Lame Adventure 310: Couch Potato Hero

This year, as in any given year, many high profile people have been dropping like flies – Etta James, Mike Wallace, Whitney Houston, Maurice Sendak, Andy Rooney, Donna Summer, Maurice Gibb, Davy Jones, to name some names.

I have not read the vast majority of their obituaries.  Yet, I have scoured The New York Times obit section for decades.  Around age forty, my trademark paranoia and narcissism kicked into overdrive when I started paying much closer attention to people my age that seemed to prematurely purchase their rainbows.  What I wanted to know most was what caused their demise. If they were wiped out on the Interstate in a freak accident, I would think, “How tragic.”  If it was anything intestinal-related, excluding food-borne illness acquired during exotic travel (I hate to leave Manhattan so I don’t anticipate that problem), I would enter full freak out mode, break into a cold sweat, ignore the fact that I generally feel perfectly fine, and think:

Me: Holy crap, I’m next!

The death that has interested me most thus far this year is that of a relatively low profile man who was many decades my senior, an inventor named Eugene Polley.  In an obituary written by Margalit Fox that was published in The New York Times, she states that Mr. Polley was, “ … an inventor whose best-known creation has fostered blissful sloth, caused decades of domestic discord and forever altered the way consumers watch television … Mr. Polley, the inventor of the wireless television remote control, was 96.”  Hey, my kind of guy.

In 1955 he invented the Flash-Matic.

The start of fat ass-ness. (NY Times image.)

The ad states that pricing for Zenith brand televisions “begin as low as $149.95” or $1,267.40 in today’s dollars.  The set pictured in the ad in the “blond grained finish cabinet on casters” costs $399.95 or $3,380.43 in today’s dollars.  What bargains.  The median salary in 1955 was $4,418 or $37,341.53 in today’s dollars.  Once again Lame Adventures is flaunting its vast educational muscle if one overlooks the redundancy of the phrase, “in today’s dollars”.

Although Mr. Polley’s invention did not fly off store shelves, I doubt that 99% of US households had a single TV in 1955 much less that the average household had 2.24 sets as the households of today.  Since I watch on average two hours of TV a week (exceptions that I avidly tune in: Wimbledon and US Open tennis, the Academy Awards, the Tony Awards, election night results, and on those rare occasions when Saturday Night Live sounds like it might actually deliver), my  eleven-year-old Sony behemoth qualifies as a .24 set.

Sony .24 set circa 2001 (note remotes in foreground).

This is not to imply that I’m a snob that considers TV beneath me. My preferred mode of procrastination is the Internet.

The Flash-Matic allowed the TV viewer to turn the set on, off, change channels and mute the sound of commercials – something that I personally highly appreciate.  Thank you Mr. Polley.  Ms. Fox describes Mr. Polley as “a plain-spoken man who seemed to avail himself of his own internal mute button only rarely”.  His being a chatterbox further endears him to me.  Mr. Polley indulged in whining about  shoddy reporting that often credits his colleague, Robert Adler, who invented a better selling remote, as being the sole inventor of this device.  Not so!

Mr. Polley took pride in his invention proclaiming, “The flush toilet may have been the most civilized invention ever devised, but the remote control is the next most important. It’s almost as important as sex.”

Eugene Polley (NYTimes image).

Therefore, I conclude that the  visage of this founding father of the wireless remote should grace a new coin, at least the two-cent piece.

Lame Adventure 309: Eye Catchers

Every so often I hang out with my friend and fellow blogger, Natasia, from the demurely named site, Hot Femme Writing in NYC.  On this particular get-together we are walking down my block to my sanctum sanctorum when she notices the Recreational Vehicle that has been polluting my Upper West Side neighborhood for years.  It’s curbside blight that I have written about before.  Tas reacts like she’s had a celebrity sighting.

Easily confused with Angelina Jolie on a bad hair day.

Tas:  Hey, there’s that RV you hate!  It’s almost parked in front of your building.

Egging me on, she adds:

Tas:  That pisses you off, doesn’t it?

It does, but I am a self-control machine.  Therefore, I say nothing other than a low growl.  My contempt for this vehicle strikes me as ridiculous considering that I spend most of my time in one of four places – inside my apartment, inside a subway station or train, inside my office, or outside in general Gotham City.  I spend very little time on any given day standing like a doofus in front of my building hyperventilating about a legally parked eyesore.  Yet, irrationally, whenever I see that unsightly trash barge on wheels hogging space outside my door, it sets me off like a Roman Candle.  At that particular moment, I know my blood pressure is rising.

Tas:  Look, matzo!

I assume that she is firing her special brand of snark at me.  I detonate:

Me:  What are you talking about?  Why are you yammering about matzo now?  It’s out of season; it’s May!  You told me you wanted to eat a baguette!

I pause for breath half-wondering if the chest pain I feel is gas or a heart attack, and if it’s the latter, will she hesitate to call an ambulance from the iPhone that seems surgically attached to her mitt?  Ignoring my conniption Tas points at the vehicle and insists:

Tas:  Matzo!

Displaying her own level of self-control, she resists adding for emphasis:

Tas:  Look dumbass!

Window dressing matzo — move over Martha Stewart.

Me:  Huh!  How’d they do that?  Gee, good eye, Tas.

We conclude it’s probably very stale and walk on.

A few days later, I’m running an errand for dish soap.  As I wait to cross Broadway at 77^th Street, I look up at a boring high-rise apartment building.

Another innocuous tall box that could have been designed by Ambien.

This is the exact kind of building I usually find invisible, but this time I do a double take.

That mannequin’s butt naked! Hide the small fry!

Logically, this naked mannequin might belong to an artist or designer, but illogically and based on nothing other than my own imagination run amuck, I make the assumption that it might belong to someone with kinky proclivites.  Hm, all roads return to artist or designer.  My next thought is I wonder if they own or rent?

My favorite eye catching sites are the Peter Woytuk bronze sculptures that dot the Upper West Side.  Three of them are in a three and four block radius of my home base.  Last year, he had a giant blue kiwi on display outside the 72^nd Street subway entrance (or exit if you’re leaving instead of entering).  That big blue bloated bird (try saying that three times fast) has now been replaced with a raven standing tall atop a cluster of apples bringing to mind Edgar Allan Poe, fruit that’s available year round and an impressive balancing act.

How do you like them apples? I do! I also like the raven on top.

I admire his three fat hens planted in the median on Broadway outside Fairway.

“How dare you call us fat!”

My blood pressure appreciates all of these sculptures and I would welcome any one of them outside my building.

This might also scare away the rats and skunks.

Lame Adventure 308: Little People Power

I have never been compelled to spawn.  The second Someone I’m Dating declares:

Someone I’m Dating:  I want to have children!

I declare back:

Me:  See ya!

I know that I’m about as maternal as an oil slick, but I instinctively allow children and their parents/nannies/caretakers priority.  Translation: I get the hell out of their way.  It recently occurred to me that I’m not the only one following this unwritten rule.  As I was recently walking down Hudson Street in Tribeca to buy a few bananas at a grocer’s near my place of employ, I noticed a footloose toddler who had just been released from the confines of his stroller take off as if he was running the fifty-yard dash.  His mother, who had been pushing the stroller, watched helplessly as her companion hightailed after the wild hombre.

I had been walking at a healthy clip but the second I caught sight of this potential crisis, I downshifted my pace to tai chi speed.  The other pedestrians around me — a businessman and a chap in his twenties — both did the same.  I crossed the street to lengthen my distance from the sidewalk blockade.  Picking up my pace again I pondered:

Me: Wow, you stand 2 ½ feet tall, you weigh 32 pounds, you have an eight word vocabulary, but your presence practically stops traffic.  That’s power!

A short while later, when I approached the checkout lane at the grocer’s with my two bananas I observed that a mile long line of at least eight shoppers waiting at one register, but no one was standing behind the two nannies with four tots in double-wide strollers filling the aisle at the only other open register.  I assessed the situation and ascertained that between the six of them, all they were purchasing was a single bottle of water.  Again, what power!

The chosen few.

On my way back to the office with my bag of two bananas, I saw a girl about five-years-old speed demoning up the street on a toe scooter.   This child was the second coming of Evel Knievel.  Her mother shouted out at her that the chinstrap on her oversized helmet was loose.  Little Evel Knievel-ette obediantly toe scooted back to her mother who presumably tightened the chinstrap.  This did not impair the flow of my thoughts as I was making a mental note to remember to bring home my eight packages of woven tooth twine that night; something I had failed to do the day before.

Haul of floss.

Suddenly my concentration was shattered when I heard the sound of a fast moving toe scooter that seemed to be heading straight for  my back.  The  little daredevil must have been making up for lost time or she was preparing to practice jumping over me before taking on the Grand Canyon a few years hence.  Immediately  I switched gears and did a steady jog when two words from all the French I failed to learn in the five years of pointless study in my youth came to mind:

Me: Zut alors!

As I hot-footed my pace to a fierce trot, my thoughts reverted to English:

Me:  No way am I going to subject myself to the humiliation of being reduced to road kill by a five-year-old burning plastic at supersonic speed!

I returned to my office winded but alive.  I was also impressed with the wee one’s power.

I’m perfectly fine sitting right here.

Lame Adventure 307: Dental Floss Hunting

I spent my Mother’s Day breaking out in a drenching sweat worthy of birthing a litter as I combed the entire Upper West Side in search of Johnson & Johnson’s elusive Reach Woven Dental Floss.

The Cadillac of dental floss.

It was very warm on Sunday with the temperature topping 80 degrees.  Had I known I was going to reenact the Bataan Death March hunting for my preferred variety of tooth twine, I would have ignored my horror at flaunting my pasty white limbs and worn shorts.

Pasty white forearm dotted with freckles, liver spots and melanoma(?).

Yet, I was not anticipating any difficulty locating this product that has been reliably available for over a decade at my local Price Wise Discount store that is a short walk from my sanctum sanctorum.  Granted, Price Wise is the only store in all of Manhattan where I have ever seen this floss, but it never occurred to me that a day would come when they would no longer carry it. Upon reflection, in my youth I never thought that Pillsbury would cease making my favorite after school snack, the chalk-flavored Space Food Sticks, so from a tender age I have been familiar with retail-world disappointment.

I questioned the Price Wise manager about my floss.  He said that it was not in their most recent shipment of Reach products.  In fact, he was unsure if they would ever carry it again.  Upon hearing that, I felt stabbed.

Yet, I remained upright and I hotfooted into countless Duane Reades, two CVS’s, and some stand-alone pharmacies including one on 72^nd Street where a woman that appeared to be a direct descendant of Lurch stalked me.  Three times she made an overt point to walk in front of me to coo:

Daughter of Lurch:  Pardon me.

How I regretted not carrying a mallet.

I left without my floss, crestfallen with the futility of my effort.  How could this tragedy happen?  Western civilization as I knew it, albeit predominantly from a steady diet of watching and reading cartoons, was in freefall.

I prefer gentle gum care products.  I’m a fan of soft bristle toothbrushes, but I’ll resist rhapsodizing poetically about the merits of those because they don’t require I don a pith helmet and hire a search party to find.  Regular waxed dental floss is punishing.  It makes me feel like I’m sliding stiff cable between my teeth without the benefit of accessing HBO.

Mint. Waxed. Nasty.

I returned home, floss-less, frustrated and sweaty.  As I quaffed a quart of iced tea, I searched for my missing floss online.  My usual go-to source, Amazon, had a 50-yard dispenser for $12.95 from an off-site seller that doubles as an extortionist.  Or, if I wanted to invest $89.95 and another $19.99 in shipping, I could be the proud owner of a case of 144 5-yard packets from BuyNowDirect.

CountMeOut

Next, I went on Reach’s web site, just to torture myself further for I was expecting to learn that the product has been discontinued.  Much to my surprise, it not only still exists but Reach referred me to Drugstore.com where it’s available for $3.29 per 50-yard packet. Drugstore.com claims that it is temporarily out of stock, but it will ship in a week or two, probably because I’m the first person that has ordered it all year.  Orders exceeding $25 qualify for free shipping.  Therefore, I’ve ordered eight 50-yard packs.  According to my abacus, four-football-fields-worth of woven floss should last me 800 days.  That translates into two years, two months and ten days if I use the recommended 18 inches of floss per day.  And I will do exactly that even if every tooth in my head falls out between now and then.  In that case, I’ll just use it between my toes and behind my ears.

Lame Adventure 306: Technical Difficulties

Shortly after I figured out how to set the time on my department’s fax machine from Scottsbluff, Nebraska to Gotham City, it started jamming.  I diagnosed that it needed the roller replaced.

“Help me. I need a new roller.”

Therefore, I notified an assistant at the Grind about the situation and asked if she could set up a service call.  She told me that our 14-year-old fax no longer rates a contract.  She advised we get a new one.

Me:  But it only needs the roller replaced, we’re talking a $2 part.  It can send faxes just fine.

She said she’d discuss it with our company’s I.T. guy, Mr. Hat.

Mr. Hat:  I’ll get you a new one.

Me:  Can’t you take a look at it first?

Mr. Hat: I’ll visit next week.

Translation: he thinks it’s a lost cause.  As far as waiting days to visit, his office is located three floors away from ours.  He could visit in less than three minutes.

Me (bleating to my colleagues):  Why must this take days?

My sidekick, Greg, and (not) Under Ling (anymore) are as baffled as me.

Greg:  Can you get the part online?  Maybe we can install it?

Two years ago, Greg and I performed brain surgery on our color printer.  We got it to work again.  I call Canon and speak to a technician named Mike who asks me the model of our fax machine.

Me: We have a CFX L4000.

Mike: I don’t have that one on my list.  When did you get it?

Me: During the Hoover administration.

Mike puts me on hold.  He is probably accessing Canon’s Obsolete Machines Database or his Magic 8 Ball.  He returns and explains that they no longer service this model but he gives me the name and number of a local technician that might be able to help.  I call the technician and I’m told that they no longer service our machine because they can no longer get replacement parts.  She declares:

Technician: Nobody really sends faxes anymore.  Everyone uses email.

Me (deadpan):  Email?  What’s that?

There’s an awkward pause except for the crickets on the other end of the line.

Me:  That was a joke.

She rocket launches into a sales pitch trying to entice me with a souped-up fax machine that can do countless things that I’m tuning out.

Technician:  I’ll even give you ten percent off!  What do you think of that?

Me:  I think we’ll use email.

I walk over to our fax machine and have a blunt chat with it.

Me:  Listen, if you don’t suck up the paper anymore, you’re gonna end up in a landfill.

Instantly, it prints a fax.  Greg and (not) Under Ling (anymore) are both up on their feet.  The three of us gather at the fax machine.  We’re jubilant.

Greg:  What did you do to get it to work again?

Me: I told it it could end up in a landfill.

I call our colleague, Rhonda, and ask her to send a test fax.  She does and again it works!

Test fax.

I leave The Grind for the weekend feeling empowered.  I fantasize about marketing my phenomenal powers of persuasion.  The ability to speak to office machines could save small businesses thousands if not millions and make me millions.  Whoa!

Finally, I may have found my calling in life!  Suddenly, my unique skill will turn my dismal finances around.  With my newfound success I can afford that beach house I’ve never wanted since I can’t tan or swim.  Yet, why be selfish?  I’ll write a check that will pay for my niece’s entire college career and even throw in a car for Sweet Pea.  Milton and I will always sit in premium center orchestra seats and see every Broadway show.  Come to think of it, I must finance the staging of one of my pal Albee’s plays.  I’ll donate heavily to whatever event Martini Max is spearheading over in New Jersey, even if it involves Jerry Lewis, who I utterly loathe.  Plus I cannot forget my fashionista buddy, Coco. She gets a blank check to feed her Christian Louboutin shoe habit.  Also, what about my loyal colleagues, Greg and (not) Under Ling (anymore)?  He can have that baritone sax he wants and she, a crate of videogames.  I should not just focus on material gifts for my posse.  I must also pursue worthy philanthropic concerns.  Gee, where to start?  The world is such a troubled place.  I’ll go through my junk mail for information about what crusades George Clooney endorses.

When I return to work on Monday, our fax machine is jammed again.

Ominous red alarm light.

For an hour I give it the office machine equivalent of mouth-to-mouth.  My credibility as an office machine whisperer and potential seven-figure income are on the line.  Unfortunately, nothing I do, even speaking to it in the single word of the French I retain from five years of inattentive study (“merde!”) can persuade it to pull up paper.

Resigned that I’m just a fax machine whispering fraud, I do what I hate.  I admit defeat.  I call Mr. Hat and ask him to order us a new one.

Two minutes later he enters our office carrying the fax machine he ordered a week earlier — when our problems started.

Ready.

It’s so state-of-the-art, it can work within five minutes, even though it takes Greg and I closer to two hours to get it going.

Five minutes to get it to print. Another 115 minutes to get it to fax … Probably because everyone uses email.

I reason:

Me:  All we needed was 24 five-minute intervals to set it up.

“Talk to me. I’m a good listener.”

Lame Adventure 305: Look up in the Sky!

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!

Lamppost at 79th and Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Allow me to defog my glasses …

Are these things going to break loose, fall on my head and knock sense into me?

It’s shoes hanging over a lamppost!

I have a correction to make to my previous post where I shared the trauma of suffering my latest birthday.  When I mentioned that my sister, Dovima, gifted me with a box of See’s dark chocolate, I had not yet opened the box and unbeknownst to me, my x-ray vision was malfunctioning.  Yes, I was assuming there was dark chocolate within, and indeed there was dark chocolate within, but the dark chocolate within was See’s Almond Royals, dark chocolate caramels wrapped around large pieces of almond.  Why am I compelled to mention this?

This is the dark chocolate equivalent of heroin.

Once I start eating them, I need another fix fast.  These buttery sugar bombs are also instant dental death prompting me to invest in a new toothbrush.  While walking up Broadway to do toothbrush shopping, I noticed the hanging sneakers.

Last month I published posts about tree bagging – shopping bags that somehow wind up tangled in the branches of a tree on my block.  Trash in trees is not symbolic of much other than The Big Apple has so much garbage, it can even be found in the trees.

Bag 1 continuing to make itself at home, “The view is outstanding from up here!”

Bag 2 hanging around, “I like this neighborhood. I feel secure in this tree.”

Shoe tossing is an altogether other kind of statement.  Since I’m such a brilliant researcher and I know that the vast majority of you, my nine subscribers, visit this site purely for its vast educational component, I Googled “shoe tossing”.   My results led me straight to Wikipedia.

Apparently shoe tossing is also known as shoe flinging or shoefiti.  It can mean many things including the end of the school year, an upcoming marriage, a practical joke played on someone plastered, someone moving onto bigger and better things, a bullying tactic, an ad that crack and cocaine are sold here (the sneakers can be referred to as “Crack Tennies”), a sign of gang turf, a commemoration of a gang-related murder, etc.

My favorite explanation on Wikipedia is this one:

“Of course, only each individual shoe-thrower knows why his/her pair of shoes now hangs from a wire.”

Manhattan’s Upper West Side can be so banal; one of my long ago acquaintances referred to my ‘hood as being:

Long Ago Acquaintance:  “As dull as Encino.”

Therefore those shoes hanging over that lamppost could simply mean that some chocolate smeared weasel just purchased a new toothbrush.

Unlikely couple — See’s Almond Royals and new toothbrush.

For the record, my sneaker of choice is the Jack Purcell badminton shoe – and I would never wear anything as hideous as those gunboats hanging from that lamppost.

Preferred gunboats not destined for a lamppost.

Lame Adventure 304: Annual Day of Dread

My brother Axel perfectly captures how I feel.

I know many people embrace their natal day with euphoric glee, but if you’re like me, you take this day off work, sleep in and wake thinking this uplifting thought:

Me:  Wow, I’m officially seventeen years shy of seventy.  Is 9 am too early to down a fifth of gin and call it breakfast?

Fortunately, I have only gone partially to seed and I’m confident that I can still pass for 48 ½ at least in low lighting when around the clueless and anyone blind.

Sure. That’s me.

My friends, family, boss and colleagues have all treated me well.

My father called me last Sunday morning to ensure that he was the very first to re-remind me of my birthday before rocket-launching into a tirade about my sister, Dovima, who hit a milestone involving a six and a zero last month.

Box of hand-picked all dark chocolate See’s candy from Dovima.

Dad:  I can’t believe how old your sister is now.  Can you?

Me:  You’re 85!  What’s there to believe?

Dad: Why are you talking about leaves?

My father has all of his marbles but he’s extremely hard of hearing, something I inherited from him along with a degree of wit, narrow feet and a propensity for whining.

My long-time bud, Martini Max, hell-bent on not screwing up on this date for the twentieth year in a row (not to imply that I keep track of this sort of reliable snafu), sent me a card that arrived in Tuesday’s mail.

Trademark Martini Max-style card.

He also emailed me the following:

Martini Max email: I have your b-day listed in neon on my desk calendar so I don’t forget!!!

At The Grind, my sidekick, Greg, took it upon himself to get me a modest cake, a dense, gluten free, dark chocolate concoction with a thin layer of raspberry jam under a layer of semi-sweet chocolate glaze dusted with edible gold.

Ta da!

I have no idea how he knew exactly what cake to get.

Don’t screw this up.

The bakery asked him if he wanted it inscribed and sprinkled with edible gold stars.  He knows me well so he knows my aversion to ostentation and artifice.  He declined.  While we were eating the cake he mentioned the stars and how he figured cheesy decoration might make me recoil prompting me to bleat:

Me: Oh, that’s too gay?

Our boss, Elsbeth, and colleague, (not) Under Ling (anymore), howled at that one.  I noticed that Elsbeth, who always writes our names on the envelopes of birthday cards in her elaborate art school-style script, had left mine blank.

For no name me.

I protested this indignity:

Me:  You left the envelope of my card blank!

Elsbeth:  You don’t know your name by now?

All that was missing from that response was a snare drum rumble and cymbal crash.

My superior has been on a roll with me all week.  On Tuesday night, I ate an Ataulfo mango for the first time.

Warning: Ataulfo mangoes.

I have always been an ambitious eater and I thought:

Me:  Huh.  Something different.  Sign me up!

Yet I was unaware until after I ate my Ataulfo mango that it’s a puck of pure acid and it left me feeling like I was reenacting the meltdown at Three Mile Island inside my very sensitive guts.

When I shared the news of my brush with accidental death by mango with Elsbeth, she listened attentively to my horror story.  Yet, I had the distinct impression that my superior was repressing gales of laughter when she observed:

Elsbeth:  That happened because your body is so pure now.

On the woman-front there is some validity to that these days for I am once again single although I will be suffering my birthday with my dear friend, Milton.  We’re seeing a play, End of the Rainbow, on Broadway tonight.  This is the story about the last six months of Judy Garland’s life, and unfortunately, it’s not being performed Carol Burnett sitcom-style.  What I anticipate will be the even bigger tragedy though is our seats.  We have okay seats in the mezzanine, but we could have had terrific seats in the center orchestra at a deep discount if I didn’t blow that opportunity.

Excellent seats.

Last fall, I got involved with a dame with an ass that was worthy of display in the Louvre who earlier this spring lured me away from pouncing on those great seats with a link to a fantasy costume site and this promise:

Pick one out and I’ll wear it for you on your birthday.

I felt like I had won the Powerball lottery or at the very least was a disgraced politician.  The choices were so extensive I could not stop drooling and had to invest in a bib.  I also had difficulty making up my mind – did I want her to go in the direction of animal, mineral or Bettie Page?  Then, something unanticipated happened, this femme fatale kicked me to the curb via G-chat.  Poof.  No tantric sex with a knockoff Bettie Page for me.

That ain’t happening either.

Adding injury to insult, our great End of the Rainbow seats on my birthday were history.  Milton the Infinitely Patient Friend claims that he’s fine with our mezzanine seats since he’s too kind to say out loud what he is surely thinking:

Milton:  You and those fuckin’ dames!  Will you ever learn?

Now that I’m seventeen years shy of seventy, maybe I’ll finally start catching on.

Classic birthday card to me from Milton.

Lame Adventure 303: Am I Hallucinating?

The short answer to that question is, “That’s always a possibility.” I was sitting at my desk at work effectively feigning consciousness when I looked up at the shelf over my computer and saw a rainbow.

Looking up under the rainbow.

I thought:

Me (thinking):  Holy crap!  What’s this about?

If Judy Garland started singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow on the iPod in my mind I would have accepted the possibility that I was likely suffering a flashback from some chemical I may have ingested in my past.  I highly doubted that the English Breakfast tea I was sipping at that moment after polishing off a cup of Life cereal in skim milk would have triggered any visions other than my constant craving for a bagel.

Cinnamon raisin bitch goddess.

Since there is supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, I was prompted to look behind my desk to see what was there.  Curious, I peeked behind my monitor, half expecting an encounter with the Lucky Charms leprechaun.  Rather than finding a vessel overflowing with riches or a silo full of noxiously sweet cereal, I only saw a sobering sight; a piece of cement floor tile in the foreground and bright sunshine bouncing off a CD behind it.

Reality bites.

The CD was the source reflecting rainbow colors on the shelf above.  That brought my day tripping to an abrupt end, until I recalled a popular song from my youth sung by my fellow traveler, Lesley Gore.  It features sunshine, rainbows eventual tooth decay and can probably lead to alcoholism if heard often enough.

Lame Adventure 302: Wacky Time

Recently, there was a lull in my workload at The Grind.  Since my ambition is a bottomless pit or possibly it’s just a pit, or maybe it’s more accurately described as a rut, but who am I kidding, it’s none of the above. I have no ambition whatsoever outside of a fondness for staring enviously at the pigeons roosting on the sill outside my window.

Let's trade places. You write this blog.

As it so happened there was a free moment in my schedule.  Truthfully my work-life has been a barren plain the entirety of this month, if not every day in the 2012 calendar year and I’m shedding brain cells faster than my final vestiges of fertility.  So there was an opening as wide as the sky in my day and I seized — to be honest here, I never seize, I’m inclined to drag myself, bitching and moaning loudly to give the impression that I’m accomplishing something arduous that merits my salary of a potato and health insurance.  Anyway, I used this wide-open-as-a-$10-hooker’s-thighs-moment to exploit the opportunity to research setting the time on the office fax machine from the hour in Guam to the precise minute in Gotham City.

That statement motivated me to Google the time difference between New York City and Guam.  I’ve discovered that Guam is actually fourteen hours ahead of New York. Our fax machine is two hours behind EDT.

It turns out that the time on our fax machine is set perfectly for Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

Proving that point.

For a moment I consider weaseling out of my self-imposed mission by suggesting to my boss, Elsbeth, that we simply relocate our office to Scottsbluff, but even I have the capacity to realize that idea is utterly inane.  Instead, I consider proposing to my superior an alternative solution – we sell our fax machine to someone in Scottsbluff and we get ourselves a new one.  Yet, it occurs to me that setting up a new one would likely fall under my jurisdiction a.k.a., Perform Each and Every Thankless Task the Mentally Efficient Avoid.  I realize I feel like setting up a new fax machine even less than resetting the clock on the current one.  Since there is no rest for the bleary I have to figure out how to reset that clock.

I Google: how do i set the clock on the canon cfx-l4000?

Google takes me to a site called FixYa.  Back on November 7, 2007, someone named 1jennylyn asked the exact same question as me.

Approximately six weeks later, a dude named Rob F responds:

“There’s a button marked “Data Registration” in blue. This color means you 1st have to press the function button to make it work. Do this and scroll using the left right up down arrow keys till you find, date and time reg. Then follow your nose.”

I think:

Me:  Huh?

If my nose could talk, it’s screaming:

My Nose:  Leave me the hell out of this!

Did I mention that Rob F shared this solution on Christmas Day?  I suspect he wrote it clad in his underwear and lacks the Will This Make Me Look Like a Loser gene.

Since Rob F’s answer earned Best Solution and I could not find what other solutions he was competing against, even though my personal go-to remedy is one I call Shut It Off, Pull Out the Plug, Eat Something and Then Go Back to It, instinct tells me that will not work in the case of setting the time, so I decide to give his obtuse solution a shot.  Predictably, my nose fails me and I am a baffled button pushing cursing doofus.

Better name of site ConfuseYa.

My colleague, (not) Under Ling (anymore) notices that I’m hovering over the fax machine in fury.  I return to my desk to Google another source of solution.  Unaware that I’m in the process of losing even more of the little that remains of my mind, she approaches the fax machine.

(not) Under Ling (anymore):  Hey, is there something wrong with the fax machine?

I suspect she’s itching to push some buttons, too. I morph into Charles Manson and growl:

Me:  Don’t touch anything!

Hand's off or I'll shoot you.

I find a forum on another site called Fix Your Own Printer.  A first responder named Sharpie is my hero.  This person has a different model of fax machine, the L4500, but he or she thinks that setting the time works the same on both units and writes a description about how to do this in such lucid English for Easily Frustrated Morons I would like to award this person a Nobel.

We're not on Scottsbluff time anymore (but God help my nose when Eastern Standard Time returns)!

Lame Adventure 301: Suicide by Sandwich

I don’t know where my mind was. I was standing at my grocer’s deli counter when a voice that sounds identically like mine speaks to the deli-man:

Voice that Sounds Identically Like Mine:  I’ll have a quarter pound of the chipotle chicken.

Considering my extensive history of gastrointestinal ills, it would have been considerably safer for me to have simply tossed a lit match down my esophagus than to eat the fire-coated fowl I ordered.  Yet, on Monday I did chow down that hot, spicy and heavily seasoned sandwich at my desk at The Grind.

Eat me.

I was in the throes of food porn ecstasy.

That sandwich was truly the best sex I’ve had in weeks.  I could have easily smoked a cigarette after the first half before indulging in the second.  Unfortunately, my dream lover was actually the devil ensconced in a cut-in-half baguette.

Within minutes satisfaction gave way to a firebomb exploding in my stomach and a proliferation of searing intestinal pain.  Pain so rampant it replicated the burning of Atlanta if this historic event would be reenacted inside the confines of my guts.  Guts that are forbidden to go anywhere near citrus, dairy, spice or flavor.  Guts that are usually fed bland bread and tofu sandwiches seasoned with tap water.

As the pain escalated, my left rib started throbbing.  I wondered if the heat from my innards that had transformed into a furnace had somehow cracked that rib.  All the while I sat at my desk nary betraying a hint of my agony excluding some low volume whimpering I stifled when I shoved a ball of string into my mouth that nearly ignited.

My gastroenterologist forbids me from taking any over-the-counter antacids, so a fistful of Rolaids chased with a shot of Mylanta was not an option to smother the blaze raging within.  Instead, I sat, going through the motions of my illustrious job, pushing paper from one side of my desk to the other, tapping a few keys on my computer’s keyboard that spelled jfhs nitvuh kndj yqwcoqwi, followed by loud opening and slamming of file drawers.

All the while my face reddened, hot steam was trailing out of my every orifice, I was sweating profusely, my eyes were tearing and my racing heart was feeling like it was going to explode within my chest cavity.  Delirious, I reasoned that if my ticker would detonate, I would be free to collapse with a graceless thud prompting my colleague, (not) Under Ling (anymore), to beckon in a concerned tone:

(not) Under Ling (anymore):  Hey, are you okay over there?

Quickly ascertaining that I was buying my rainbow, my young friend would bellow in alarm:

(not) Under Ling (anymore):  We need an ambulance!  Does anyone know the number for 9-1-1?

In my Charles Foster Kane moment, with my final breath I utter my last word:

Me:  Chipotle.

My fantasies of taking leave on Permanent Vacation are shattered when my phone rings.  The caller is my buddy Coco.  I speak to her confidentially.

Me:  I’ve just polished off a chipotle chicken sandwich.  My guts are killing me.  I think I’m dying!

She absorbs my plight.

Coco:  I’m jealous!  You get to go home!  What about me?  I’m stuck here and you get to follow the white light?  Oh no, you don’t!

The white light never comes.  I quaff two thirds of the water cooler and survive the near death experience of my sandwich. Since my birthday is coming in ten days, I feel an obligation to my friends and family to stick around a little while longer.  Therefore, I will avoid flirting with The Grim Reaper via spicy sandwich and return to my regular diet of labor camp-style sustenance that I anticipate will eventually bore me to death.