JET STREAM

JET STREAM

I keep a clipboard next to my bed where I attach newspaper articles, snippets from magazines, photos, anything that might be an inspiration for my next column. If I still can’t think of anything funny to write by deadline, I just whack myself in the head until something dawns on me. In the past 13 years, I have done that 650 times, which should explain a lot.

On the top of the clipboard this week I inserted a little instruction pamphlet that came with a new device my dentist suggested I buy. I have several dental implements in my bathroom, all the result of Dr. Smith going to some convention in San Juan or the Sandwich Islands where he sits through lectures about flossing instead of hitting a golf course or going parasailing. He told me I needed this thingamajig because after Alyssa, the hygienist, dug away at my gums for 40 minutes last week, there was some bleeding. The doctor asked if bleeding had been a recurring problem, and I said yes—every six months when Alyssa digs away at my gums for 40 minutes.

The package arrived three days later. The box said:

                       Hydro Floss – A New Generation of Oral Irrigators

Yikes. This sounded like my mouth required not just a qualified dental professional, but a small team of agricultural workers, as well.

I opened the pamphlet and, as is always the case, the buyer is admonished not to use the product until all the directions have been read. There were four subsections on the first page, all related to eliminating the possibility of electrocution.

DANGERS

WARNINGS

CAUTIONS

SAFEGUARDS

These are not the kinds of words you want to see associated with a machine you are going to fill with water, plug into a wall socket and then insert into your mouth. The first caution is: Never let children use the Hydro Floss without supervision. Too bad, because with two of these gadgets, kids could have a great water fight.

In big bold print it also says: DO NOT USE WHEN DROWSY. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that how we all feel at bedtime when we are finally ready to address the needs of our teeth?

Using the Hydro Floss requires a deft touch. The manufacturers recommend that you first practice in the mirror without the water stream.

“Dick, what in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“I’m practicing cleaning my teeth. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re practicing cleaning your teeth. That’s what’s weird.”

“The pamphlet says that if I don’t first do a couple of dry runs (literally), I won’t develop the proper technique and water will spray all over.”

“Dick, you have been watching yourself brush your teeth for 67 years and you still get toothpaste all over the sink, on the bathroom mirror and, unbelievably, on your slippers. So much for practice.”

The instructions say that once you feel proficient, you can fill the machine with warm water and begin. But now the manual warns you NOT to watch yourself in the mirror because, “this will cause a mess.”

Since I comb my hair and shave while looking in the mirror, I couldn’t imagine how this would be a problem. But it was. Water ended up everywhere: the floor, the mirror, all over the walls. I even got some in my mouth.

Now that I’ve learned how to use it, I can recommend the Hydro Floss. I’d also suggest you buy the two-year extended warranty.  And a good mop.

                          

 

 

COMMATOSE

 IN A PERPETUAL COMMA

I misplace a lot of things: keys wallet gloves the dog’s leash.  Recently I misplaced something that may not seem very important unless you read that last sentence carefully. Then you will realize that believe it or not I can’t find my comma.

Yes it’s true. The comma on the keypad of my iPhone simply disappeared. I will say this: I am very troubled. Where did it go? I don’t know; I still have plenty of other punctuation marks—which I really enjoy using.  But I want my comma back!!!

There has been a lot written about how a comma can change the meaning of a sentence. A bestselling book titled Eats Shoots and Leaves actually has a comma after the word “Eats” describing a murderer who pauses for a snack before firing at his intended victim. Without the comma it’s a simple description of the dietary habits of a Koala.

So where did my comma go? I went to the store where I purchased my cell phone and asked the sales rep John. “Wow that’s a new one on me” he said. Is it really that important to have a comma on your phone?”

“Yes it’s important. You can’t write a newspaper column without commas (as I’m attempting to do now) at least I don’t think so.”

John was perplexed so he fiddled with the phone and then said:

“I can’t find the comma anywhere but I can get you another couple of periods. Would that make you happy?”

“I don’t want any more periods. I have enough trouble finishing a sentence and anyway…”

“I’m still not sure why this is such a big problem for you but I do admit it is weird Mr. Wolfsie.”

“See you just made my point. You just called me Weird Mr. Wolfsie.”

“No I didn’t.  I said this was weird then I paused and then I said Mr. Wolfsie.”

I explained one more time that finding this comma was crucial to being precise and avoiding confusion and that I was not going to be happy without a comma key on my phone.

“When was the last time you used a comma in a message Mr. Wolfsie?”

“Well last week I texted my wife a list of things I wanted her to get at the supermarket: hot dogs beans soda apples lettuce potato chips cookies canned soup.” 

"Did you punctuate that sentence correctly?”

"Of course I’m very punctual.”

"That's a lot of commas for one text.  Which plan are you on?

“Wait a second. You’re telling me I get unlimited minutes but not unlimited commas?”

Another tech guy came over to help me.  We weren’t really making any progress so the store manager finally stepped in to assist and said to his employee: “It’s your lunch hour why don’t you go eat Joe?”

I don’t know who Joe is but apparently he’s very tasty.

Oh, wow, I just figured out where the comma key is.  Apparently, I inadvertently switched to the Canadian keyboard on my smart phone, which does not have a comma in some versions.  But wait, now I seem to be missing another punctuation mark. Not the whole thing, thankfully, just half of it.

(You’ll never guess which one.

 

 

 

 

 

DRESSING FOR SUCCESS

 

 

I’m always disappointed with salad dressing. It’s either too thin or too thick. Some are too vinegary, some are too oily. I must have 25 opened bottles in the fridge. And another 20 unopened in the cupboard. In restaurants, I always ask for the dressing on the side, and I request two or three different kinds. Maybe if I combine the lite honey mustard with the raspberry vinaigrette?  How about half French and half Thousand Island? Yuck. Nothing works.

 

My sister, Linda, who lives in New York, is an awesome cook and whenever we visit and she prepares a meal, the salad is tossed with the most delicious dressing imaginable. Okay, maybe it’s my imagination, but for 35 years she has avoided telling me how she makes it.  I’ll say during dinner, “Linda, you really have to give me the recipe…”

 

“Sure, remind me before you leave,” Linda says.

 

Then, as we are leaving, she often conveniently brings up things like pressing health issues in the family, stuff I really don’t want to talk about.  The whole thing is very suspicious. Maybe the recipe is a family secret.  Wait a second: it’s my family, too. 

 

Recently my wife asked me for the 1,000^th time: “Aren’t you going to eat your salad?” That was it.  I called my sister and told her I wanted to know what was in her special creation and I wanted to know NOW.

 

“Look, Dick. The reason I never gave you the recipe is that I really have no idea what the exact proportion of ingredients is.”

“How could that be, Linda?  It has tasted exactly the same every year since 1976 when I first tasted it at your wedding reception.”

 

“I know. It really keeps.  I probably made way too much.”

 

“Seriously, Linda, nothing lasts 35 years.”

 

“It actually lasted 25.”

 

“I’m not talking about your marriage. I’m talking about the salad dressing.”

 

I pressed her again for details. Finally, after further cajoling, I received this email:

 

LINDA’S SALAD DRESSING

 

2 T sugar (NOT artificial sweetener)

2 T ketchup (NOT chili sauce)

1 T Durkee Famous Sauce (Do NOT substitute)

3 T apple cider vinegar (NOT red wine vinegar)

1/2 cup of vegetable or canola oil (NOT olive oil)

Put in blender (Do NOT whisk)

 

Well, first of all, this was the most hostile recipe I had ever seen, and I think an entire cookbook like this would be very intimidating for people who wanted to just have some creative fun in the kitchen. I prepared the dressing exactly as Linda instructed, and I even called her to be sure I had the blender on the right speed. All Linda said was, “NOT puree.” By the way, growing up, she had a very positive attitude.

 

I am very proud of my finished product. I have drizzled it on my salad every night for the past week. I decided to ask Linda for the recipe for her fabulous Chicken Marsala. She told me she really didn’t have the specifics for that one, either, but she said that when Mary Ellen and I come to New York in June, she’ll serve it to us. I said “No thanks.” I seem to remember that’s also what we had at her wedding.

SNOOZE DOG

Something curious is happening to me.  I hope it’s not anything to be too concerned about. I’m not napping as much as I used to.  For most of my life, if I was on the couch watching a TV show, I’d nod off within five minutes. But a couple of weeks back, I made it through the entire Super Bowl wide awake.  Not even Peyton Manning can say that.

This past month I did not take a single nap. Even the dog wondered what happened to our siesta. He kept following me around the house as if to say, “Hey, I’m 80 in dog years. It’s almost 2 p.m. Let’s stretch out and do this.”

Napping has never been a problem. When I was a high school teacher, I actually fell asleep in class while proctoring a statewide exam. The kids were very polite. “I hope we didn’t disturb you yesterday, Mr. Wolfsie,” said one of my students. “We tried to cheat as quietly as we could.”

Up until recently, I could take a quick snooze while having dinner with friends, at red lights, while waiting for my wife to put on makeup, as the dog was relieving himself, at fast food drive-up windows, in check-out lines. Anywhere.

 

As a result of grabbing the occasional 40 winks, I have missed a few events that in retrospect I probably should have stayed awake for. Here are the top three:

1. My sixty-fifth birthday party (I wish they had screamed “surprise!” louder)

2. Paris

3. The end of my interview with Governor Evan Bayh

Mary Ellen never quite understood the value of a nap. Personally, I think women are afraid they’re going to miss something. Like a sale, or a beautiful sunset, or the plot of a movie. Men don’t care about stuff like this.  On the rare occasion that Mary Ellen has fallen asleep during the day, she would awaken with an apology and an explanation of her behavior. “I don’t know what happened. I must be coming down with something!” I always had a different attitude when awakening from a short slumber: “Man, that was a great. I’m getting better and better at this all the time.”

 

My inability to nap recently came up during my last annual physical, but there was some confusion in the conversation. “How are you sleeping?” asked Dr. Coss, a pretty standard inquiry by a primary care provider.

 

“It’s been rough,” I told him. “Sometimes I’m awake for 8-10 hours in a row.”

 

“TEN HOURS?” he gasped. “We need to do some testing. How long has this been going on?”

 

“Several months.”

 

“Do you just toss and turn in bed?”

 

“Well, I’m not in bed. That’s the problem. I’m out driving the car, watching the news, cooking.  Sometimes I’m in the garage operating heavy machinery.”

 

“This is very troubling, Dick. So you don’t sleep all night?

 

“No, I sleep great at night. It’s all day that I can’t sleep”

 

Dr. Coss was very helpful once I straightened out the misunderstanding. He said that I had to accept that men experience changes in their bodily rhythms as they mature. “I want you to go home this afternoon and really think about that,” he said. I told him I’d have to sleep on it.  Which meant, of course, it would have to wait until that night.

 

The problem is that there are now three more hours each day where I need to find something to keep me busy. I think I have found the perfect online service to do just that. It must really work, or they couldn’t call it Napster.

 

 

 

 

SPACE AGE PROBLEMS

SPACE AGE PROBLEMS

The other day at the supermarket the periodical display was chock-full of all these splashy publications—so many, in fact, that one bundle had remained unopened due to a shortage of space on the rack. Curious, I tore back the brown wrapping of the package and there it was: Storage Solutions. Yes, that’s right: there was not enough room on the shelves to include this magazine.

Storage Solutions is dedicated to assisting the busy housewife (or househusband, of course) in finding efficient ways to put away stuff, most of which, I think we all know, should probably have been thrown away in the first place. By the way, I always thought the word “storage” had the letter “e” in the middle of it. Dan Quayle agrees with me. Where did it go? Maybe there was no room for it.

I glanced more closely and saw this was a “Special Double Issue.” Interesting that the editors couldn’t fit everything into one edition.  Also on the cover was the tease: FIND SPACE YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD.  My guess is that at one time you knew you had it, but you put it somewhere and now you can’t find it. I know that makes no sense, but when I make myself laugh, that pretty much means it’s going in the column.

On the back page was a huge ad for fifthroom.com. Later, I logged onto the site and realized that this was for people who didn’t want to install shelves, hooks and cabinets and instead just wanted to buy a prefab shed, gazebo or pool house, or maybe a giant cedar chest, and just cram all their crapola into one place.  You can also purchase something called a pergola but I had no idea what that was and I didn’t want to make any room in my brain for more useless information.

The editor’s name is Debra and her editorial this month is titled: “Help, I Need More Space!”  Last month it was: “Do You Need More Space?”  And in March, get ready for:  “Space, I Think That’s What We All Need!” The pages are filled with colorful photographs of homes that don’t have much furniture, but just a lot of adjustable nooks and crannies. With every picture, the first thing you think of is not how people have effectively used their limited space, but what possessed them to buy so much junk to begin with.

These are actual tips from the magazine. You can thank me later for bringing them to your attention

Store books on a shelf vertically so you can read the titles. (I know, I know…how cool an idea is that?) 

Use large hooks for coats, backpacks and gym bags, but use smaller ones for keys and dog leashes. (Seriously, why didn’t I think of this?)

Use a basket in your hall closet for gloves. (…because you’d never find those mittens in your coat pockets?)

Use empty jars to store paper clips and loose screws. (Was this magazine the best ten bucks I ever spent?)

When Mary Ellen saw me reading Storage Solutions, she asked if she could see it when I was finished. I told her I’d roll it up and stick it in the wine rack.  No, that idea was not in the magazine. Proud to say, that one was all mine.

SECRET SHOPPER

 

It’s so exciting these final days before Christmas. You never know who is going to be at the door ringing your bell. Will it be UPS dropping off a package?  Maybe Federal Express with a holiday gift? Possibly the U.S. Mail with something for this past Mother’s or Father’s Day?  Sometimes it’s a grumpy neighbor telling you he’s tired of getting all your stuff by mistake. ‘Tis the season.

This story begins about 2:00 p.m. last Tuesday. The UPS truck pulled up to the curb and we wondered what Brown was going to do for us. We saw the driver struggle with a huge carton the size of a big screen TV. He maneuvered it to the front porch and left it leaning against the door. I went outside to look at it.

“Who’s it for?” asked Mary Ellen.

I checked the label and it was addressed to me, but sometimes that sticker is misleading. Some of our credit cards are in my name, some are in Mary Ellen’s; so when a delivery is made, we are not sure who ordered it and who the gift is ultimately for. If the wrong person opens it, well, there goes the surprise on Christmas morning.

“It says it’s for me,” I told her, “but I have absolutely no recollection of ordering anything so big. Maybe you ordered it, Mary Ellen.”

My wife thought for a moment and so began the weirdest conversation in our 34-year marriage. “Dick, I know what it is. It’s that special item I mentioned two months ago that I wanted for Christmas. You said you found it in a catalog. Don’t you remember? I am so excited! Thank you.”

“I have absolutely no idea what it is. Can you give me a hint?”

“No, I can’t give you a hint. That would ruin the surprise.”

“Ruin the surprise? Ruin the surprise? The gift is for you! It’s supposed to be your surprise. But you already know what it is. I’m the one who doesn’t have a clue.”

“It doesn’t seem right to tell you. That’s not in keeping with the spirit of giving, Dick.”

“Okay, how about if you whisper softly in my ear and I promise I won’t tell you what you said.” It scared me a little that for a brief moment this actually made sense. It was driving me crazy that I had no memory of what I bought her. “Is it a high tech item?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Mary Ellen.

“Do you plug it in?”

“No.”

“Is it artwork?”

“No, not even close. But I don’t want to play anymore. If you guess it, I’ll have nothing to look forward to on Christmas morning. I want to see the expression on your face when I open it.”

Later that morning when Mary Ellen went out grocery shopping, I secretly opened the box. Let me tell you, it was a really neat present.  I don’t think I have ever been happier with something I bought my wife. Before Mary Ellen got home, I resealed it, then gift-wrapped it and placed it under the tree.  Of course, now we both knew what was in the package. It will still be a surprise on Christmas morning, as long as we can both keep a secret.

 

 

MACHO MAN

 

It’s hard to start writing a column about my chainsaw. But not as difficult as it is to start my chainsaw—considering I was born and raised in New York City and never saw such a device until I was old enough to get into an R-rated movie.

When I moved to Indy, I bought my first chainsaw and found it to be a very inefficient tool.  I took it back to the dealer and I told him it took me hours to cut down one little limb. “Let me give it a try,” said the clerk, and then he pulled the cord.

VAROOM!

“Geez, what’s that loud noise?” I asked him.

“Look, Mr. Wolfsie, I once saw you walk into a plate glass window on your morning TV segment. You are not the kind of person who should mess with power tools.”

I’m actually very good with power tools. I have never once had a problem starting my lawn mower. I did have one accident, though. I almost broke my nose when I tripped over the extension cord.

The chainsaw had been untouched in my garage for about 25 years, but that’s also true of Step 4 of my Scott’s lawn fertilizer because by the end of fall, I really don’t care what my lawn looks like. I also have two leaf blowers—one to blow the leaves and one to suck up the leaves. Both tools can perform either of those tasks with a minor mechanical adjustment, but that involves reading an entire page of the owner’s manual. Like I would understand any of that.

During the Midwest’s most recent storms, we were sitting in the living room and heard a crash. A fairly good-sized tree had blown down and grazed the side of the house. My wife heard the noise and immediately panicked.  “Relax,” I told her. “We’re okay.”

“No, we’re all in danger!  This means you’re going to use that chainsaw.”

The next day, I dug through the huge storage box in the garage filled with barbeque and gardening equipment, sprinkler heads, and rusty tools.  I found the implement and cradled it gingerly in my arms. How am I supposed to start this thing? I wondered. There was one doo-dad labeled “choke,” and I did. There was also a little plastic bubble that I vaguely remembered you have to push several times. Not sure why. I pulled the cord once…twice…30 times. Suddenly, the motor began to hum. But the chain didn’t turn. I needed help.

I didn’t want to look stupid, so I checked online and armed myself with just enough information to be as dangerous as the chainsaw. I found a small nearby motor repair shop and drove over. An elderly gentleman asked if he could assist me.

“Yes, I think the clutch isn’t engaging and there’s a sprocket misalignment that’s making the chain stick,”   I said, but I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. He picked up the saw, pushed a button and said: “The safety was on.”

I didn’t bat an eye. “Thanks! What do I owe you?” I asked the man, who now looked vaguely familiar to me.

“Forget it,” he graciously offered. Then, as I started to leave , he added:  “Be careful, Mr. Wolfsie.  You’re about to walk into another plate glass window.”