I coined a phrase years ago—at least I never heard it uttered by anyone else. Have you ever heard of check-dar? It’s kind of like gaydar, which is very handy both if you are looking for a hookup at a monster truck rally and don’t want to rile up some “fag hatin” hillbilly, or if you don’t want to accidentally set up that guy you work with who is actually gay but you were not aware of it, with some lady. No, check-dar is something I have have been afflicted with.
Symptoms? Well, my body seems to gravitate toward any grocery store line where the person in front of me is writing a check. It’s some mystical power that I know not whence it came. Thankfully due to the the advent of credit cards and debit cards and other money exchanging apps, I only get a rare flare-up of my checkdar. Today was a doozy. Got behind a woman who had perhaps six to eight times the number of items one should be gunning for in the Express Checkout Lane, then she had divided up her stuff into two or maybe three different transactions….perhaps she was buying stuff for a neighbor who wisely did not want to go to the store with her, then she whipped out her checkbook to pay.
She was also a coupon enthusiast and had many laid out on the checkout stand, which of course, after being rung up, caused some sort of problem with the receipt that the manager had to come over and solve. This seemed to take double or triple the time that I have ever had to spend getting some issue resolved at the checkout stand. She dared not look up to make eye contact with the one, now two, now three, now four people who were stacking up behind her. Heck just a look over at us to say, sorry guys, would be a nice gesture…I find that that eases the tension whenever I am that guy. But nope. She stared straight ahead…like I do when I am passing that homeless veteran guy just outside the exit door.
Then I’m driving to pick up my daughter who just texted me to give me more info as to when she will be downstairs where I can collect her. As part of those Bluetooth features, my car shows messages on the dashboard touch screen. I heard the ding and I took my eyes off the road to read a message that told me that I could not read the text message while the vehicle is moving. Really….Really?
Really….
This message appearing on my screen while the vehicle was moving told me that I could not read messages while in motion - a message that was obviously the idea of some lawyer. I kind of feel like lawyers have been ruining life more often lately than they used to. Years ago when my daughters were little tykes, we bought these car seats as required by law. I think I counted thirteen rather frightening warning labels on each of these things. Dare I strap my precious little ones into these risky contraptions? Can you imagine if cars were invented last week and we consulted lawyers on whether we should allow anyone who had achieved the age of 16 years to drive these things anywhere they want, these things that could get up to 140 miles per hour in some cases? With just a round wheel that lets you point them any old way you want? Or how about skiing and snowboarding… listen, we’d like people to pay us to let them ride up a steep mountain in a chair suspended on a cable…will they be strapped in? Oh his no, they have to be able to lift up the flimsy lap bar so they can then slide down a slipper snowy hill with boards strapped to their feet. Won’t that make it be hard to stand up with boards strapped to your feet? Oh, no, we also give them five foot long poles with spikes on the end, to steady themselves, so problem solved!
And these people were in charge of COVID policy for two years….
And after yesterday's election I see they are STILL in charge.
Nice one.
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