ChuckDoherty.com

I bought a package of this stuff yesterday with the idea of serving it at Thanksgiving. I am glad I auditioned it first and didn’t just go ahead foist it on my guests.

Imagine something that a hobo cooked in a rusty tin can over a trash fire, with a slight hint of rancid crab, and you can almost get a sense of it. Roget describes it better than I ever could:

Abhorrent, abominable, appalling, awful, distasteful, dreadful, foul, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, loathsome, nasty, nauseating, noisome, obnoxious, obscene, odious, repellent (also repellant), repugnant, repulsive, revolting, scandalous, shocking, sickening, ugly.

While passing through airport security this week, I was talking with the TSA agent at the X-Ray machine as I handed over my boarding pass so he could make sure it had not changed since another person, three feet away, looked at it ten seconds earlier. The agent was wearing a standard TSA name tag, which shows his first name and an ID number. His read; “David 10402.”   

I said to him; “I went to school with Peter 10402, are you related?” He looked at me with a completely lifeless expression for a moment, then said; “Oh, that’s not really my name. That’s just my ID number.”  

“Ahh” I replied, realizing that my attempt at humor had missed its mark.  

A few moments later, he said; “Where”?

“Where, what?”

“Where was it that you went to school with Peter 10402?”

“No,” I said, surprised that this was still rattling around in his head, “I didn’t really go to school with Peter 10402, that was a joke. I was joking.”

The blank look continued.

“Oh, I thought you may have gone to some kind of military school where everyone goes by a number.”

Like prison, I thought.

I nodded and smiled, then went on with my trip safe in the knowledge that this crack staff will keep us safe from toothpaste without any risk of distractions from irony.  

By the way, did you realize that all airports are still at Threat Level Orange, and have been for several months? That’s the second-to-highest level of super-panic-emergency that is even possible.  Why? Who can say. It went there after the “plot” in the UK a few months ago, and even though the plot was broken up and no real evidence of any real threat was uncovered, the level of crisis remains “heightened.”

Wolf, wolf, wolf!! 

I just got back from Farmstead, a great little artisan cheese shop in Providence.  I got an assortment of cheeses to serve as a last course on Thanksgiving, provided anyone is awake enough to eat any of it.  I left the choices up to the owner, and told him to pick out a few interesting selections to share among the for the six people I plan to have here on Thursday.  I wasn’t at all prepared for the price, which was an eye-opening $65. 

Picture the scene: a busy Friday evening at the Atlanta Airport, about one hour before one of those bulk departure times when a large number of flights leave at once. Travelers have just enough time to grab some food and still be in the gate in time for boarding, so the fast-food restaurants are  hopping. I am in line at Wendy’s where the counter is staffed by three young and enthusiastic women. With them is another team who are putting orders into bags, filling sodas (No Refills! warns the big sign), and handing food to the customers.  Behind that front line is an absolute maelstrom of workers, far more than could possibly be necessary in such a small space. They are scurrying about at the grill, extruding Frostys, and doing whatever it is that they do at a Wendy’s to make the French fries taste like they spent an hour in the hip pocket of a long-haul truck driver even moments after emerging from the hot oil.

Standing by the counter is a woman who is waiting with increasing frustration for a carton of 2% milk. This was considered a “special” order, so someone needed to go into the fridge and get it for her. So far no one had. Periodically, she asked the counter person; where’s my milk? In response, she would turn to the crowd working behind her and bellow; I need a carton of 2% milk! and then return to taking orders. This happened over and over again, with no milk forthcoming. And you know why? Because the gal at the counter didn’t specifically tell one person to get the milk, so everyone just assumed someone else was doing it.

Hold that image while I tell you another story.

I once did work for a company at which the boss decided that everyone in the firm (including consultants like me) should be qualified in CPR. I think that is a great idea, even though the circumstances where CPR can actually do some good are far fewer than people are led to believe. Still, I was one of those who went for the certification and dutifully breathed into and pumped away on RescussiAnnie, the silicon and latex torso used for training. 

I remember very little about CPR itself from that class, but I did take away one important piece of information.  Unlike all the chest thumping and lung inflating, this particular bit of knowledge actually will make a big difference in an emergency.  This is the need for someone to take charge, direct what is going on, and most importantly, identify and direct one specific person to call 911 for help.  When untrained people witness a chaotic event like a person having “The Big One™,” almost everyone realizes that calling 911 is an important thing to do. But more often than not, everyone in the group takes it for granted that someone else already did.  It is just like the situation with that lady’s milk, but with more potential for death.  Someone needs to step up to the plate and take charge of the crisis, and start by pointing to someone – anyone – and saying: “Hey you! Yes, you. You with the glasses, I’m talking to you. Call 911 and get an ambulance sent here. Right now – go!” Then, and only then, a call will get made and help will be summoned.

Watching that scene at Wendy’s made me realize that it is all too easy it is to keel over in a public place and end up dying while a well-meaning crowd stands around waiting for the EMTs that were never summoned to arrive.  You’ll end up dead and you won’t get your milk either.

We know all too well that it’s possible to re-write history enough so that even the worst frat-boy can become president, but there are a few factors that can trump even draft-dodging and stupidity. For example, my failure to love the Baby Jesus alone is enough to keep me away from ever aspiring to the office.  But just to put a wooden stake firmly through the heart of the whole idea, I am going to go on record and admit holding an opinion that will brand me as a pariah from the left as surely as my lack of superstition does from the right. 

Here goes: I think that Maya Angelolu is a lousy poet. 

There.  I said it.  To me she is the naked Emperess of poetry.  But few people would dare to even suggest that her work, well, sucks, for fear that they will suffer immediate recrimination. It is as though anyone who doesn’t smile beatifically as she reads her pretentious verse may as well be wearing a white hood and holding a torch.  You don’t adore Maya Angelou?  You racist bastard!

I just listened to her reading a piece at a ceremony for the new MLK memorial in DC and I am ready to stick my head into a bucket of lye. I swear that most of her work sounds like it was written by a 12-year old girl and then purged of unicorn references.  Angelou is probably a lovely and delightful woman but her poetry is sophomoric at best.  I will not read it with a fox, I will not read it in a box.  I will not read it anywhere, ’cause for her work I do not care.

This evening I ran into an older gentlemen I know who is typically quite nattily attired and upbeat, and was surprised to find him looking harried and disheveled.  He told me that that the reason for his somewhat sorry state was that he had been stopped by the state police sometime over the weekend for being a wee bit “under the weather” (wink, wink) at the wheel, and had to spend some time in the Greybar Motel until things were sorted out. To make a bad situation even worse, he said that he lost track of his dentures during this process. He is not sure if the choppers are still rattling around in the back of the patrol car that took him in or if they are stuck to the mouthpiece of the breathalyzer, but in any case they are nowhere to be found. Now the unfortunate man is both carless and toothless, and in need of a designated chewer for a few days at least. 

I am sure that we can all learn a valuable lesson from this.