You are talking with a customer service representative having just registered to use their software product and they provide you with a password. It usually is something like TFJV1QL and they proceed to go through defining it like “That’s T as in “Tom”, F as in “Frank”, J as in “John”, V as in “Victor”, the number “1”, Q as in “Quick”, L as in “Larry”. TFJV1QL. Would you like to use that or would you prefer to have me reset it to something you like?” Now I have just been put in a bad position here because there isn’t a chance in hell I will ever remember TFJV1QL as a password and I know how bad I am at defining a new password. The whole concept of V as in “Victor” just does not come to me under pressure. That is something that you learn in the military or you have a structured mind. When I have to come up with a word that starts with V, Victor is so far down on the word food chain that it could be days before it surfaces. I can’t help it. Engineers think with one side of their brain, artists think with the other side. Since I’m not either one, I seem to think with what’s left.

A typical conversation during one of these exchanges goes something like this:

“Sir, we are setting your password as TFJV1QL, that’s T as in “Tom”, F as in “Frank”, J as in “John”, V as in “Victor”, the number “1”, Q as in “Quick”, L as in “Larry”. TFJV1QL. Would you like to use that or would you prefer to have me reset it to something you like?””

“Yes I would like to change it”

“Sir, what would you like it to be?”

“I would like it to be “RATSBUTT”.” (I have about 4 that I use and up until now “ratsbutt” was one of them. After today it won’t be for obvious reasons.) That’s R as in uhh, uhh” (as my mind frantically searches for a word that starts with R that fits this scheme”.

“Sir”

“Uhh, uhh” (Think, think, I need a word that starts with R that will impress this guy)

“Sir, there has to be a numeric digit in the password”“ (OK Now this gives me a second to regroup.)

OK, let’s go with “RATSBUTT1”. That’s R as in uhh…” rutabaga” (OK Now I’m rolling) , A as in uhh.. “Orangutan”, no that’s not right.. wait.. A as in “an orangutan”, yeah, “an orangutan” (because once the picture of an orangutan entered my mind, it was orangutan. The orangutan pictured there could have been eating an apple and the word apple would have never surfaced.), T as in “topography map”, S as in “Schenectady, NY”, B as in “balloon figures”, U as in “underwear drawer”, T as in “Tasmanian Devil”, T as in “Toulouse-Lautrec”, and 1 as in “1”. RATSBUTT1. Got that?”

“Yes Sir, That’s RATSBUTT1, R as in “Rick”, A as in “Apple”, T as in “Tom”, S as in “Sam”, B as in “Bob”, U as in “Uncle”, T as in “Tom”, T as in “Tom” and the number “1”. Is that correct?” (show-off)

I usually try to cover my embarrassment, by acting confused in some way “No, that third letter was T as in “topography map”, not P as in “Pam”.”

“I said T as in “Tom” sir, not P as in “Pam”.”

“I’m sorry. I misunderstood what you said.” - knowing fully well I understood everything he said. I never did too much care for a show-off and I’m sure this guy is planning on sharing this conversation with his fellow tech guys. I don’t care for passwords either for obvious reasons.

One of the hot buttons in sports right now is Tim Tebow bashing. Those of you that know me know I am not a Florida fan. I am a blue blood Tarheel but if I am forced to pull for a Southeast Conference team I will go with either Alabama or Auburn. I also am not a college football fan. Being from North Carolina as a youth we always considered football to be something we watched to kill time until basketball season started. We consider football season kinda like Cheerleader Practice. With all of this in mind I don’t really have a love for Tim Tebow but it brings to mind the same thing Tyler Hansbrough went through several years ago. Both Tebow and Hansbrough were clean cut honest honorable sports figures that excelled in their sports at a college level. Hansbrough was the first at practice and Coach Williams at North Carolina always raved about his work ethic and dedication to get better. Coach Meyer at Florida always spoke the same way about Tebow. Tyler Hansbrough was as straight as an arrow all through college and never was a “problem player”. Tim Tebow was even more stable as he did a considerable amount of volunteer work and wore his religious beliefs as a badge. Both players were excellent students and both chose to stay four years in college never considering chasing the almighty dollar and jumping to the pros early. Hansbrough graduated in 2009, Tebow in 2010.

Upon Hansbrough’s graduation the critics started the Hansbrough bashing. He is too slow for the pros. He is too soft for the pros. He is too nice for the pros. He is too white for the pros. He was drafted too high into the pros. You name it, the critics ranted about it. This kid, who had done nothing in the world wrong, was the center of everyone’s criticism and was tagged as being a “bust” before he ever took the court as a professional basketball player.

One year later Tebow entered the NFL Draft and the bashing started all over again. He can’t survive in the pros. He is too slow to release the ball. He carries the ball too low when he gets into position. His arm swing when he is passing is too long, he won’t be able to make quick passes. He was drafted by the Denver Broncos in the first round and was immediately designated as “the worst first round draft pick ever” by many sportscasters.

Both of these players are now playing professionally. Hansbrough plays for the Indiana Pacers and is a very strong inside player. After an injury plagued rookie year he has shown considerable promise in his second year.

Tebow plays for the Denver Broncos and as he plays in his second year he now gets a chance as the starting quarterback. Denver feels very strong about his potential but the press seems to love the fact that Tebow is not the star quarterback that he was in college.

While I have rambled on about what these players were in college and their first few years in the pros, let me spend a minute going over what they weren’t. Neither player ever got arrested for a drunken bar fight at 2 in the morning. Neither was ever accused of taking money from a booster against NCAA rules. Neither has ever been accused of DUI, cheating in school, taking money to throw a game, taking performance enhancing drugs, having another student take their SAT tests, or even accepting a free meal from an alumni. No shooting guns in bars, smoking grass while riding around in a car at early morning, or stealing personal property. They decided that a college degree was what they went to college for and put more value in that than jumping to the Pros early for the fast money. They both led the lives you would want your son or daughter to live through college yet both were a magnet for criticism upon graduation.

While I am a Hansbrough fan and tried to watch every game he played with my beloved Tarheels, I was never really a Tebow fan while he was in college. What I am a fan of is his knowledge of right and wrong and his ability to make mature decisions about how to live his life. I have great respect for his religious nature and the strength he shows in pronouncing it in lieu of hiding it when critics call him out for it. Both he and Hansbrough have shown that not all student athletes are spoiled brats.

They call the NBA and the NFL “professional” organizations. Mature solid citizens fit in very well in “professional” organizations. Like it or not our student and professional athletes are the role models for kids throughout the world. I think individuals like these two are what any parent would want their kids to pattern their lives after. Indiana and Denver both are very lucky to have these guys. The critics and the media should respect Tebow and Hansbrough for what they are and give them time to develop into the fine players they are very likely to become. There are plenty of immature criminal athletes out there to go after. I could write several pages on them.

You just crumble it up over your food before you eat and it is guaranteed to make you eat less at each sitting. It is totally organic and it doesn’t contain all of the chemicals that most supplements have. It is readily available in abundance so we can distribute it inexpensively keeping the price down to the consumers. It is a sure winner.

Now I am a firm believer that a proper marketing approach is essential. After all even a company as large as Toyota thought naming a truck brand “TRD” was a good move so I really want to put some thought into this. You guys can help me out with this. I want to give it a European flair. Do any of you know the Italian words for “dog poop”?

The other day I spent an hour sitting and imagining what it would be like to actually spend an hour just sitting and imagining something.

Last week a saw around 100 blackbirds sitting on three telephone lines in front of the house. One third were on the top line, one third were on the line below them. The rest were on the lower line. I couldn’t help but wonder how long it takes for the ones on the second line to figure out that it isn’t exactly life itself that is pooping on them and the ones on the lower line, well they are likely beyond hope.

The one thing I spent a good bit of time on was remembering. Some of these really show my age but so do I so here we go:

I remember when gas was $.23 a gallon. We used to autocross sports cars back then and on race day we would buy Sunoco 260 which cost $.35 a gallon and we just couldn’t believe we were paying that much.

I remember when TV shows required married couples to sleep in separate beds if they ever were shown in the bedroom at all.

I remember when air conditioning was something you experienced only when you went to the movies.

I remember when my parents would leave their car keys in the ignition so they wouldn’t lose them and the car doors unlocked at night.

I remember when we slept with the windows open and the only thing that kept people out of the house at night was an unlocked screen door.

I remember my parents letting me out of the house in the morning as a kid and I would show up around dark usually covered in mud from chasing crawdads in the creek down the street.

I remember when you could change the turn signal bulb in your car for 25 cents and change your own spark plugs for 50 cents apiece.

I remember when teachers were respected about as much as your parents and you didn’t dare to talk back to one. There were many a time I got lifted off the ground by one of their paddles and a nasty up swing and the only person my parents got upset with was me for what I had done.

I remember when lawyers dealt with criminals

I remember when people worked for a living. If you didn’t work, you didn’t eat.

I remember when we used to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school followed by a prayer.

I remember when bad guys wore black hats, bad kids got spanked, bad girls were the ones you didn’t want to date, bad words resulted in a soap taste, a bad trip was a long car ride on a hot day, and bad actually meant bad.

I remember when the clerks at the fast food restaurants would say “Thank You” when they gave you your order.

I remember when sunshine was healthy, blood was pure, water came from taps or a well, milkmen brought milk in glass containers, and mailmen walked.

I remember when grass was what you cut, coke was what you drank, speed was what you did in a car, and a crack was what you didn’t want to step on for fear of doing your mother bodily harm.

I remember when only sailors had tattoos, only old people died their hair, only young girls wore young girl clothes, only young men married young women, only young women married young men, only police men had guns, only cats ate raw fish, and only old farts drank martinis.

I remember when radios has antennas, cars had maps, TVs had knobs, elevators had operators, telephones had party lines, yards had tire swings, cars had real bumpers and girls had real breasts.

I also remember when God was an institutional part of our country and our lives, men married women, women married men, divorce was an exception to the rule, mothers and fathers raised their kids, kids read books, schools were safe zones, people helped other people, honesty was the best policy, cheaters never prospered, the rights of many outweighed the rights of the few, and religious beliefs was never a legitimate excuse to kill anyone.

From that I think I’ve figured things out – I want to go back….

I think that when you work at a convenience store, your responsibility level is not incredibly high. This is not a slam of convenience store workers throughout the world but if you are a smart, hard working individual working at a convenience store, you are probably should consider yourself over qualified. This job usually consists of standing behind the counter, someone walks up and gives you a candy bar and some money. You give them change, and maybe even a receipt and that’s about as deep as it goes. One of the other things you have to do is monitor the gas pumps which in itself isn’t rocket science since most all are now “pay at the pump”. Now these pumps require very little maintenance but they do require you to put a paper ribbon in them so that when they print, they actually print and this one thing just seems to be something that most convenience store attendants feel either an unnecessary task or above their pay grade and it is one thing that will chap my butt in a heartbeat.

Now this is where my story begins. It is a cold February day in rural (capital R) Mississippi and I am all but out of gas. I pull into a “hole in the wall” convenience store which seemed to fit in well with the “hole in the wall” town it was in. Being a guy I figured I didn’t really need a jacket because this wasn’t going to take long so there I am standing there freezing in the cold north wind watching the pump sllooowly fill my tank with my only thought being to get through this ordeal and get back into my warm car. When I’m done, naturally the pump printer doesn’t print a receipt.

Now this puts the initial bug up my butt and I dread going inside because I know more bugs usually will be inserted before it’s all over. As I walk in I see three attendants all standing there chatting and I wait patiently until one of them finally decides that I might actually be standing there for a reason. In a very kind voice I ask for a receipt for my gas and tell them that the gas pump currently is not printing (thinking just by chance they might want to know that). She looks out across the pump area and says   “Which puump?”  .  I looked out there and, since there are 6 pumps out there and only one car in the entire parking lot and that one car which is parked next one of the pumps is mine, it seemed like to me that this might just be a rather stupid question. I bit my tongue and said   “the one next to the black car, you know, the one gas stall that’s not completely empty”   throwing in the car color just in case this individual might be color blind. Well this wasn’t what she either wanted or needed to hear because her reply was   “Weall darrllin, I caint print you ah recete if yoou doan’t knoow whaat puump nuumber yoou weer oonn. “    I believe that probably did it for me because I replied  “Weall sug-ar , I’ll betsch yoou luk at themthair puumps at least a hunderd times a daaay and I’ll also betsch the numburs of them puumps has -a com up at least won-se b-fore. Scen-ce theere ainte but six puumps out theere and only one caaarr., I thank yoou shud be abell to figur this-un ouut don’t yoouu. Now thank reeal haard. I’ll trust ya on this-unn”.    Her glare was beginning to make this whole thing start to be worthwhile as she replied  “Weell baa-bee was tha a-mount fifty five dollas and twealve ceants?”   . I replied   “Dump-len , tha-at sounds riiite to mee”.   She grunted something un-definable, ripped the receipt off the machine and handed it to me and, feeling her beady little eyes scorch my back, I walked out after saying   “Have a nise daye, won’t cha”.

Now I recently made my mind up that I was really going to work on this incompetence irritation thing so I have to ask “Was I wrong in this? Was I impatient? Was I insensitive?. Have I regressed?”.  I mean really now. I pulled out of the parking lot a little ashamed of myself but at the same time I did have a small grin that I didn’t have before I pulled in.

I do have to wonder how they planned on getting the car door open …

We read about new drugs that cure the common cold. We read about medicines that stop baldness. We read about drugs that cure memory loss. We read about possible cures for cancer. We read , we read, and while we all are out here semi bald with hacking coughs and worried about eating an orange because of the cancer causing pesticides it might be coated in, the rats are all running around barefoot in the snow with hair that looks like John Kerry smoking cigarettes and happy as heck. These rats are light years ahead of us when it comes to immunity to diseases and disasters. I used to think that when Armageddon does come, the only things that would survive would be cock roaches and Cher but now I have to add rats to the list.

While somewhat impatiently annoyed, I have always felt like all this testing was probably a necessity but the other day something came about that changed my mind. I heard on the radio that scientists think they have come up with a drug that stops the aging process and could allow us to live to be 180. When I heard this I stopped in my tracks. This is great news but there was one key word in this that made the hair on my neck stand up. The word was “stops”. If the word had been “reverses” I would have jumped up and down but the word wasn’t “reverses”. It was “stops”. That means that whenever you take this drug, you don’t age anymore and you live to be 180. Great news if you are currently 20 years old but knowing it will take 20 years or more to get this miracle drug out, I don’t know if I like this or not.

Now I’m not currently what I would consider old. I’m not 60 yet but I’m close enough to it to smell it. Back when I was 16 I used to think 60 was dinosaur-istic but then I blinked a couple times and I’m there. I’m at the age now where my body is starting to act more and more like an old English sports car. Now this comparison might seem unusual but if you’re getting old and you’ve ever had an old English sports car you will know what I mean. One day you wake up and your wipers don’t work for no apparent reason. The next day your head lights won’t come on. Some days you have trouble starting especially if it’s cold. So far my convertible top hasn’t refused to come up buy based on all of the commercials on TV I suspect that is in the works. As a friend of mine once told me “Getting old is not for the meek.”.

Now if you combine the daily aging process with the 20 year wait while they test this stuff on rats, you get what I think is a disastrous combination. 20 years from now I will be 80 years old. 80 years old. At 80 I will be creeping around in bedroom slippers and flannel pajamas looking strikingly like Yoda mumbling that I can’t find my oatmeal spoon and 85 year old rats will be doing cartwheels in the kitchen one saying to the other “Yes, I remember that old guy. He was a damper looking individual when he was younger. I remember back in 1979 when he chased me out of his living room with a broom.”. I don’t want to live to be 180 spending the last 100 years of my life as an 80 year old fart. I want to spend the last 120 years of my life looking and acting like I do now. It ain’t great but it ain’t 80 either. Get this stuff bottled up and get it out here. They can test it on me. If it doesn’t work, what’s the worst that could happen? I wake up one day after taking it and I’m one day older than yesterday. I can live with that. They can go back and tweak it a little and try it on me again. I’ll take my chances. I’m a gambling man especially when the stakes are this high.

I’m looking for a couple more comparably aged individuals to volunteer with me and let’s boot the rats out of this testing process. We can do it if we can get the numbers on our side. If logic doesn’t work, we may have to storm the place. I believe we can take the scientists. It’s those lab rats that worry me.

Looking into this slightly I believe this whole abbreviated text thing originated back years before the cell phone were even thought about. I’m not sure if you remember but there was once a classic of a short story that took only 33 letters to tell. It is called M R Ducks. It goes like this:

M R Ducks,  M R not, R2 – CM wings?, LIB M R Ducks

As Told           SouthenTranslation         English Translation

M R Ducks            Them are ducks                    I believe those are ducks.
M R not                Them are not                        I disagree. I don’t believe they are.
R 2                      Are too                                 Pardon me but yes they are.
C M Wangs?          See Them wings                    Do you notice the wings?
L I B M R Ducks     Well I’ll be. Them are ducks.  Well. They just might just be ducks.

Think this sounds a little stupid? Here are a few examples of today’s official versions :

AFAHMASP – A fool and his money are soon parted
ANFAWFOS – And now for a word from our sponsor
AWGTHTGTWTA? – Are we going to have to go through with this again?
DWWWI – Surfing the world wide web while intoxicated
FMTEYEWTK – Far more than everything you’ve ever wanted to know
FYSBIGTBABN – Fasten your seatbelts it’s going to be a bumpy night
GNSTDLTBBB – Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite
HLOLARAWCHAWP – Hysterically laughing out loud & rolling around while clapping hands & wetting pants
ICHWYSIHABIME – I can’t hear you since I have a banana in my ear

There are hundreds more. This noncence seems to make that whole M R Ducks thing seem more logical all the time.

If you want to see how to decipher all of this (like the high tech version of the “Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring”) go to 

www.just-quotes.com/acronyms_abbreviations_c.html  

TT4N – B careful EMRTW

Sir Lance-or-not?

We currently live in a small two-story townhouse which obviously has a set of stairs. We also have a small foo-foo dog (Schooner) who has decided that he can no longer go up of down these stairs on his own and he has to be carried. He is 10 years old, or 70 years old in dog life, so I’ll cut him some slack but still, he can jump up on the sofa but I still have to carry his furry butt up and down the stairs all day long. My mother in law is over 80 and I don’t have to carry her up and down the stairs when she visits. With all of this in mind I carry him daily.

Recently, when I was getting ready to leave the house, I knew I had to take Schooner down stairs and put him up to keep him from having the run of the downstairs. As usual I grabbed a dog biscuit for him and, not having the time to have lunch, I grabbed me a Ritz Cracker to hold me over. With dog in one hand and biscuit and cracker in the other I walked down the stairs. About 5 steps from the bottom my feet slipped on the wooden steps, flew out from under me, and I found myself horizontal probably 3 feet above the ground headed down to the nice soft wooden stairs and tile floor below me. Luckily my whole life didn’t pass before my eyes but time did seem to just creep by as Mean Mr. Gravity took over. My first thought was to hang on to the dog and take the force of the landing with my body which I did with a forceful blow. I ended up with my feet on the first floor hall but my body sprawled head high up the stairs. It took a few milliseconds for the pain to hit but it seemed like hours. The wait for the pain was filled with a dreaded anticipation (kind of like when you are driving around in a car with your mother listening to a country music song you have never heard of before and the previous chorus ended with the word “truck”). You know the feeling and when it did hit it hit with a vengeance. All breath left my body and I could do nothing but just lay there hurting. When you land like that it seems like everything  from foot to head hurts and every part is trying to outdo all of the other parts for attention. Somehow through all this the dog safely crawled down my body and ended up on the first floor surface unharmed. As I laid there waiting for the pretty stars to diminish and the pain to fade I couldn’t help but think of how many times I had made fun of the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercial and now I was a prime candidate for the next commercial but then it struck me. I remembered the Lassie episode when grandma somehow fell into the well and couldn’t get out (I believe it started when she was taking Pepto Bismol and she read “Shake well before using” and while she was doing that she did she slipped and fell in but that’s just a theory). Anyway Lassie went over to draw out some water, heard grandma screaming, went to the phone to dial 911, saw that it was a rotary dial and knew that would work (lack of fingers issue), ran 15 miles to Ranger Rick’s house and wrote “Grand Ma stuck in well” on an etch-a-sketch lying on Ranger Rick’s living room floor and, of course, Grandma was saved. Well I had one of those knights in shining armor right there at my feet. Schooner could be the hero. Schooner could go for help. It would be a lot easier now since I had a cell phone in my pocket and it had buttons you push. Schooner could pull the cell phone out of my pocket, dial 911 (I don’t know if I ever told him the phone number for 911 but hopefully he could figure that out) and he could call for help. Next week we could be on the Good Morning America Show with him in my laps and me explaining how he had saved my life. I called his name out a couple of times and then I felt Schooner’s cold nose nudging my hand. He had climbed up a couple of stairs and was making sure I was alright kind of like Lassie would have done to Timmy in the same situation but wait, Schooner wasn’t just nudging my hand, he was actually lifting my hand. Was he checking my pulse? Even Lassie could do that. I was dazed but impressed none the less but then I figured out the staggering truth. He wasn’t checking to see if I was alive. He was pulling the food out of my hand. This is the same dog that wouldn’t climb the stairs on his own. He was now up 3 stairs pulling food out of my dying hand. What makes it worse was he wasn’t taking his biscuit, he was going for my Ritz Cracker. As I laid there I remembered another episode where Lassie went and got a 3/8” box end wrench so Timmy could take the gate apart to save the family horse from the barn fire and my dog, man’s best friend, was using this occasion to steal my Ritz Cracker. I don’t know what hurt the most, the pain from the fall or the truth that my well-being fell second in Schooner’s eyes to a Ritz Cracker. After a few minutes I got to where I could move and I was up and going but damaged in many ways beyond the pain from the fall.

As you can imagine I survived the whole ordeal. A sore back, damaged pride, and a considerable loss of respect for this whole “Man’s Best Friend” thing. I’m thinking about getting Schooner a collar stitched with “WWLD”. It probably wouldn’t help.

• I have been known to drive for a while with my turn signal on but not more than 50 miles.
• I forget things occasionally like birthdays, key locations, and turn signals but not every day (not that I can remember anyway).
• I haven’t had any uncontrollable desire to learn to square dance.
• I have plaid shorts, black socks, and black shoes but I haven’t ever worn them at the same time yet.
• I will watch wrestling every once in a while but I consider it more a comedy than I do a sport and I know that guy isn’t really pulling that other guys “harr”.
• I did have to bite the bullet and get hearing aids but I lost most of my hearing listening to loud rock music as a kid so that doesn’t count, does it?
• I still like rock and roll but it is usually the oldies.
• I don’t repeat myself yet.
• I do have gray hair but that started back when I was 30.
• I don’t repeat myself yet.
• I never drive 10 mph below the speed limit (or the speed limit).
• I haven’t had a desire to own or drive an RV yet.
• I’m not a real fan of casseroles.
• I still think swin suits should have legs.
• I’ve never gone shopping at Walgreens to the level that I needed a shopping cart.
• I don’t own a flannel shirt or any cologne that smell like moth balls.
• I avoid the Depends isle at Wal-Mart because I don’t want to be guilty by association.
• My teeth still sleep in the same room that I do.
• I can still see my fly without having to move anything out of the way.

So just how do you know for sure you’re getting old? I’m sure there is a test out there somewhere that defines this dreaded stage. I read somewhere that one tell tale sign is you get so obsessed about it that you work hard to convince people you’re not getting old. Thank god I haven’t gotten to that stage yet.