Blog #218

 

Amazon is now testing the new palm-scanning technology at its Whole Foods store.  No cash, no credit-cards, just pass your palm over a scanner and you’re good to go.  Congratulations, you’ve saved 10 seconds.  Can we just stop for a minute?  Why is everybody in such a hurry?  If you shop at Whole Foods once a week, the palm scanner will save you enough time so that every four years you can watch a Friends episode.  Was that worth it?  We do everything online so we don’t have to spend time going anywhere.  We bank online, buy food online, order prescriptions online.  What are we doing with all this extra time?  I have a different concept.  I like to do things in person.  I don’t order prescriptions online.  I go to the pharmacy and learn the names of the people working there.  I say, Hi, Mark; he says Hello, Mr. Fox.  Sometimes we chat for a little while.  If I ever need some help on anything, Mark is happy to help me.  I do the same with banking and other routine services.

 

Our world is becoming more and more impersonal and intrusive.  There are video cameras everywhere – on the street corners, inside businesses, at everybody’s front door.  Google knows everything about us -- where we are, what doctors we use, what cat food we buy.  We are constantly tracked, monitored and controlled.  The least they could do is tell me where I left my reading glasses.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope all you mommies out there had a happy Mother’s Day, or, as they’ll be calling it in the future, Birth Person’s Day.  Don’t get me started!  I hope you’re feeling well and getting ready for a glorious summer.  That’s right, it’s May already and the weather is warming up, although last week it rained so much that I stopped worrying about Global Warming and started to worry about Global Drowning.  But today it was so sunny and pleasant that I reached for a sporty linen shirt I haven’t worn in a while.  Warning! Warning!  Alarms began to ring in my brain about wearing linen out of season.  So I checked my calendar, my horoscope, Poor Richard’s Almanac, the phases of the moon and an old Martha Stewart Prison-Wear Catalog and determined that yes, I could wear my linen shirt.  I put it on and walked into the living-room.  Carol looked at me.  Memorial Day to Labor Day.  It’s not Memorial Day yet.  Take it off.  My wife is under the impression that the sun wouldn’t come up if she were not there to allow it.  I believe she’s right.  Actually, she didn't really say that.  She barely looked at me.

 

I don’t need to scurry around saving time by palm-scanning and the like.  I have plenty of time.  I certainly have enough time to do all the unpleasant errands my wife chooses not to do.  Do you remember Dirty Harry?  Clint Eastwood?  Go ahead, make my day?  They called him Dirty Harry because he was always the one chosen whenever there was a dirty job to do.  Well, I’m Dirty Mikey.  When someone has to drop Princess Summerfallwinterspring at the restaurant door, then park two blocks away and walk back in the pouring rain, who does it?  Dirty Mikey!  When someone has to pick up the dozen Everything Bagels and stink up his car and his clothes with that caustic, garlicky stench, who does it?  You guessed it.  One time, on the way back from picking up those nasty bagels, I stopped at McDonald’s and went in.  My clothes smelled so much like the Everything Bagels that two old Jewish women started spreading cream cheese on my shirt.  I liked it.

 

Yes, I have plenty of time for all the dirty jobs.  Plus, I have plenty of time for my little conservation projects.  I’ll bet you do the same things.  Do you squeeze the last little eensy infinitesimal bit of toothpaste out of the tube?  Do you use the bar of soap until it’s tinier than Andrew Cuomo’s chances of re-election?   I don’t consider that being parsimonious; it’s just conserving resources.  Like saving paper clips.  Do you save paper clips?

 

One summer, our family rented a house on Bald Head Island and two of my granddaughters (they were 8 and 10 at the time) asked me if I had a paper clip.  They had heard about someone who had traded a paper clip for something else and that something else for something else and so on.  I gave them a paper clip and off they went.  Now, the island has at most 20 merchants – shops, hotdog stands, restaurants – but these two were persistent and cute as bunnies.  They traded the paper clip for a Hershey bar, which they traded for two cans of soda, and so on.  After two hours, they returned with two candy bars, two necklaces, two pairs of earrings and a $25 gift certificate to a spa.  So of course I save paper clips.  Look how valuable they are.

 

We’re going back to Bald Head Island this summer.  Eight adults, eight grandchildren, two dogs and a lot of pills.  I have to start planning pretty early to make sure I have a supply of all the medicines I need.

 

There’s heart pills to keep me from dying

And Zoloft to keep me from crying

I’ve so many pills

To treat all my ills

I need extra luggage for flying.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  How like a winter hath my absence been from thee (Sonnet 97).  I hate when they go away.  I hate it.  I hate it.  I hate it!  I’m all alone except when some stranger comes for two minutes to feed me.  Can a cat take some of that Zoloft?  I think for cats they call it Purrzac.  Purr.

 

The Weekly Word is parsimonious.  I’ll bet you figured that out.  Parsimonious means frugal or stingy or downright cheap.  I am very parsimonious with my writing, and I try to keep each blog under 1100 words.  That’s enough to put most of you to sleep and I’m getting close to that number now, so I’ll stop.  It’s been very nice talking to you and I hope you enjoyed.  Stay well, count your blessings and make sure you file your taxes on time.  I’ll see you next week.

 

Dirty Mikey                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com