I’ve reached that age where even normally insignificant things can wind up reminding me of how many years I’ve already been on the planet. Like using a gift certificate, for example. The other day, the simple, common act of buying something with a gift certificate left me rolling my eyes, muttering under my breath and dying to escape the store with even a tiny shred of my dignity still intact.
Let me backtrack just a bit. I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but I still have a black leather man-purse or “murse” from my mild and lazy early 80s period. It’s actually a holdover from an ancient fashion trend when all of us cool and trendy guys carried a small, masculine looking leather bag so that we didn’t have to shove a wallet and car keys into our too-tight Angels Flight pants. Who am I kidding? I’ve always had thighs like old growth Sequoias, so even 35 years ago I could only dream of wearing skinny, leg-hugging pants like Angels Flights. Oh well. So let’s say that I didn’t want to ruin the svelte lines of my flat front Dockers, okay?
Anyway, these days a fat wallet in even my nicest Champion sweat pants isn’t going to ruin my ultra-casual (some people, like my wife, would say ‘sloppy’) look. Even so, I’ve hung onto my worn, old black leather murse in which I now keep things I don’t use very often – like department store credit cards, airline mileage and rental car cards, pet store loyalty cards, petrified candy … you get the idea. For some reason, even my old Glendale Community College student body card from the mid-70s is in there. Maybe hanging on to it reminds me of my college days. Whatever.
In cleaning out some of the expired cards from my murse one day, I came across a gift certificate that had been given to me for a long ago birthday. It was for a big local sporting goods store and was printed on a 4 by 8-inch piece of paper with the store’s logo. Handwritten in ink was the value of the certificate. How quaint, right?
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t used it yet in all these years. So the next time I was out and about I stopped by the store in question, found a few items I couldn’t live without and proceeded to check out.
When I handed the gift certificate to the sales clerk, he took it as if I was passing him the Dead Sea Scrolls in all their antiquity. I mumbled something about not knowing if it was still valid seeing as how it had been in my wallet for quite a few years. With bulging eyes and gaping mouth, the clerk exclaimed to the employee at the register next to him, “Look at how old this thing is! Like, I’ve never seen one like this!! Wow … like, we should, like, frame this or something!” He really, like, said that. Out loud. I’m frankly surprised that his outburst didn’t cause a traffic accident outside the store.
Long story short, the store honored the certificate. In fact, my purchase that day was less than the amount on the certificate. I had a refund coming back to me which the loud young lad was kind enough to put on a plastic gift card – just like all the other cards in my wallet. Knowing me, it will now likely sit inside my murse for many more years.
And who knows, by the time I finally use whatever balance is on the thing, some other prepubescent store employee may even hold it up for all to see and say, “Wow! How long have you had this thing?!? Did you inherit it from your grandfather? I’ll bet the guys on Pawn Stars would buy this relic off you!”
Then again, maybe I’m being too sensitive. I hear that happens with old people.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
I’ve been a gun enthusiast (I’ll let others add the “nut” appellation) since my youth. I learned to shoot a .22-caliber rifle out in the Mojave Desert about the same time I learned to ride a bike. Today, at any given time I have several long rifles, pistols, revolvers, shotguns and/or black powder firearms in my gun safe. I don’t hunt. I don’t belong to the NRA. I wasn’t raised in the backwoods somewhere and was never in the armed services.
I’m a college educated, Bible-believing, law-abiding Southern California native who simply enjoys shooting firearms and practicing the skills necessary to repeatedly hit all sorts and sizes of targets (some of the moving) at various distances. And yes, I take comfort in knowing that I have the ability and the means to protect my people and property should, God forbid, the need ever arise. (Never forget: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.)
Does that frighten you? How about if I tell you that while guns have been in our home, my wife and I have safely raised four happy, healthy and well-adjusted children – not one of whom has ever fired a gun either accidentally or on purpose at each other or any other person. Our kids have a healthy respect for firearms, know how to properly handle, maintain and shoot most types of guns and fully understand the immense responsibility that is attached to owning and using guns of any kind.
This should help you understand my great frustration (although not much surprise) upon hearing that the Glendale City Council – in their infinite wisdom – passed a resolution last week to ban all gun shows from city-owned property. This means that the semi-annual (or more often) gun show at the Glendale Civic Auditorium, an event that has regularly occurred for 20 some-odd years, will be no more. (Note: for non-Southern California readers, Glendale is a major suburb of Los Angeles, CA.)
In a purely emotional response (one of the worst reasons to pass legislation) to the Sandy Hook school tragedy of last December, along with pointing out the obvious fact that the Civic Center is across the street from Glendale City College, a majority of the City Council voted to ban gun shows on city property effective immediately. Apparently it doesn’t matter one whit that the gun show operators have a contract with the city through November of 2014. Or that no one can point to a single violent or even illegal incident as a result of the gun show.
I have not only attended many Glendale gun shows over the years, I was also once a student at GCC. Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a sweep of the cars in the college parking lot on any given day turned up a cache of firearms that would stock any gun shop in the country.
Such foolishness as perpetrated by the City Council last week is the result of what is sometimes called the “do-something” disease that afflicts too many present-day politicians; intoxicated both by power and the desire to, well, do something. Anything. And so, legislation is passed that no rational, thinking person can expect to have even the slightest effect other than to take away something from those who can’t do anything to stop it from happening.
But at least the hand-wringers and do-gooders in the cash-strapped Glendale government can say they did something. Speaking of cash, it’s been reported that in 2012 alone, the three gun shows held (without incident) in Glendale generated approximately $55,000 just in rental and parking revenue. That figure doesn’t include money spent locally by out-of-town guests visiting Glendale to attend the popular gun shows here.
It’s also been reported that the operators of the show rightfully intend to sue the city for breach of contract. I cringe to think how much they will win in damages that will naturally be paid for with already depleted public funds. Now that, good people, is something to get emotional about. I’ll see you ‘round town.
Late last year I read a news report on new, supposedly revolutionary seats that German air carrier, Lufthansa, is installing in their aircraft. The seats are thinner, lighter and allow passengers a teeny, weenie bit more room to settle in for that long, boring flight from point A to point B.
Unfortunately, while the new seats allow for more passenger room, they also allow the airline to install each one closer than ever to the seat in front. So, the airline can fit MORE seats than they already do into any given aircraft. Oh, and the new seats recline just a teensy bit further than most.
Sorry, but this is not progress. Even though I would welcome extra room on an airplane, I don’t want to be even one millimeter closer to my fellow passengers when I fly.
After all – sky high airfare costs and the entire bureaucratic boondoggle called the “TSA” notwithstanding – the biggest problem with air travel today is reclining seats.
My advice to aircraft seat designers would be to eliminate the reclining function entirely. Make those suckers as stiff as my neck muscles after a red eye to Miami. I would even pay extra to sit behind a row of seats that don’t budge.
When the passenger in front of me slams back his /her seat at the precise moment I’ve either taken out my laptop to do some overdue work – or more likely – just as I’ve been given a too-full plastic cup of Diet Coke, I want to shove the seat back with both hands and launch them straight into the overhead luggage bins.
I have a sixth sense when it comes to who is going to put their hair in my lap and who is going to be caring and courteous enough to not recline their seat. As soon as the passenger in front of me starts to fidget, or pulls out one of those horseshoe-shaped neck pillows, or slams their upper torso back into the seat like they’re part of a one-person MMA match, I know the dreaded recline is imminent.
I’ve perfected several techniques to prevent this from happening, including bracing both hands against the headrest in front and locking my arms so that when the insensitive traveler pushes their seat’s recline button, nothing happens. If the person is particularly persistent, I’ve had to hold this position until long after all feeling has drained from my arms, but this ploy is often enough to make the reclining wannabe think that their seat is broken and I get to enjoy the rest of the flight with at least a token amount of personal space.
On other occasions, I’ve pretended to be afflicted with a head cold worthy of a CDC quarantine and proceeded to sneeze, snivel, snort and generally sound like I’m coughing up vital organs mere millimeters from my selfish seatmate’s scalp. Not surprisingly, that will often produce a quick return of the seat in front of me to its full upright position. When this technique hasn’t worked, it’s usually because the problematic passenger has a pair of headphones clamped over his ears that cancel out all exterior noise – be they the whine of jet turbines, the droning of announcements from the flight deck or the death rattle breathing of a fellow passenger.
The absolute worst situation, however is when the seat in front of me is occupied by an unruly child who not only fully reclines the seat, but then proceeds to use it as a trampoline for the next 1,500 air miles, occasionally popping their head over the headrest to engage me in some patience-wearing version of a high-altitude staring contest. At this point, I’ve tried putting on my best “stranger-danger” face, but it almost never works. Kids see right through my façade and more often than not the entire situation transitions into a one-sided game of peekaboo with grumpy Grandpa. Sigh. Have we begun our descent yet?
I’ll see you ‘round town.
No matter what the calendar says, Spring has arrived in my Foothills neighborhood. It’s in the air. It’s covering my driveway. It has blanketed our cars until it’s hard to tell what color they are. It’s thick on the plants in our garden and has wafted in and covered all of the tools on my workbench in the garage. There was even a thin layer of it on my computer monitor and keyboard as I sat down to write this morning. But worse part is that it’s in my eyes and nose and lungs.
For whatever reason – lack of rainfall, this year’s roller coaster “winter” temperatures, George Bush, the sequester, who knows – the air all across my slice of Southern California known as the Crescenta Valley is thick with yellow pollen. I might be hyper sensitive, but the pollen problem seems particularly severe in my neck of the woods. Before my wife drove off to work this morning, for example, I had to hose off her car just so she could see out the windows. There was a thick stream of yellow yuck running down our driveway as I squeegeed her windows clean. Before I was even finished, however, I noticed that fresh yellow powder had already fallen on the hood of her car. “Quick, drive away now,” I pleaded to her through the driver’s side window as she sat inside with the engine idling, “or you won’t be able to see out again!” She blew a kiss, wished me luck and floored it, roaring down the driveway, leaving me in a swirling cloud of allergens. With the hose in one hand and squeegee in the other, I stood and watched as she vanished into the yellow haze. Wishing I had had the forethought to put on a filter mask before venturing out into the murky morning, I looked around in wonder at my own private hay fever hell.
There are several towering, old-growth pine trees either on or leaning over our property whose branches right now are heavily laden with bright yellow, grenade-like pollen pods. They hang high above the ground, just waiting for the slightest breeze to nudge them loose and send them plummeting to the ground.
When these pods burst, they release a puff of pollen that you can actually see disperse into the air and get carried away. But the real excitement happens when all of this yellow menace meets the business end of a gas-powered leaf blower. As convenient as these tornado generators with shoulder straps might be, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a two-stroke engine revving up nearby, I can’t close all of our windows and doors fast enough. I also instinctively grab the keys so I can roll up any open car window, then have to quickly gather up any laundry hanging near the washer and dryer in our garage lest it become dusted with a yellow patina of powder. Fun times, indeed.
Just now, looking out at our front yard from my second story office balcony, it looks as if we’ve been repeatedly strafed by a crop duster with powdered lemon Jello® in its tanks. Everything in sight is blanketed with a thick yellow film. With each puff of a breeze, more pollen is released from nearby trees and drifts slowly through the air. I can actually see well-defined tire tracks on the driveway where we’ve driven our cars the past few days. Talk about yellow snow!
In researching pollen for this column, I learned that the lifespan of a pollen grain (or at least its usefulness in fertilizing or “pollenating” another plant that it happens to land on) can be as little as two hours. On the other hand, its ability to produce the allergic reaction not-so-affectionately known as hay fever can last indefinitely. Well, isn’t that just ducky.
Looks like it’s going to be one long, sneezy, drippy Spring. I’ll see you ‘round town.
