. Ocean. Wildlife everywhere (even though much of it is creepy, crawling, bitey and stingy). And along with all of that nature-ness was paper, trash, bottles, cans and plastic bags. Along the roadways. In the culverts. Blowing across fields. Ankle-deep in parking lots. It was such a contrast from Michigan that it really made an impression.

During my time in Virginia it never improved. I can’t say it got any worse, but it didn’t get better. I talked about this state of affairs with a good friend of mine who was a military veteran (I was one of three non-vets within a 100-mile radius of said Navy base — I am convinced that they let me live out of pity). He had spent much of his military time in Germany, known the world over for public parks that sport picnic tables that are clean enough for light surgery. Certainly the German culture (Germany being where my people originate) is one of control, order and “rightness”, so perhaps it’s simply in the water. But my friend noted that his vision of litter and pollution was perhaps tempered by years in Germany because every place he went compared poorly to his experience of German order and cleanliness. How could it not? Those Germans are some fine people. And they know some amazing things to do with cabbage and sausage.

But back to Virginia. Or, rather, let’s get the hell out of Virginia, which is what I did a few months ago. I am now in Provo, Utah. I am at the base of the Wasatch mountains. It’s a desert climate. It’s mountainous. It’s a dry heat as I oft-say. But today it struck me, while out for a drive, it’s clean. Sure, there’s some litter, but I notice it even more starkly here because it is certainly not common. When I see a Wendy’s bag or a plastic grocery store bag I think “Ooops, someone must have dropped that.” In Virginia I was racking another round into the chamber to deal with the weasel that blatantly tossed their crap into my ecosystem. I’m sure there are weasels here in the mountains, too, but the general state of cleanliness here cuts them a lot of slack from good ole Mr. A.

So what’s the difference? We’re all Americans. We’re all in the melting pot. Perhaps it’s the inherent natural beauty of Utah that makes people think three or four extra times before tossing their crap out the window. But what explains Michigan? Oh, don’t get me wrong, Michigan has its own version of amazing natural beauty, especially the closer you get to Canada.

I think here in Utah the answer is the mountains. They are a visual representation of God looking over everyone’s shoulder. You don’t dare do something too blatant, that mountain’s looking!

In Michigan I think it was bottle laws. A reach you think? Yeah, it is. But in Michigan every consumable “bottle” (Coke, Pepsi, Dew, water, etc.) requires that a deposit of ten cents be paid at time of purchase. Later you return the empty container to the store and you get your dime back. So even if Dudley Dufus tosses his empty bottle of sugar water out the window, some 12-year-old boy is going to come along on his bicycle with visions of getting rich one dime at a time.

I think the general mentality of holding onto those bottles carries over to other waste. People think about their garbage. They’re more likely to hold onto their trash because there might be some money in it.

I’m not advocating that everyone have a bottle law. It’s a huge undertaking. Stores are required to collect the deposit. Stores must accept the dirty, stinky empties. An entire industry has developed to create automated return robots that accept your empty, crush it and give you a receipt good for cash to buy Budweiser on your way out. So it’s expensive for society to do this. (And I’m purposefully ignoring the costs of trucking the empties to some remote villa where they are, if propaganda is to be believed, recycled into artificial heart valves, Cheetos and other fine goods). And who knows, maybe the net result isn’t that great. I imagine that the carbon footprint to create those return-your-empty-here robots is pretty huge. They use electricity. They are broken every other minute. But the green spaces are greener.

The key to keeping our earth all clean and tidy? Grow mountains. Great big snow-capped ones. Do your part — plant a mountain today!

I have been quite fortunate during my lifetime to have had almost no experience with crime. Sure, I’ve set fire to a couple of abandoned warehouses, who hasn’t? But I haven’t been the victim of major theft nor violence.

So perhaps my experience in the area of personal security means I should keep my trap shut on the following observations, but I’m not gonna.

During my formative years (which ended last Tuesday), cars had locks on their doors that required the pushing or pulling of a knob. Rare wealthy folk had locks that were operated by electricity and other forms of witchcraft. But for the most part, when you got out of your car at the Kmart, you pushed the knob down and the door was locked.

And we liked it. It was easy. At a glance you could tell if the door was locked or unlocked. And even if you had the electric locks, the principle was the same.

Seemingly overnight the remote radio-controlled locks came on the scene. One might be tempted to think that they are a frivolous luxury meant to appeal to the blue-hair set, quick to show off their new Pontiac in the hopes that Mabel might mistake it for a Mercedes. But I think these remote controls are terribly useful. If you live in a climate with nasty weather, like my native Michigan, getting the doors unlocked without having to fumble with a key and break the ice that has formed over the key-hole, is more than a mere convenience. The use of the remote control unlock feature has saved countless fingers and noses.

The handy remotes also have the ability to unlock the trunk which is another great advantage to modern life. And finally, these devices have the panic button which sets off the alarms, horns, lights and other annoyances that go totally ignored. Of course, when you set them off accidentally everyone looks your way and thinks “What an idiot.” But when the hoodlum has his machette at your throat everyone goes deaf and dumb in an instant. So the jury remains out on the usefulness of that feature.

But what I fail to understand is the logic, if indeed it exists, behind making the car “chirp” when using the remote to lock the car. Sure, I’ve just pressed this button and I’m not sure if the car “heard” me and actually locked the doors. And since I’m carrying my life savings in small bills, flying around in the back seat, I want to make damn sure those doors are locked. And the fact that I’ve left my two-year-old son in the car to guard the cash isn’t good enough — I want the doors locked!

Of course this irritation isn’t new. It’s been going on for years. But today I was sitting in my truck, in a large mall parking lot, and over the course of 10 minutes, nearly a dozen people parked, got out of their vehicle and started to walk away. They then pointed their remote device (this “pointing” action always amuses me…like they’re afraid they may innadvertently lock the car NEXT to theirs) and press the “lock” button. The car horn sounds off! How are other drivers supposed to nap with all that racket going on? Why? WHY? We have enough pollution, of all kinds, we don’t need the horn to honk to tell us we’ve locked the car. Flash the lights if you need some cue that the task has been accomplished. But don’t alert the mother ship every time you press that button!

And isn’t it interesting that, it would seem, every auto manufacturer on the orb has come up with the same brilliant method? It doesn’t matter if you have a $9,000 Hyundai or a $40,000 Lexus — press that “lock” button on the keyfob and you’re going to be jolted with annoying noise.

Now, I could simply blame the manufacturers for bad design. And I do. But I blame my fellow upright-walkers more. You’re getting out of your car. Your hand is on the “open-the-door-thingy”. What else is RIGHT THERE? What’s the other closest control? The locks! And they’re electric! And they are in the form of a simple button/lever!! Why not just lock the damn doors!? It’s quiet. You can hear and see them function. You can know they’re locked. You pretend to be smart, intelligent and thoughtful.

Oh, yeah, right. Sorry ’bout that. I wasn’t thinking.

I enjoy ketchup.  I don’t go so far as to put it on my eggs at breakfast or use it to restore hair growth, but I like it quite a bit, nonetheless.

I like it with french fries, burgers, hot dogs, burgers and sometimes I even put some on my burger.  Of course Heinz is the best brand.  I say “of course” because I know Heinz is the best and if you disagree, you’re simply wrong.

Being a tomato-based product, I am not a fan of ketchup being saved, stored or marketed in plastic containers.  I’m suspicious enough of the evils that lurk in the Rubbermaid…add the acid of tomatoes and you’re just asking for children with gills.  So I want my sauce in glass.

But this peeve is not about plastic bottles (well, one paragraph of it was), but about how ketchup gets disrespected in public eateries.

Almost any other food item that is not packaged for single-use is protected in the back rooms and/or refrigerated.  Want some A-1 Steak Sauce for your dead bovine?  You have to ask for it and after clearance has been obtained from the proper authorities, and the Condiment Vault has been opened by those two Marines standing in the corner, you are allowed to ruin your steak (it is a free country after all).

Even mustard, ketchup’s yellow cousin who always got picked last for games of Red Rover in the fifth grade, is more often than not in protected territory.

But ketchup?  It’s just sits out on tables.  All the time.  Without refrigeration.  Open to defilement by kids’ plague-dripping fingers, puppies and other close-to-the-ground threats.  I mean, drive by your favorite restaurant at 3 a.m. while making an emergency run to the 7-Eleven for some Ben & Jerry’s, and you’ll be able to see bottles of ketchup standing guard in the lonely dining room.  Bacteria grow.  The sour bite of spoilage swims through the once-divine topping.

It makes me want to cry.

Not only is this excellent and necessary food addition spoiled, causing unknown incidents of jay-walking and improper brushing technique, but it is a tremendous waste.  And I hate to see food wasted…even if it’s going to MY waist.

You’re thinking that must be the end, right?  What more could Mr. Cranky want to whine about on this topic?  Well, I’ll tell you what!!!   It’s the practice of some disreputable public eating establishments to refill ketchup bottles!

Yep, they do!  I hope you didn’t just hurl on your keyboard, because I ain’t cleaning that mess.  In your head you’re probably trying to come to grips with this horrifying concept.  I suspect you’ve created the mental picture of fresh and new bottles of ketchup being poured into nearly-defunct bottles.  But, no surprise here, you’d be wrong.

Here’s what they do:  they gather all of the ketchup bottles that are in danger of being empty and they…CONSOLIDATE them!  Ketchups of varying vintages, some going back as far as the days of the rotary telephone, are mixed, co-mingled and, I can’t go on….  It’s simply too horrific.

I am too lazy to do the research, but I strongly believe that this is against some sort of code, law or proclamation.  I mean, we have laws to protect us from stuff like this, don’t we?  I’m not allowed to sell gasoline labeled as milk, why should my life and happiness be put at risk by this dangerous ketchup cocktail?

But even if there is no law, common sense should prevent such atrocities!  But then on some days, (such as those when I witness the buggered mouth of a refilled ketchup bottle), I believe that I am the only one left with any sense.  Common or otherwise.

When I was a kid I used to watch my dad shave.  I was fascinated by the entire process.  I’m probably not alone in that.

It started with the spreading of Rise shaving cream all over his face.   The smell of the shaving cream, mixing with the steam of the hot water filling the sink is a fond memory of my childhood.  There’s something different about the fragrance of shaving cream.  I can never get enough of it.  The fragrance seems to grow legs and run when I knows my nose is on the prowl.  There was nothing to match dad’s shaving cream.

My earliest memories of dad shaving have him using a safety razor.  That thing scared the bejesus out of me!  My dad was perhaps the most technically skilled people on the planet, in my eyes, because of his ability to wield that razor without leaving a pound of flesh in the bowl of the sink.

Before too long he switched to one of the many disposable models…with, oh boy, twin blades!

The sound of the blade working its way through his whiskers is one that has stuck with me.  It was loud and sounded oh so rugged.  Shaving my own face has never sounded the same.  It was an earthy and elemental sound that compares to nothing else.

When the shaving was done, he would do an inspection in the mirror, using his hands to make sure nothing had been  missed.  It would all be finished off with a splash of Hai Karate.  (Why did they have to stop making that perfect green elixir before I was old enough to smell just like dad?!)

The experience ended when dad drained the water from the sink.  That left a shaving cream and black whisker skin clinging to the porcelain.  A pretty disgusting end to such an elemental experience.

As puberty approached I got that lone, disgusting hair on my chin.  I couldn’t wait to shave that tree trunk off my chin:  my first whisker!   If I’d only known about the lifetime of maintenance, nicks and “Oh, man…can I skip shaving just this one morning?” that lay ahead!

For the past several years I have had a strong preference for the Gillette Fusion Shaving System.  That’s right…it’s a system.  And a fine system it is!   I spent more than a decade with a beard so I was out of the shaving scene for quite some time.  After losing a bet several years ago that sent me back to the blade, I tried a large variety of whisker-shearing implements.  The Fusion has been the clear winner in my book.

Nothing else has felt so good.  The first handle I bought for it was one of those that accepted a battery so that it could vibrate during the shaving process.  A gimmick I admit, but it made the whole boring endeavor a little more interesting and official.  At the risk of having my Geek Card revoked, once that first battery ran out, I never replaced it.  So now I shave without the floor show.

The Fusion cartridge has five blades.  Amazing, isn’t it?  Within a few years we went from a large, naked blade resembling a machete to these multi-bladed devices encased in protective plastic, bounded by lubricating strips and GPS units.  I’ve given the entire thing an awful lot of study and I’ve determined the reason I like the Fusion so much is not so much the number of blades.  Rather, it’s the fact that the blades are exposed — the running water can race in between the blades and clean out the smudge.  That makes each post-rinse pass crisp and clean.  I can feel the sensation!

So, I’m a fan.  These blades are a marvel of modern science and engineering.  But the price!  Is it worth it?  I mean, I just bought four cartridges for $15!!!  That’s totally insane!  Is a clean-shaven Aaron really worth that much?  I’m not sure.  So given the high price, I tend to use each cartridge way too long.  They have a guilt-inducing throw-me-away-and-buy-a-new-one strip on them that indicates when replacement is “suggested” … which in my experience is after two swipes over my chin.  I manage to get almost a month out of each one, sometimes it ain’t pretty…but then I’m not a pretty-boy.

Which is why I’m thinking of writing about this today because this morning, I loaded a fresh cartridge!  Oh, I’m sure you’re with me here!  So smooth!  So comfortable!!!  So clean!!!!  I wish I had a fresh cartridge for every shave.  But until those huge royalty checks start to roll in, I’ll be milking each cartridge until the level of rust resembles a ’76 Pontiac on a Detroit side street.

So this morning while I was prepping for the joy of the new blade, I noticed something on the package.  I purchased the new blades at Albertson’s.  Very expensive blades though they are, notice the warning message!  This scares me more than the “…without express written consent of Major League Baseball…” warnings!  What’s with this?

My first thought is that something has happened to cause this grocery chain to add these stickers.  I mean, there’s got to be some cost, labor and effort involved in getting these labels on the packages.  So apparently energetic individuals are making a business of stealing shaving blades from stores and…egad…SELLING THEM ON THE BLACK MARKET!

It makes perfect sense that they would bypass the booze, the drugs, the toe-nail polish (perfect for sniffing) and the chocolate to steal the much-sought-after shaving blades!    I know when I’m down on my luck and looking for a thrill, I say “If only I had some hot blades!”

I guess I can rest easy tonight knowing that the really accomplished thieves are scoping out Walgreens and my neighborhood is safe for terror and mayhem.

If you’ve been out of your cell recently, I’m guessing that you have.  I believe the generic name for this marvel of mechanized paper dispensary is motion-activated hand towel dispenser.  What an interesting development in the field of bathroom science (my university catalog didn’t list this science as a major…state schools).

But a thought occurred to me recently whilst arguing with one of these wall-mounted boxes of paper pulp.  Where did they come from?  Now, I know they’re comprised of plastic and metal bits — I’m not looking for a stork-based answer here.  But did you notice how quickly these things appeared almost everywhere?  It was fast I tell you, FAST!  One day public facilities were being served by decades-old classic models and the next we needed technical training to dry our hands.

Some classic models required the user to grasp a piece of the next sheet and pull, often resulting in useless  torn sheets and great piles of paper on your toes.  Other models were equipped with some sort of handle or lever that needed to be depressed or cranked to make more paper available.  I’m happy to voice dissatisfaction over a variety of things that don’t meet with my approval, but I honestly never had an issue with the old dispensers.  Granted, sometimes I was forced to use the jacket of the guy ahead of me to dry my hands, but that was rare.

I suspect these rampant changes have something to do with the swine flu.  Or perhaps fear of some other worldwide calamity such as an outbreak of common sense or large incidents of parents controlling their children.  I will say that almost any workable device is better than those porcelain-clad gizmos that blow air, stirring up myriad bacteria, odors and dislodged toe-jamb from the floors of public facilities.  These motion-activated models easily beat the blow-and-hope method.

But I wonder about the net effect here.  Let’s say you’re Clyde and you own Clyde’s Croissants And Bird Baths.  You’re a small business person, struggling to break even in a very tough economy.  One has to imagine that you, Clyde, have several things you’d like to do with a little extra coin in your pocket.  So let’s imagine for a moment that your cousin Reginald who runs the local donut shop takes a week of vacation to visit the Wisconsin Dells.  What is the local constabulary to do without their daily dose of donuts?  Of course they turn to you, maker of flaky and buttery goodness.  This causes you to dramatically increase your Cop Croissant Capacity, or C.C.C.  This in turn increases your profit for the month.  Next thing you know you’re sitting there with a cup of hot bean water and wondering what to do with the additional $500.

New carpet?  A new sign?  Some fresh advertising in the local newspaper?  A radio spot?  A new cash register?  A bonus for the pimple-faced punks mixing dough in the back room?  A new mixer?  More chairs?  No…you, Clyde, buy a couple of motion-activated hand towel dispensers!!!!

Now you have not only spent money on the devices, you need to hire someone to remove the old ones and install the new ones (you’re far too busy and inept to attempt this on your own).  And now you must buy batteries to power the units.  Multiplied by the tens of thousands of units sold and, well, let’s just say that I think there’s a big bunny with a drum at work here.  And we all know landfills are starving for more batteries, so that’s a good thing, too.

And paper.  You didn’t think about that, did you, Clyde!  No, you didn’t.  You had a swelling supply of paper for the old machines.  These new ones use a special kind of paper, a special size, on a special spindle.   And they don’t absorb worth crap — Saran Wrap would work just as well.  You’re going to have to stock up on this new paper.  And I’m sure you’ll find something really useful to do with the old paper, like staunching those shaving nicks on your chin.

So all in all, this is a pretty involved and expensive proposition.

But why?  I don’t think even Oprah, on her best day, could get this level of national compliance (sorry Steadman, don’t hurt me).  And this change came about during the Bush #2 administration…and since nobody was listening, I doubt he had anything to do with it.  I keep coming back to fear of disease…perhaps the makers of these devices employ the best sales professionals on this orb — weazels who are able to instill great levels of ridiculous fear.  They were able to somehow get all these people to replace stuff that didn’t need replacing.

When I think of a public bathroom I see a room swimming with bacteria, germs and plague.  All kinds of nasties spread by other creatures live on the door handles into and out of the bathroom and stalls, on the flushing levers, on the water faucets.  I’d be willing to bet that the push-levers on those old dispensers were the CLEANEST part of a public bathroom because, IN THEORY, they only got touched by hands AFTER some minimal effort at washing.

So I’m totally dubious that these boxes are helping to prevent the spread of germs nor have they saved the life of the next great humanitarian.    And I’ve come very close to destroying numerous models for not giving me the next sheet fast enough, or turning out too dainty a piece of paper or being totally empty.   And that whirring noise…I don’t need that right after I’ve done some serious thinking, I just don’t.

I think their ubiquitous presence is evidence of a great marketing and sales job that is perhaps one of the biggest, yet most silent, successes in the business world since the invention of the hedge fund.  I’d like to get some of this sales mojo in MY business.   What a waste of…everything.

Now, an automatic Purel dispenser…THAT would be revolutionary!