2011 March

	2011, MARCH

March 29

The latest news from the middle east: Moanmore Gadawful (you spell it your way, I’ll spell it mine) has fled the country and no one is willing to admit they took him in. Charlie Sheen has announced that he will step in and take over Libya and he’s bringing his sons. The fact that he was not invited does not bother him. That sort of thing never has; it’s a detail, and he’s a big picture kind of guy. Charlie’s going to be a General, though: none of this Colonel stuff for him. Six stars, just to be sure he outranks everyone in the world.

People ask why, as the head of state, Qaddafi didn’t promote himself to General. But I always wondered how a guy who was a Captain when he took over Libya while the king was out of town got to be a Colonel in the first place.

While I’m thinking of it, how did George Armstrong Custer, who went into Little Big Horn a Lieutenant Colonel and never came out, get to be a General? He was brevetted (a temporary rank), but do you get to keep the higher rank as a reward for getting yourself and your entire command slaughtered? Apparently.

March 24

I think I may have commented before (I know I thought about it) on the changing ways of distracting children at the supermarket: the little car that would bounce for a few minutes if you put a quarter in the slot had been replaced by an apple with a worm in it. Why any kid would want to bounce in an apple I have no idea.

Maybe the folks at Stater Brothers Market read that, because the apple is now gone, replaced by something in its way even more bizarre. Now for your quarter you can amuse your child by bouncing him in a little shopping cart. I guess you take the kid to the store, put him in the cart while you shop and, if he behaves himself, let him ride the toy shopping cart before you go home.

Hey, Stater Brothers, who comes up with this stuff?

March 17

I have no wish to make light of the ongoing tragedy in Japan even though I have no job to lose. But if I have a job at all, it is to highlight the absurdities around us. I am therefore obliged to point out that apparently one of the problems relating to the nuclear power plant meltdown has been circumvented. The radiation levels were too high to permit workers to continue trying to cool the reactors, so the Japanese authorities raised the allowable exposure. Problem solved.

This is, of course, a technique they learned from us. We built our reactors (San Onofre in particular) to withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake, and authorities are now assuring California residents that an “event” on the scale of the Japan quake would not damage the power plant.

March 13

When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the barber for a haircut on the first Saturday of summer vacation. (I probably had other haircuts during the year, but the memory is a bit hazy. How many haircuts do you remember?) I’m not sure how much it cost, but I think it was around a buck. If we were both well-behaved, the barber would get an extra dime and I’d get a Tootsie Roll Pop.

But the thing is, the guy cut my hair, got paid, and that was it. It’s not that easy any more; now you have to deal with Marketing. For the most part, you can’t even find a barber—you have to go to a “stylist.” Supercuts, the stylists for those of us without style, charges $16 for a haircut these days, minus the tip they give me for being such an old customer. (Not the same as being a loyal customer, which is worth nothing. I’m just old.) But it’s hard to get away with just a haircut: when you walk in the door they try to sell you a shampoo. That would be OK, I guess, except that the first thing I have to do when I get home from the salon is wash my hair and change my shirt.

I declined the shampoo and climbed into the chair. The barber (Stylist, my ass. She’s a barber to me.) grabbed my hair with both hands and said (even before “What am I supposed to do with this?”) “What Products do you use on your hair?” “Products,” with a capital P.

“Uh, water, sometimes?” I said.

“Water’s not a Product.”

“Oh. Then, shampoo and conditioner and nothing.”

Undaunted, she squirted some kind of glop on her palm and smeared it around my head. “I’m using a very nice Product here. It’s a gel, not greasy, almost like nothing. You’ll like it.”

“If it’s almost like nothing,” I asked, “why don’t we just go with the real nothing?”

She actually did do some cutting during the twenty-minute sales pitch. When my hair was styled to her satisfaction, she came at me with more glop. “Please don’t put that on my head,” I pleaded. She was crestfallen but knew she had lost, and wiped her hands on her apron. As she took my money and returned a receipt and a coupon for $3 off my next haircut—as long as I get it within 3 weeks—I realized what my answer to that first question should have been. “Sunblock.”

March 7

I didn’t always have the credit card I use now:

Dear FirstCard:

Enclosed you will find the remnants of my WirstCard. While I don't imagine you will miss me in the long run, perhaps you would be interested in knowing why we have come to a parting of the ways.

Years ago I spent myself silly with my FirstCard, amassing enormous numbers of bonus points as I went. I never had any idea what they were good for, but one day when my monthly bill mentioned that I had accumulated some thousands of points, I wondered. So I called. You told me I should have a catalog of free gifts I could get with my points, and promised to send one with the next bill. When it failed to arrive with the next bill, I called again. "Oh, sorry," you said. "That promotion ended this month. You get bupkis."

I was unhappy. So much so that I quit using my FirstCard and relied on my other credit cards. (Yes, in fact, I do have others. I think the world--or at least the McCort's divorce--will probably come to an end the week I don't get at least three "Preapproved, just sign here" cards in the mail.)

Until about a year ago, when you came out with a new promotion. "Everything you spend between now and Christmas will be applied to..." well, I forgot the exact wording, but it sounded promising. So I bought a few thousand dollars worth of Christmas gifts on FirstCard. And, eventually, got a bunch of coupons worth, like, $25 off on a $4000 Caribbean cruise. That's off of the cruise line's list price, which nobody in his right mind pays--it would be like going into a Tijuana trinket shop and coughing up the first price the guy asks. (It did get me thinking, though, and eventually we did take one of those cruises. Called my travel agent and booked one, at about half of the line's published price, which I understand is pretty much standard.)

I was unhappy. Again. And again I shoved my FirstCard in the back of my wallet.

Until recently, when you came up with the restaurant scam. "Use your FirstCard at any of our participating restaurants," you said, "and we'll send you a check for 20% of your bill. No forms, no coupons, no nothin.' The check's in the mail." Well, I’m old enough to know better, but I bit again. Went to Europa in Van Nuys. Have no idea why I was surprised to find that by the time I got there, they had deleted themselves from your list. Tried again, this time Vivaldi Ristorante in Sherman Oaks. They haven't seen fit to drop out of the program yet, so with this month's bill I got the good news: I can redeem my credits for coupons good for discounts if I buy still other stuff at inflated prices.

Thanks, but I've been there. I've been there twice. In fact, now I've been there three times. I'm not going back again. So here's your card back.

March 2

Some words just sound so cool, it doesn’t even matter what they mean.

Festoon: if you didn’t know what it meant, would you guess?

Dragoon is also good, maybe just because it sounds like festoon. In fact, I like a lot of –oon words: lampoon, baboon, balloon, doubloon, buffoon. There is obviously something about –oon that sounds good, but that’s not all it is. “Moon” leaves me flat, and I’m not all that crazy about tycoon or Rangoon (currently Yangon, which is probably just as well), either. Raccoons are famously cute (unless they’re in your garbage can), but the word “raccoon” doesn’t do much for me.

Some comedian once pointed out that certain words are inherently funny. That’s not the same as inherently pleasing to the ear, but I think the –oons could go in either category. So could yucca, but it definitely leans toward the humorous.

Ranunculus: I always get this confused with “rhododendron,” which is almost as good. Some day I’m going to write a poem in which I rhyme “ranunculus” with “homunculus.” Unless my son beats me to it. Or has it already been done?

Rhubarb: whether it’s a pie or a free-for-all on the baseball diamond, there’s nothing like a good rhubarb. But even a bad rhubarb sounds good.

Fubsy has always been one of my favorite words. It sounds cute, and it’s a swell way to insult someone who doesn’t know what it means, which is most people. If you’re one of those, look it up: it’ll be worth it.

Pomelo is a citrus fruit from Malaysia and a wine from a California vineyard that picked the name because it’s fun to say. Who can argue with that?

Malaise is a bad feeling, but a pretty good word. It just sounds mellifluous, which is pretty good itself.

Feather is a nice, feathery sort of a word. Years ago I noted that “crotch” was a horrible word and proposed changing it to “feather,” but the Puritans shouted me down. I still think the world would be a nicer place if people got their skivvies stuck in their feathers.

Squeegee is pretty cute, but I don’t think it really counts, since it was a noise before it was a word. “What’s that rubber gadget?” “Well, when I scrape the window with it, it goes ‘squee-gee,’ so I guess that’s what it’s called.”

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do.

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