Is It Stupid in Here, Or Is It Just Me?

Yes, I know it’s been hot, not just here, but all over the United States. So, indeed, it is hot in here and it’s not just me.

But I’m asking about ‘stupid’, not ‘hot’.

As in, how is it possible that a clerk at the deli counter of a prominent food-selling establishment doesn’t know what “three-quarters of a pound” means. You think I’m joking, or judging harshly, but I recently was waited on by a perfectly nice young woman who ably served up a pound of sliced turkey. She then politely asked if there was anything else she could get for me. “I’d like three-quarters of a pound of the roast beef,” I answered.

She hesitated. Just a touch, but I caught it. I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me, but she didn’t ask me to repeat it, she just reached her vinyl-gloved hand into the deli case and pulled out a wad of sliced beef. “Plunk!” it said as it hit the scale, weighing in at .38 lbs.

 

 

“How’s that?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “three-quarters of a pound,” now convinced she had indeed not heard me the first time.

Then it came: “Oh, that’s more than a pound, right?”  Ruh-roh.  Now I get an Academy Award nomination for being kind and supportive and helpful, when I wanted to do a Johnny Carson spit take and ask her how she could have possibly graduated high school without knowing how much three-quarters of a pound is.

“It’s actually less than a pound. Your scale will read ‘point seven five’,” I told her.  “Okay, whatever,” she answered, and ultimately came up with the meat.

“Whatever?” My confidence in our education system dropped several points in that exchange.

The very next day I noticed on my Visa bill that a subscription I’ve carried for years suddenly went from $32 a month to $42 a month. Since my public school education took place in the 1960s, I saw right away that that was approximately a 30% jump. I called their customer service line to find out why.

The lad Michael, clearly unhappy with his career choice, sullenly told me that it was because my ‘special offer rate’ had expired. I informed him that I had been a subscriber for over 30 years, and didn’t have a special offer rate. I could bore you with the repetition of our respective positions which went on for a while, but I’ll spare you.

 

Finally, I believe I outwitted Michael, who, to be fair, seemed to be unarmed in a battle of wits. I asked him if there were any special offer rates currently in effect. “I’ll check,” he offered.

“Yes, I can give it to you for $3.77 a week, which would be $16.34 a month.” Again, thanks to the educational standards of the ’60s, I could see that this was preferable to spending $42 a month. “Sold,” I said.

And my third and final example (due only to the space limitations of this column) of the decline of intelligence and common sense in our civilization comes all the way from London.  According to an article in the Associated Press, a man there started a major fire in his apartment by attempting to dry two pairs of boxers and socks in his microwave. The appliance was destroyed, and the apartment suffered serious smoke damage.

Is this so hard a concept? Food in microwave, clothes in dryer.

In London, I guess it’s hot and stupid.

How Do I Look?

So there I am, in my friendly local Joann Fabric store (no, it does not contain an ‘s’, nor an apostrophe, but thank you for asking, my fellow sticklers) waiting to have some fabric cut from the bolt.

It’s a little like the deli, in that you have to take a number to assure that customers are served in the proper order. Also, it keeps all hell from breaking out. People can get a little crazy when someone is deemed to be cutting in line. Limbs may be lost. I’m just saying.

Anyhoo, I’ve got my bolt of poly/silk for my son’s wedding canopy, and I’ve got my number. A couple of other assorted characters are clutching various bolts of fabric for reasons I can only speculate on. For instance, there’s a perfectly normal-looking twenty-something with three bolts of fleece with collegiate logos and teams on them. I can assume fairly safely that some couch throws are soon to be made.

There’s a sweet couple: mother and teenage daughter with some pretty glitzy, shiny gold stuff that simply screams “PROM DRESS” at me. I’m sorry—did I just yell at you? Didn’t mean to.

But then there’s this old man, and remember, I consider myself kind of old, so I’m talkin’ REALLY old here. No joke, the guy was at the very least 80, and could well have been 90. I am not exaggerating even a teensy bit. He was clinging to a notebook-sized plastic frame that held some sort of ‘braid-by-the-yard’. When it was his turn he asked the clerk for two yards of the stuff. She measured it out, and found that there was just a yard and a half on the frame. The old man (who was quite clearly by himself, by the way) shrugged and said that would be fine. Really? Fine? You need two yards, but a yard and a half will be fine? What the what are you buying this for? (Intellectual curiosity—I don’t really have any practical application for this knowledge.) He got the braid and toddled off toward the cash registers.

The clerk looked up at her deli-type number display. “Is there a 41?” she asked warily. No answer. Those of us loitering with our cloth held to our chests looked around at each other. Nothing. “No 41?” she persisted. Surprise—still nothing. I said, “I’m 42.” The clerk looked relieved, as if I’d said, “Sure, I’ll jump start your battery; you won’t have to walk home.” But she really said, “Oh, you’re 42?”

I said, “I am,” and held out the little yellow paper tab as proof. “But I look much older.”

The teenager giggled.