Random Thoughts III

Once again, I got into the martinis.  And as much of the regular readers are aware, I get philosophical  The result is another list of random thoughts.

when imbibing.

 

• Gas should be less than $2 per gallon.
• There are a lot of phonies who go to church.  The phoniest sit in the front pews.
• White lives matter.
• I love figs wrapped in prosciutto with bleu cheese.
• Why do people buy convertibles then ride around with the tops up?
• People who use kayaks to paddle around flooded neighborhoods look stupid.
• People who cross-country ski in snowy neighborhoods look stupid, too.
• Why should I pay for someone else’s kid to go to college, Mrs. Clinton?
• How much is too much money?  And, how much makes you rich?
• I like Donald Trump.
• “Hands-up, don’t shoot” is a lie.
• My sainted wife and I are the last two people on Earth without tattoos.
• Protesters given safe haven in Ferguson, MO, stole computers and tablets.  Nice.
• Why can you get SSI for being a douchebag?
• People come to visit and wind-up talking on their phones to someone else.  Go home.
• Cat lives matter, too.
• Where did all the hot water go?
• I must be the smartest person in my house because I know how to replace the toilet paper.
• I’m not sure why folks like their lawns to look like hay fields.
• Let Uber be Uber.
• CNN should be changed to a shopping network or cooking network.
• Where did I put my drink?
• Would I be so sick if I had mediocre health insurance?
• Why hasn’t anyone heard of Jade Helm?
• I’m tired of Glenn Beck telling me for whom I should vote.
• There is a special place in Hell for those jerk-offs who write malicious computer code.
• Why can’t dying people get those experimental drugs?
• Morons who protest killing a lion should get jobs and lives.
• If you don’t find Planned Parenthood tactics reprehensible, you are dim-witted
• Who voted for President Barack Hussein Obama the second time?
• Mosquitoes make you fond of flies.
• Global warming, global cooling, climate change - Which is it now? 
• Hard root beer is magical.
• Leave the Stars and Bars flag alone.
• We need a wall along the southern border.
• If you don’t work, stop buying stuff.  If you need money, get a job!  I’m not an ATM.
• Why is .22 ammunition so scarce and expensive?
• That grass you just mowed doesn’t look good in the street.  Sweep it up.
• Keep it zipped up until you can afford to pay for your own kids.
• I need more vodka and olives.

 

Hope you return next week for another story.  Thanks for reading.

Post Season Play

September 1964 found me and at least six other classmates suddenly deaf and wearing hearing aids.

 

Hearing aids back then were big, clunky things with hooks that wrapped around your ear to prevent it from falling out.  Many guys had them – most were because of artillery noise during WWII and the Korean War.

 

The hearing aid excuse was lame, but essential to listening to my new AM transistor radio.

 

It was a gift for my First Communion, a rite celebrated in the Catholic faith.  Thank goodness I got one because the New York Yankees were vying for a pennant.

 

Mickey Mantle was their center fielder and doing well with the bat.  Joe Pepitone, Roger Maris, and Elston Howard were driving in homeruns, too.  The Series looked like a sure thing.

 

For some reason, many of the games were played during the afternoon hours, seriously crimping my school work in the fourth grade.  It was a decision that wasn’t easy but, I needed to fake deafness in favor of listening to the game on my radio.

 

A few other miscreants though this was good idea and followed suit.  The class resembled a Veteran’s Administration facility for midgets.

 

We thought we were fooling Sister Theresa, our block warden at St. Adalbert’s Elementary School.  It just so happens, Sister Theresa was a Yankees fan, too.

 

Pedro Ramos was pitching for the Bronx Bombers and winning.  Yogi Berra was their new manager.  All was well with the world.

 

The Yanks' 29^th pennant was in the bag and, with some fresh 9 volt batteries, the World Series seemed like a cakewalk.

 

The St. Louis Cardinals were the National League champs and hungry for the title of the best baseball team in the world.

 

Actually, since only American teams play, it should be called the United States Series.  But, it is not, and I didn’t name it.

 

Alas, the Cardinals wanted those rings more than the Yankees.  It was a seven game series that found St. Louis winning 4 – 3 games.

 

We were frightened the Vatican would be called to investigate after October 15^th since all seven of us made a miraculous recovery from our “ear woes.”

 

Sure, our ability to properly use glue and find East Germany on a map was diminished.  The good news is that the Vatican didn’t get involved, our contraband radios were not seized, I don’t use glue anymore, and East Germany doesn’t exist on any modern map.

 

And, Sister Theresa got regular score updates.

Time To Go

I was shopping for groceries with my sainted wife when the cashier asked if we needed stamps.  This

is when I entered the trance.

 

Over a score ago, I was standing in line at a local Arlington, Virginia, post office, waiting to purchase enough postage to send out my payment for bills.  The line was long and I persisted because the electric company needed my cash.

 

The black clerk – we called that race of people “black” at that time because that’s what they wanted – was busy gabbing with a buddy.  She was so engrossed in her private conversation with another black lady that she didn’t notice the dozen paying patrons standing in the growing line.

 

Her demeanor immediately switched from cordial to surly when I stepped up to the counter for my turn.  Upon asking for stamps, she threw the pack on the counter, never looking up.  Money was exchanged and the deal was consummated curtly and mime-like.

 

This experience recurred every few months as my postage supply depleted until this clerk vanished.

 

She was no longer behind the counter, much to my delight.  She may have been reassigned, fired, or simply retired.  Nonetheless, she was not there trying to ignore her paying customers.  And all was well with the world.

 

But, this is where the story actually begins.  Each year, in the style of birthdays, the United States Postal Service – their words, not mine – celebrate another 365 days of poor service while begging for more money from Congress to continue this waste of tax dollars.

 

Each year they pathetically explain why they lost not only your mail and packages, but your respect and admiration.  Last year they generated over $47,000,000,000 in operating losses over the last ten years.  That’s about $50 per second.

 

But, if they only had more money, they could make a profit this year.  And so it goes with Congress agreeing to see their loss and raise them another few billion to keep the game going.

 

With this snowstorm of cash, the USPS has tried to remake itself by adding things other than postal-related stuff for sale.  Shirts, ties, and coffee mugs are just a few things that didn’t make them hip.

 

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” is not the official motto of the Postal Service, either.  It has no official motto.

 

But if it did, it should be “We lose what you lick.” 

 

Maybe it would be prudent to make stamps more easily available in the post office itself, rather than the grocery store.

 

And it might behoove them to remember they have no competition in the mail business, as it is a federal crime to compete against the USPS.  In other words, they are the only game in town.

 

Perhaps that motto should be “Surprisingly we’re still in business.”

And the Answer is…

It’s been a while since we’ve had a test so, let’s begin with one today.

 

Q:  The following symbol is called ____________.  Symbol: #

 

A:  You are wrong.

 

Okay, that wasn’t fair.  But, you are still wrong.

 

In the event you said “#” is “hashtag,” you are incorrect because it is a pound sign.

 

If you said “#” is the symbol for a pound sign, you’re wrong.

 

The pound sign is correctly represented by “£.”

 

Confusing, ain’t it?

 

As a child, I was taught # was a pound sign.  It appears on telephones and computers, and was known as a pound sign pretty much everywhere except the United Kingdom and Ireland.

 

There, the pound sign is £, which represents their money, the pound sterling, also known as the Great British Pound (GBP).

 

If you think that is confusing, in Great Britain, # was known as “hatch” not “hash.”  This corrupted word now creates confusion world-wide, with few people agreeing on its meaning.  Therefore, it should be a “hatchtag.”  It ain’t.

 

In Chinese it is called a cross.  In fact, # is the Chinese character for water well.

 

In the event you are a musician, # is called a sharp sign which denotes a change or augmentation of a note or chord.

 

Should you be editing documents, that # symbol is used for a variety of corrections of lines, margins, or spaces.

 

It can be a sink or a fence in architecture, a scratch mark, a crosshatch, or a waffle.

 

When you were three years-old, it was a tic-tac-toe game board.

 

So, no matter what you answered on the quiz, you were both wrong and right.

 

But it has become tiresome to hear the word “hashtag” in every commercial that tries to be hip, and confusing to those of us who have lives outside of the digital world.

 

Besides, at my advanced age I immediately think of fried potatoes when I hear hashtag, mistaking it for hashbrowns.

 

I’m hungry.  Stop it!