Sabbatical

Someone had a good idea. I'm taking the month off. See you all on or around December 1st.

Darling, I Do Believe I May Have Been Bamboozled

"Would you like to donate $1 to our ... mumble mumble ... blah..." I heard her ask the two customers in front of me at my local Wendy's fast food / artery cloggers outlet. I couldn't make out the cause, but the way she was saying it, I don't think I was meant to.

I really don't much care for when people put you on the spot like that. No matter what the cause is, you come across like a stingy jackass if you say no. "Okay, so you're buying $20 worth of really unhealthy food and you can't spare one measly dollar to help out the orphans in Zimbawe?"

But here's the thing with me. I don't put out even a nickel unless I have assessed whether it makes sense. And I can't POSSIBLY do that if they put me on the spot like that. Occasionally, only very occasionally, do I find someone peddling a cause that I have done homework on already. Like last week at my haircutting place they were giving money to the Philadelphia Food Bank. I gave them my dollar there.

At Wendy's, I had decided to decline.

I ordered one of their grotesque value meals and a medium frosty. "Would you like to donate a dollar blah blah blah..."

"No thank you, not today." I was polite but firm, and she went about her business. I paid with a credit card, she gave me my food.

Normally at a fast food place, when you pay with plastic, they put the receipt in the bag. But not this time. I went back to the counter. "Excuse me, I didn't get a receipt."

"Oh, sorry. I can't. That machine is broken. It's not even here anymore. They took it away!"

This is generally not acceptable, as I rely on those receipts to keep my account balance up to date, but there didn't really seem to be anything I could do. So I took my food and went back to the office.

As I sat at my desk, stewing over the fact that I was going to have to remember this transaction, I started to do the math. Meal - $7, Frosty - $1.60. So that's $8.60. Plus tax, ummmm -- maybe $9.

My total was $10 something. Or around a dollar more than I think it should have been.

Now, I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case, here's what I think happened.

I think she added a dollar to my order even though I told her not to. And I think she withheld my receipt so that I wouldn't figure it out.

The only hole in my theory is that she was so smooth in telling me that the receipt machine was broken. No stutter. No stammer. Made eye contact while telling me. Of course, that might just mean that she's been practising that all day on all the other people she bamboozled too.

Well, at least it's only a dollar. But guess where I don't think I'll be going next time I need a heart attack on a bun?

That's right -- the Wendy's, on Second Street Pike in Southampton PA.

Autumnal

This is one of my favorite times of year. There's just something magical about watching the leaves turn color and spreading to decorate sidewalks, streets, parking lots, etc. It's like I am living in a real life Americana painting or something. I have been spending lots of time outside with my camera trying to capture the colors and bring them home with me.

Generally, the pictures fail to capture what I saw. Maybe the sun was hitting the leaves in a certain way that is lost. Maybe the act of putting a border around the tree limits the experience. I don't know. Sometimes I am pleased. Mostly I am not.

Another thing about this time of year -- the cooler weather. I hate to sweat. That is, I hate to be sweating when I am not exerting myself. Just sitting there in oppressive heat makes me grumpy. But now, I can open a window or go outside and cool off. It's a beautiful thing.

As I drive the roads these days, I am gripped with a strong desire to just drive north, west, south -- anywhere really. I want to leave my clocks behind. My structure behind. My framework behind. For a time, I just want to be. To eat when I am hungry, not when the clock says noon. To sleep when I am tired. To wake when I am no longer tired. To shed the shackles of other people's needs. I don't want this forever, just long enough for me to start demanding that structure back in my life.

I think I am overdue for a sanity day. I used to take sanity days all the time. Take the day off, not tell anyone where I was going to be or what I was going to do. I haven't done that in ages. Not so much because of family pressures, but because I can't just let work exist without my meddling.

I think it's time to let go for a while.

I am also beginning to suspect that Niagaran Pebbles may have played itself out for me. I no longer experience something and say to myself "That would make a great topic for Niagaran Pebbles" like I used to. Too many things that I think about have either been covered ad nauseum already (and I loathe repeating myself, if I can help it) or involve subject matter that I am no longer comfortable putting out there in this forum. My lack of anonymity and knowledge that I will get feedback, good bad or indifferent cause me to question whether I should be publishing these thoughts.

This is not the death knell. Merely a supposition that my time in this space is feeling as though it is drawing to a close.

I don't like the idea of no longer interacting with my readers, but at the same time, I really must question whether I have anything valuable to offer any more.

The Finite Ride

It was around three years ago when my friend Matt was told that he had cancer. Within a year, he was gone.

I don't know why that occurred to me this morning. But it did. And it made me think -- what would I do if I was suddenly prognosed similarly?

"Pos, you have six months to live. Now what?"

In Matt's case, all of his treatments completely interfered with his ability to work. He kept trying, though -- his boss (another friend of mine) set him up with a home office so that he could work even when he was unable to make it into the office, but from what I understand, even that was too much after a while. The community swept in and came to the aid of his entire family. But I am sure that there were bills that needed to be paid. And I am sure that cancer treatments are not given away for free at the hospital.

Still ... I think that if I were in his shoes I would be hard pressed to spend my last remaining hours toiling away for someone else's profits. Instead, I think I would devote my remaining time to those things that matter most to me.

To my wife and kids. To preparing them for a life without me. To letting them all know that I would not be going if I had a choice. To telling them and showing them all how much they mean to me.

I would probably prepare instructions for my memorial service and set up my living will and all of that. I would likely write something that I would instruct someone to read at my service, even if I am ambivalent to the idea of memorial services in general.

And I would probably write the stories that I am currently putting off.

The reality of it is, though, folks, we are all on that trajectory. Most of us don't know how long the ride will last, but believe you me, we are all going to reach the end of this ride.

It makes me wonder why it's okay to live my life today as though I have infinite time left, but it would not be if suddenly I knew what my expiration date was. Why don't I start living that way now, since I do have but a finite time left...?

Don't worry, folks. I am not planning to chuck in all my responsibility and start living like a middle-aged neo-hippie. But, I may start telling the people in my life how important they are to me more regularly.

I dunno. Something to think about.

A Puerile Baseball Post

Okay, I am 99% sure I just heard a baseball announcer use the phrase "back door slider," and I am pretty sure that's a slang term for something disgusting.

Okay, back to your previously scheduled surfing.

Social Networking in the 70's

Thirty years ago or so I seem to recall getting a prize / toy in a box of cereal -- a set of iron-on transfers featuring lots of images of vans and citizens' band radio jargon. So for years after that, I wore this one t-shirt that blared something like "Breaker Breaker Good Buddy. What's your Twenty?" or "Watch Out! Smokey's Right Behind You."

All amazingly clever stuff.

Everyone had a "handle" -- that is, their nickname they used when patrolling the highways with their mondo whip antennas giving them extended range blah blah blah. A friend of mine's whole family was totally into the whole CB lifestyle. They had radios in every car, were the first in line to get the 40 channel radio instead of the 23, and had a super powered home base station with an antenna that towered far above their house. Had a lightning rod at the very top to route direct strikes away from the very expensive electronic equipment. Had a many mile range.

It all sounds pretty silly to me now. I had a couple of CB radios in the 90's that Mrs. P and I used while driving across the country from LA to Maryland in 1994. By that time, only truckers and cops used CBs. By now, I'd imagine that affordable cell phone plans have almost completely obviated the need to have a CB at all. The last time I used one, I accidentally picked a fight with a driver of a semi on the Pennsylvania Turnpike back in 1997 or 1998. But that's a story for another time.

So, there's this part of me that wonders what we'll all be obsessed with twenty or thirty years from now. What will we think of the mid- to late-oughts? Will we look at this age of Internet/Facebook/Blogger/Wordpress/YouTube obsession as our screwed up naval gazing years? Like our nation's collective Emo period?

What will this evolve to? What will take its place, obviating the need for it?

I've already heard lots of discussion about blogosphere being decimated by Facebook and Twitter. And there's a part of me that's glad. Most of the people we're losing here weren't really serious about writing anyway, were they? It almost seems that many of them kept blogs so that they could call themselves writers. So they could fool themselves into thinking they were writers. (Of course, I am convinced that I'm not one of them. I think I may be a living irony...)

Then again, I could be wrong.

Exorcism

It's homecoming weekend in my town. In order to understand the ramifications of this, a brief reminder is in order. I attended a private school that has both dormitory students, as well as day students. My children attend this same school. I was a day student. My children are day students. But the dormitory students come from all around the country -- indeed, around the world. My daughter has classmates from China and Korea.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was on the football team and the wrestling team. But I was small potatoes - second string JV - I was slow and unskilled. We had outstanding varsity squads. We did not lose a single football game, and we only had 6 points scored against us all season. And our wrestling team was considered a powerhouse among Southeastern Pennsylvania Private Schools.

I was as much a part of that as I am currently a part of Obama getting the peace prize.

There were people who were a big part of it though, and one of those people was Pete.

Pete was big, and Pete was angry, and Pete was loud, and Pete was opinionated.

And Pete was on both the football team and the wrestling team with me.

And Pete scared the holy living shit out of me on a regular basis. He never did anything to me directly -- in fact, I can't say for sure whether I ever made any kind of an impression on him at all. But I saw him interact with other guys who were above me in the intimidation pyramid and he intimidated them. Ergo, he was in the top dog tier.

It may be worth mentioning here that I was a big kid as a freshman, but I feel a strong affinity with Chief Broom of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. If you are not familiar with Broom, he was a patient in a mental ward who was big and string but who perceived himself as being puny and powerless. I was not a small kid, but I was intimidated by a lot of guys who were older and bolder and whom I probably should not have been intimidated by. I know that now.

Still, as an adult, when I see some of these guys who used to scare me, I still feel that fear. It's stupid, I know. But until you have adult interactions that serve to erase previous first impressions, you're stuck with your original wiring. Y'know?

Last night, I was invited to go eat ribs at the house of a guy I sorta kinda know. He's a teacher at the high school, and I was invited solely by association. My youngest had a friend over for the night, and my youngest's friend was who was actually invited, and the rest of us were encouraged to come along too. If not for that association, I am sure I would not have been invited.

As I walked in the door, the homeowner introduced me around. "And do you remember Pete?" he asked. Pete was in town for homecoming and was still friends with the homeowner. And it turns out, Pete was the provider of the ribs. He now owns a rib joint in North Carolina.

Throughout the evening, Pete and I interacted in a way we never did before. He had a vague recollection of me from the wrestling team. We talked about the Mike Vick reinstatement. About barbecue in general. About liquor license laws in Pennsylvania.

I started the evening on edge, worried about where, exactly, I stood in that social hierarchy. But by the end of the evening, I had obtained appropriate adult interaction with this symbol of my childhood impotence. And, in the end, I believe we achieved parity.

It may even be possible, though I wouldn't put money on it, that I may have even tipped the scales in my favor.

It felt good to put that adolescent fear in perspective. Pete's still big and loud and opinionated. But he's not so angry. And, it seems, I am able to hold my own. I am also big. And I can be loud. And I also have opinions, and have learned how to express them in ways that make sense, even if you don't agree with me.

I was glad to leave at 10:30 and come back home to my cave and not be "on" like that, but I was also glad I had that opportunity. Maybe the next time I see "David", I won't have an instinctive fear pucker reaction?