Every city has something special it’s known for: Seattle has the Space Needle, Starbucks and grunge rock; Chicago has deep dish pizza and Al Capone; New York has celebrities like Regis and the Naked Cowboy; and Atlanta gets stuck with all the social misfit headline hogs.
You name the crazy headline, I guarantee someone from Atlanta is involved – most likely Ted Turner. Ted is one crazy old coot – and Atlanta’s most successful businessman. He is both wealthy beyond imagination and certifiably insane. He has a habit of saying downright ludicrous things such as “Jimmy Carter was a great President”; he launched a campaign to get rid of some harmless fish in a Montana lake just because he wanted different fish in it; and he casually donated $1 billion to the United Nations because “They do good stuff.” But perhaps the most telling insane character trait he possesses is the fact that, according to Wikipedia, he has always had a special place in his heart for professional wrestling.
But Teddy isn’t the only headline hog in Atlanta. Just this week, 44-year-old Atlanta resident Richard Jewell made headlines for his untimely death. Jewell, for those of you who don’t remember, was wrongly accused of planting a bomb in Atlanta’s Olympic park in 1996. Unfortunately for Jewell, Ted Turner’s CNN led the media charge in eviscerating him.
Fortunately, when he was cleared, Turner extended an olive branch to Jewell in the form of two obstructed-view, upper reserved level tickets for any Atlanta Braves weekend day game, played on a Wednesday night, where the starting pitcher is knuckleballer Phil Neikro, who won a team record 23 games in 1967.
Another of our headline hogs stole the spotlight from Julia Roberts to become the first one Americans think of when they hear the term ‘runaway bride.’ Proud Georgian Jennifer Wilbanks is the perennially surprised-looking woman who faked her own disappearance in 2005 just so she wouldn’t have to marry her fiancé, John Mason. Wilbanks said she was “scared to marry John Mason because she is afraid of an imperfect world” - which she would see really, really vividly. Incidentally, Wilbanks was also cast as an understudy in the Gwinnett County Players’ production of ‘The King and I.’ (Zing!)
While no Richard Gere, Mason’s less-than-ravishing Southern looks and questionable sensibilities make you wonder whether her eyes are bigger than his brain. He vowed that he would remain with Wilbanks even after she made national headlines for running from him. Even the Dalai Lama would take a spot in line to beat some sense into this idiot.
Last year, Wilbanks and Mason officially broke up, after which she promptly sued him for $500,000, which includes a share of royalties from a book deal he never would have gotten without her story. If she wins, I just hope she uses the money wisely and hires a plastic surgeon to take her ‘surprised’ facial expression down a few notches to something like ‘really interested.’ As a side note, Ted Turner sued her for “not staying on the lam long enough” and for “robbing CNN of valuable redundant news reports.”
If there’s anything we’ve learned from TV programming over the years, it’s that a good medical thriller sells. Andrew Speaker, a.k.a. the TB guy, is another headline hog that calls Atlanta home. He’s also the target of a smear campaign by Ted Turner for drawing more attention to TB in Atlanta than he ever did with Turner Broadcasting. Speaker, as you may recall, is the newlywed who honeymooned in Europe Jason Bourne-style. He then flew back under the radar and crossed the U.S. border - all the while being infected with tuberculosis (which is widely known to be fairly harmless if you’re already dead).
When he found out about the severity of his illness, Speaker did what any rational person would do: he boarded a pressurized airplane full of people and pretended to be healthy for six hours. He did this because, as he claimed later, he had been fearful of dying if he didn’t return to America. Apparently, Speaker thought that ‘the Al Qaida method’ was infinitely better: Take out a whole airplane full of people instead of just dealing with your insanity by yourself.
After all this drama, it was later discovered that the tuberculosis strain Speaker actually had was just MDR, not XDR, which begs the question: Which satellite radio provider really is the best? I mean, one has Howard Stern, but the other has all the baseball programming. Decisions, decisions….
Now that I have first-hand experience with living and working in Atlanta and dealing with the locals on a regular basis, I’m beginning to understand why this town is such a hotbed of controversial headline hogs. Things are usually so slow and polite here that people, sooner or later, are bound to lose their minds - in the spirit of Michael Douglas in the movie ‘Falling Down.’ Case in point: it took precisely 7 hours and 43 minutes of living here before this transplanted New Yorker dropped his first F-bomb at a four-way stop sign where every polite participant insisted someone else go first. It’s no wonder why Atlanta needs some headline hogs to shake things up a bit.
Clearly, Atlanta is rife with insanity of all sorts. There are plenty of people doing plenty of stupid things here, and there’s no telling who the next big headline hog will be, or when their story will break. But a word of advice to those looking for the notoriety: No matter what you do, be prepared for Ted Turner to be crazier.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Pistachio Ice Cream Industry Should Say “mmm goy sai”
Being a New Yorker, I know that every culture’s dining experience is unique. Every cuisine has its own set of outstanding attributes. Among the best is Chinese food. Take-out or dine-in, no matter which Chinese restaurant option you choose, you know you’re in for a delectable delight - as long as you don’t mind skipping dessert.
As far back as I can remember, a Chinese food dining experience was an event to behold. After sitting down in the restaurant’s dining room, I always enjoyed taking in the view. The usual decorations always were ever-present: the dragons, the red paper lights (with what was purported to be actual Chinese writing on them) and the panoramic Chinese vistas living on too-old posters hanging behind shoddy picture frames. One has to wonder if the Chinese culture really is so greasy, old and insipid – or is that just how it’s represented here in America? Having visited Mainland China myself, I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is the single kitschiest country on the planet.
From the beginning to three-quarters of the way through, a Chinese dining experience is terrific. Fried appetizers are the standard: egg rolls (the contents of which nobody should ever really ask about), shrimp toast and the pu pu platter – which, once you get past the ridiculous name and the fact that you could potentially use it as a weapon – is the coolest appetizer on Earth.
Speaking of fried foods, it should be noted that dragons were the first creatures to fully succumb to the effects of LDL, which electronically savvy readers will recognize as the technology which allows you to watch Iron Chef in high definition.
Eating the main course of a Chinese meal is an event in and of itself. The entrees are artful and colorful, and always floating in some kind of a salty, randomly-colored sauce. Beef with broccoli and pork lo mein are always delicious (the latter being, inexplicably, the root of a longstanding cold war between the Chinese and the Italians about who invented spaghetti and what it should be called. It’s tough to conjure up an image of what ‘lo mein and meatballs’ would look like).
When it comes time to undo the top button on your pants, however, everything in the Chinese Restaurant Play Book and Operating Manual really falls apart. The single Chinese contribution to the dessert forum is a sugary piece of cardboard wrapped around a piece of paper.
Think of the other cultural offerings for capping off your meal: Italians have cannolis; the French gave us crème brulee; America has apple pie. Even the Greeks stepped up with baklava. The Chinese? The fortune cookie, which is easily the worst invention in the history of edible food.
How can a culture so well rounded in its other gastronomic offerings concurrently be so abysmal at dessert? The most surprising part about the fortune cookie is that nobody who has ever gotten one has actually looked forward to the cookie part. The fortune inside is always the attraction. Isn’t it strange that a culture like ours, which goes out of its way to “save room for dessert” is more interested in reading a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy than it is in actually eating the miserable confection? For added amusement, it helps to add the words “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get. So you wind up with “To move a mountain, one must begin with a single pebble – in bed,” which makes no sense at all, unless you’re about five or six zombies deep. Then it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.
The words of wisdom in the cookie are often attributed to Confucius, the esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher who was the first to recognize the need to do something to make the fortune cookie palatable. Coincidentally, upset by the unpleasant dessert placed in front of him, Confucius was also the first to ask, “Do you have Jello?”
Thus began the tradition of Chinese restaurants offering decidedly bland desserts in place of anything truly inspirational. If you are looking for dessert at any given Chinese restaurant today, your choices will be fortune cookies, Jello, oranges or one of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla or PISTACHIO??
By offering these unexciting desserts, the Chinese are all but admitting to their complete failure as a people to develop an edible dessert they can call their own. They have dropped the ball and are now calling it to our attention.
In terms of the ice cream, chocolate and vanilla make total sense. But who ever eats pistachio ice cream outside of a Chinese restaurant? I’ve never seen pistachio ice cream in a supermarket freezer aisle, let alone being able to order it at a good ice cream counter. Yet, at the Chinese restaurant, you’d think it was among the more popular flavor choices. The pistachio industry is evidently guilty of selling the Chinese a bill of goods.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the ice cream at the Chinese restaurant is the presentation. A silver dish with a single scoop of your flavor of choice - but no syrup, whipped cream, cherries or nuts. You just get the lone, boring scoop of ice cream. And what do they do with it? They stick a fortune cookie on top.
In spite of it all, I will still crave my visits to Chinese restaurants. I’m conditioned to know that, while the bulk of the meal will be second-to-none, the dessert will leave much to be desired. Which is a good thing, because when I’m hungry again in an hour, I can go to the Italian restaurant three doors down. It’s at this point that I will think back to the words of wisdom from the last fortune cookie I received:
“If you want a really good dessert, I recommend Giuseppe’s down the road. Try a fresh cannoli.”
As far back as I can remember, a Chinese food dining experience was an event to behold. After sitting down in the restaurant’s dining room, I always enjoyed taking in the view. The usual decorations always were ever-present: the dragons, the red paper lights (with what was purported to be actual Chinese writing on them) and the panoramic Chinese vistas living on too-old posters hanging behind shoddy picture frames. One has to wonder if the Chinese culture really is so greasy, old and insipid – or is that just how it’s represented here in America? Having visited Mainland China myself, I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is the single kitschiest country on the planet.
From the beginning to three-quarters of the way through, a Chinese dining experience is terrific. Fried appetizers are the standard: egg rolls (the contents of which nobody should ever really ask about), shrimp toast and the pu pu platter – which, once you get past the ridiculous name and the fact that you could potentially use it as a weapon – is the coolest appetizer on Earth.
Speaking of fried foods, it should be noted that dragons were the first creatures to fully succumb to the effects of LDL, which electronically savvy readers will recognize as the technology which allows you to watch Iron Chef in high definition.
Eating the main course of a Chinese meal is an event in and of itself. The entrees are artful and colorful, and always floating in some kind of a salty, randomly-colored sauce. Beef with broccoli and pork lo mein are always delicious (the latter being, inexplicably, the root of a longstanding cold war between the Chinese and the Italians about who invented spaghetti and what it should be called. It’s tough to conjure up an image of what ‘lo mein and meatballs’ would look like).
When it comes time to undo the top button on your pants, however, everything in the Chinese Restaurant Play Book and Operating Manual really falls apart. The single Chinese contribution to the dessert forum is a sugary piece of cardboard wrapped around a piece of paper.
Think of the other cultural offerings for capping off your meal: Italians have cannolis; the French gave us crème brulee; America has apple pie. Even the Greeks stepped up with baklava. The Chinese? The fortune cookie, which is easily the worst invention in the history of edible food.
How can a culture so well rounded in its other gastronomic offerings concurrently be so abysmal at dessert? The most surprising part about the fortune cookie is that nobody who has ever gotten one has actually looked forward to the cookie part. The fortune inside is always the attraction. Isn’t it strange that a culture like ours, which goes out of its way to “save room for dessert” is more interested in reading a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy than it is in actually eating the miserable confection? For added amusement, it helps to add the words “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get. So you wind up with “To move a mountain, one must begin with a single pebble – in bed,” which makes no sense at all, unless you’re about five or six zombies deep. Then it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.
The words of wisdom in the cookie are often attributed to Confucius, the esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher who was the first to recognize the need to do something to make the fortune cookie palatable. Coincidentally, upset by the unpleasant dessert placed in front of him, Confucius was also the first to ask, “Do you have Jello?”
Thus began the tradition of Chinese restaurants offering decidedly bland desserts in place of anything truly inspirational. If you are looking for dessert at any given Chinese restaurant today, your choices will be fortune cookies, Jello, oranges or one of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla or PISTACHIO??
By offering these unexciting desserts, the Chinese are all but admitting to their complete failure as a people to develop an edible dessert they can call their own. They have dropped the ball and are now calling it to our attention.
In terms of the ice cream, chocolate and vanilla make total sense. But who ever eats pistachio ice cream outside of a Chinese restaurant? I’ve never seen pistachio ice cream in a supermarket freezer aisle, let alone being able to order it at a good ice cream counter. Yet, at the Chinese restaurant, you’d think it was among the more popular flavor choices. The pistachio industry is evidently guilty of selling the Chinese a bill of goods.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the ice cream at the Chinese restaurant is the presentation. A silver dish with a single scoop of your flavor of choice - but no syrup, whipped cream, cherries or nuts. You just get the lone, boring scoop of ice cream. And what do they do with it? They stick a fortune cookie on top.
In spite of it all, I will still crave my visits to Chinese restaurants. I’m conditioned to know that, while the bulk of the meal will be second-to-none, the dessert will leave much to be desired. Which is a good thing, because when I’m hungry again in an hour, I can go to the Italian restaurant three doors down. It’s at this point that I will think back to the words of wisdom from the last fortune cookie I received:
“If you want a really good dessert, I recommend Giuseppe’s down the road. Try a fresh cannoli.”
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Help Wanted: Space Shuttle Astronaut / Tile Mason
Is it just me or do they launch the Space Shuttle these days for the sole purpose of repairing what went wrong on takeoff so there are no catastrophes upon reentry? I’m all for safety, but nowadays the phrase “Let’s light this candle” – famously said week after week by Rabbi Mordechai Goldfarb of Congregation Beth Shalom in the quaint Connecticut suburb of Old Saybrook - takes on a whole new meaning.
The Space Shuttle program launched, with much fanfare, in the early 1980s - presumably by a group of engineers who thought that 80s electronica music was so bad that they couldn’t even stay on the same planet with it. The world simultaneously welcomed Soft Cell and bid goodbye to a handful of lucky astronauts who were protesting the death of rock music.
The Space Program was all but dead, and out of the public eye, after a successful series of missions in the 60s and 70s which brought human beings to the surface of the moon. Of course, this WAS the heyday of LSD, so whether or not man actually flew to and walked on the moon remains a true mystery. The only thing that we know for sure is that Tom Hanks was THIS close to walking on the moon but missed his opportunity (as illustrated in the Hollywood blockbuster film, appropriately titled, Tom Hanks Never Walked on the Moon).
In any case, the Space Shuttle program was the next revolution in space travel. The orbiter was able to launch, reenter and launch, again and again. Unless, of course, someone forgot to tighten a screw somewhere along the way.
Such was the unfortunate case with the Space Shuttle Challenger, which completed just nine missions before disintegrating on January 28, 1986 - just 73 seconds into the launch of its tenth mission. This disaster could have been avoided had the O-rings, which in this case were shaped like rhombuses, been shaped like actual O’s. Seven lives, and a vehicle almost as cool as a De Lorean, were lost as a result of a shape problem that could have been solved by any random nursery school teacher.
This disaster brought the space program to a grinding halt – until someone indiscriminately suggested that they build another Space Shuttle and give it a much cooler name. Thus were born the Discovery, the Atlantis and the Endeavour (the last one, by the way, while an American spacecraft, was inexplicably named by a Brit called Reginald Huggins, III – thereby explaining the randomly placed “U”).
Over the years, space shuttle launches became passé, and coverage of launches and landings moved from national broadcast networks to the pages of the Weekly World News, which covers the latest breaking space news you won’t read anywhere else. Included is news like in this actual passage from an article about the planets:
“Last year, the fifty-four-year-old astronomer claimed that not only was Pluto still a planet but that it was inhabited by Irish sheepdogs.”
You can’t make this stuff up. This is clearly news you will see nowhere else.
All remained boring with the shuttle program until February 1, 2003, which was when Cuban percussionist Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría passed away unexpectedly as a result of a stroke. Ironically, it was his music that was playing at mission control that day when the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up upon reentry. NASA scientists determined that a hole had formed on the shuttle’s wings when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier.
It is unfortunate that the only way NASA can get headlines anymore is to have a major catastrophe that involves a Space Shuttle. They could probably take a lesson or two from English entrepreneur Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, the world’s recognized King of Self-Promotion.
The end result, however, is that NASA has turned into a bunch of overprotective kindergarten mothers when it comes to its space program. Every single time a shuttle is launched, the cargo bay is filled with heat-resistant black replacement tiles, concrete, grout, a Costco-sized container of Tang and several cases of those diapers the crazy astronaut lady wore when she drove clear across the country at a rate of speed faster than a Space Shuttle, in order to “talk to” (read: kill) a flight attendant who was making whoopee with her imagined astronaut boyfriend. (For the record, I believe her insanity was founded. I mean, who WOULDN’T go crazy with a car full of dirty diapers? Anyone who has kids can vouch for this. But I digress….)
The tiles in a shuttle’s cargo bay are there to replace damage sustained by the tiles on the orbiter when it takes off. Which means, by my calculations, that the space program has essentially turned itself into the world’s most costly unnecessary repair shop. In fact, I’ve been informed by insiders that the bulk of the training that new astronauts undergo involves replacing various parts of the Space Shuttle while in space.
It does seem to be a waste of a space program to simply fix what goes wrong instead of really ‘living on the edge’ like the old astronauts used to do. That’s why they were so revered. They stared death in the face and, in most cases, died doing so - but not without the everlasting acclaim of the American people.
I think our resources are being spent foolishly in space. Case in point: The Jetsons first appeared on TV in 1962 – 45 years ago! – and we STILL do not have flying saucer cars that convert into suitcases. What a waste of technology.
I think noted sci-fi author Larry Niven put it best when he said, “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" He said that in 2001, which makes me really wonder whether or not he had been conscious for the past 40 years.
Needless to say, the NASA space program will forge ahead. There’s a space station that isn’t going to build itself, there are astronauts in diapers training for their next tile-replacement mission, and there are science fiction writers who need to obviously ignore reality and say ridiculous things about why dinosaurs went extinct.
The Space Shuttle program launched, with much fanfare, in the early 1980s - presumably by a group of engineers who thought that 80s electronica music was so bad that they couldn’t even stay on the same planet with it. The world simultaneously welcomed Soft Cell and bid goodbye to a handful of lucky astronauts who were protesting the death of rock music.
The Space Program was all but dead, and out of the public eye, after a successful series of missions in the 60s and 70s which brought human beings to the surface of the moon. Of course, this WAS the heyday of LSD, so whether or not man actually flew to and walked on the moon remains a true mystery. The only thing that we know for sure is that Tom Hanks was THIS close to walking on the moon but missed his opportunity (as illustrated in the Hollywood blockbuster film, appropriately titled, Tom Hanks Never Walked on the Moon).
In any case, the Space Shuttle program was the next revolution in space travel. The orbiter was able to launch, reenter and launch, again and again. Unless, of course, someone forgot to tighten a screw somewhere along the way.
Such was the unfortunate case with the Space Shuttle Challenger, which completed just nine missions before disintegrating on January 28, 1986 - just 73 seconds into the launch of its tenth mission. This disaster could have been avoided had the O-rings, which in this case were shaped like rhombuses, been shaped like actual O’s. Seven lives, and a vehicle almost as cool as a De Lorean, were lost as a result of a shape problem that could have been solved by any random nursery school teacher.
This disaster brought the space program to a grinding halt – until someone indiscriminately suggested that they build another Space Shuttle and give it a much cooler name. Thus were born the Discovery, the Atlantis and the Endeavour (the last one, by the way, while an American spacecraft, was inexplicably named by a Brit called Reginald Huggins, III – thereby explaining the randomly placed “U”).
Over the years, space shuttle launches became passé, and coverage of launches and landings moved from national broadcast networks to the pages of the Weekly World News, which covers the latest breaking space news you won’t read anywhere else. Included is news like in this actual passage from an article about the planets:
“Last year, the fifty-four-year-old astronomer claimed that not only was Pluto still a planet but that it was inhabited by Irish sheepdogs.”
You can’t make this stuff up. This is clearly news you will see nowhere else.
All remained boring with the shuttle program until February 1, 2003, which was when Cuban percussionist Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría passed away unexpectedly as a result of a stroke. Ironically, it was his music that was playing at mission control that day when the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up upon reentry. NASA scientists determined that a hole had formed on the shuttle’s wings when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier.
It is unfortunate that the only way NASA can get headlines anymore is to have a major catastrophe that involves a Space Shuttle. They could probably take a lesson or two from English entrepreneur Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, the world’s recognized King of Self-Promotion.
The end result, however, is that NASA has turned into a bunch of overprotective kindergarten mothers when it comes to its space program. Every single time a shuttle is launched, the cargo bay is filled with heat-resistant black replacement tiles, concrete, grout, a Costco-sized container of Tang and several cases of those diapers the crazy astronaut lady wore when she drove clear across the country at a rate of speed faster than a Space Shuttle, in order to “talk to” (read: kill) a flight attendant who was making whoopee with her imagined astronaut boyfriend. (For the record, I believe her insanity was founded. I mean, who WOULDN’T go crazy with a car full of dirty diapers? Anyone who has kids can vouch for this. But I digress….)
The tiles in a shuttle’s cargo bay are there to replace damage sustained by the tiles on the orbiter when it takes off. Which means, by my calculations, that the space program has essentially turned itself into the world’s most costly unnecessary repair shop. In fact, I’ve been informed by insiders that the bulk of the training that new astronauts undergo involves replacing various parts of the Space Shuttle while in space.
It does seem to be a waste of a space program to simply fix what goes wrong instead of really ‘living on the edge’ like the old astronauts used to do. That’s why they were so revered. They stared death in the face and, in most cases, died doing so - but not without the everlasting acclaim of the American people.
I think our resources are being spent foolishly in space. Case in point: The Jetsons first appeared on TV in 1962 – 45 years ago! – and we STILL do not have flying saucer cars that convert into suitcases. What a waste of technology.
I think noted sci-fi author Larry Niven put it best when he said, “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" He said that in 2001, which makes me really wonder whether or not he had been conscious for the past 40 years.
Needless to say, the NASA space program will forge ahead. There’s a space station that isn’t going to build itself, there are astronauts in diapers training for their next tile-replacement mission, and there are science fiction writers who need to obviously ignore reality and say ridiculous things about why dinosaurs went extinct.
Friday, August 10, 2007
More Pizza Fun
The phone rang last night. It was a woman who was looking for the pizzeria for which we get more calls than they do. My simple "Hello" wasn't enough for this lady. She demanded to know whether it was Papa John's that she reached. When I told her she had the wrong number, she insisted that she didn't and demanded to speak to my manager.
I had no choice but to return to the phone, using the very same voice, and say "Hello this is Mark, how can I help you?"
She explained that she had called earlier and asked for another location's number - but that number wasn't working. I suggested, "You might want to consult the Internet."
"THE INTERNET? I DON'T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION! WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME THE NUMBER," she insisted. I explained that we were "super busy" and that if she didn't have an Internet connection, she might want to let her "fingers do the walking" and look in her telephone book. I even explained that the poor telephone books have experienced such a downturn in popularity that they would be thrilled to be used. She was not amused.
"Are you serious???" was all she could muster up. I told her yes, and asked if she planned to place an order.
She asked if we delivered to Buckhead. Stifling raucous laughter, I said, "Oh no. That's too far. We don't deliver there." That's when she really lost it.
"Your address is Buckhead - and YOU DON'T DELIVER HERE?"
I didn't expect that. It became impossible for me to keep a straight face. I had to hang up.
All I wanted to do was take an order. I didn't plan on THIS. Managing an imaginary pizza joint ain't easy.
I had no choice but to return to the phone, using the very same voice, and say "Hello this is Mark, how can I help you?"
She explained that she had called earlier and asked for another location's number - but that number wasn't working. I suggested, "You might want to consult the Internet."
"THE INTERNET? I DON'T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION! WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME THE NUMBER," she insisted. I explained that we were "super busy" and that if she didn't have an Internet connection, she might want to let her "fingers do the walking" and look in her telephone book. I even explained that the poor telephone books have experienced such a downturn in popularity that they would be thrilled to be used. She was not amused.
"Are you serious???" was all she could muster up. I told her yes, and asked if she planned to place an order.
She asked if we delivered to Buckhead. Stifling raucous laughter, I said, "Oh no. That's too far. We don't deliver there." That's when she really lost it.
"Your address is Buckhead - and YOU DON'T DELIVER HERE?"
I didn't expect that. It became impossible for me to keep a straight face. I had to hang up.
All I wanted to do was take an order. I didn't plan on THIS. Managing an imaginary pizza joint ain't easy.
Don’t Cut Off Your Armature Despite Your Flux Capacitor
It’s official: I have no mechanical skill whatsoever. This is no big secret. I’ve never really understood how people know how to fix cars, engines and the like. In fact, I’d be better at tying my shoes while wearing boxing gloves.
I am good at simple tasks. Changing light bulbs? Piece of cake! Filling my gas tank? No sweat! Plugging in new household appliances? Probably easy if it’s a normal shaped plug. I’m also good at math, which is how I know that when something does go wrong, I’m going to bounce a check. (Apologies in advance to the first lawnmower repairman who agrees to come to my house.)
It began two days ago – my problem with Bessy, my beloved, ride-on lawnmower. After two weeks of neglect, I finally decided to cut my grass and force my ticks to find a new home. That’s when I discovered that Bessy, who I have taken for a ride exactly three times thus far, has decided to take the rest of the summer off.
When I purchased the mower in question, I knew she needed a new battery. Hence, it has become my custom to use actual jumper cables connected to my actual car battery to fire up ole Bessy. It worked fine – until this week. Upon arriving home from work, I lovingly walked the mower from the garage to the car. Then I gently connected the cables, sat down, and turned the key: nothing. My girl didn’t respond. Her engine screamed, “whawhawhawhawha,” over and over, in vain. She wasn’t moving. I tried again. Turned the key, heard her tease: “whawhawhawha,” but she just wouldn’t turn over. This routine continued for approximately 30 minutes. I’m from the school of thought that says: as long as something has a key, it will start working sooner or later.
Recognizing that my logic was probably not sound, I reluctantly opened her hood and looked for something marked ‘press here if engine will not start.’ This mower didn’t come with that feature. (Note to self: it always pays to buy the more expensive model.) I tinkered with a few things under the hood. Her gas tank was more than half full; her oil looked okay, I guess – for as much as I know about oil; and I think I found her air filter. Feeling like staring at the engine might have done some good, I sat back down and tried to start her again. Inexplicably, my technique did not have the desired effect.
Having had enough, I finally called Paul, a gifted mechanic who is also my brother-in-law. I figured I could have him talk me through what to do. Just like trying to talk a six-year-old through building a Stradivarius. The first question from him was “Does she have gas?” (Note: Paul knows me well). I did double-check, but I confirmed that the Middle East was slightly richer thanks to my laziness and frugality in hiring a landscaping company. The next question was, “Is her battery connected?” Now I have to admit, I may be a mechanical disaster, but these are softball questions.
Jumping directly from questions from Mechanics for Morons to those found in Master Technician Journal, Paul asked me to locate the spark plug. The spark plug? No problem. Just search for something that looks like it could plug a spark, I reasoned. I embarked on a fruitless journey through every engine part, even after receiving a very good tip on how to find it. Paul had pointed out that a thick black wire would connect the spark plug to the Flux Capacitor, in order to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to drive Bessy the amazing three-miles-per-hour I relied on for her to move me across my field of dreams. After looking for a while, I located one thick black wire that really seemed more like a tube to me, so I claimed there were no thick black wires and suggested maybe a red one might have been used in its place. For a guy who really never gets agitated, I sensed that Paul was on the verge of calling me a complete putz.
Living up to his reputation, Paul calmly held back any anger he might have felt towards me at the moment. Instead he patiently explained to me that an engine needs three things to start. If I remember correctly, he said they are: a key, fluids and noise. I seemingly had all the pieces in place. He finally grew frustrated enough to take a drive over to my house and look at it himself – my mission was officially achieved. I was off the hook.
As Paul began disassembling the engine, which appeared to have way more parts than necessary, I stood by and watched in much the same way I used to watch my dad replace wiring in the house when I was a kid. I learned quickly that my role as “the helper” was to stand around and try to look busy helping, or at least appear interested in doing so. I was neither, then or now.
Like a skilled surgeon performing a complicated procedure, Paul made single-word demands for tools. I was right on top of the easy ones, like wrench and screwdriver. It was when he asked for the “12-volt tester” that I began to panic. My best approach to find this mysterious tool was not to simply ask him what it looked like. No, it was instead to systematically rule out anything that I knew WASN’T a 12-volt tester and make a guess based on what was left.
So I began to rifle through the toolbox, a man on a mission. Roughly 90 seconds later, Paul sauntered over, gently pushing my amateur ass aside. In one fell swoop, he fished out the little light with the two wires attached to it (the 12-volt tester, I concluded), giving me one of those “How do you remember to breathe?” sideways glances.
After pulling apart every piece of the lawnmower, Paul decided that the problem was the armature – or the opening in the lawnmower that lets in the light. He also described it as a magneto, which I honestly thought was exclusively the brainchild of a writer for Marvel Comics. None of this seemed to make any sense to me. How any of this has anything to do with why the lawnmower wouldn’t start is beyond me. Luckily for Bessy, Paul was right on top of her, so to speak. He seemed to know exactly how to make her purr for him.
Throughout the process of “helping” Paul, I did manage to get myself filthy and covered in motor oil. Let this be a lesson to you: make sure the cap is on the oil tank BEFORE you turn the ignition key. To an uninformed passerby, I certainly gave the appearance of having worked really hard on this mystery machine. I may not have been able to get her motor running, but it sure looked like I gave it everything I had.
As an aside, I hate going to a parts counter where I’m expected to know every spec of every item I’m looking for, or risk looking like a complete idiot. Today I went down the complete idiot road. Figuring I could get what I needed with the model number of the lawnmower, I found quickly that I was entirely unprepared. And Joe-Bob with the four teeth in his mouth was snickering at my total ignorance. Regardless, we figured it out.
So now all I need to do is switch out the old part with the new one I purchased today. Then I’ll be back in the saddle, ready to transform my property into the lush greenscape I intended for it to be, and proud of a job well done. Which of course is all dependent upon whether or not Paul minds fetching his own tools.
I am good at simple tasks. Changing light bulbs? Piece of cake! Filling my gas tank? No sweat! Plugging in new household appliances? Probably easy if it’s a normal shaped plug. I’m also good at math, which is how I know that when something does go wrong, I’m going to bounce a check. (Apologies in advance to the first lawnmower repairman who agrees to come to my house.)
It began two days ago – my problem with Bessy, my beloved, ride-on lawnmower. After two weeks of neglect, I finally decided to cut my grass and force my ticks to find a new home. That’s when I discovered that Bessy, who I have taken for a ride exactly three times thus far, has decided to take the rest of the summer off.
When I purchased the mower in question, I knew she needed a new battery. Hence, it has become my custom to use actual jumper cables connected to my actual car battery to fire up ole Bessy. It worked fine – until this week. Upon arriving home from work, I lovingly walked the mower from the garage to the car. Then I gently connected the cables, sat down, and turned the key: nothing. My girl didn’t respond. Her engine screamed, “whawhawhawhawha,” over and over, in vain. She wasn’t moving. I tried again. Turned the key, heard her tease: “whawhawhawha,” but she just wouldn’t turn over. This routine continued for approximately 30 minutes. I’m from the school of thought that says: as long as something has a key, it will start working sooner or later.
Recognizing that my logic was probably not sound, I reluctantly opened her hood and looked for something marked ‘press here if engine will not start.’ This mower didn’t come with that feature. (Note to self: it always pays to buy the more expensive model.) I tinkered with a few things under the hood. Her gas tank was more than half full; her oil looked okay, I guess – for as much as I know about oil; and I think I found her air filter. Feeling like staring at the engine might have done some good, I sat back down and tried to start her again. Inexplicably, my technique did not have the desired effect.
Having had enough, I finally called Paul, a gifted mechanic who is also my brother-in-law. I figured I could have him talk me through what to do. Just like trying to talk a six-year-old through building a Stradivarius. The first question from him was “Does she have gas?” (Note: Paul knows me well). I did double-check, but I confirmed that the Middle East was slightly richer thanks to my laziness and frugality in hiring a landscaping company. The next question was, “Is her battery connected?” Now I have to admit, I may be a mechanical disaster, but these are softball questions.
Jumping directly from questions from Mechanics for Morons to those found in Master Technician Journal, Paul asked me to locate the spark plug. The spark plug? No problem. Just search for something that looks like it could plug a spark, I reasoned. I embarked on a fruitless journey through every engine part, even after receiving a very good tip on how to find it. Paul had pointed out that a thick black wire would connect the spark plug to the Flux Capacitor, in order to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to drive Bessy the amazing three-miles-per-hour I relied on for her to move me across my field of dreams. After looking for a while, I located one thick black wire that really seemed more like a tube to me, so I claimed there were no thick black wires and suggested maybe a red one might have been used in its place. For a guy who really never gets agitated, I sensed that Paul was on the verge of calling me a complete putz.
Living up to his reputation, Paul calmly held back any anger he might have felt towards me at the moment. Instead he patiently explained to me that an engine needs three things to start. If I remember correctly, he said they are: a key, fluids and noise. I seemingly had all the pieces in place. He finally grew frustrated enough to take a drive over to my house and look at it himself – my mission was officially achieved. I was off the hook.
As Paul began disassembling the engine, which appeared to have way more parts than necessary, I stood by and watched in much the same way I used to watch my dad replace wiring in the house when I was a kid. I learned quickly that my role as “the helper” was to stand around and try to look busy helping, or at least appear interested in doing so. I was neither, then or now.
Like a skilled surgeon performing a complicated procedure, Paul made single-word demands for tools. I was right on top of the easy ones, like wrench and screwdriver. It was when he asked for the “12-volt tester” that I began to panic. My best approach to find this mysterious tool was not to simply ask him what it looked like. No, it was instead to systematically rule out anything that I knew WASN’T a 12-volt tester and make a guess based on what was left.
So I began to rifle through the toolbox, a man on a mission. Roughly 90 seconds later, Paul sauntered over, gently pushing my amateur ass aside. In one fell swoop, he fished out the little light with the two wires attached to it (the 12-volt tester, I concluded), giving me one of those “How do you remember to breathe?” sideways glances.
After pulling apart every piece of the lawnmower, Paul decided that the problem was the armature – or the opening in the lawnmower that lets in the light. He also described it as a magneto, which I honestly thought was exclusively the brainchild of a writer for Marvel Comics. None of this seemed to make any sense to me. How any of this has anything to do with why the lawnmower wouldn’t start is beyond me. Luckily for Bessy, Paul was right on top of her, so to speak. He seemed to know exactly how to make her purr for him.
Throughout the process of “helping” Paul, I did manage to get myself filthy and covered in motor oil. Let this be a lesson to you: make sure the cap is on the oil tank BEFORE you turn the ignition key. To an uninformed passerby, I certainly gave the appearance of having worked really hard on this mystery machine. I may not have been able to get her motor running, but it sure looked like I gave it everything I had.
As an aside, I hate going to a parts counter where I’m expected to know every spec of every item I’m looking for, or risk looking like a complete idiot. Today I went down the complete idiot road. Figuring I could get what I needed with the model number of the lawnmower, I found quickly that I was entirely unprepared. And Joe-Bob with the four teeth in his mouth was snickering at my total ignorance. Regardless, we figured it out.
So now all I need to do is switch out the old part with the new one I purchased today. Then I’ll be back in the saddle, ready to transform my property into the lush greenscape I intended for it to be, and proud of a job well done. Which of course is all dependent upon whether or not Paul minds fetching his own tools.
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