The Lunch Box Cruncher

I’ve decided I’m finally going to come clean.  I’m the guy that ran over your lunch box in April of 1974.  Maybe it was the spring of 1975, I’m not really sure, but I know you’ve been looking for me ever since.  I was the driver of the white Ford sedan with the Mountain Bell logo on both doors and the 800 number in the back that told you to call if you had a problem with my driving.  I got away clean, so I guess you didn’t get the number.  I’m guessing you were eight or nine at the time.  I saw you clearly in the rear view mirror.

To be honest, which I clearly couldn’t be, since I didn’t stop and at least give you lunch money or even apologize for accidentally flattening your metal lunch box, I didn’t mean to do it,  and I didn’t even see it.  I knew I ran over something  though and then I saw you run over to your crushed lunch box and hold it up in disbelief.  Just so you know, I can still see it.  It’s haunted me for a lot of years.

Let me explain.  I was given the responsibility to collect the pay phone route once a week after the person that had been doing it resigned.  They decided not to replace him, and instead give me the responsibility.  It got me out of the office once a week, so I was more than happy to accept.  The job involved driving the company car, which required you to take a “Defensive Driving” class that was a full day at company headquarters in Cheyenne.  The manager got me scheduled for the class, and I headed out from Laramie, Wyoming, where I worked in the business office, early in the morning.  The drive to Cheyenne would take about an hour, and I really wasn’t sure where the hell I was going.  It was pre-GPS,  I didn’t have a “real” map, just a hand-drawn one, and I had never been to the “plant” building where the class was held.  So I gave myself plenty of time to make the 8:00 start time in the event that I got lost.

And I did get lost.  Which is why I was traveling down the rural gravel road, having missed the turn a quarter-mile back.   I realized I had missed the turn , but I couldn’t find anywhere to turn around, and then I saw the bus stop turnout.  There were some kids there, standing off to the side, waiting for the bus, and I clearly had enough room to make a turn and head back the other direction.  That’s when I saw you running toward the car, and I had no idea what you were doing.  Then I scored the direct hit on the lunch box and sped off down the gravel road, hoping, but worried none-the-less, that you weren’t quick enough to get the number off the trunk of the car.  I worried all day.  I was going to a defensive driving class to get my company permit, and a call from your mother or father, would have put the kibosh on that for sure.  After eight hours of watching movies, practicing reaction times, driving a company van around town verbally describing all the safe things I was doing while I propelled the vehicle in traffic, would have been for nothing.  I wouldn’t get my company permit because I totaled a lunch box that morning on my way to class.

So, almost forty years later, I’m reaching out to you, sort of.  In retrospect, you shouldn’t have put the lunch box down in the first place.  You should have protected it better.  I still believe that you ate lunch that day.  I’m certain you were able to pry the box open and get your lunch out of there.  You must have been resourceful enough for that.  But I’m guessing you got in trouble when you brought the lunch box home and explained to your mother what horrible thing had happened at the bus stop that morning.  The crazed driver in the Mountain Bell car that didn’t even stop after he drove over, what I’m sure, was you’re favorite lunch box of all time.  ”The Fonz,” or the “Six Million Dollar Man,” or “Batman,” or “Laugh In.”  Maybe you claimed you lost it, and had to take your lunch in a brown paper sack for a while.  School was almost over the year anyway.  Now that I think about it, I’m sure the “Thermos” bottle was toast, so the sack lunch wouldn’t have been that big of an issue for a few weeks.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not offering to pay for the lunch box.  I didn’t have enough money on me at the time to buy myself lunch that day.  I’m not offering that as an excuse, just thought I should state the facts.  I’ve struggled with this, like I mentioned, for a long time, and I still don’t know what the “right” thing would have been to do.  I really don’t.  Should I have stopped and apologized and given you the two dollars I had in my wallet?  Would it have made any difference?

Anyway, if you were the kid in Cheyenne, Wyoming that got his lunch box crushed by a white Ford sedan with that prominent bell and circle logo on both doors at the bus stop on that morning in April 1974 or 1975, that was me.  At the very least, I’m sorry you left it lying where you did.

   

An All Ages Easter Egg Hunt and Stripper’s Panties

Last Sunday I decided to have an Easter Egg Hunt for all ages of “kids” in my immediate family on what I call the South 40, although it’s technically west of the main house.  That’s the back yard of the house we currently live in which is situated on a half acre.  I bought a bucket of 50 plastic eggs and spent a good portion of Easter morning filling them with change and five jelly beans each.  The amount in each egg ranged from two cents, to a golden egg that had a twenty-dollar bill.  Like I said, each plastic egg contained exactly five jelly beans.  Not any real reason for the five beans, except that it seemed to be the right amount to put in the egg, and I had no idea what a faux pa I was committing at the time.  The “kids” ranged in age from eight to thirty-nine.

The idea for the “All Ages Easter Egg Hunt” came from one of my daughters who said she wanted to hunt for Easter eggs because she hadn’t done it in a long time.  Like maybe thirty years.  The rules were simple.  Some of the eggs were hidden fairly visible and obviously intended for the younger hunters.  The idea for the older hunters was that there wasn’t going to be a big “score” in the easily found eggs.  The golden egg with the twenty, or the harder to find eggs with pictures of other dead presidents enclosed, should be their mission.  The only problem with that theory was I didn’t really pay attention to what was in the eggs when I hid them, easy to find or otherwise.  Except for the golden egg.  I hid that where I was sure no one would easily find it.  None of the eggs were buried, and there weren’t going to be any hints.  Thems  the rules.

After about an hour or so of hunting there still remains in the South 40 around six eggs that have still not been found.  I have no idea where I hid them now, and expect to find them sometime later in the year.  At least they weren’t real eggs, which will make them no easier to find, but more aware that they are hidden somewhere when they start to decay.

One young hunter had raked it in.  He was sitting by the fireplace counting his money, and piling the jelly beans separate from the coin and bills.  When my older daughter grabbed a jelly bean and popped it in her mouth from the pile, the younger egg hunter said something to her that almost made her choke.

She came out to the patio where we were sitting and walked up to his mother, her sister, and said, “Do you know what your son just said to me?  I was eating a jelly bean from one of his eggs and he said…”

The other sister finished her sentence, “…not to eat them because they’ve been in stripper’s panties.”  The rest of us almost choked on our drinks.

Well, technically, the jelly bean hadn’t been there, but the idea was that it was “touching” a dollar bill which possibly could have been stuffed in a stripper’s panties, or so she explained.  When my granddaughter was younger she was smelling money, and my daughter, totally aghast that she would put that near her nose, came out with the only horrible thing she could think of.  ”Don’t do that.  Do you know where that money has been?  It’s been in a stripper’s panties.”  

Her children now think that all money is passed through the panties of strippers, and knowing full well that neither of them have been to a strip club, I wonder, truly wonder, what mental images these two youngsters have that keeps them from eating a jelly bean that might have touched a quarter or a dollar bill in a plastic egg.

I was told by my mother, at a very early age, that it wasn’t a good idea to put coins in your mouth.  I don’t remember what horrible place the money may have been before it came into my possession, but I know she never said it might have come from the panties of a stripper.  Whatever it was, I never put money in my mouth again, although I’m sure she was more worried about the choking hazard than the “germs.”

Obviously, germs can get on money.  I read where some viral strains can live up to ten days on a bill.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it makes sense that someone with the flu could touch money, infect it and if you put it to your nose to smell it, you might, if you’re immune system is down, get the flu.  I don’t know what you might catch from a stripper’s panties, that could survive on a bill.  Maybe it’s all about worrying more about the guy that gave it to her, but then you never know.

Personally, I love the smell of money.  I’m going to think twice about putting anything less than a hundred under my nose though.  I don’t have hundreds very often myself, and I’m pretty sure it would be rare for someone to part with one by putting it in a g-string.  But it could happen, I guess.

I’m pretty sure though, if I have an “All Ages Easter Egg Hunt” next year, I’m not going to waste my jelly beans.

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Salsa In The World

You know what was fun?  One time I got to drive a police car to Phoenix from Sahuarita, Arizona where I was the Town Clerk.  I got to drive the car to Phoenix because we were taking them to have the painting done.  So they were all white police cars with just the Christmas trees on the roof and sirens.  I had to take the car home, because we were leaving the next morning to Phoenix.  I was driving one car, and the Police Chief was driving the other.  We were to meet up in Marana, just north of Tucson, where the newly hired Chief lived, and drive together from there.

So the first thing I did was pull into the mobile home park and turn on the lights and siren as I got close to my “house,” and pulled into the driveway.  The phone started to ring off the wall.  All the neighbors wanted to make sure everything was okay.  It was fun.  We told them all different stories.  It was a drug bust, I told Mel across the street.  They found the stash he left in my shed and they were hauling me off to jail.  ”I told him it was your’s, but they don’t believe me.  They’re coming over there next, so you better hide it.”  It was fun.  I learned later that his wife Mary flushed what little pot they had.  Mel was pretty mad.

The next morning I took off on I-10 through downtown Tucson on the way to Marana.  It’s a four lane section of interstate there, north and south, and I was purposely going 10 miles below the speed limit.  The line of cars behind me was building.  No one dared to pass.  I had  cars on my left and right, riding abreast in all lanes, trying to figure out if I was Tucson Police, South Tucson Police, Tribal Police, Marana Police or what.  Behind me were rows and rows of cars.  It was fun.  Finally, someone decided I couldn’t pull them over if they were going the speed limit, so they sped up.  Probably looked in the car as they passed and saw I wasn’t dressed like any police officer they had ever seen either.  So just for the hell of it, I turned on the siren and lights and sped off after them then went around and ahead.  It was fun.  After that, I turned the lights and siren off and followed the directions to the Chief’s house.

It’s just fun to mess with people.  I just heard about Alan Abel who might just be one of the greatest pranksters of all time.  He started SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals.  The slogan, “A nude horse is a rude horse.”  He not only got the press to believe the ploy was real, but he would leave pamphlets stating that all animals should wear clothing, all over the place, in restrooms, in library books.  During the Kevorkian assisted suicide period in the 1990s, he decided to start a cruise line for people who wanted to end it all.  He called in “The Last Supper” cruise and only sold one way tickets.  You should read up about him.  His daughter, Jenny, did a documentary on her father called “Abel Raises Cain” in 2005.

My favorite “prank” was when I had to deliver a gallon of salsa to Dallas.  It didn’t start out as a prank, but turned into one pretty quickly.  I was working as a manager in a Citi-Bank collection region in Albuquerque, and one of my best friends was the back-end manager in the same capacity in Dallas.  We decided to have a contest between the regions.  If I won, my friend would deliver a gallon of the best BBQ sauce in Dallas, personally.  If I lost, then I was to deliver, personally to his group, a gallon of salsa from the famous “Sadie’s” restaurant in Albuquerque.  Reportedly the best salsa in the world, and the restaurant was in a bowling alley.  Truth be told, I didn’t really want to win, because I wanted to fly to Dallas on the company’s dime for the weekend.  I had a girlfriend there at the time.  Delivering a gallon of salsa was just an understanding between us because he lived in Albuquerque for a time and worked in the collection office.  He took a promotion to the Dallas region to get back to Texas where he was from, and he loved Sadie’s salsa.  In short, he knew all about the girlfriend and the real reason for the contest.

So we got it written up, approved and broadcast all over the company, and the contest was on.  I had to admit, the desire to win took over there towards the end, but it was too late and I ended up committed to deliver the gallon of salsa.  Now, salsa needs to be kept cold.  So I got one of those Styrofoam coolers, just a small one, put the dark red salsa enclosed in a clear plastic container into the cooler and filled it with ice.  I was on the red-eye Southwest flight to Dallas and I couldn’t very well “check” the cooler, so I carried it on.

I was dressed like Don Johnson.  I had the blue jeans, the T-shirt, the white blazer with the sleeves pushed up, and the shades hooked in the collar.  Carrying the white cooler I boarded the plane.  I tried to get the cooler under the seat in front of me but it wouldn’t go all the way.  During the pre-flight check the steward says, “You can’t have that there.  It has to fit under the seat or in the overhead bin.”

“I can’t let this out of my sight, ” I replied.

“What is it?” the male flight attendant asked.

“It’s a human heart,” I said without much thought.  ”I’m a surgeon and I have a transplant operation in Dallas in two hours.  I can’t let this out of my sight,” and I lifted the lid exposing the red, blood-like substance, visible through the top of the container surrounded by ice.

The flight attendant scurried away to the front of the plane and I watched him down the aisle talking to the other two stewardesses, as he pointed toward me several times.  After a few minutes he came back towards me down the aisle, stopping along the way to tell a passenger to put his seat back in the upright position.

“Okay,” he started, “what do you really have in there?”

I reiterated my story that I had to be in Dallas for a heart transplant operation in two hours.  It was imperative that the organ in the cooler remain in my possession.  I just couldn’t let it out of my sight.   Maybe the Don Johnson outfit convinced him a little that I was possibly a heart surgeon.  I don’t know, but he walked away again.  I struggled to get the cooler farther under the seat.

I looked up and saw two stewardesses and the steward walking down the aisle toward me.  I guess I figured the jig was up.  I told them what was really in the cooler, and they admitted I had them going pretty good for a while.  They promised to stow the cooler safely in the front and would return it to me when we deplaned, which they did.  But it was fun…for a while. 

I’ve had other fun times on Southwest.  I’ll tell you about them some time.

 

I’m Taking Friday Off Today…Or No.

I was going to write a blog today, but then my daughter showed up this morning wanting a cup of coffee.  She thought today was April 2nd, and how she missed April Fool’s Day, I can’t imagine.  But she thought she had a dentist appointment so didn’t go in to work this morning.  I’m not going to say whether she is at work now or not, because it’s not my place to say, so I won’t.  

So, I was having an enjoyable cup of coffee with her, and we started talking about the funny way we say some things in New Mexico.  It’s all the rage on “YouTube” right now, starting with “Sh*t we say” in wherever or whatever you want to search.  I’m pretty sure it all ties to the now famous ,”Shit My Dad Says,” which started as a Twitter account, led to a best-selling book and a short-lived TV series, “$#*! My Dad Says” which I liked but nobody else did, I guess.  For a long time I was mad at Justin Halpern because he became an overnight success tweeting things his 74-year old dad said to him, and hey, why didn’t I think of it?  Then again, maybe the rage goes back farther than that and I just discovered it.  That kind of thing happens to me a lot.

We do say some pretty funny things in New Mexico, though, and I had forgotten a lot of them since I’d been gone for twenty-some years.  For example, everything is called a coke, a Sprite, a Dr. Pepper, a Seven-Up, an orange soda, everything is a coke.  ”Wanna coke?”

Most of these things really aggravate my daughter for some reason.  Like, “Shut the light,” “Let’s go to Sonics,” “How did you land-up here?” “Do you want to go get something to eat…or no.”  We’ve started to add that “or no” to almost every question we ask.  It’s just funny.  She especially hates “pellow” for pillow, “sangwich” for sandwich, and, let’s see, “hemburger” for hamburger, and “crayun” for crayon, “wall” for well.  I was cracking up.

You can find videos on “Sh*t people in Arizona say,” for example.  ”It’s a DRY heat.”  ”Is your landscaper legal?”  ”Scottsdale?  More like snotsdale.” “Don’t piss off Sheriff Joe.” “We’re in America, speak English.”  ”People can’t drive in this town.” – although I say that almost everywhere I am.

Sh*t southern girls say: “Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”  Always loved that one.  ”Do you have Miller Lite on tap, because I’m on a diet.”

How about “Sh*t Redheads say,” “What anger problem?”  ”Freckle check.”  I had a redheaded girlfriend once, so I related to these immediately.  I nicknamed her the “Psycho-B—- From Hell,” not right away, but it didn’t take long.  Anyway, that’s a story for another time.  ”Can you still see them?”  ”Were’s my sunscreen?”  Maybe she was just physco and had nothing to do with the red hair. 

Sh*t stoners say, ginger’s say, liberals say, college freshman don’t say, ASU students say, broke people say, boyfriends say, how about…”Sh*t Nobody Says?”  Well, it gets old fast.

I’m getting a little hungry so I think I’ll go make me a sangwich, or go get a hemburger and a coke at Sonics, maybe get some pellow-time after, or no. 

Sarah Palin’s Glasses

The famous Kawasaki's.

I’ve been a little busy lately building a bed, a wall of bookcases, two bunny rabbits and “repurposing” an oak headboard, so I haven’t been as dedicated to writing my daily blog, weekends removed.  So I thought I would update a story that I wrote in 2008.  Hardly anyone was reading my “other” blog back then, so most of you probably haven’t read this story.  Spoiler Alert:  The piece isn’t about Sarah Palin…but it does mention her glasses.

I’ve been having a standing argument with my kids for a good part of 30 years now about the inflated value of name-brand merchandise.  My argument has always been that you pay $5 a letter for name-brand shoes, purses, jeans, etc., when a knock-off or lesser brand is probably  just as good, often made in the same factory, and lasts just as long.

“Not true,” I was told by my son once. “Nike shoes last longer than Addidas Shoes.”

Funny, since I tell him that they’re both made at the same plant in East Asia.  He doesn’t believe that.  He thinks Nike’s are made in Beaverton Oregon.  Nike isn’t even incorporated in Oregon, they’re incorporated in Washington State.  He was 16 at the time.

I had a pair of Converse shoes that I wore almost every day, for four years, and they were still as good as any Nike’s I’ve owned.  They’re still in my closet.  I don’t wear them anymore, but they’re still in my closet.  I paid $19.95 for them.  I learned that Converse was bought out by Nike in 2003 for $305 Million, so now Converse is really Nike anyway.  And, although I’ve owned Nike shoes, I’ve never paid the exorbitant price for a new pair, I always got them on sale, like 75% off.  How can they sell shoes for 25% of their original retail value?  Because they cater to the tastes of the shoe buyer, and last year’s model won’t sell for full price.  They have shoes for tennis, basketball, running, low impact aerobics, probably have special Zumba shoes now, you name it.  And the style has to be “in.”  Kids at school will laugh at you if you have last year’s Nike’s on.  So when the style is “out”, as they say, “…so last year,” then the shoes are priced more in line with their actual cost.  Nike has admitted in the past that their direct labor cost to produce a shoe is around $3.50.  Are Nike’s still the “in” shoe, or are they so last century?  

When I was growing up, there were only two kinds of “tennis” shoes, Converse and Keds. We wanted Keds because we could “run faster and jump farther,” and not just because we saw that on TV.   We tested it.  We wore Converse for basketball and wrestling.  The same canvas shoe that everyone wore, purchased at Ritz Sporting Goods.

 

Right now I’m wearing a pair of Sketchers.  My theory would tell you that they cost $5 X 9 or $45.00 more compared to a no-name pair of running shoes, but that argument started in the 1990s so using a cost adjustment it would now be $8.71 X 9 = $78.39 in comparison to a $19.95 Walmart version.  The problem is I’ve discovered that Sketchers are the only shoes I can wear anymore that have enough arch support and don’t lead to a serious back ache, so I’m stuck buying the “name brand” shoe.  I still look for the sales, and Sketcher stores always have a buy one get one at half-price at some time during the year.  What a scam those sales are.  Now they have those “ShapeUps” that everybody swears by.  I’ve heard it’s not very fun if you have a “blowout” in your “ShapeUps” though.  You kind of walk sideways, and only build muscle in one leg.  Sketchers sell for around $70.00 and up. 

Someone tell me who in the hell is Dooney and how did he meet Bourke, and why does every woman in America want their handbags?  I found out that Peter Dooney and Federic Bourke launched their company in 1975 in South Norwalk CT.  They started out making belts and suspenders.  Then they came up with their All Weather Leather bags made from, yes, cow stomachs.  Dooney and Bourke are very expensive designer bags, which is why knock-offs of D&B are so popular.  When was the last time you asked a woman if her hand bag, emblazoned with those initials, was really a $195 Dooney and Bourke?  Next time you see some woman shouldering a D&B ask her if she knows that they make them out of cow stomachs. 

Coach is another auspicious entry into the purse business.  Coach Leather was established in 1941 though.  One of my co-workers has a “Coach” but it’s really not, it was made in Korea and is a knock-off.  I asked her if anyone has ever noticed that she had the fake, and she said that most everyone says “Look at you girl, a Coach.”  I couldn’t tell a Coach from a WalMart.

Coach has a hallmark clasp, a silver toggle, that Bonnie Cashin came up with from the latch on her convertible sports car roof.  Let’s see what these go for…..Anywhere from $348 to $1,000 on their website, and frankly the purses all look the same to me except they’re different colors.  I’m still not paying $1,000 for a purse.  I hope my wife doesn’t either.

One of my favorite stories about the designer label culture, is when my son bought himself a Rolex from a “rich” guy at the golf course where he worked after school and on weekends.  He paid $50 for this Rolex and he was ecstatic about his purchase.  He had, what I termed, a “watch fetish” at the time.  He spent any money he earned on Gucci watches.  If anything stands out though, it’s a Rolex.  Fifty bucks seemed like a good deal even to me, or a very “hot” to the touch item.  So I asked to see it.  He reluctantly let me touch it.

“Nice watch,” I said, “You got a real deal here too, because it has an extra ‘l’.” 

His “Rollex” probably got more ah’s and oh’s than questions about the extra “l” anyway.  I had the watch, for a time,  in a jewelry case, and I used to chuckle every time I saw it.  How I got the watch, I can’t remember, and I’m sure it’s still here somewhere needing a battery.

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, we had a fashion-crazed public wanting a pair of the Kawasaki’s perched on Sarah Palin’s nose.  I heard that the company had sold more of the frames in the month Sarah Palin was named as the running mate for John McCain, than they did in all the prior year.  “Frames” is kind of a misnomer because they are “frame-less” glasses.  You would think, logically, that would make them cheaper, but no, they retail upwards of $700.

Kawasaki, who also had a hand in designing an artificial heart (don’t see the connection), was quoted as saying back then, that he hoped we Americans voted for Palin for her accomplishments and qualifications and not her fashion sense.  He’s not the motorcycle guy, by the way, but he might be related.

I want to confess that I wore a pair of designer “frame-less” glasses for four years.  Made by “Marchon,” they were the “Airlock2″ model.  The most expensive frames in the optometrist’s office, I was told, which figured, but I had good insurance at the time, and they paid for them.  Still, they were FRAME-LESS, so how could they cost more than frames that actually are made of something, like titanium?  And how do you design a frame that really isn’t there, anyway?

My current frames aren’t Kawasaki’s either, they’re Aristar’s.  I don’t know if that’s a name-brand or not.  I didn’t have the same insurance as I did when I got the Marchon’s, and these glasses actually have frames, although they’re designed to make them appear frame-less.  Doesn’t really matter anyway.  No one has ever said, “I love your glasses.  Are those Kawasaki’s?  Were did you get them?”  I figure they don’t make me look too much like a buffoon, have a little fashion sense because I didn’t pick them out, and I can see fine with them, invisible tri-focal lenses and all.  WTF

(Palin photo, October 16, 2008, courtesy Wikipedia Commons, by Therealbs2002.)

Steak, Potatoes, and Corn

I’ve got one.  What did the sushi say to the bee?  Wa-sa-bi?

 I hate to use a word like hate for something I hate because hate is such a strong word, but I HATE sushi.  I hate the smell of it, I hate the look of it, I hate the fact that it’s not cooked, and I hate the fact that it’s fish.  And before you say, “You shouldn’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” I have.  Once.  Almost puked.

I did have a remarkable meal at a sushi bar once though.  It was at a strip club in Reno.  The sushi was rumored to be the best in town, so I agreed to go because the girls wanted sushi and I could get a STEAK.  While I’m sitting at the bar eating this one-inch thick perfectly cooked Porter House, my wife and friends sitting on my left being served raw fish wrapped in rice, a completely naked, blonde, five-foot four, dancer sits in the bar stool next to me on my right and strikes up a conversation.  Best steak I ever had.  You should have seen the looks I was getting from the sushi-eater on my left.

Why do I remember this on March 28th, 2012?  Well…you got me.  I have no idea, except I saw the “joke” and that led to thinking about the hating of sushi, and that lead to the best steak I ever had.  Well, it really wasn’t, but it was memorable.

Which now makes me remember the famous “Dream Steak For Four” in Bosler, Wyoming.  Clearly on the list of one of the best steaks I have ever eaten.  As I remember it, after the University of Wyoming home games, a great many fans would head north 20 miles to a small town called Bosler.  Bosler isn’t very big, and is known more as a speed trap, probably the only revenue source other than sales tax from dream steaks during football season.  I got a speeding ticket there once on my birthday.  The officer said, “Happy Birthday” and wrote me a ticket.  I had to pay the ticket right then, or wait until Monday when the JP got back from fishing, if I wanted to contest it. Wait in jail.  Needless to say, I paid it.  It was $75.  You go from a 55 mph speed limit, up a hill and curve to the right where the speed limit drops to 35.  I was going 41 when I hit the top of the hill.  The cop hides behind the curve, in case you’re ever up that way.

 So, for a reasonable price – and I don’t know how much that was because I didn’t pay for it – you got a four-pound rib-eye cooked to the group’s accord, all the salad you could eat, all the baked potatoes and ranch beans you wanted, and a bottomless basket of rolls.  You would cut your piece of steak off the huge steaming piece of beef delivered to your table, which had probably been butchered and aged right out back.  All I remember is, it was fantastic.  Don’t rush off to Bosler to try it though.  I’m pretty sure the restaurant is not there anymore.  This was back in the early seventies.

The Famous New York Strip. No I didn't take this picture at McMahon's

If I have to pick the best steak I have ever eaten, I would have to say the New York Strip I had in Scottsdale, Arizona, at “McMahon’s.”  This almost two-inch mouth-watering delicacy could be cut with a butter knife.  It literally melted in your mouth.  After every bite I would hum in ecstasy.  I remember the steak right now.  I can see myself basking in the soft light, surrounded by etched glass, and Tiffany lamps savoring every bite.  I’m right there at the table, embarrassing my companions with the “ummming” because we had come from a wine tasting party and I was still tasting during dinner.  Funny how I don’t remember the ride home, but I remember that steak.

You can probably tell that my favorite meal is of the simple, steak, potatoes, and corn menu.  My mother would ask me almost every year what I wanted for a birthday dinner and I would always say, “Steak, mashed potatoes, and corn.”  I really didn’t like baked potatoes then, back in the day, but I would replace the mashed potatoes with a baked potato slopped with butter, sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese, any day now.  That’s what you call a “loaded” baked potato, right?  Loaded with high cholesterol.

“Don’t you want to try something else?” she would ask.  Bless her heart, and her limited budget, she always made me flank steak, mashed potatoes and corn every year.  The last time she made it for me was on graduation night, and I never had a steak dinner at her house again that I can remember, although I’m sure I did.  I don’t see flank steak in the store anymore, but it’s the same cut as a London Broil, right?  You slice the steak in thin angled pieces.

All this talk about food – except for the shushi –  is making me hungry.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have any steak in my freezer either.  I’m more than pretty sure, in fact, I’m positive.  Steak is completely out of my food budget currently.  At $5 to $8 a pound, or more depending on the cut, I’m forced into the ground-up type of beef.  I have some of that in the freezer.  Maybe I can shape it into a T-Bone.  There is a 22 oz. “Cowboy Steak” at Michael Jordan’s restaurant that costs $1,500.  I’ll bet that’s go0oo—d!  WTF.

I always heard that steak was very expensive in Japan.  According to my research, although Japan exports beef, it would cost you around $110 for a steak dinner in Tokyo, give or take a few dollars based on the current exchange rate.  You would think that if you raise cattle in Japan, it’s not like there is a shortage of beef.  Kind of like buying gas in Houston, Texas.  Why is gas so expensive in a place surrounded by oil refineries?  Los Angeles, same question.

Here’s another question I have.  Why are a lot of cuts of beef named after New York or restaurants in New York?  There aren’t any cows out there.  Cattle are in the West.  Reminds me of that Pace commercial…  

 

(Sushi photo credit Flickr Creative Commons by lotusutol.  You didn’t think I took it did you?)

The Official-Looking Envelope Check Deception

I have long ago signed up for e-bills, mainly so I don’t have to go to the mailbox just to find a pile of them in there I can’t pay.  I get email late notices instead.  I have direct deposit so checks will never be found there either, although I can always hope.  So I get predominantly “junk mail.”  The only thing that is keeping the United States Post Office from going $40 billion in the red.  Most of the mail doesn’t make it past the garbage can on the side of the house, on the way back inside, but every once in a while there will be a catalog I want to look at or some official looking envelope.  Like the two I got yesterday.

Both of the contents of these letters were behind yellow envelopes like the kind you get your IRS refund or your Social Security check – if it’s not direct deposited I guess.  Very official looking envelope with an address, a bar-code on the bottom and the year, 2012, in the lower right corner.  You’d swear it was a government check.  The only thing you can see through the cellophane window is “Pay To The Order Of:” followed by your name and address on paper that looks very much like “safety paper” used to print checks which makes them harder to hide erasure.  I’m not expecting any checks, but these sure look like they could be checks, and I’m not going to throw something away that could be some money that mysteriously belongs to me.

I’ve discovered that the biggest user of this type of deception is auto dealers.  I’ve received several now asking me to sell my vehicle and the check – which is clearly stated at the bottom left as “Non-Transferable  THIS IS NOT A CHECK – promises me an additional $2,500 on a new vehicle.  I just need to bring this “check” down to the dealership and cash it.  But I thought it wasn’t a check?  The official-looking envelope check deception has got me again.  I’m forced to open it.  What if it’s a check?

The other, smaller, official-looking yellow envelope looks even more like a check.  After I tear up and toss out the auto dealer “check,” (Don’t want anyone cashing that at the car dealership with my name on it.) I open the envelope with an official-looking check peering out of the cellophane window paying to my order.  Inside is a check for SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS AND 00/100 CENTS.  It says “This Cash Amount Could Be Yours:” written over $750.  And it’s stamped “YOU’RE PRE-QUALIFIED” on the lower right.  The non-check is written by “PayDay1One.”

Thank the lord I wasn’t born yesterday and am pretty versed on what this is, because I could really use the money.  Before I tear it up and throw it away I decide to look at the “fine print” to see how much this pre-qualified loan is going to cost me.  Wait for it…”Annual Percentage Rate(APR) for an example payday loan of $750 is 359.01% with 18 bi-weekly payments of $114.75.”   The reason this is an “example” is that the rate differs by state, and some states actually, thank the lord, outlaw this type of loan sharking all together.  PayDay One claims to be licensed in 20 states.  The APR in Arizona is 448.75%, in Louisiana 456.25%, in Idaho 586.61%.  It’s on their website.  They told me to check.

The term “bi-weekly” can mean every two weeks, or twice a week.  They don’t make this clear.  However, the loan term in New Mexico is not stated either, but the more you borrow the less the APR, down to 198.45% for $1,500.  There’s a clock on the website telling you how much time you have left today to get your loan deposited to your checking account as soon as tomorrow.

For those of you that didn’t take the time to multiply the bi-weekly payments, automatically withdrawn from your checking account, the total is $2,065.50.  I don’t know about you, but if I’m desperate enough to need to borrow $750, I sure as hell can’t afford to pay back $2,000 and change.  Why does this sound so much like “loan sharking?”

I used to ask people all the time if they could loan me fifty bucks…But only give me twenty-five.  ”Then I’ll owe you twenty-five and you’ll owe me twenty-five and we’ll be even.”  It never worked, and rarely got the chuckle I was expecting.  

Loan sharking is the practice of lending money to desperate people at extremely, often illegal, interest rates.  How can 359.01% not be an ILLEGAL usury rate?  Of course, loan sharks don’t require you to have a checking account so they can automatically debit it, an email address, and an identity verification as PayDay One requires.  If the loan shark doesn’t get the money back on Wednesday as agreed, Guido will come find you and break your kneecaps with a Louisville slugger.  Maybe, because PayDay One puts a “Consumer Notice” on the bottom of the fake check letter stating that “Payday advances should be used for short-term financial needs only, not as a long-term financial solution.  Customers with credit difficulties should seek credit counseling,” makes them legal?  Who the hell are they targeting if not “customers with credit difficulties?”  As far as I can tell, someone who needs $750 and is willing to pay that interest rate for it, and gives them the information they require, which allows them to debit their checking account twice a week for an amount they probably don’t have, which will create overdraft fee, after over-draft fee, and probably a fee on the other end, is pretty much the same as giving them a Louisville slugger and exposing your kneecaps.

Why are payday loans even legal?  Certain state legislatures deregulated small loans, some even exempted these payday lenders from small loan or usury laws.  Others went even farther and enacted legislation to authorize loans based on holding the borrower’s pay check without considering interest rates.  I remember watching a television expose on these payday loan sharks in Florida.  The amount of interest that was paid for these desperate loans was ridiculous.  The amount owed never seemed to decrease, and it sure didn’t help the desperate people who were borrowing.

 I completely side with the state of Georgia.  They prohibit this type of lending based on violations of the racketeering laws.  We’ve put people in prison for this.

Only seventeen states and the District of Columbia prohibit these types of loans.  It’s time for the rest of us to get on the bandwagon.  WTF