Just thinking about...Europe

Larry’s Lollygaggings
Volume 3, Number 1
10 September 2010

After my recent trip going overseas for the first time, I offer some advice that I wish I had before I left…

Larry’s European-American Dictionary (abridged version):

a. Shirt Size Large = Try on first
b. Refrigerator = Thing that makes food just cool enough for you to wish it was cold
c. Handicapped access = does not translate AT ALL
d. Water pressure = NEIN! Ve vill tell you how you vill shower!
e. Ladies’ fashion trend = Every woman always looks like a supermodel on her way to a photo shoot.
f. Men’s fashion trend = Every man always looks like a gay punker on his way to a bongfest poetry slam at the local hookah palace.
g. Old = Made before the USA even existed


h. Antique = Made before the years had 4 digits


i. Ancient = Anything in Italy


j. We don’t accept credit cards = We don’t accept credit cards
k. We do accept credit cards = We don’t accept YOUR credit cards
l. Here is your change, Mr. American = I just ripped you off and kept 3 dollars in coins.
m. Vegetable = Pommes Frites (French fries)
n. Ketchup = Mayonnaise
o. Personal transportation = bike
p. Group transportation = bikes
q. Mass transportation = lots of bikes


r. Wealthy-people’s transportation = scooter
s. Turkish is to Europeans as Mexican is to Americans
t. Automobile = 2-seat sub-compact car
u. Luxury automobile = the same 2-seat sub-compact car with 2 extra seats crammed in the back.
v. OSHA Safety Regulations = See c. (handicapped access)
w. US: Opened 24/7
x. EU: Opened 8/6
y. Italy: We may open sometime. I said maybe. Now go eat gelato.
z. Weird=eggs at breakfast
aa. Really strange=bacon at breakfast
bb. Unheard of=potatoes at breakfast
cc. Don’t even ever THINK about asking=white bread
dd. Bricks=bricks
ee. Aluminum siding=bricks
ff. Ground floor=Zero; Second floor=One; Basement=Negative One



European life lessons:

1. Ask your host or hostess which one is the body wash, which is the shampoo, which is the toothpaste, and which is the foot cream. For clarification; foot cream tastes a bit more sour than body wash tastes.

2. Bring your own ice cubes and air conditioning if you want some.

3. Figure out how to use the toilet before you use the toilet.

4. That is an umbrella holder, not a trash can.

5. Just because a coin looks like a penny doesn't mean it's not worth five dollars.

6. If you don't understand what the person said at the (lunch counter/grocery/bus stop/church/museum/brothel/proctologist), don't just say "yes".

7. All dogs wag their tails bilingually.

8. Knowing what size clipper your barber uses in the US doesn’t help in Germany. Needless to say, when I said a #2, she used a 2mm and now I look like a chemo patient.

9. I actually saw an elevator so small that it had a limit of one person and 150 pounds. Hello…could you imagine the stink those people in the electric scooters at Disney World would raise? Needless to say, I opted to send my suitcase up alone and meet it after I ran up the stairs which were so old I think Jesus built it while still in his first profession.

10. The good news…you CAN drive as fast as you want on The Autobahn. The bad news…the Polizei will give you a ticket for driving as fast as you want on The Autobahn. And staying in the left lane too long. And for honking your horn. And for flipping off another driver. Especially when he is an unmarked cop. And for flashing your brights at that unmarked cop so he gets out of the fast lane. More good news…the cops take cash.


11. In-sink trash disposals in Europe are as rare as a Jehovah Witness combination birthday party/blood transfusion-athon at a skinhead-sponsored support of racial and religious equality during a peace sit-in at The Providencetown, Mass Civic Center Gay Rights Room. And THAT’S rare!

12. Since they don’t have American Idol, Jersey Shore or Glee, (could you imagine the German version of Glee?!? What would they call it? Misery?) there is nothing for people to do here at night. They compensate with one of two activities. A) Hanging out of opened windows and watching everyone else or B) Hanging outside of bars, sloshed on Jagermeister shots and Heifewiesse Bier and watching everyone else. They don’t say hello. They don’t wave. They just stare. And it is considered rude to stare back. Hmmm. Something isn’t kosher here in Germany. Um. Forget I said that.

13. Everyone wears American clothing - Hollister! Hard Rock Café! Nebraska Surf Company! Oh, well. I guess what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

14. Germans listen to American music. Yes, seeing people rocking out to Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and Brittney Spears is comforting, but they have no idea what the words they are singing mean. Maybe it’s for the best that they don’t. Besides; how long can you listen to Nena, Falco, and The Scorpions, anyway?

15. There are no bumper stickers on cars here. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Nein. There is also no trash thrown around. I think the two are related. In America we think that saying something cute about saving the environment or visualizing world peace stuck on the back of our Hummer Humvee H1 tricked out with optional machine gun turret and bullet-proof Playstation 3 mounted on the hood will actually change things as you cruise the treacherous landscape of suburban Bethesda, Maryland. In Germany, they instead opt to actually clean up the parks and – SHOCKER – they wait until they are at a trash can before they get rid of trash!

16. McDonald’s has Lemon McChicken, McTeriyaki Steaks, Veggie McBurgers and McShrimp. Yes, McShrimp. It still McStinks, but it sure is McExotic!

17. Germans put mayonnaise on everything! Now, I love mayo. I spent many of my finest memories from my formidable (re: weight challenged) years slathering the stuff on all kinds of food. Even French fries here are served with a dollop of creamy egg and oil goodness right there – gloop – on top. Kinda yummy! However; I never would have in my wildest imagination thought that I would turn down mayo like it was miracle whip until I saw my Hun friends spooning it onto pizza. Pizza is sacred and that is where I draw the line. I guess Andrew Zimmern should not fear me replacing him on his Bizarre Foods show.



18. I think they have a helmet law in Europe for bikes and motorcycles – a law that no one is allowed to wear one! I never ever saw even one being used NOR sold in any bike shop. Maybe it is all for the best anyway. There is nothing that dims a proper gentleman’s fantasy quicker than a gorgeous, exotic European woman in a magnificent form-fitting dress with a slit three-quarters up her legs and 3-inch stilettos riding her bike WITH A HELMET ON!

19. Speaking of bikes, here is my absolute favorite thing in all of Europe! They have corrals all over cities called, oddly enough, City Bikes. You put a credit card and cell phone number into a machine near the bikes and a code is texted (is that a word?) to you. You enter it on the bike keypad and take the bike for your ride to wherever. When you get wherever, you relock the bike in the nearest rack and tell the machine where the bike is. It gives you a lock code and charges your card 6 cents per minute! **In best Billy Mays voice**Sounds great? There’s more! If you have it less than 30 minutes…IT IS FREE!!! **In best Ron Popeil voice** That’s right! Free travel. Help the environment. No cost. No parking. No traffic. No overcrowded gridlock. No honking and cursing. Just smiling people happily peddling away. Ahhhh.


20. People back home have been asking me if the subject of me being Jewish and Germany being the place Hitler and company called home came up during conversation at all. Yes. It did. And I must say that every time it did, whoever I was speaking with was mortified, embarrassed, and appalled that this horrible atrocity went on. There are few German flags hanging around and German Patriotism is an oxymoron. I received apologies from 20-year old Germans who obviously had nothing to do with the choices of their countrymen and women 70 odd years ago. Today’s Germany is filled with memorials, museums and the like honoring the victims of those dark days. There is an especially magnificent Jewish Museum in Berlin complete with a Chinese Restaurant next door. How apropos that even our religion’s collective favorite take out food is both well-represented and nearby. I can hear it now. “Hello, this is Chayim Abromowitz over at the Jewseum. Can we please have the house special Lo Mein and an order of Kosher Crab Rangoon delivered?” “Total 14.63 Euro. Ten minute”. I guess some things are the same worldwide.

21. Now, East Germany is different. Even though the Berlin Wall and Communism both fell down in 1989, it is still a beat-up, run-down, dirty mess. I was detained in East Germany by the Graffiti Stazi for NOT defacing enough buildings. East Germans smile as often as my kids proactively clean their bedrooms.

22. I don’t know why Hamburg’s red light district has that name. No one there has the red light about anything at any time. And fifty Euro for 30 minutes is a great…nevermind.


23. Even Europeans don’t know that people from Holland are called Dutch. The Dutch really need to start a war and get noticed. Maybe with the Danish.

24. In Europe footwear is strange. OK. It’s different (my American puritanical hypocrisy is showing). If you wear athletic shoes anywhere except when you are doing athletics, you stand out like Lady Gaga wearing her machine gun bra on the wrong side of the male/female divider at a Hassidic Jewish Bar Mitzvah. They Europeans wear sandals with black socks. I guess they look OK with their pin-striped Capri pants (that’s the men!) So next time you see someone in Cincinnati dressed like this, say Guten Tag/Bonjour/Ciao or something like that. They also have shoehorns everywhere! I haven’t seen a shoehorn since the Nixon Administration. But in Europe they are in every dressing room, closet, bathroom. There were almost as many shoehorns as Starbucks! And that’s saying something! Another interesting customary tidbit…I remember as a kid when my friend Paul’s mother would make us take our shoes off when we came in and we had to walk around in our socks. Overseas, they do that also. But they also have a rack with ‘loaner slippers’ by the door in all sizes so you can be comfortable while you do not dirty up the floors. It’s kinda like getting the bowling shoes at the alley. I always want to leave my old sneakers and keep the rentals but never did. Needless to say, there are three houses in Germany and one in Denmark that are wondering both where the cool felt jobbies are and why there are size 14 clodhoppers in the mudroom.



25. The hooka pipes and headshop per capita ratio over there is amazing! I think they issue a pipe at birth in the hospital before nursing is allowed to commence. You can’t shake an occupied Polish orphan around here without hitting three headshop owners.

26. There are common balconies in apartments and hotels. Everyone shares. Nobody bothers each other. Nobody crosses the imaginary boundary into someone else’s area. There is a level of respect that me and my fellow New Yorkers only refer to as ‘Fantasyland’. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

27. Computer keyboards are very different from one country to another. So look down and be careful before you hit ‘send’. That way you don’t mistakenly buy a plane ticket to Milan when you meant to have a pizza delivered. Oh, well. Milan was nice even if I was hungry.

28. If you are feeling old, I have a solution. Go to Europe and try to use a payphone. You will feel like a 6 year-old again! Firstly, I had no idea which coins were which. Secondly, it wouldn’t have mattered because there was no notice of how much it is to make a call. Thirdly, I STILL have no idea what the tones are for. Was that a dial tone? Is it ringing or is it busy? Oh, I can always call the operator – IF THEY HAD ONE THAT SPOKE ENGLISH! I know, I know. I’m in Germany. They shouldn’t have to speak English. OK. I get that. But the why do all English messages offer “para espanol, marke estrella y dos”? Just sayin’.

29. There are only down escalators. No up ones. Yep. Just downscalators. No upscalators. For up they have things called stairs. And the downscalators ones are usually not moving. They have sensors that start up the escalator when you get close. I thought every one in the country was broken for my first three days there. At least I have nice calves now.

30. There are group train tickets. For 30 Euro, we bought a ticket that entitled five people to ride the train where one person cost 16 Euro. Now you don’t have to be a genius to know that that is a better deal. But – get this one – we then invited three others to join us on our ticket before they bought theirs at the ticket machine. By paying us 10 Euro each, they saved 6 Euro and we paid for the ticket! Then…when you arrive, you can use it again and again all day! Making money each time. And when you are done, you can sell it to someone else and get a last 30 Euro back! Sounds like a fulltime job making hundreds every day for riding the train for someone!

31. I also learned about ridesharing and couchsurfing. This is where you can travel in someone’s car for a share of the gas (or just to keep them company) and stay on someone’s couch for free (just to be nice). Really! We stayed all over and never paid a cent. We had people offering us beer when we arrived and made us breakfast before we left. They told us where to go, what to do, how to tour…it was amazing! I can’t wait for all these new friends we made to come to the US and I can return the favor. I gave ever person my home address. 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC. I hope they come.

32. Construction workers wear normal clothes. You can’t distinguish if the guy tearing up the road with a giant pickaxe is a government employee or a frustrated lunatic aggressor recently paroled from his DWI (Driving WITHOUT Intoxication) conviction. (They drink a lot here). No hard hats. No fluorescent pinnie vests. No gloves. Just those pin-striped capri pants and a t-shirt. Oh, yeah. And sandals with black socks.

33. There are no painted markings for where to park in the street. They use different types and patterns of cobblestones to delineate that. I was so confused that I got a headache just typing that! Anyway, someone at Rent-Un-Vagon is in for a parking ticket surprise right about now.

34. There is no tipping. Unless some service is spectacularly exceptional, you don’t tip. I know. I sound like Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs but it is true. It wasn’t until the third day that I found this out. It was after I got curious as to why the wait staff at The Sauerbraten Haus gave me a standing ovation and wanted a photo with me that I asked. I thought they just figured I was Tom Hanks.


35. On the flip side, in Italy, where everything is different, they charge for everything. I mean everything. Go ahead. Try and get a pack of ketchup at the sausage cart. Twenty cents. A refill on a soda? Ha! That is called another soda – full price. And I double dog dare you to ask for linguine instead of spaghetti with your dinner. As soon as your order deviates from the menu, you are in for it to the tune of a small fortune. There is even an extra charge for asking if there is an extra charge. I should have known what I was in for when, as an appetizer, our waiter, Giovanni, rolled an ATM machine next to the table.

36. The menus in eateries describe the meal EXACTLY. Like schweinehostenfeffelbruggervessel. That means something like ‘roasted left rear rump shank of loin of pig raised in the east and fed cornmeal on Wednesdays by the left-handed farmer’s oldest son’. I like the US way of ‘breaded pork chop’.

37. Security people at the airport check anything that uses power. Anything. They take it out, put it in an x-ray machine, ask you what it is for, show it to their friends, try it out, and then only let it pass after rendering it inoperable with 40 yards of bubble wrap and duct tape. At least I now have a basement full of bubble wrap! Seriously…who doesn’t love playing with that stuff?!?

38. I was amazed at the beauty and grace of the women in Milan. If you are a leg man, stay away or get whiplash. Every leg there is perfect. And I know why. There are no toilets there. Yes, you read that right. They have only arm railings, two painted places to put your feet and a hole. You suspend and aim. Hey – you’d have great legs also if you had to do that! It also explains why the women are so thin. They don’t eat for fear of having to use the restroom a lot.

39. By law, everyone must have certain emergency equipment in their car and pull over to help if they see someone in need of help. You can be arrested for not doing so. Included in the equipment is a bright orange vest that the accident victim must wear until the police leave. It is a kind of vest-of-shame so all rubbernecking people can snicker at who is the moron that clipped a truck at 230km/hr.

40. When a plane lands, the entire group of passengers bursts into rousing applause. I still am unsure if they are thanking the pilot for a great landing or The Lord for allowing them to live.

41. If the bus driver selects a radio station that is not the first choice of the riders, they boo him or her. Yes, boo. They sneer and snicker and hiss until he puts it back on Mariah Carey.

In closing, I had a magnificent time overseas and suggest that if you haven’t yet gone, pack up your black socks and sandals and get over there!

Routines and Randomness

Larry’s Lollygaggings
Volume 2, Number 2
19 November 2009

Just thinking about…routines and randomness

I think being spontaneous is one of the true joys of living. You know how special the smallest tilt or tweak to your routine can be in making a bad day good or a good day great. Like coming home with flowers when it’s just any old Wednesday, waking up one morning and telling the kids you are taking them to Disney World, or answering the Wal-Mart gal’s “How are you?” with a “Super-dee-dooper!” that makes her giggle. It is what helps spice the otherwise mundane days that we all too often muddle through.

But (my father always said “beware of the ‘buts’; what comes after is the reality”), sometimes the routine things make me wonder.

Why is the seemingly simple routine of a checkout line so difficult? Why is it that the express line at Wholesale Freddy’s Food-O-Rama for 12 items or less? I can’t tell you how many times I put back two things because the lady behind me ratted me out and I was afraid they’d make me return my Happy Dappy Customer Card or something. And why isn’t it 11 items? We all know why not 13. No one would dare buy 13 items for fear of bad luck. Kinda like how there is no 13th floor in a hotel. Do you think those people on the 14th floor are really fooled into a sense of security? And for that matter, if there was a checkout line for 666 items or less and you went on it with 667, would you go to Hell? See what goes through my mind when I’m waiting to restock on the necessities that I save so much money on by going to the wholesaler’s club?

Who decided that the senior citizen’s discount at Zippy Mart starts at 62? Or 65 at The Rusty Buddah Asian Seafood House? It’s only 55 at Plastic Bag Mart. I don’t know how it will be when I’m at those senior ages. But with it coming up faster than my lunch after reading the health department bacterial culture report at a Chuck E. Cheese’s, I hope I can remember what age is what discount at what place. As it is, I already have trouble figuring out what my own kids’ names are – just come over here…YOU!

What about the random way people spell? There must be 100 spellings for ‘omelet’.

Or the random way people speak? No one thinks of what words mean anymore. It seems that every time I go to the out, I hear someone say add some senseless words like “where are the cracker jacks?”… “they were around the corner yet.” I guess the randomization of language has invaded our lives. We should have been warned when Missing Persons sang ‘What are words for?’. (On a related note, it is Cracker Jack. Not Jacks. That is a game, not a snack.)

Hey, maybe I liked the thrill of surprise! Now, automation has taken the randomness out of my life. My car is idiot-proof so I won’t lock the keys in it, my phone dials people by name so I can’t call my parents when I am at using any phone other than my own, my toaster won’t let me burn my bagel…MAYBE I LIKE IT THAT WAY! I’m so frustrated at organization in my life that I had to buy a circa-1972 toaster on ebay from ColdWarEraSurplus.com just so I could have a well done, crunchy poptart. Does anyone have any idea what the shipping charge is from bloc Vladbekistan?

It seems the only spontaneity left in my life is finding out if that my shopping cart is the one with one crippled wheel that twists and screeches and binds up when pushed. Of course, this wheel problem only starts when you are as far away from the front of the store as possible. Too far to go back, we’ve all thought about stealing Old Lady McGurtie’s cart when she was thump-testing the melons. I know. I know. The bad carts look just like the good ones – mixed in so well, they are impossible to pick out. But coming down the aisle, I’m as easy to spot as Opie Griffith juggling flaming chainsaws in a Carmen Miranda hat on a solid gold unicycle playing the electric guitar in Duke Ellington’s Band.

Anyway, looks like I finally finished the 55 gallon industrial drum of sauerkraut that I bought at Costco to save 5 cents in 1987. It took years of sauerkraut pancakes and sauerkraut parmigiana to do it. Maybe I’ll surprise the kids with a new supply.

And, by the way, what do you do when the public bathroom sink is so dirty that you don’t want to wash your hands?...just thinking.

Ageing

Larry’s Lollygaggings

Volume 2, Number 1

21 January 2009

Just thinking about…Ageing.

If you think writing a blog about age is difficult, you should only know how long I had to stare at the word ‘ageing’ to figure out if it was spelled with the ‘e’ or not. I’m still not sure which is right, so I just went for the extra letter…hey, it’s free!

Anyway, I am currently on a plane. This is seemingly the only time when I have enough of a stretch of uninterrupted peace to write a blog.

I am finishing spending a few days away with my oldest son, Sam, and his friend, Max. They are great kids. Smart. Respectful. Intelligent. Oh, and fourteen years old.

This trip taught me a few things that I either never learned, didn’t realize, or failed to experience when I was that age. Some things are so strange that I may have to go check the replay of my life to see if I ever WAS 14!

For example, what did I ever do without text messaging? I can only assume that I had to converse with the people around me. There were a number of times where one of the boys would tell the other to read the message that he JUST SENT TO THE OTHER!!! I am amazed even reading that! I am now intimately familiar with the crown of their heads from looking at them looking down all day. I guess this is what Andre’ The Giant felt like. (I notice I use a lot of wrestler references in my blogs…what’s up with that?) Oh, yeah, in 1980 at 14, we wrote notes and then waited six class periods to pass them to our girlfriend. Most of my relationships didn’t last a full six periods. Oh, well. I think I still have all the old notes.

Regarding ages…I am not sure at what age males become aware that there is such a thing as a floor mat and it should be laid down OUTSIDE the shower to be stepped on while drying off, but apparently it is older than fourteen.

Likewise, I learned that the age at which we y-chromosomed Cretans learn how desirable Brazilian women are is less than 14. After the boys got a glimpse of the Rio Teenie-Bopper Crowd, they followed them around with more interest than Brad and Angelina at an African orphanage. I kept wondering if either they got the Evelyn Woods/Portugese Version of Rosetta Stone sent by FedEx, or there was some type of universally understood language called grunting. While these girls were probably thinking “what the heck are they saying” in Portugese while the boys were thinking” what the heck are they saying” in English. On top of that, they thought they had scored an immense international coup after getting a smile and an illegible email address. I guess they can always text them a smiley face emoticon thingie.

I wonder why is it that now that I am twice as old as when I was first legal to drink, I have to drink half as much to get the same results?

Another thing. At some age, men stop listening. To everyone and everything. Just stop. I don’t know when. I don’t know why. And this is not random. We don’t listen to our wives, our kids, our friends, the waitress, the safety talk on the plane, the toll-taker, the boss, the TV, the movies. Come on! How ridiculous is it that we are AT A MOVIE and have to ask our wives what the character just said? There is nothing else going on there! No microwave timer going off, no dog asking to be walked, no doorbell ringing. Just listen, will you guys?!? As a gender, there is some age where we males have the collective attention span of a gnat. I guess I’ll ask my wise old dad if how I’m acting at my age is ridiculous. But he probably won’t pay attention.

This is kind of like my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh scenario where our humble bear is awoken by Rabbit after snoozing during an instructional speech. He tells Rabbit that he couldn’t hear the whole talk because he got fluff in his ear and asks if Rabbit could repeat himself. “From what point?” asks Rabbit. “Well, from the point that the fluff got stuck in my ear, of course”, replies Pooh.

That proves that Pooh is a male. I’m just not sure how old.

Huh?

I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?

Just thinking.

Civility

Larry’s Lollygaggings

Volume I, Number 4

18 October 2008

Just thinking about…Civility

It took me 40 years, but I am finally at peace with the fact that I AM MY FATHER. There. I said it. It’s out there in the world. That is my admission to everyone that what I swore never would happen has indeed happened. Now everyone knows. Except my wife, Martha. If you see her, please don’t mention it.

What I am especially referring to is my life of listening to Dad’s descriptions about what life was like when he was a kid and how ‘now-a-days’ (which is now then-a-days) was rotten. I knew that everything was getting better. He knew everything was getting worse. I think neither of us was right – everything is getting, well, different.

I think so so so much now IS better. Not everything, but a lot. Then, I went on a run with the wonderful Josh Nemzer. While running up the Newton Hills on the Boston Marathon Course, we stumbled on a discussion about the state of our country’s civility, or lackthereof, today and it got me thinking. So, I want to point out some of my main concerns regarding where civility in our world is (the gutter) and where it is going (the sewer).

First up – technology. Ahhh, the wonders of technology. Technology is like a child. When taken care of with care and concern it makes life better. When ab-used and taken for granted – look out! For example; it wasn’t long ago that if you were out and about and needed to make a call, you had to find a phone booth and have a dime.

**NOTE: if you are unfamiliar with the term phone booth or have never used cash for any purchase, there will be a tutoring session that covers that information as well as trivial wonders of the past such as portable radios, VHS & Betamax tapes, leaded gasoline, typewriters, passing notes in class, cooking in ovens, and afterschool, unscheduled, random, unsanctioned, choose-up-sides, no referees, honest to G-d ‘pick-up’ basketball games.

Now, we complain like second-graders when recess is cancelled ‘due to muddy playground’ if we have bad cell coverage, a dropped call, or poor reception. When I was 21, not enough bars meant something completely different than it does today. So here we are, having evolved to the point of being irate because we are inconvenienced and unable to find out, while travelling at 75 miles per hour in Mumbledeegook, Montana, exactly what lamppost my buddy is standing under for our meeting. I HATE being inconvenienced regarding the things I have become so comfortable taking for granted (read that line again…I love it). That reminds me of my wife. But that is for another blog. I can hardly remember what it was like to arrange a meeting time and place, describe what you were wearing and actually LOOK for the person instead of talking to them on the phone until you are actually touching noses before you hang up. On that note, did you ever notice how when that happens, you still say goodbye even though you immediately follow it with a handshake hello?

These phones can do everything! I can’t. But the phone, when in the careful hands of a properly trained, experienced 8 year old, can seemingly do it all. I forget to zip my fly and 8 seconds later it’s on YouTube with a link to a homepage of me adjusting wedgies! What’s more is that they are each rated and commented on in a forum. By the time I finish writing this blog, there will be a Larry Wedgie Fan Club on Facebook.

There was a time when I could remember every phone number of every person I met. Now that I have speed dialing, auto dialing, picture dialing, and voice recognition, I don’t NEED to remember any numbers. So I CAN’T remember any numbers! Last month I lost my phone and couldn’t even recall enough information to call my parents! People ask me how old I am and I have to check my PDA! If I only knew the auto-encrypted secret password key that I created so my kids couldn’t see adult things on my computer I might be able to access that vital statistic. But, lo, they are the only ones who can recall what the passwords are so I can watch adult things on my computer. You know it’s getting out of hand when I need my dog’s help to put my mother on hold so I can receive a fax while speeding on I-95.

People have lost their sense of civility through texting and email. It is so terrible that we can’t even talk anymore. The lost art of conversing. Soon, universities across our great country will offer courses or even major fields of study in human recognition and simple communication. As a society, we’ve stopped meeting. Then stopped calling. Then stopped using complete words in our text messaging. Punctuation? Are you kidding? My daughter couldn’t understand why she got essay points off in school for writing a 250 word essay without any vowels and thought starting her concluding paragraph with IMHO was completely proper. (IMHO=In My Humble Opinion for all you uncultured swine that have not seen Legally Blonde on Broadway).

So, we don’t talk to our friends or family anymore. And strangers? On an elevator? On a plane? On a train? Oh, come on! Forget it, Sam I Am. We ignore the airplane safety talk. I’d love to see an emergency where the flight attendant won’t help you because you ignored her schpeil about how to open the seatbelt. (I spell checked ‘schpeil’ and ‘schlemiel’ was the only thing that came up. Holy Laverne & Shirley!)

We’ve even lost our basic form of outgoingness (is that a word?)…people don’t wear watches anymore. They use their cell phone to get the time. So, since nobody, even the homeless, is without a cell phone, we don’t even talk to strangers to ask the time. I used to like giving the time and meeting someone new. A little, tiny good deed that made me feel like I helped someone in some way. Oh, well. Another smack in the head for civility.

Speaking of phones, here is a true story. One of my favorites.

A few years ago, my brother, Jan, and his teenage daughters returned from a vacation and could not find where they had left the cordless phone in the house. Since it was left off of the cradle, it had a dead battery and they could not use the dummy-finder-beepie-beepie button on the base. So, they searched. And searched. They looked for an hour, turning over pillows and cushions, looking under and over everything in the house. After the futile hour passed, my 14 year old niece, Bethanie said she had a great idea for an invention. “Dad, they should make a string that goes from the phone to the base. That way, it would never get lost!” “Yes.” Jan said, “They used to have that. They called it a PHONE!”

While I’m on cordless phones; in my house, the only place they are certain NOT to be, is on the charger. We have 38 phones at home and none are charged. I bet right now they are all dead and sitting next to the charger instead of in it. Trust me, don’t take that bet. You can’t find a seat on a couch in my house without sitting on a receiver. My butt had dialed 911 more times than Brittany Spear’s housekeeper. When I hear a ring in my house, I am trained to stand and run AWAY from the chargers to find the phones since running towards them only entices frustration.

On the same note, we don’t ask for directions. We use Mapquest or a GPS. I now have to ignore the lady on the GPS box since she has replaced Martha in giving me directions. All I need now is a more realistic one that says, “DING. I told you so. DING. You should have turned back there. DING. Now you can figure it out by yourself. DING. I’m just going to shut myself off. DING. In one mile, prepare to drop dead, Mr. Knowitall.”

Forget about the Brooklyn Voice or Jersey Attitude option.

Getting back to the after school games, we used to get off the bus, grab our bat, glove and assorted balls, and run to Steven Hirschberger’s house so we would be there before teams were picked. He had the biggest yard. You would bring everything because nobody knew what we would play that day. It was usually whatever the season was at that time, but we might play anything…or everything! The only constant was that the games would last until dark. Then dinner, homework and bed.

Now, my kids have lives choreographed with standards so exacting that their days look more like a Bob Fosse production of All That Jazz than the Peanuts cartoon that my childhood actually paralleled. They have play ‘dates’ where the collection of participants and order of activities is coordinated like the engineering and building of the Maginot Line. Then there is class after class, league upon league, lessons on top of lessons. Martha never leaves a 5 mile radius from our house, but still manages to put in 100 miles of driving every day. Sam does homework in the car while waiting for a Emily’s Oriental Ribbon Curling Class to be through. Brian changes into proper Wii video gear during Sam’s Puberty Training Classes at the YMCA. Shortly thereafter, Emily has dinner on the hood of the car while Brian attends orientation for the All-Star Travelling Lego Building Club. No wonder why I find Martha having long, meaningful conversations with her coffee mug. Her afternoons are the mental equivalent of Fred Flintstone’s closet.

This lack of creating games, rules and teams has made us quite anti-social. We are a society void of understanding and appreciating body language, voice inflection and emotion. We are forcing and being forced to assume what the other person meant when they sent that text, email, etc. without the option of simply asking what in the world they really meant when they said such-and-such.

Actually, it goes so much further than that. So far that there are actually websites where you can use a one-time email address that is deactivated forever after your one faceless use. That way, weenies everywhere can hide while they make comments about others that are cowardly, untrue, and non-debatable! Not that I’m taking this one personally, but I do NOT chew like a cow and I absolutely DID wear blue socks and black pants last week on purpose. I was making a point, mrshelpfulgal@aol.com!

All of this lack of face time causes our society to think the following things are not only acceptable, but courteous, behavior.

- The clerk yelling for the next customer when I am the only doshgarm person in the bakery.

- Forcing me to drag my kid up to the register for ID proof so I can have the honor of buying an overpriced under 10 wacky meal filled with trans fat high fructose bleeeech when all he really wants is the toy. (The toy is healthier to eat than the food.)

- Then, I have to pass some six point background check before they will accept my signature as being my signature. Seems to me that if I wanted to commit fraud, I’d do it for something heartier that a Filet-o-Fish sandwich.

- We talk on the phone while ordering and mouth our detailed wants and needs to the counterperson as though they were lip-sync-ologists. It’s like the whole world is Milli Vanilli! And seriously, what is so important about your call that it can’t be put on hold for 12 seconds while you map out your size and style of slushie? Are you relaying the formula for cold fission to Mrs. Pactwa’s Odyssey of the Mind Team?

- Responding to my “Thank you” with an “uh-huh”. And an uninspired “uh-huh” at that! At least sometimes I get some vocal inflection…as though that was being courteous. It’s not.

- Clerks asking “how are you today” with a level of enthusiasm on par with a comatose carrot. So uninspired are they, that when I answer anything other than “fine”, like “superdeedooper”, I get a look more puzzled than that of seeing Jimmy Swaggart at Miss Lily’s Jiggle-a-Rama. Uh, scratch that last reference. It’s already been done.

- I hold the door to be nice at the mall and the people entering ignore me as though I was Ralph the doorman on The Jeffersons and it was my turn to hold the thing opened for half of the visitor’s to Macy’s that day. Even Lerch got a thank you from Gomez Addams when he did the work.

Alas, like Styx said in the song Mr. Roboto…The problem’s plain to see. Too much technology. Machines to save our lives. Machines de-humanize.

Maybe when it comes to learning civility, we can all agree like we did back on Steven Hirschberger’s back yard. We’ll have a ‘do-over’.

I’m going out to ask the first person I see for the time.

And one more thing… Why do we talk about $2.49 per gallon gas like it’s the best deal ever?

Just thinking.