CAPTCHAING THE MOMENT

My good friend Patty Spitler is the host of Pet Pals on WNDY-TV every Saturday morning. She asked me to join the show’s fan website where I could view photos of dogs and cats and post digital shots of my own furry friends.

I logged into the Pet Pals sign-up page and after entering some preliminary data came face to face with a CAPTCHA. This is not a breed of dog like a Shar Pei, but both are equally shmushed together.

A CAPTCHA is the security feature that requires you to re-type a series of hard-to-read letters and numbers exactly as they appear on the screen before being issued a password or given permission to access a website. It ensures a real human being is taking advantage of the various promotional opportunities. Without CAPTCHA, renegade software programs could amass a boatload of $10-off coupons to Bucca de Beppo, creating a scarcity of giant spicy meatballs right here in Indiana.

Apparently computer software programs can defeat a grand master in chess and beat the pants off the reigning Jeopardy champions, but they can’t read really bad handwriting. Deciphering chicken scratch was never a problem for my elementary school teachers, but if my printing was as bad as CAPTCHA’s when I was back in the fifth grade, I’d still be back in the fifth grade.

On the Pet Pals site I carefully hunted and pecked the curious series of letters into the box. Let’s see: was that two V’s in a row or was it a W? Was that KLo or Kb? I had no idea, so I took a wild guess. INCORRECT, the prompt berated me. Graciously, they offered me another chance.

I took out my reading glasses and peered onto the screen. I typed with only one finger to increase my accuracy. There were two words this time with a squiggly line through them. Some letters looked like caps and others didn’t, but some you couldn’t tell because they were back-to back with another figure. Some of the numbers appeared as if they were doing the tango together. Why was this so difficult? I just wanted Patty’s fans to see Toby with his adorable St Patrick’s Day hat on. I wasn’t trying to join the CIA. I made another attempt.

INCORRECT repeated the prompt. Or was it InCorRecT?

I became so frustrated that I tried the audio CAPTCHA, intended for folks with vision issues, which clearly included me. In this version of CAPTCHA you hear a cacophony of indistinguishable sounds, much like in a crowded restaurant, then suddenly a recognizable word emerges like ORANGE, then more murmuring, then another, maybe BATHTUB, just as an example.

I enunciated each word I heard into my computer’s microphone, not aware my wife was listening at the foot of the stairs:

RETREAT…ALAMO…VIOLIN…CHRYSTANTHMUMS…SWITCHBLADE

Mary Ellen was frightened by my incoherent rant.  She inched back up the steps without making a sound.

I finally got into the Pet Pals website and I also managed to convince my wife I had not totally lost my mind. How did I do that? Do I have to spell everything out for you?

SLICE OF LIFE

I don't usually have my meals delivered up here in the Geist area.

My pizza restaurant of choice is only five minutes from the house, so it's not a big deal. I figure that if I'm going to wolf down six or eight slices of pure cholesterol, I should at least get some exercise by driving a couple of blocks.

It was snowy the other night, so I parked myself in front of a roaring fire and decided to arrange for a speedy dinner drop-off.

"Hello, Donatos, I'd like to order two medium pizzas for my family. One with sausage and one with pepperoni and mushroom."

"Do you have any coupons, sir?"

"Yes, but they are all for a different pizza chain and they expired in June of '05."

"Not a problem. What major intersection are you near?"

"We're just south of 86th and Mud Creek."

"One moment, sir. I'll have to talk my supervisor about this."

Then, a long silence.

Finally, the boss picked up the phone. "Sir, this is Eugene, the manager. I've been doing some checking, and I have some very bad news for you."

"Look, if you're out of pepperoni, I can get through this. I'm tough. How about meatball, instead?"

"It's not that. It's more serious. This is difficult to say, sir, but according to Mapquest you live in a pizza dead zone.'"

"What does that mean, 'pizza dead zone'? I feel like I'm talking to Rod Serling."

"Well, there are four of our pizza chains within 10 minutes of you, but you aren't in the delivery area for any of them. Pizza-wise, sir, you are nowhere. Pizza non grata, so to speak."

"Well, of all the luck. Not only am I a liberal who accidentally moved into a neighborhood represented by Congressman Dan Burton, but now I've also been gerrymandered out of pizza delivery. What can we do about this, Eugene?"

"You could meet the truck at the edge of the Dead Zone. Do you know where the stop sign is at the intersection of ..."

"This is ridiculous. I get my newspaper delivered every morning. The Girl Scouts and the Jehovah's Witnesses never have a problem finding my front door. I even know the UPS guy on a first-name basis. If Brown can do something for me, why can't Donatos Pizza?"

"Look, sir, I can't make any exceptions. If I let you order a pizza for delivery, the next thing you know, the people next door to you will be ordering pizzas. Then the whole neighborhood will want pizza delivered from us. We don't have time for that. We're trying to run a business here."

"OK, Eugene, suppose, just suppose, I wanted to order 100 pizzas with all the toppings. Then would you deliver to me?"

"You mean, ask my employees to enter the dead zone? In good conscience, I don't think I could do that."

"Eugene, this is a subdivision in Castleton. Not the Bermuda Triangle."

"Sir, I've just called up some research while we were chatting that may explain this problem from a business standpoint. The data show that if we expanded service into your area it would increase our net profit by only 1.567 percent during the week and only 2.567 percent on weekends."

"Wow, those are impressive statistics. Is that based on a mathematical extrapolation using advanced calculus?"

"No, we just use a simple pie chart."

MY ACHIN’ BACK…

MY ACHIN’ BACK…

I pulled into the parking lot, edged into a space by the side of the building, and carefully negotiated my exit from the car. My face was scrunched from the unbearable pain as I shuffled into my chiropractor’s office.

I cautiously lowered myself into a chair in the waiting area. Now I had the dubious pleasure of perusing several charts of the skeletal system, each one a reminder of all the ways that any one of the 206 bones or 639 muscles in your body can turn on you and ruin a perfectly good weekend.

I tried to make conversation with a few other people who apparently were in great pain. “So, how did you hurt your back?” I asked one of the patients, an elderly gentleman with thinning gray hair in a pale blue cardigan.

“I’m a firefighter and I rescued a 300-pound man from a burning building. What happened to you?”

“I sneezed.”

This caused quite a stir in the waiting room. The weightlifter was amused; so was the salt delivery guy. The two women from Fay and Fran’s Piano Moving Company thought it was just a hoot.

Everyone thought I was kidding. I wasn’t. An explosive sneeze had done something wicked to my lower back and sent me crashing to the kitchen floor the day before.

The receptionist told me it was my turn to see Dr. Shpeherd. He asked, “So what happened to your back, Dick? I heard you just sneezed. Look, I have some very needy patients out in that waiting room.”

“Well, you just heard part of the story, Doc. Yes, I sneezed, but it wasn’t just a normal sneeze. It was a sneeze of gargantuan proportions. Saving a guy from a burning building, delivering pianos, hoisting bags of salt…these are not the kind of stories you can slap together for an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. I’m the case history every chiropractor wants hobbling into his office.”

He took an x-ray of my back, which he said was in pretty good shape considering I had 64,000 miles on my body, apparently a reference to my age. Coincidentally, my car also has 64,000 miles on it. To be fair, it’s been in for service a lot more than I have. But no one is offering me an extended warranty.

Just to lighten things up, the chiropractor asked if I had heard any good jokes lately. “Sure, here’s a favorite, Doc. How many chiropractors does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it will take him seven visits to do it.”

He didn’t think that was at all funny, so I was concerned when he slapped pads on my back to send electric current though my body.  It scared the willies out of me when I peeked over my shoulder. I’d swear there were two witnesses and a priest watching the procedure from the other room.

After being jolted, I was adjusted, which meant the doctor folded me up in a little ball and smashed all 280 pounds of himself into my side. It actually felt pretty good. And I know he thought this was a beneficial procedure because then he jumped on the adjacent table and said, “Okay, now it’s my turn.”

When I left his office, I did feel better. As I got into my car, I saw a frail old woman limping into the clinic. “This is my first time here,” she declared. “Does the treatment work?”

I tried to be honest. “It’s nothing to sneeze at.”

FACING MY BIRTHDAY

         

FACING MY BIRTHDAY*

I’d like to sincerely thank all my “friends” who last week wished me a happy 64th birthday. More than 400 people, who set their Facebook account  to notify them of birthdays, posted greetings on my homepage that said, “Hi Dick, Happy Birthday.” I did receive a few congratulatory posts that were more personal, like, “Hi Dick, have a great Saturday”; “Hello, Dick, Have fun, despite the rain”; and my favorite: “Happy Birthday, Richard. Are you interested in term life insurance while it’s still affordable?”

The big problem is that I receive an email alert from Facebook whenever anyone posts on my page, which is very annoying. Why don’t I change that setting, you might ask? I’ll tell you why, as if it’s any of your business. I haven’t a clue how to do that. Okay?

As I write this, the salutations are still pouring in, about 15 or 20 an hour. I would not even bother reading them, but I’m afraid that embedded in this avalanche might be an important message. Like a request for one of my books or a substantial inheritance from one of my Nigerian relatives.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

Hold on, there’s one now. It’s from Tom, who told me to have a great day and then added, “How old are you? Has your birth certificate expired, yet?” As a kid, I used to display selected fingers to show how old I was. If Tom were here, I’d select...

YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

That was from JP. He’s never remembered my birthday before. JP has owed me 50 bucks for two years. Well, at least he remembered something, that no good...

YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

Hold on, this could be important. Perfect , it’s good wishes from Meals on Wheels. I was wondering where I’d have my birthday dinner.

I searched the Internet to find a more personal approach to acknowledge a friend’s special day. One site suggested you buy your BBF credits to FarmVille, a Facebook social game that allows you to manage a virtual farm by plowing land, growing crops and raising livestock. I think I’ll gift that to my brother for his 60th. What a perfect way to say happy birthday to a Manhattan cab driver.

I’m also going to ask all of my friends to fiddle with their Facebook account and start sending me messages that will have a more direct benefit to me in my disordered existence. Thanks for helping me manage my life. Here’s your message to forward to me if your last name begins with:

A-C: Hi, Dick, quit procrastinating and schedule that periodontal exam. (April 3)

D-G: Hey, Dick. Avoid the slammer. TAXES! (April 15)

H-L: Hi, Dick. Isn’t it time to shell out eight bucks for a car wash? (May 9)

M-S: Hello, Dick. It’s your anniversary. Don’t screw it up like last year (June 14)

T-Z: Hi, Dick. Saw you on TV. Get a haircut. (Send first of every month)

One day I’ll change my Facebook configurations so they no longer show the day I was born. But for now, I’m going to go down to City Hall tomorrow and convince them to change my name and the year of my birth. I have a feeling that will be much easier.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL

Oh, shut up!

         

TALKING TRASH

“What is this?” Mary Ellen asked me the other day as she dangled a doodad in front of my face. It was small, white, plastic, hexagonal in shape, and had several grooves.  “It looks like it “goes to something,” she said.

“I don’t know what it is,” I responded, which I prayed would end the discussion, but I knew it wouldn’t because my wife just can’t leave a thingamajig alone. She has to know what it’s for.

“Put it somewhere in case we ever need it. It looks important.”

“So you want me to keep it because we don’t know what it is for?”

“Exactly.”

“Of course, if we did know what it was for, we’d also keep it. So, I guess we keep everything.”

“Don’t be silly, some things don’t go to anything. We can throw those things way. We only keep things that look important.”

I knew exactly what she meant. I have an entire drawer filled with things that look important. But I don’t think I will ever really need them.

Last week, I decided to clear out the mess that had accumulated in my office over the years.  Why not begin with Mary Ellen’s doodad. I was one hundred percent sure that nothing in our house required anything quite like that. But there was only one way to really be sure that it was not important, that it didn’t go to anything. I’d throw it away.

I tossed it in the waste basket next to my desk and listened as it nestled to the bottom and came to rest with an audible thud. I knew I had a small window of opportunity left to retrieve it if necessary: two days before I emptied the office waste basket in the garage receptacle; then another day before the sanitation department picked up all the week’s trash. That gave me some time to rescue the thing when the inevitable happened and I realized I had thrown way something important that went to something.

A few days later, I heard the familiar sound of the garbage truck pulling away. Whatever that thing was, it was now gone forever. Just a matter of time now before I found out what it was for. The next day…

“Dad, Mom wants me to mount the kitchen phone on the wall. She said she thinks you have the doohickey that does that. Do you know where it is?

“Yes, 10^th and Raymond—at the city dump.”

“You threw that away? Dad, didn’t you know that it went to something?”

Yes, I knew it went to something. I just didn’t know what it went to.”

“Great, now it went to the dump?”

I headed upstairs. I removed the drawer from my desk, flipped it over and dumped the entire contents into the wastebasket:  wooden knobs, old keys, pen tops, dozens of multi-colored plastic thingies, metal gizmos in various shapes and a rubber whatchamacallit with a hole in the middle. Within days, I would know the purpose of each item.

“What’s going on up there?” screamed Mary Ellen when she heard the thunderous clatter.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s not important…yet”

ENTERING THE GRAY ZONE

We were ready to leave the restaurant last Thursday night but Mary Ellen was stalling. She had been fussing with her purse and made a couple of extra trips to the ladies’ room.

“Let’s go,” I said. “I want get home by 8:30 so we don’t miss 30 Rock.”

“Dick, we can’t leave just yet. If we go back to the house now, we’ll be in the gray zone. You know how I hate the gray zone.”

On most evenings Mary Ellen pulls into our driveway about 6:30, enters the house, turns on the network news and plays with the cat. She then takes off her professional business apparel—clearly not suitable for a three-hour stint of TV crime dramas—and  slings on an old pair of jeans or sweats along with a flannel shirt. By 10:00, a good night’s sleep is on the radar, requiring a change into her cuddly PJs. She may watch a re-run of Law and Order in her sleeping garb before getting into bed with a good book.

That’s the routine. It seldom varies. But wait! On that particular evening we were going to arrive home from the restaurant somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00. Yes, that is the gray zone she was fretting about. The question: Is it worth going through the second clothing change or does one get directly into sleep attire? It’s not as sticky an issue as establishing peace in the Middle East, but it does pose a quandary.

I never face this predicament. Unlike my wife, whose career requires dressing like a grownup, I spend most of the day working in my basement home office, snapping the elastic band on my gray sweat pants and wiping mustard stains off my Bill Belichick pullover. Nevertheless, I’m tempted to get “sleep ready” way before my wife arrives home. “Why are you dressed for bed?” Mary Ellen will inquire when she walks in the house.

“I just got ready a little early.”

“I’d feel a lot better if you put your jeans back on. Otherwise, when we sit down for dinner, I’ll feel like I’m visiting you at the assisted living facility. I’m not ready to start thinking about that yet.”

“Why don’t you put on your pajamas, too, Mary Ellen?”

“What if someone rang the doorbell, Dick? What would the neighbors say about us if they thought we got ready for bed before Wheel of Fortune? We might as well head out to MCL in our slippers. ”

She had a point. Lounging around in a robe at dinnertime may have made Hugh Hefner an icon, but it was going to wreck my reputation in the cul de sac. I did wonder who else wrestled with this issue. I called my friend Bob last night, in the middle of the gray zone, about 8:00.

“Bob, this is Dick. What are you wearing?”

“Wow, you get weirder every day, don’t you?”

Bob didn’t really relate to this problem.  Nor did most of my friends who I tried to explain it to. I did a little Googling. Not even one support group. There’s a lot of denial out there.

Right now, I have to wrap up this column. Mary Ellen is on her way home and I don’t want her to know I’ve been in my pajamas all day. I’m going to put on my jeans, so I can put my pajamas back on in a couple of hours. This is more stress than a high-powered job. Maybe we should all retire early.

THE 7 PERCENT SOLUTION

I believe in change as much as the next person. I believe in change so much that I have an old pickle jar in my home office filled with quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. Also some golf tees, safety pins and wintergreen Lifesavers.

When I was a kid, I saved the very same way. After a few months, I'd pour the stash in my pocket and jangle my way down to the store, or I'd ask the bank for some wrappers in assorted colors and carefully count out the 40 quarters or the 50 dimes required to properly fill the roll.

The thrill of this incremental savings technique never wore off for me. Well, not until recently. That container in my office held the savings of the past 18 months, about $400.00, I estimated, which translated into a nice infusion of cash for the vacation my wife and I are planning for our 30th anniversary. I took the sealed jar into my bank, hugging it tightly. I assumed the friendly teller would toss my hard-earned change into a high-tech coin counter, then sweeten my bank account with this windfall. Instead, I got the bad news...

"Mr. Wolfsie, we can count this for you, but we'll have to subtract 7 percent from your deposit for administrative costs and wear and tear on our counting machine."

"Wait a second. You're going to charge customers to put money into your bank?

Are people that dumb?”

"Apparently. That's why it’s called chump change."

I told my wife about the problem and she suggested that I have Brett, our son, count the money and we'd give him 4 percent of the total, a savings of several dollars over the bank's fee.

"Gee, Mary Ellen, that's a brilliant idea. Then we'll know exactly how much money we owe Brett, but what will we do with a two-gallon jar of sorted quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies?"

"We'll deposit the rolls in the bank."

"Don't you get it? They don't care about our calculation. They have to add it up themselves in that cockamamie machine. They're not going to take Brett's word for it."

"Well, they don't know what an honest young man he is, do they? Maybe you should introduce him. Did you mention he took calculus in college?

At this point, I just dumped the money on the carpet, and starting adding it all up. An hour later I'd calculated a total of $432.50. Now I knew exactly how much change I had, and I was in the identical predicament I was in before I counted it.

One option was to use the Coinstar machine at the supermarket. They charge 9 percent but you get all your money back if you take it in the form of a gift certificate to a restaurant. Sorry, but after a year of watching that nest egg grow, I was looking forward to translating that into a romantic meal and a fine bottle of wine, not 22 fried catfish specials at MCL.

Then, I wondered if I could sell the money on Craigslist or eBay. But how would I word the ad?

                          $432.50 for sale. $410.00 or best offer.*

                     Fair condition, some scratches and smudges.

                                        Hand counted.

                      * Cash only    

I was still convinced that some bank out there would count my change without a fee, so I spent the better part of one afternoon investigating several branches. I finally got home and told my wife that it was a lost cause and that I was tired of toting around a 20-pound jar of coins.

And to make matters worse, I got a parking ticket.  The meter had expired.

DOG TIRED…..

My wife was exasperated. “I can’t handle this any longer,” she said. “I’m all for love and commitment but enough is enough.”

“I understand, Mary Ellen. I feel terrible.”

“Dick, I know that snoring is not intentional. But it has some devastating effects on a marriage. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll call the vet first thing in the morning.”

Toby shot me a glance. He knew we were talking about him. Dogs always sense that. I felt bad for the pooch. But things had gotten out of hand the last few weeks. It wasn’t his occasional snort that kept us awake; it was a full-blown, get out of my way, foghorn. He was also waking himself up every night, which made him cranky the next day. He really needs his 19 hours.

What led to the sudden onset of Toby’s problem? His recent knee surgery had slowed him down a bit, resulting in a modest weight gain, which is a factor in snoring. I had observed no increase in smoking or alcohol consumption in the hound, another common cause.

True, I had promised Mary Ellen I would call the veterinarian, but first I did an advanced Google search to see if others were lying awake at night thinking about this problem. Apparently, there’s a real epidemic of sleep disorders in the canine world: narcolepsy, jet lag, insomnia, night terrors and restless leg syndrome.

The first thing I learned was that dogs with short, flat faces—bulldogs, pugs, Pekingese—are more apt to snore.  That makes it sound like bedding down with a horse is a better option for a good night’s sleep.

One site suggested preventing your dog from dozing on his back with his paws up in the air, Toby’s favorite slumbering posture in his doggie bed.  When the snoring commences, roust the dog out of his deep sleep, then abruptly flip him over on his stomach. Mary Ellen thought this sounded like a good idea because that very same method worked on me several years ago.

I’m no canine expert, but if Brutus the Rottweiler is keeping you up at night with his snoring, you might heed the time-honored maxim: “Let sleeping dogs lie….and snore.”

In order to keep your dog on his tummy, one pet owner suggested gluing a tennis ball on a leather belt and wrapping it around the dog’s torso, so the bulge on his back would prevent him from rolling over. I tried this with Toby but he was pretty adept at twisting himself into a knot, snatching the ball from the strap and then dropping it on my head so we could play fetch at two in the morning.

One woman recommended nasal strips, but sticking one of those on a beagle’s nose is like trying to keep a bandage on a peeled banana. Another idea was giving your dog a nice foam rubber pillow to prop his head up at night, thus opening his nasal airway.  Toby loved the pillow. Every bite of it.

My wife concluded that the only way to solve this problem was to sleep in separate rooms. She was right. The next night I got some great zzz’s. I’m not sure about Mary Ellen and the dog.