• Loss

    It was a relationship that survived the milestones of young adult life. We got together in the fall of 1989, my first semester at the University of Florida. We shared countless drives across the state, traveling home from UF and back again. We were together through graduation from UF, a move to a new city and the first real job, and a marriage. We rode in the car together when my first child came home from the hospital. We took vacations together; visiting family in New England and Louisiana, hiking through the woods of Florida, Georgia and New Hampshire, and sampling the better life at some of Florida’s finest resorts. We’ve stayed together through the mundane: countless commutes back and forth to work, weekend errands, and weekday evening trips to Walgreen’s for that overpriced refill for a prescription medication.

    Yesterday afternoon our relationship came to an end.

    I was getting settled in my car, in the parking lot at work. The sun was shining and I reached for my trusty, yet grossly out of fashion Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses. I pulled the earpieces out to hook them behind my ears, but I stopped short. I heard a metallic snap and watched as one of the glass lenses fell to my lap. The wire frame had snapped. They would never again support the weight of a glass lens perched on my nose. I went to Costco and picked out a discounted pair of designer sunglasses to replace old faithful. When I got home, my wife exclaimed, “Hey, those look a lot better than your old Ray-Bans. You look sophisticated.”

    Is there no one that feels my pain?

  • Further evidence of the decline of western civilization

    Alternate title: the shopping curmudgeon strikes back.

    Vision statement: we hold these truths to be self evident, that retail, in general, sucks.

    Hypothesis: the lowest form of humanity in the “new releases” section of the evolutionary ladder is Homo Sapiens Salesman.

    The evidence: a phenomenon we call “Acute Idiopathic Phantom Price Shift”, or “AIPPS” (pronounced “apes”).

    AIPPS typically strikes when a consumer is shopping for a product of moderate or high cost. An example would be high end mattresses. Say your typical consumer walks into a mattress showroom and evaluates some of the product. Your typical salesman might encourage the sale by suggesting: “the model you’re looking at is on sale, but the sale ends today.” The consumer might turn around and ask the salesman what the price will be tomorrow, after the “sale” ends. This is where we really separate the men from the apes. If the salesman is displaying the classic signs of AIPPS, he will say something that really sounds like it answers the question, but doesn’t. The most common example is the following response: “the sticker price on this product is….” What the salesman did not tell the unwitting consumer is how often he actually charges the “sticker price.” Instead of telling the consumer what the price of the product would be tomorrow, he evaded the question by playing on the consumer’s pre-conceived notion of what a “sticker price” represents. Bad salesman! Bad!

    Why is it I ALWAYS show up to buy a product on the last day of a sale? Is this some kind of fantastic coincidence? Is there a different “sale” for each day of the work week; or, am I just being lied to?

    Is it any wonder I don’t care for shopping?

  • This is the first day of the rest of second grade

    Beth is a tough nut to crack, but she’s even harder to read. The lead into the new school year had all the emotion of a new pair of socks. (What do I have against socks? Why am I picking on socks in general? As a child, I was permanently scarred by the cruel and unusual gift of socks on Christmas morning.) It was so unlike my experience. I remember the first day of elementary school with all the fondness of replacing a Mac with a Dell. Yet, I remember the first days of a new term at UF with eager anticipation. These were two very different experiences, but they had one thing in common: emotion, a commitment to one side of the wellbeing spectrum or the other. Surely Beth feels something about the big first day?

    “So Beth, how do you feel about the first day of second grade?”
    “I dunno.”

    “Are you nervous?”
    “I guess so.”

    “Are you excited about meeting your new teacher?”
    “Not really.”

    “Have you now, or have you ever, committed to one emotion in particular concerning your scholastic career?”
    “Huh?”

    I haven’t decided if that last question was too sugar coated with sarcasm for my own good.