Infidelity

Posted on by
3

Popeye, an old fraternity brother of mine, posted a Facebook comment to one of his friends last night. The woman posted her status as, “It’s sad that over 25 years of relationship with someone can be thrown away by 20 minutes in front of a stranger.” I don’t know if she was paraphrasing someone else or not, but that’s not important. What I found disturbing were the comments her “friends” made.

To me, a friend is someone who provides counsel when asked, listens when appropriate and bears your burdens with you as if they were their own. Although I could, I will not infuse today’s discussion with references to Christianity or morality as not everyone shares my beliefs. For that matter, we may share a common belief but not to the same degree. This said, today’s discussion will not be humorous or lighthearted but it will let me vent a frustration.

I do not know Popeye’s friend and do not feel it appropriate for me to post a comment (if I could) to her Facebook wall. However, her “friends” are alive with comments and apparently feel free to spew their ‘supportive’ morality at-will. I gather from her status and a couple of comments that her husband of at least 20+ years cheated on her. She was specific in her post to choose the words ’25 years of relationship’ as opposed to ’25 years of marriage’. To me, that’s telling.

I gather from this brief snapshot of a relationship that they might have been having problems. I do not get the impression she was still in a honeymoon period this far into the relationship and the affair took her by surprise. What I do feel is that perhaps she hoped things would get better and that they may even have been in counseling.

I read her post as a cry from a broken heart looking for healing. “Over 25 years of relationship” tells me they may have had a long friendship and/or engagement before they married. Perhaps they were together three or four years before they married as a way to ‘validate’ their decision as appropriate. Who knows. I don’t think people who live together before they get married stay together longer than those who don’t. For what it’s worth, I strongly, strongly oppose living together before marriage and no, it’s not just because of my religious beliefs.

If you’ve been in a committed, monogamous relationship for over two years, you’ve passed the honeymoon period. I can’t cite it right here right now, but research shows that many relationships go through a period anywhere from 6 months to 2 years where the sex is frequent and the acceptance of the other person’s quirks is constant. After two years, however, the sex and intimacy falls off and those cute little quirks become obnoxious personality traits that seem insurmountable. After three years, you have to make the relationship work. Both of you.

I can’t stress enough that I don’t know who this woman is or what issues she faced in her marriage. Her friends should know, however. But that’s not what I read. Again, I understood her post to be a cry of heartfelt pain; a plea for compassion in a hurtful situation. Instead, I read (all paraphrased, by the way):

* Don’t worry about it; life’s too short.

* The best revenge is living life to the fullest. That will show him!

* I know you’re hurting now but when you’re ready say the word and I can introduce you to someone who will appreciate you.

* Memorial Day Weekend’s almost here! Call me and we’ll go bar hopping!

* This is the push that you needed to move on. Let him go.

* I’m sorry to hear about this but maybe now you’ll know it’s over.

* It gets easier every day. Don’t let this get you down.

And so it went. She had over a dozen comments when I read the post. All I could think was, “What are these people saying?!?” Granted, we can’t see the messages or the one-on-one e-mails sent between people, but I was shocked. Not one person offered a word of encouragement from my perspective. There were offers to help ‘get revenge’ by dating and drinking; advice to ‘forget about’ the last 25+ years of her life and ‘move on’; suggestions that ‘it was about time’ she noticed something was amiss and she should have removed herself from the relationship long ago. Where was the compassion?

If I grieve because the 12 year old dog I’ve had since a puppy died today, would you tell me I shouldn’t have had a dog to begin with because they die? I don’t think so. You’d tell me to remember the good times, treasure the moments we were able to spend together and that grieving is good, natural and healthy. How is it any different with a human relationship?

An affair is a horrible thing to happen in any relationship but it doesn’t necessarily mean the end. People do and say all kinds of hurtful things when they’re hurting. I believe the saying, “Hurt people hurt people” but why encourage them to hurt? Would you tell me I shouldn’t have been married and shouldn’t have had kids because statistically my marriage would end in divorce? I hope not.

I think if this woman had accepted the end of her relationship before the affair the post would have read differently. I also think if her husband had a history of cheating and her friends knew about it, the comments would have been different. My impression is that the marriage was on the rocks and the husband had, perhaps, the first affair of which his wife became aware. But again, I don’t know. And neither do you.

We don’t know the background related to the post. Perhaps she had turned cold and distant and her husband, seeking to validate his worth as a person, sought the comfort of someone he saw as compassionate and caring. What if the husband was just a screw-up from the get-go and this was the first affair he in which he was caught? We don’t know.

Perhaps most troubling to me is the lack of respect her friends have shown her. They were together over 25 years. Were her friends encouraging her to leave the whole time? Were her friends offering to take her bar-hopping or to meet someone new the whole time? At what point did her friends seem to know better than her what she wanted or needed? More importantly, at what point did the woman ask for everyone to comment publicly on her life? On this I know I’m a hypocrite, but I’m trying to make a point.

Again, to me, a friend is someone who provides counsel when asked, listens when appropriate and bears your burdens with you as if they were their own. Which of her friends offered an ear to listen or a shoulder upon which to cry? None that I saw. No one said they would stand with her and help her through this regardless of the outcome. The only offers given were for revenge and starting over. Perhaps the woman wants neither revenge nor to start over with someone new. What if she just wants a fresh start with her husband? That, apparently, is not an option her friends will consider. Everyone knows better than her it seems.

I noticed she did not call her husband a foul name or curse him to hell. She did not ask for pity or claim moral superiority. She just cried from the heart. Unfortunately, in my opinion, she cried to the wrong people and I can empathize with her. Unless you’re going through, today, exactly what I’m going though, you don’t understand. Your situation is different than mine. Don’t come out of your white picket fenced, perfectly manicured yard to come down the street and tell me how to fix my flower bed. But people will and people do, all thinking they’re helping when actually what you need is healing.

The best pop-culture example I can cite is Seinfeld. In one episode, Kramer wants to break up with his girlfriend. Jerry and Elaine tell Kramer exactly what they think of her and that it’s ‘about time’ he dumped her. So he did. And then he had second thoughts and they got back together. Where did that leave Jerry and Elaine with respect to his girlfriend in Kramer’s eyes? If this woman wants to forgive her husband for his affair and continue to work on the relationship, where does that leave the friends that encouraged her to leave him?

If I’m your friend, it’s not my place to offer advice if you don’t ask. Neither is it my place to say, “I told you so” if you choose to follow your own path and later accept and follow my advice. My responsibility to you is to be a trustworthy, loyal, faithful friend with whom you can laugh or cry and know I’m laughing or crying with you. But if I’m telling you how much better you’ll feel by listening to me offer unsolicited advice when I haven’t gone through the same heartbreak as you, I’m not your friend. I’m just trying to elbow my way into your life.

That’s it. I think I’m done venting. Thank you for your time.

Frasier and Star Trek

Posted on by
Reply

I watch Netflix daily. I’ve been alternating between Mission Impossible (TOS) and Frasier. From about season one, I’ve noticed a common thread throughout the Frasier series: Star Trek.

I already commented about Rat Patrol, Star Trek (TOS) and Mission Impossible (TOS) using the same sets and the same actors. The Frasier/Star Trek thing isn’t as bad as that; in fact, it’s far more subtle.

Kelsey Grammer appeared in a Star Trek (TNG) episode as a starship captain. I’m not going to take the time to do an IMDB comparison, but the number of actors appearing on both shows has to be high. Every once in a while they throw in a Star Trek reference, but the episode I just saw was the clincher.

Patrick Stewart appeared in the episode as a well-placed high-society man who happened to be gay. He mistook Frasier as a gay man and hilarity ensued. For me, that pretty much confirmed the link. Nothing earth-shattering, but it will inspire me at some point to do the IMDB  check.

It was also funny to see Wendy Malick and Jane Leeves on the same show before Hot in Cleveland. Again, nothing to phone home about; just an observation.

Utah Trip – The Hotel

Posted on by
Reply

This is number four in the series documenting my recent trip to Utah. Today we discuss the hotel. The hotel near the Salt Lake City International Airport that I couldn’t find to save my life because of all the construction. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Grand Prix race. Long Beach, California has been known to host a Grand Prix every now and then. They put up barricades to officially protect the spectators from the vehicles. Some would say the barricades redirect traffic flow and allow drivers the ability to drive super fast, using the entire roadway (both directions) for their dangerous dance of speed and precision driving. Truth be known, nothing happens at the Long Beach Grand Prix in a high-performance race car that doesn’t happen most weekends with either a ’67 Monte Carlo, a ’73 Lincoln or a herd of ’04 Subarus and Mazdas. Okay, I doubt the Grand Prix drivers are gang members or a tagger crew on their way to the next target, but you get the idea.

Except for the fact it was pouring rain, night-time and I’d never driven on that road before, I felt like I was in the Grand Prix. Barricades on my right, barricades on my left, orange cones here, flashing lights there; it was almost awesome. Had I not been going 25 MPH or less looking for non-existent street signs, I would have had fun. I was like a pace car. The locals behind me, the “pros”, clearly didn’t appreciate my detail for respecting the posted construction speed limit signs. Okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t care about the speed limit. I just wanted to find the freaking hotel.

My daughter was able to get me into the general area, kind of like an FAA radar. I then had to switch to “the tower” which, in this case, was the front desk of the hotel. Even the woman who worked there couldn’t easily direct me. We had to go through a series of landmarks based on flashing lights; turn right at the flashing red signals, straight through the next set of flashing reds and then left at the flashing yellow barricades. No street names, no business names, just flashing lights. When I got to the front desk the woman who helped me said the construction was causing all types of problems with getting guests from the airport to the hotel.

You may remember that I love Travelocity, particularly the Secret Saver deals (or whatever they’re called). I used the site to book my room for two nights in Salt Lake City. I won’t say the name of the hotel but it was, by Travelocity ratings, a 3 to 4 star venue. It had a heated, indoor pool and hot tub that bordered on the Japanese restaurant within the hotel. They had complimentary coffee and pastries available 24 hours a day and the staff was very courteous.

I went up to the room and just about wet myself. The door opened into a living room with a large flat screen TV, a sofa, a recliner and a complete kitchen which included very nice quality plastic plates but actual glassware for drinks. Down the hallway was the restroom and then the bedroom. The bedroom had a very large bed, an even bigger flat screen than the front room and a step-down (step-up, in this case) tub. I was very, very happy.

I had a great time in SLC mostly because I was able to see my daughter, not because I enjoyed the hotel. Your results, of course, will vary.

Utah Trip – The Road To SLC

Posted on by
Reply

This is the third blog of the series on my recent trip to Salt Lake City, Utah from Ontario, California. Here I’ll deal with weather and the clearly distinct differences between California and Utah as they relate specifically to road travel (excluding speed limits, which I already discussed).

Southern California has a lot issues related to highway and interstate roadways. By way of example, let me point to the section of Interstate 15 north of Barstow to the agricultural inspection station in Yermo. That stretch of highway crosses over a number of dry washes, creeks, wadis, arroyos, whatever you want to call them. The whole area is considered a construction zone (with traffic fines doubled throughout) as the orange signs indicate. But as you approach one of the insignificant “bridges” over a dry creek bed you’ll see a sign that says, “Bump”. Stand by. Depending on what you’re driving, that “bump” could cost you some ground-effect bolt-on molding, it could launch you off the pavement or you might not feel anything at all.

For whatever reason, the spirits that possessed the highway workers deemed the asphalt over the concrete bridge should be removed. Okay, I’ll go with that. Well, I would have gone with that about a year ago but nothing seems to have changed. Heck, the signs have been there so long they’re blanching more white than orange. So I guess I’m not as enthusiastic about the repairs now then I might have been a year ago. Regardless, I’m certain that the highway repair people work hand-in-hand with the civil engineers that know all about road repair. Or maybe not.

I am not an engineer. I don’t know what’s right or wrong, acceptable or not, when it comes to road gradients, construction materials, surfacing or anything technically specific with respect to roadways. What I have picked up on, though, is a small amount of common sense.

When you’ve taken a couple of inches of asphalt roadway off to return it to the concrete base, adding a short asphalt ramp (or apron or “lip”) from the elevated road to the concrete and back again can’t be done at random. I’m certain someone with a slide rule and basic trigonometry knowledge can tell you that at 55 MPH you need an apron of “X” inches to go from the concrete to the asphalt with minimum vehicular damage. Sometimes you have a 12″ apron and you don’t feel a thing but a slight undulation. The next bump might only have 6″ of apron which gives you a fairly strong jolt and then the sensation that all of your car’s weight has been suspended for a split second before you nearly bottom-out. And then you have my favorite, the 3″ apron after-thought.

I swear the roadway workers use the exact same amount of asphalt for each apron they make. The difference is how it’s distributed. When you’re dealing with one of the after-thought aprons, they have to figure out how to get a predetermined volume of asphalt into a space 3″ wide. Since they don’t seem to want to make the apron wider, it goes taller. It’s like a freaking speed bump. It’s not uncommon to see bits of air dams, rigid mud flaps or large pieces of low-hanging bumpers or plastic ground effects along the side of the road at one of these killer sites. For me, at least, the whole apron concept seems rather random and hit-or-miss. Especially since no one really drives 55 MPH like the sign says. Except me.

Afraid of a double-the-fine speeding ticket and the cost of a front-end alignment, I’ll drive the posted speed limit when I can and when it’s safe. Sometimes I’ll even punch it up to 4 miles an hour faster than the posted limit. I am a speed demon.

Once you clear the Minneola off-ramp, it’s pretty much clear sailing into the downtown Las Vegas construction area. Even there the roadway itself isn’t bad at all, just the volume of traffic. When you leave Mesquite, Nevada and get into the Virgin River section of Arizona the roadway definitely needs to be resurfaced but it’s still fine. And then you get to St. George, Utah.

I encountered one “Bump” sign as I left St. George. Expecting the worst, I was on the alert. I passed over what amounted to nothing more than a tar bubble and did not see any more warning signs regarding a bump. Awesome. Utah had a totally different standard when it came to highway maintenance and I was thrilled to death. I didn’t encounter any pot holes, tire-eaters or launch ramps as I got closer to Provo. And then it started raining.

I had been driving for a number of hours by the time I got to Provo. I was tired and road-weary. It was getting dark, the rain was picking up, the city was the largest I’d encountered since St. George and more local drivers were entering the roadway.

Not familiar with the area at all, I reduced my speed from the posted 75 MPH and fell in line behind a line of cars headed in my direction. All I had to do was start looking for the off-ramp I needed to get me to my hotel in Salt Lake City. The rain got heavier.

The first thing I noticed after all the cars I was following left the freeway was the highway itself. In California, we have hard composite “dots” fixed onto the road. We jokingly refer to people who run over the dots (because they’re not paying attention while they’re texting) as “driving by Braille.” Even in the rain you can see the dots. At specific intervals, the dots are supplemented by a rectangular reflector that helps identify your lane. In areas that experience snowfall and use snowplows to clear the roadway, dots are not used because they’d be scraped off by the snowplow blade. The rectangular reflectors are still used, however, in a rather unique way: the roadway is contoured and the reflectors are recessed. When driving, you can still see the reflectors. When operating a snowplow, the reflectors are below the road surface and are safe from the blade. But this was Utah. And it was raining hard.

Without the aid of dots or reflectors, totally unfamiliar with the area, in the dark and in the rain, my next-best hope was to follow the white lane stripes on the road. Uh, no. Perhaps because it’s California and our line painters are all union or something, you can pretty easily see the reflective paint they’ve sprayed on layer upon layer of white stripes. The layers of paint on the stripes give the road a contour of their own. But I guess when a snowplow might scrape the surface clean you can’t rely on the “feel” of the road. No dot, no reflectors, no stripes, no one to follow. I was down to easily 55 MPH, thinking that I was experiencing the “driving lanes are just a suggestion” attitude of Afghan drivers. I was pissing off the locals like a boss.

I would know when a local was coming. Easily going the posted 75 MPH or better, they’d swerve out from behind me and be gone in an instant. Had I not been looking for my exit, I would have followed them. I know I was creating a traffic hazard. All I needed to do was find the exit for the highway I needed and I would be safe. All I needed was the correct highway. And then I realized the second major difference between California and Utah: state highway signs.

In California, a lot of our larger, high-volume highways have green and white signs. The background is green and the white logo and highway number are done with reflective paint and white reflectors. They’re fairly easy to see. Even many of the older highways have signs with white backgrounds and black numbering that are pretty easy to see. The highway logo looks like a fat triangle and the numbers use a non-serif font. But this was Utah.

The logo for a state highway in Utah is a beehive. California’s a triangle, Utah’s a beehive: I’m okay with that. Except when it’s raining and dark, I don’t know how far it is to the correct exit and I’m creating a traffic hazard. Then the beehive looks like a pile of dog crap. Inside that pile of dog crap I’m supposed to make out the numbers for the highway I need. Great. It’s raining and the idea of using any type of reflective materials in the construction of the road sign completely escaped the drawing board phase of their highway safety commission. You can’t see the freaking numbers in the middle of the dog crap until you’re already under the sign, which means you missed the exit by about 50 feet.

Having caught a glimpse of the correct exit I needed, I knew it was only a couple of miles down the road. I could not take my eyes off the road to glance at the odometer on the rental car I had as it would have taken me precious moments just to remember where the odometer was in the first place. Since I couldn’t do the odometer/trip meter countdown to the exit I chose to base my freeway departure on time. The time would be a guestimate, however, since I didn’t want to run the risk of looking at the digital clock. So I started counting. Two miles, two minutes, no problem.

Basically, in order for you to go two miles in two minutes you have to maintain a constant speed of 60 MPH. If you go less than 60 MPH, you won’t go two miles. You’ll get off at the exit BEFORE the exit you need and wind up all by yourself on a transition road about 50 feet above the highway wondering where in the heck you are. But that’s simple enough, you just take the next off-ramp and get your bearings. Unless that off-ramp is 900th Street.

I will abbreviate this long story by telling you that only because of my daughter and her iPhone was I able to finally make it to my room. Well, my daughter and the night clerk at the hotel. Nothing my daughter did could have prepared me for the heavy construction detours around the hotel. Even the hotel clerk had to guide me in not by streets and cardinal directions but by landmarks and flashing barricade lights. Seriously. “When you get to the Radisson, turn right at the yellow flashing lights and then go straight through the flashing red lights.”

So, when I’m in charge, the people responsible for maintaining the condition of Utah’s roads will be supplemented by the people responsible for creating the signage for California’s roads. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) responsible for actually posting the highway signs. If they can’t get Route 66 right, who knows what they’d do.

If you plan on driving anywhere between Salt Lake City and south of Provo, just be aware that the whole Interstate 15 area is a huge construction site. I didn’t see it on the way to Salt Lake City because I was locked in behind a row a cars in the dark and the rain. You’d never know it, though, because it was smooth sailing all the way. Those guys know how to build a road. Except for the dots. And the reflectors. And the white stripes. Other than that, it was awesome.

Gumdrops

Posted on by
6

The Easter season is here and it’s time for retailers to dust off their old inventory of Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day candy for the last of the sugar-laced holidays.

For candies with some staying power, like lollipops, jelly beans and gumdrops, they can’t really mold the candies in a specific holiday’s colors; they have to stick to the tried-and-true standards: green, yellow, orange, et cetera. Fast-movers like M & Ms can go seasonal with lavender and white and not fear that a retailer will still have them on the shelf come next Halloween. But today my focus is on gumdrops.

Sitting at my desk this morning waiting for the coffee to brew, I had a craving for gumdrops. Why? Who knows. Maybe because I haven’t had any in years. I’ve had jelly beans, Skittles, Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike’s and things of that nature, but I haven’t had gumdrops for quite some time. This may seem odd, but I remember I like sucking on gumdrops. On a recent trip to Arizona, I sucked on Hot Tamales. Have you ever done that? What a huge disappointment. Once the fire-red coating is gone you’re left with a translucent rod of tasteless hard gel. Suck the coating off a jelly bean and it essentially becomes a spoonful of gritty jam. Gumdrops are different.

If you have an oral fixation, gumdrops are the best. You can bite them, chew them, suck them, mash them with your tongue, whatever. Unlike M & Ms, Nerds or Red Hots, you can’t stick a handful of them in your mouth and “wing it.” One, maybe two, gumdrops and you’re set for a while. That may be why they have much longer staying power than some of the other goodies out there. But I’m speaking from ancient history, not recent experience.

I realized that in lieu of gumdrops I’ve substituted a chew stick. You might call it a plastic coffee stirrer, but to me it’s a chew stick. I don’t smoke so the stick isn’t a substitute for that activity. My favorites are the single-barrel, small caliber brown or red sticks. I’ll pass on the wood (too utilitarian) and the double-barreled hard black ones. Sometimes I’ll go for a larger caliber paper-wrapped stick from an AM/PM, but those are too much like straws. Straws are not chew sticks: they’re straws.

When not in use, I can secure a chew stick in my shirt pocket. I guess I’ll have to give the edge to the chew stick over the gumdrop in that category. If I’m well into a good “chaw” while working out some Boolean logic on an Excel spreadsheet and the phone rings, I can reach for the phone and remove the chew stick in one deft movement. You can’t do that with a gumdrop. If I had a gumdrop in my mouth I’d probably just let the phone ring. Priorities, you know.

Chew sticks have a lifespan and I guess “chew” would be a misnomer. I like to bite down just enough to feel the plastic give. Rotate the stick 12-1/2 degrees, bite down slightly and it’ll give again. Repeat for hours. I don’t know how to describe it. I have rules. I never bite all the way down because the stick has to retain its round shape. Sometimes I’ll inhale through it just because, but I never exhale through it–it’s not a snorkel. I only use one half of the stick because my fingers have been touching the other half while I’ve been rotating it around. I’ll flavor the stick by stirring my coffee (a novel concept) but if the coffee’s gone and the stick has lost its flavor, I toss it. That’s not true. If I know I’ll be having coffee later, I’ll tuck it in my shirt pocket (chew-side down, always) until I get a refill. Since I drink coffee all day, it’s usually not that long before I refill and continue. But what about the gumdrops?

Gumdrops don’t really have a lifespan because you can move from one to the other almost immediately. Another bonus: each one has its own flavor. Seriously, I love the flavor of coffee but it gets old after a while. If you get tired of the gumdrop you’re working on now you can take it out of your mouth and go to another one. If you’ve sucked a gumdrop for a while, you can bite it lightly and shape it. Come on, I’m not the only one that does this. If you bite it too hard you’ll ruin it. Bite it just enough and you can make it into a ball or see how long you can make it, like a piece of chewing gum. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

I prefer sucking on gumdrops because they get stuck in my teeth when I chew. You know, it could be that the longer you suck on them the stickier they get and that’s why I don’t get them anymore. I don’t remember. I’m certain it was a specific event that led to the gumdrop embargo/boycott, whatever, but I don’t remember what it was. All I know is that today I really want a gumdrop and I know I won’t get one. I won’t even see one. In fact, the truth is I don’t remember the last time I saw a real gumdrop. I’ve seen pictures of them, but it’s honestly been years since I’ve laid eyes on a real gumdrop, let alone enjoyed one.

Since I have a lot of work to do today the local CVS staff can rest assured I won’t be assaulting their facility looking to swoop in and take their cache of gumdrops. Maybe it’s the season or maybe I had a sudden sugar attack but my desire specifically for a gumdrop or two today went through the roof. Knowing me and my unwillingness to actually go out and get one I guess I’ll add one more packet of sweetener to my coffee and keep chewing on the chew stick.

But I really want a gumdrop.

Utah Trip – Speed Limits

Posted on by
1

This is the second post in my series involving my trip from Ontario, California to Ogden, Utah.

In my very best Jerry Seinfeld-ish voice I have to ask, “What’s the deal with speed limits?” By my own admission, I’m happy to keep my speedometer at or not more than four miles above the posted speed limit when it’s safe to do so. I hate speeding. Why? I can’t afford the ticket. I’m not afraid of going fast, I just can’t afford it. When I was in the Army at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Adam Silverman would drive his turbo-charged Merkur XR4Ti to Tucson at better than 100 MPH so we could have more time to screw around and make fun of the Air Force guys from Davis-Monthan. My personal best, longest duration land speed record was 120 MPH on my Honda Interceptor because I was pissed off about something (a very, very stupid reason to drive fast). Anyway, it’s not the speed or the death I’m afraid of, it’s the cost. So I don’t speed.

Touring around my local freeways and interstates you’ll see signs allowing you to drive up to 65 MPH. The signs don’t really mean anything, though, because you’re usually locked in behind an idiot in a beat-up Nissan Sentra doing 50 MPH while the guy in the BMW next to you chats on his cell phone, oblivious to anything other than he’s going with the flow of traffic. Semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers in California are limited by law to 55 MPH. So, you’ve got the very slow traffic on the right side of the road and, when it’s open, traffic moving at better than 80 MPH in the left lane. I don’t know how many accidents are caused by cell phone texting shit heads trying to decelerate from 80 MPH in the fast lane to less than 50 MPH, crossing four lanes of traffic in a single motion, all so they can exit at the next turn-off. This is a case for my concept of summary executions for idiot drivers by Predator drones but it’s not the focus of this post.

North of Victorville, California, the speed limits become very generous at 70 MPH on Interstate 15. Semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers are still limited to 55 MPH. So, since it’s a two-lane freeway, watching the traffic in front of you is like watching a giant Slinky. You go into the left lane, punch it to 80 MPH to pass the guy in the Smart Car and then back it off to 75 MPH and return to the right lane. Oh, crap. A semi-truck. Back into the left lane for a quick pass and then return to the right lane. But it’s not just you. Everyone’s doing the same thing. Slinky, leap frog, whatever you want to call it, it’s fun to watch. Why? Because inevitably, one idiot will find another.

As you roll down the highway at a comfortable 75 MPH you see a semi-truck in the distance you know you’re going to have to pass. A quick look out your driver’s side mirror tells you someone is coming up in the fast lane rather quickly so you’ll need to wait a second before you think about passing the semi. You give the speed demon a couple of seconds and realize he wasn’t driving as fast as you thought. Worse, it’s a Cadillac. There’s no effing way you’re going to let a ghetto-sled Cadillac pass your finely-tuned piece of German engineering, so you accelerate to get in front of the Caddy and pass the semi.

But the Caddy’s on to you. All he has to do is push it just a little bit more (since he already has the speed and position advantage) and he’s effectively used the semi to block your forward movement while he cuts off your lateral movement. The classic “hammer and anvil” tactic. Used for centuries by fighting forces around the world, its brutal effectiveness most recently broadcast to the world by General Norman Schwarzkopf’s ground forces during Desert Storm. Awesome.

Anyway, you’re trapped. Worse, the Caddy brought a whole herd of people with him. All of them are now streaming around you and won’t let you in. You’re blocked and locked behind the semi until the procession of cars has passed. Then you join them as “Tail End Charlie.” But you want revenge. You and everyone in front of you to whom the Caddy did exactly the same maneuver. Everyone’s gunning to pass the Caddy. The first guy makes it. Success! Too bad he can’t tell you the guy driving the Cadillac is really a seventy year-old man who honestly had no concept that his driving had pissed off two miles of cars behind him. But that doesn’t matter because all of a sudden a highway patrol vehicle appears at the top of the next on-ramp. Now you’ll never have the chance to pass that bastard, reestablish your superiority and confirm once and for all that YOUR car is better than HIS car. Rat Freaking Bastard. But I digress.

North of the Nevada Interstate construction zone known as Las Vegas, the speed limit goes to 75 MPH. The speed limit didn’t matter, though, as I didn’t see a single highway patrol vehicle between Primm and Mesquite. Then I was in Arizona.

Arizona maintained the 75 MPH speed limit until you arrived at the Virgin River. The speed limit dropped to 60 MPH while you wound around the canyon. You’re only in Arizona for about 35 miles before you enter St. George, Utah.

Utah, I laugh in your general direction. The I-15 in California and Arizona had some of the worst pot holes, road damage and general disrepair I’ve ever seen. Shortly after leaving St. George I saw a warning sign for “Road Damage Ahead”. I was expecting an RV-swallowing pot hole with the remains of the countless tires it had destroyed strewn around it. What did I see? Nothing I would count as road damage, unless you meant that little bump where the asphalt met the concrete of an overpass. Was that it? I didn’t know. I moved on.

The speed limit continued to be 75 MPH. It was only then that I noticed semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers were no longer limited to 55 MPH. I don’t know when that requirement ended but it sure as heck didn’t exist in Utah. I had my cruise control set to 79 MPH and I was passed by people pulling trailers that were fishtailing down the freeway. The funniest was being passed by a guy pulling a U-Haul trailer that had a stencil you could clearly read that said, “Trailer Speed Limit 55 MPH”.

At this point I’m hours into my driving experience when I see the lights of a law enforcement vehicle ahead pulling someone over. In California, the knee-jerk reaction is to slow down. In Utah, I think the rule of thumb is that since the highway patrol has “bagged” one, everyone can speed up. I had reduced my speed to 75 MPH and pulled over into the left lane to give the patrolman room on the right (which is the law, as reminded by the billboards every five miles or so). I must have been the only idiot on the road. With the highway patrolman right-stinking-there, people were pulling into the slow lane and accelerating to pass me. Very odd. And then I saw the highway patrol car.

Back in the eighties (I don’t know about now), the California Highway Patrol used to operate Cameros on some freeways. It reminded me of the first Mad Max movie where the Aussies had Pursuit and Interceptor cars. Utah’s keeping the dream alive. A very, very nice Mustang GT with a really cool sky blue paint job with a yellow racing stripe had pulled someone over. Later, similarly painted Dodge Challengers and more Mustang GTs enforced the speed limit law along the interstate. Kind of.

Some areas of Utah had a sign that said something to the effect of, “Speed limit test area.” The speed limit increased from 75 MPH to 80 MPH, but I think that was just a recommendation. I put my cruise control on 84 MPH and was left in the dust by anything with two wheels or more. And I don’t mean they crept up behind me and took a minute to pass. This was full-on autobahn driving at its best. Eventually, a 75 MPH sign would reappear along with the highway patrol.

Between the start of the 80 MPH signs and the next 75 MPH sign you couldn’t find a highway patrolman to save your life. But within a mile or two of the “reduced” speed back to 75 MPH? Watch your ass. So, finally, I return to my initial question, “What’s the deal with speed limits?”

Why can I go 90 MPH or better in an 80 MPH zone but get popped for going 80 MPH in a 75 MPH zone? Does Utah have a “text-type” code? Perhaps I read the sign incorrectly. Work with me on this. You know how a colon and a right parenthetical mark make a smiley face like this 🙂 and a colon and an upper-case “p” make a person sticking their tongue out at you like this 😛 ? Maybe instead of reading as an eight and a zero, I wonder if they’re actually symbols that represent speed. You know, the eight really represents your eye sockets and the zero represents your open mouth unable to close because of the wind speed. Look at it again: 80 . Do you see it? If someone died because they were going to fast, would the sign look like this 8P ? If they were driving angry, would it look like this >80 ? A uni-brow speed-driver’s sign would look like this |80 ?

I don’t know. I don’t speak leet key and I really don’t think the Utah Highway Patrol promotes leet key or text symbol traffic signs. But it’s Utah. What do I know?

Utah Trip – The Primm Experience

Posted on by
2

As previously announced on this blog, I do not watch television nor do I listen to the radio. I stream NetFlix almost exclusively (no commercials) and stream old time radio programs via the Internet if I want to listen to the radio. This post will cover the first and the last legs of my recent trip from Ontario, California to Ogden, Utah.

I left the Ontario International Airport area on the morning of Wednesday, March 28th. A few hours later I was passing the California / Nevada state line in Primm, Nevada. I saw a rather puzzling sight on the east side of the freeway.

As I headed out of the dry lake bed and into Primm, I noticed there were a lot of people–hundreds of people–standing at the south side of the fashion outlet mall. I got closer and realized that there was an order to the madness: The people were standing in a line. My first thought was that some studio had put out a casting call and this is where they were conducting auditions.

If you are not familiar with the location, Primm, Nevada (aka State Line) is the first town you encounter after you leave Baker, California (home of the world’s tallest thermometer) northbound on Interstate 15. It has three casinos, one of which (Buffalo Bill’s) has a high-thrill roller coaster that winds its way through the casino itself. Anyway, the southeast side of Primm has a casino with a huge factory outlet mall.

The mall’s parking lot includes a couple of gas stations, a McDonald’s, a Taco Bell, a Greek Restaurant and a liquor store. The liquor store is the farthest southern point of the whole paved area. Anyway, this place had a line of people coming out the door, circling the building, snaking through the parking lot and continuing inside the doors of the mall. Again, hundreds and hundreds of people were in line. Why? I had no idea, nor did I care. I don’t gamble.

That was Wednesday. I returned from Ogden, Utah on Friday, March 30th and I made the critically bad decision to stop for gas at Primm and maybe grab a bite to eat. Not thinking, I opted for the Texaco station on the southeast side of the freeway by the McDonald’s and the fashion mall. I chose poorly.

Once locked into the parking lot traffic I could not escape. I knew I had made an error in judgment and wanted nothing more than to escape from the traffic nightmare in which I found myself and head to the Chevron on the west side of the interstate. But I couldn’t. I finally made it to Texaco and filled up. I noticed the little liquor store had even more traffic on Friday than it had on Wednesday. The lines were HUGE! Why? Once again, I had no idea nor did I care. I figured what I was seeing was a flood of people returning from their Southern California spring break and for whatever reason, that liquor store was important as the first one in Nevada.

Anyway, when I finally left Primm headed south-bound on the 15 again, I noticed the traffic: bumper-to-bumper. I didn’t see any accidents, highway patrol, chupacabras or armadillos, just traffic. Lots and lots of bumper-to-bumper traffic, all headed north, all exiting at Primm. I passed Zzyzx Road doing the speed limit. The north side was still bumper-to-bumper. In fact, it remained bumper-to-bumper all the way from BEFORE Baker! That’s over 50 miles! Clearly, something was happening.

It was then I decided to remove the boxed set of Sam Spade, Private Detective CDs I’d been listening to since Ogden and tune into the radio. Huh. Apparently, there was some huge half-a-billion dollar plus lottery happening of which I was unaware. The drawing didn’t matter to me at all. As I indicated earlier, I don’t gamble. But I did some research into what the fuss was over that seemingly insignificant liquor store.

I was surprised to learn that the liquor store isn’t really in the mall’s parking lot, it’s across the street. In fact, the liquor store isn’t really in Primm, nor is it in Nevada at all. It’s in a little slice of heaven all by itself with a street address in Nipton, California. Its parking lot is literally on the border between California and Nevada; the street is the physical state border. The “liquor store” is actually a well-known Mega-Millions Lottery retailer in California. The place: Terrible’s Lotto Sales. I hear it’s more like a 7-11 than a liquor store with the focus on California Lottery sales of quick-picks and scratchers. I also understand it’s *THE* place to go if you live in sourthern Nevada and want to play the California lottery.

I read an article from another blogger who said she stood in line for three hours to get her Mega-Millions tickets and that was through the automated machines! The person-to-person quick picks took even longer. Who would do that? Gamblers, apparently. I know next to nothing about the lottery system but it seems to me that if the jackpot is only one million dollars, fewer people play so your odds of winning go up. The higher the jackpot the more players so your odds go down. I think I’d rather play when the lottery is not as loaded as the most-recent game. I know for certain I wouldn’t waste my time driving to Primm if it was only to buy a ticket. I’d take my chances at the local Qwik-E-Mart.

Hunger Games

Posted on by
8

My son and I went to see Hunger Games today. Bottom Line: I enjoyed the movie although I was close to flat-lining it for a while. Watched from a movie theater of Twilight-loving teenage girls, I can see it has its place at the top of a new genre depicting young female action heroes.

I knew I was in trouble when the entire row of girls in front of us, seriously, all of them, started gushing from the very first moment something about Twilight came on in the previews. I have no idea what it was. It could have been the font used, the music, the topography, something. They knew what was happening before anyone else in the theater. The girl on the far left started talking about the movie coming out in December well before any recognizable character from the movie appeared on-screen. When the preview revealed the movie would release in November, the entire row of girls became giddy and overcome with emotion that Twilight was being released sooner than they thought. It was a very moving moment for them. And I should have known I was in trouble.

I will try hard not to ruin the movie, but I have two major complaints. If I recall correctly, the districts send to the capital tributes aged between 12 and 18. That’s a huge gap. Physically, emotionally and experience-wise, that’s huge. If I were in charge we’d narrow the age range down a bit, like 12-14, 14-16, 16-18. My thought is that just about any 18 year old will wipe the floor with any 12 year old. But that’s just me.

Second, if you can create something out of nothing (i.e. a hologram becoming real), why can it kill me but I can’t kill it? For example, if you create fish in a lake simply because your technology allows it, why can’t I catch and eat them? If you create a sheep in a field, how is it possible that sheep might attack and kill me but my weapons are seemingly harmless against it? That bothered me. Not so much the playing God part but the fact that the very weapons with which I can cut down trees, decimate competitors and a number of other “real” tasks have no impact on other creations.

The story centers on one girl’s challenges during the Hunger Games that I won’t get into except for how it relates to every teenage girl in the theater. This is a girl’s movie. It’s not a romantic “chick flick.” People die. Kids die. Kids kill kids. It is what it is. But you cannot escape this is a girl’s movie.

From the beginning, you see the beautiful young girl being strong, decisive and loving in an almost maternal role. She transitions to a strong, independent, skilled hunter as easily as walking out her front door. Then she’s a strong, independent, desirable young woman with some hunky buff dude putting the moves on her. We know the guy is hunky not because he reminds me a lot of myself at that age (okay, maybe not) but because every teenage girl in the theater let out some type of audible “oohh” or “ahhh” when he appeared on-screen.

So then the girl briefly becomes a victim of circumstance but then rises above to once again become the strong, independent young woman. Yadda, yadda, yadda and blah, blah, blah, she keeps the strong and independent mantle during the Games but is rotated through the maternal, hunter, desirable, victim persona throughout the movie.

At one point she’s helping another hunky dude with an issue. She gives him a kiss that the first hunky guy happens to see on TV. I kid you not, every girl in the theater moaned an “oowww” when that happened. They couldn’t have planned it better if they had scripted the Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation manual. All of them, in unison, “oowww.” I think my son and I pissed off the girls in front of us because we really did laugh out loud.

So all the theater girls are rooting for the heroine and hunky guy number two. There is a hunky guy number three but he’s too much of an a-hole to let his looks give him a pass. We know this because the girl in front of me told the girl next to her that he was too much of a jerk for Katness (the heroine) to “hook-up with.” He didn’t get any “oohhs, ahhhs or oowwws” from any of the girls until near the end when they all cheered him.

The heroine does what she has to do and correctly starts thinking about what’s going to happen to her next. Then hunky guy number one re-appears on the scene. Once again, the theater erupted in a series of “oowwws” from all the girls. What’s Katness going to do? Then the movie ends. That by itself was awesome. It totally pissed off at least the row of girls in front of me. They had no closure and let it be known they were not happy with the ending.

I don’t know exactly what they were looking for, but it’s a movie. It’s a movie based on a book. If you didn’t like the book’s ending, did you think the movie’s would be different? If you didn’t like the movie’s ending, did you read the book? Don’t sit there and start talking crap about the movie you just spent all afternoon gushing over just to complain that it’s not fair you don’t know what happens to Katness next. Did you scream at the Twilight movies?

Anyway, I liked the movie. Again, no nudity and no swearing, so it’s okay for younger kids. Well, if you get past the whole kids-killing-kids premise. But even that was fairly sterile. Most of the death was implied rather than gruesomely displayed. If you see the movie and you’re not a 12-17 year old girl, you might really like it. If you’re a 12-17 year old girl, prepare to have your heart torn from you as you’re left wondering how Katness will end the movie. If you’re a 12-17 year old boy, don’t laugh at your date when she swoons over the hunky dudes.

Enjoy.

The Cave

Posted on by
1

I have a Facebook friend who reads this blog. I spoke with him this morning and he asked me to clarify my reference to “The Cave of Wonder”. I recognize he might not be alone in his confusion so, albeit very personal, let me put the term into perspective.

My wife and I separated a year ago. Having no where else to go but my office, I converted part of the mail processing room (with folders, sealers, labeling machine, computers, filing cabinets, etc.) into a sanctuary. In a 10′ x 14′ room I have a 5′ x 8′ space from which I contemplate life. Since most of my business is conducted via e-mail and I rarely interact face-to-face with people on any given day, the room has become my hermit cave. But it’s not a hiding place. I don’t “hang out” there to escape people, life, or day-to-day events. My hermit cave isn’t really like the guy who has given up on life and people and wants to escape everything. My cave is more like a spiritual center of stillness and quiet from which I think thoughts and ponder.

It is not the “Cave of Wonders”, plural. There’s nothing “wonderful” about it. It does not contain collections of things I’ve saved, paintings of exotic landscapes or things that make you think, “that’s cool.” When I refer to the Cave of Wonder I don’t really mean a physical place. It’s like heaven. If someone asks you where heaven is, you more than likely will point up to the sky and say, “It’s up there, somewhere.” Yes, there are “the heavens” from a cosmological perspective, but there’s also a “heaven” from a theological viewpoint. The “Cave of Wonder” is my office area (particularly my sanctum sanctorum) but more specifically, it’s the state of mind I enter into at the end of the day.

If you know me, you know I’m well beyond a Type-A personality when it comes to certain things. With other things I flat-line, I don’t care. But I really do believe that you can’t judge a book by its cover. I might appear to be laid-back and easy-going, but don’t let it fool you. I might be having a full-on, total meltdown stress attack because I’m about to miss a deadline but you’d never know it. At the end of the first part of my work day, before I change gears for the evening shift, I wonder. When my day is done, before I go to sleep, I wonder. I wonder a lot. I wonder if I wonder too much.

I wonder why God put me here. No, not in my office but here, on earth. I know I have a mission. I know He put me here for a reason. I wonder what that reason is. One of the guys I meet with on Saturday mornings told our group today that I am a real inspiration for him. He knows my situation and what I’m going through. He recently lost his job and, as a consequence, his wife left him. He told the group as he goes about his daily life now he asks himself two questions: “What does the Bible say about how he should deal with a situation” and “How would {Sparky} deal with this”. I’m certain he meant that from his heart as a compliment, but that’s an awesome amount of responsibility I didn’t know I had in someone else’s life. I wonder, is this why God has me going through the problems in my marriage and my career? So that I might minister, mentor and inspire other men? I don’t know. Am I supposed to know? Do I want other men looking to me for inspiration when, in truth, they’re the ones I respect for their candidness and faithfulness?

I wonder if other men have the same issues I have. I want my children to see my true character. I hope when they look at me they see someone driven by honesty and integrity. I have been lied to, deceived by and forsaken by people very, very close to me. I want to break the cycle of “hurt people hurt people”. I have been hurt deeply more than once. I wonder if I have ever hurt anyone as badly as I have been hurt. If so, I sincerely apologize.

I honestly pray that when my kids look at me or think back to this period of time they can see my example. “When such-and-such happened to my dad, do you know what he did? He didn’t lie, he didn’t cheat, he didn’t steal, he didn’t deceive us. He didn’t dishonor my mother or me. He didn’t give anyone any reason to think he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. He held his head up and said that even though it sucked right now, it wouldn’t be like this forever. He had the courage to have faith.” That’s what I want my children to think on and realize that it isn’t really me that kept that standard. God gave me (all of us, actually) that standard as basic common sense. If a lie got you into trouble, a lie won’t get you out (the truth will set you free). If your spouse cheated on you, cheating on them doesn’t make it “even” (two wrongs don’t make a right). Me having a bad day doesn’t mean I should ruin your day (I can’t think of a cute quip to throw in here).

Jacob and Job are two Old Testament men from whom I draw a lot of inspiration. Both had issues. Depending on the situation I may feel more Jacob-like than Job-like. My rule of thumb is this: If something unexpectedly bad happens and nothing good comes from it in a short period of time, it’s a Job-like test of faith. If something good does come from it, it’s a Jacob-like reward of faith. Regardless, both are tests of integrity and accountability. I can cite two examples from the same event: A long-time customer of mine hired a new buyer. Since the new buyer had the authority and the responsibility to solicit and secure new contracts on behalf of the company, they used my products and pricing to leverage other companies and obtain better pricing from them. I was never given the opportunity to bid because, according to the buyer, it would not have been fair to ask others to bid against me and not award the contract to one of them. The issue wasn’t my quality, my turn-around, my customer service or my pricing. The issue was the buyer looking to make a name for himself within the company as an aggressive go-getter. That, to me, was a Job moment. By his own admission my company had done nothing wrong at all. We had better delivery times, higher quality and better pricing than the company that replaced us. But the bottom line was that we were replaced because we *could* be replaced. I let it go.

A year went by and the owner of that company called me. Very, very unhappy, he laid into me about how I had screwed up a job so bad recently they almost lost a licensing contract. I let him vent. When he was done, I politely asked him what the heck he was talking about since it had been over a year since I had done any work with his company. Very long story short, not only did we once again take over the work we had been doing previously, I also became more integrated in that company’s production planning process in all aspects, from design to overseas production to local assembly and fulfillment. The buyer was fired. This was a Jacob moment. Rather than throw it back in my old customer’s face and tell him to pound sand, I worked with him on how to fix a problem that was never mine, how to prevent future issues related to that event and how to address and preempt long-term problems from overseas factories. I went from nothing to being a de facto production manager in the course of one phone call. Totally Jacob-like, totally God. So it makes me wonder.

I wonder if things had not occurred as they did between my wife and me if any of this would have happened. My wife and I attended the same church for twelve or thirteen years before I was asked to move out. Had I stayed, I probably would not have been as involved with the guys on Saturday morning as I am currently. Am I really an inspiration for other people? Why would you lie about something as trivial as that? We’re a Saturday morning men-only Bible study group. No one there has a “posse”. We don’t have “people”. You don’t come with an “entourage”. We are very sensitive to cults of personality and don’t claim any one member of our congregation, our senior pastor included, has any more or less authority or divine appointment from, to, or by God than anyone else.

I was honored and humbled when someone asked me to be their accountability partner while they struggle with an addiction. I tried to turn him to someone who either has the same issues or experience with the same issues and he wouldn’t have it. He only wanted me because he felt God had sent me to him. This has been a two-way blessing. All I have to do is be me. Since I can’t be him that’s easy enough, but I do need to be sensitive to his struggles. According to him, I have helped him in more ways than he can count. Not too long ago he asked what kinds of hobbies I had when I was a kid. I told him. A week later he asked if I knew where he might find a hobby store. I told him. The next week he came to me and said he had a new hobby building and painting scale model die-cast metal cars (which, by the way, is not something I did so I’m not worried he’s becoming a Mini-Me).

I saw him today and he said the relationship between him and his wife was much, much better than it had been in years, all because of the model building. Because it’s something they can do together, his wife helps him. Because she’s with him and they’re working on projects together, they talk more. Because they’re talking more he doesn’t have the time or the desire to fall back into his addiction. Because he knows he’s an addict and he knows I care and he knows I’d answer the phone if he called, he feels strong enough to make it on his own. What did I do? Nothing. It was all God. But I wonder: Is that why I’m here?

I wonder if I’m a conceited, pompous ass. I know I’m no better than anyone else. I don’t think I have a false sense of humility. If you invite me to your house for dinner, I’ll do the dishes. I’ll clean your oven if you’d like. I don’t do it because it makes me look good. I don’t do it because I’m a kiss-ass. I do it because I can and it’s helpful. If you’ve been working to make a meal for us to enjoy and to make me feel welcome and all those other warm and fuzzy feelings, let me return the favor. If I can’t pay you for the time and money you’ve invested in the meal, let’s turn it into something more than just a host/guest scenario. Let me do something for you so that we have a shared experience of sacrifice (yours in making the meal and mine in cleaning all that crap out of the oven you’ve left there for the past two years). It really doesn’t bother me, don’t let it bother you.

I wonder how long I’ll walk in the dark valley before me. I work community outreach programs a couple of times a month. I talk to homeless people and give thanks that I have a roof over my head. I have a car. I can cook up a mean batch of rice whenever I want. But there are a couple of homeless couples I actually envy. These people have nothing except what they can fit in the two or three shopping carts they’ve roped together. They truly have next to nothing. But they have each other. One of the couples said they were married in a homeless camp by the minister of a church that did a feed-the-homeless program. The church members paid for the license, the ceremony and the food. They wanted to have the ceremony at the church but the couple wanted to do it at the camp so their friends could be there. It’s awesome. They are not the freeway off-ramp “will work for food” homeless. They are much worse off. But when you look at them and how they interact with each other, you know it’s love. I look at them in wonder: When this test is over, will my wife and I be able to have the same sparkle in our eyes? I wonder.

I wonder about all kinds of things. How my kids are doing, where I’ll be living in the next month or two, whether or not the decision I made today about something will help or hurt someone who might look up to me. But I don’t dwell on it. I don’t want to sound Yoda-ish, but dwelling on the negative leads to questioning yourself which leads to questioning your faith which leads to fear which leads to hate. When I think about the negative things happening in my life right now I just chalk it up to a temporary setback and keep moving. That’s really all you can do. I guess I could start drinking to escape reality or start smoking as a “stress relief” and blame someone for giving me the stress in the first place, but the reality is it’s on me. Run and hide or stand and fight. Sometimes I know it’s easier to run and hide, but then I wonder: Is that the example I want to set for my wife and kids? No. I wonder if I’m cut-out to be an example for other men. After all, their problems are their problems, right? Wrong. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, to a certain extent, I am. But I wonder if they’ll see it’s not by me alone that I choose to help but by God’s greater design.

And so you have it: The Cave of Wonder is singular, not plural. It is both a physical place and a mindset. As it has been for the past year and will be for the foreseeable future, it’s also my home. Welcome to it.

Conflicted

Posted on by
5

Today I face an ethical dilemma. It may not seem like much and you may think you have the “best” answer but like many things, it’s a personal problem I have to address and overcome. However, I would like your input.

I went to lunch at one of the finer dining establishments in my fair ville today. Okay, it was the Del Taco drive-through but it was still better than the batch of plain brown rice I’m making for dinner tonight. Anyway, allow me to start with a complaint: People.

I am not better than you. I do not for one second believe you exist to serve me and make my life comfortable and do my bidding. We all have daily trials as much as we have daily victories. If I can help you with a trial or walk with you through hardship, ask. I would love nothing more than to help you celebrate a victory, regardless of its size. We all need victories. But there are those among us that turn their trials or hardships into true tests of courage, patience and restraint for the rest of us. Yes, I’m talking about the people who can’t make up their minds at the fast-food drive-through order kiosk.

My kids have heard me say often enough, “It’s a McDonald’s. The menu didn’t change from when you were here two days ago.” Substitute your favorite fast-food establishment as appropriate and it still holds true. To be fair, some very popular regional restaurants with the drive-through option may be unknown to visitors. For example, here in Southern California’s Inland Empire we have a chain of restaurants called Farmer Boys. I would not expect a NASCAR-loving, beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking, country music-listening, drawl-speaking, Pro Rodeo-watching visitor from Alabama to know about Farmer Boys. For that matter, I was flabbergasted by the sheer volume of Bojangle’s restaurants (one on every corner) when I toured through the Carolinas a couple of years ago. Regional is regional. I get that. And stupid generalizations are stupid, but it helped paint a picture for you.

As far as I’m concerned, you go to a drive-through for speed as well as convenience. The spelling “thru”, to me by the way, conveys a unique sense of ignorance like writing “ok” when the word is spelled “okay”. But I digress. Since you’ve chosen the drive-through option, the issue of consistency has been established. You wouldn’t go to Subway looking for a bucket of chicken just like you wouldn’t go to KFC looking for a roast beef sandwich. You chose that restaurant’s drive-through because you know what they sell and you want it faster and in a more convenient manner than going inside.

Assuming you’ve never been to a Pup-N-Taco before, I have a high amount of confidence your first visit would not be through the drive-through. Even if you’ve heard great things about the place, you’ll want to take a minute to peruse the menu and make a selection from what “sounds” good or what you see others eating. The first-time interaction of seeing the menu, seeing the kitchen layout, getting an overall “feel” for the place and taking in the sounds and smells will establish a baseline from which you will later judge your subsequent drive-through experience. Again, I think the chances of you going to Pup-N-Taco your first time and ordering something at the drive-through kiosk simply because I said you might like it are slim.

Oh, but there are those who live to prove me wrong. In fact, I sat behind one today for quite some time. It’s a freaking Del Taco. Like Taco Bell, they serve pretend Mexican food. Nothing (except the salsa, maybe) is hand-made. It’s all processed, pre-packaged crap from somewhere else. In my mind it’s like a scene from The Simpson’s. They go to the county fair and all the different ethnic groups have food tents from which you can order their country’s specialty. All the orders are routed through one location and filled by someone dipping a ladle into a cauldron of something and pouring it into a bowl or plate. This is then placed on a tray and taken by conveyer belt back to the tent from which the order was placed. That pretty much describes fast-food drive-through restaurants in general: Generic slop from somewhere else presented to you at their window.

First-time visitor or someone looking for a change of pace, I don’t know. But the woman today did as much to delay the progress of mankind in general as possible. She could not decide. I could understand if she had kids in the car and wanted to keep everyone happy. It didn’t appear as though she did. I could also understand if she had multiple people in the car (like a church car pool or something) and everyone wanted something unique. She looked like she was alone. Alone and curious.

“What comes with a number five?” Well, let’s see. There’s a picture of it not three feet in front of you. It looks like it comes with a this, a that, and a thingamajig. “Oh, I don’t want that. What comes with a number six?” Well, here in Western society we often treat things in a linear, progressive manner. I’ll look either right next to or immediately below the number five and–oh, there it is, the elusive number six. Huh. The picture indicates it contains a whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Okay, I’d like a number six but what comes on the whozit?”

I know the eight inch by eight inch picture does not have the finest detail in the world, but it looks like a burrito that contains ground beef, refried beans, cheese, a hot sauce of some type and a tortilla. “Instead of ground beef can I get chicken?” Why yes, you can. We call it the number eleven. “What comes with the number eleven?” A chicken whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Oh, okay. Yes, I’d like the number eleven with chicken. And instead of the whachamacallit can I change it to a thingamajig?” Yes, you can do that.

But now you’re off the regularly numbered combination menu and into our entree menu items. If you substitute the whachamacallit for the thingamajig it’s thirty cents extra. “Okay, let’s do that. And can I get that with the really large drink?” Yes, but that will be an additional fifty-five cents. Your total is seven dollars and sixteen cents. Will that be all for you today or would you like to try a tooth-rotting straight sugar dessert? “No, that’s it. Thank–Oh, wait! Can I substitute my large drink for a shake?” And on it went until she finally nit-picked her order to get exactly what she wanted.

So, having had enough time to become fairly well acquainted with every detail of the backside of her vehicle, she pulled forward. She left the comfort of the drive-through kiosk and entered the frightening (yet aptly named) Realm of Reality: The left turn to the window.

I have a fairly hard and fast rule of driving any vehicle. To keep this rule means you have demonstrated the aptitude and higher-level thought processes required of a licensed driver. To violate this rule you must, at some point, be punished. The rule: If you can’t park it, you can’t drive it. No, she wasn’t trying to park her vehicle. She was trying to negotiate a single left turn so she could enter the straight-away in front of the payment window. But if you can’t do that simple task I guarantee you she could not parallel park that vehicle.

She was in a Cadillac SUV that clearly was too much for her. I don’t care about the make of car she drove. It could have been a 1970s-era Chevrolet Suburban or her 2012 Cadillac. The point is that the vehicle greatly exceeded her driving ability. Someone should have taken the keys away from her. Unlike Disneyland, the Realm of Reality does not allow for a center rail down the lane which takes control of your vehicle and keeps you pointed in the correct direction if you over- or under-steer. Unlike the go-cart track, you can’t just keep your foot on the gas, bumping off one curb to the other until the ride’s done. You have to actually participate in and learn from the driving experience.

No kidding, I’ve seen guys in trucks with trailers go through a drive-though without rubbing rubber on either the truck or the trailer. The woman today turned a simple left turn into a twelve-point back-and-forth event from which I was getting sick watching. The fact she was a woman had nothing to do with it. The fact that she did not have confidence and or experience in what she was doing is the bigger issue. I’ll bet she took her driving test in a small sub-compact car she borrowed from someone. There is no way she parallel-parked a vehicle the size of a Jawa Sandcrawler when she took her driver’s test.

But that’s not my issue today. That was a minor annoyance that did nothing but cause me to re-think my food choice and hope to be good later on. Today’s event happened at the window.

I pulled up and recognized the same voice from the squawk-box as belonging to the kid hanging out the window looking for payment. I handed him my credit card and he handed me my beverage. He disappeared for a moment and re-appeared with a straw before once again returning to his spider hole. A short while later another uniformed person appeared and handed me my lunch order. She wished me a good day and started to shut the window. I asked for if she had my credit card and she held it up, saying, “This one?”

Seriously, what would she have done if I said, “No, the other one?” I was the only one in line. Specifically, I was the only one at the window. Do they have a bunch of cards they’ve kept from other customers? Is there a little bucket of unclaimed ATM, debit and credit cards on the other side of the window I can’t see? What kind of question is that, “this one?” Anyway, I told her yes, that was the one.

Then she asked for my name. What? It didn’t matter one iota to them who I was when I handed them the card in the first place. I could have charged twenty five dollars worth of tacos and burritos and they would not have asked to see my identification, let alone asked my name. Assuming she was the new window HMFIC (Head Mother Flunkee In Charge), I told her my name. I was tempted to say Al Sharpton or Huey Lewis but I didn’t. I don’t think she would have seen the humor as much as I. With my name (luckily) matching what was written, the card was returned and I drove off.

Then it occurred to me that I never received a copy of my receipt. I would have expected it with the drink, but I received the drink concurrent with issuing the card. The next opportunity would have been when I was given the straw. But all I received was the straw. As I returned to my combination office / dungeon, I started thinking that I didn’t see the girl put a receipt in the bag. That started my first pangs of guilt: What if I hadn’t paid for my meal? Not wanting to dwell on it, I pushed it out of my mind until I sat at my desk.

There is no receipt anywhere in the bag. I never received one. So, did the first guy run my card and just forget to give me a receipt? I won’t know until Monday. I know the girl didn’t run my card.

I am not as happy as I might have been when I was younger, glad that I had a “free meal” because they screwed up. I have no idea what policy Del Taco has regarding “short” cash drawers at the drive-through. It really bothers me to think that some kid might get docked the cost of at least my meal because he got involved in something else and didn’t run my card. That one issue alone is my problem. Kid number one did what you would expect: He repeated my total and took my card. Kid number two did what you might expect: Saw a card on a ledge inside the store and returned it, perhaps assuming the card had already been run.

Am I going to go back to the store and have them “Z”-out a register so I can pay them and feel better? No. Am I going to take the money I would have paid them and buy lunch for someone else? Maybe, but that won’t relieve me of my concern. And no, I’m not going to give you the money and let you “take care of it” on my behalf.

Seriously, what would you do? I can’t just let this one go. Potentially there’s one, maybe two, high school students trying to make something of themselves on a Sunday afternoon who might have to pick up the cost of my lunch. I feel like I just did a dine-and-dash, only much worse. If I had intentionally deceived or defrauded them out of the cost of my lunch, I am totally responsible. If they had handed me my lunch and never asked for my card it doesn’t change the result: I know I should have paid but I didn’t even make an attempt. This is different.

I tried to pay. For all I know, I did pay and they just didn’t give me a receipt. I am certain some of you will tell me just to suck it up and enjoy the free food, but I’m interested in hearing from the more mature and responsible readers I know are out there. What would you do?