In Jeopardy

As time goes by, I fear I may become more out of touch with today’s youth. Most young people have grown up with the wizards of Harry Potter and have graduated to the Twilight vampires. I have neither read these books nor seen the movies. When these cultural powerhouses make their way onto the Jeopardy answer board, as surely they must, I will be totally lost. And by that time, the trivia which currently clutters my brain and sometimes enables me to give the correct Jeopardy question will become so dated as to be irrelevant. As it is, I am already past the demographic that advertisers are seeking to attract. So, when the television shows they sponsor become less relevant to a person with my knowledge and experience, I may be forced to turn off the “tube” (boy, even that reference is out of date) and read a book.

That is, if I can find one that’s still printed on paper.

A Burning Issue

I was sipping my coffee as I sat on a bench waiting for my train at an outdoor Metro North station on a bright, sunny, early summer morning, when suddenly I caught a whiff of smoke passing by. I looked to my left and saw a woman smoking a cigarette. I was about to ask her to move down wind when she moved of her own volition.

I’ve been taking the Metro North for about a year now and I can’t recall more than a handful of times when I saw someone smoking on the platform. But this day was the exception to the rule. As my train was pulling into the station, I got up from my seat and headed towards the front car in order to be close to the exit at my stop. As I walked, I passed two more smokers and then started to notice numerous cigarette butts on the platform.

New York City has banned smoking in public places, but as of yet, Westchester County has not followed suit. There are no ashtrays on the platform, so at least they are not encouraging smokers. But for a non-smoker, the smell of burnt tobacco does not mix well with the taste of freshly brewed coffee.

I actually don’t mind if people want to smoke. What I object to is when the exhaust from their burning tobacco invades the space under my nostrils.

They can choose not to smoke.

I can’t choose not to breathe.

The New Litter

I’ve noticed a trend lately. Now that most plastic bottles have a five cent deposit, there seem to be fewer of them tossed along the roadways. Admittedly, there are few people who would stoop to pick up a discarded bottle. And with the economy in the tank and prices soaring, more people are recycling the bottles to get their nickel back. But there doesn’t seem to be a reduction in the amount of litter. The litter of choice nowadays seems to be losing scratch-off lottery tickets.

If you can find 20 returnable bottles, you can redeem them for a one dollar lottery ticket. Finding 20 bottles may not be easy, but it’s a lot easier than purchasing a winning lottery ticket.

Better yet, put that dollar in the poor box. It’ll make you feel a whole lot richer in the long run.

Cell Service

The other day there was an article in the newspaper which indicated that in some restaurants you can now text your order to a waitress. At first I thought this might be a good idea – no more waiting for a drink refill when you needed it. But technology may be ahead of its time in the smaller restaurants.

I walked into my local diner for breakfast this morning. The usual waitress wasn’t behind the counter, but a new face was. She took my order right away and brought my coffee immediately. Then, as the minutes began to go by, and the usual time by which my breakfast would have arrived passed, I looked up, only to see this new waitress standing behind the counter with a cell phone in her hand. Whether she was texting, reading e-mail, or surfing the web, I couldn’t say. All I could think of was my breakfast getting cold sitting on a counter behind the swinging kitchen doors. Finally, the waitress who usually waits on me asked if I had gotten by food yet. When I said no, she turned to the new waitress and told her to check on my order. The new waitress put down her cell phone, went into the kitchen and returned with half my order. “You wanted whole wheat toast, right?” she asked. “No,” I replied, “White.” Sixty seconds later my toast arrived, unbuttered.

The food tasted the same as it always does, but the service left a bad taste in my mouth.

Waiting Room

This morning I sat in the waiting room of a car dealership while the oil was being changed in my wife's vechicle. The waiting room was empty, except for one other male, who spoke not a word. The TV was on, forcing at least the audio of The Price is Right into my eardrums. I tried to read Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty (a good book, by the way), but it was difficult over the sounds coming from the television. Then, about an hour into my 90 minute wait, a woman entered the room, took out her cell phone and called her health insurance company. In a loud voice, she gave her name, date of birth, account number and started discussing her pre-existing condition.

It made me wish the TV volume was louder.

Self Service

The other day I used the self service checkout at my local supermarket to purchase five items. After pressing the “finish and pay” option on the touch screen, I chose to pay by debit card and swiped my card. After asking if the purchase amount was correct, the computer screen asked if I wanted any cash back. I selected $20 cash back and my total was deducted from my debit card. The only problem was that the machine failed to give me the $20 cash. A female clerk, who was supervising the six self service checkout registers, noticed the machine beeping and came right over. I said, “The machine never gave me any money.” She pointed to the screen and nodded, indicating she knew. She tried to get the machine to release the $20, but had no success. She then retreated to her own register to get my cash.

Remembering a problem I had with another self service machine in the same store earlier in the week, when this same clerk had to give me my change because the machine wouldn’t, I said, “These self service machines are hardly worth the effort, are they?”

The clerk gave me a strange look and said something in a foreign language.

It truly is a brave new world.

Finding authors

A few summers ago, while browsing in a local library, I came across an interesting book, Running Blind, by an author named Lee Child. It was his fourth novel about the same character, an ex-military man named Jack Reacher, who travels the country with just a folding toothbrush, and has a knack for getting into serious trouble. I enjoyed the book so much that I set out to track down and read the other twelve Reacher novels. Some I got from the library; some from the internet, and the latest one from a bookstore. I am looking forward to the fourteenth novel being published next month.

After reading those thirteen novels, I came across one by Stuart Woods. The title was Two Dollar Bill and I was able to purchase it in hardcover at a library bookstore with a one dollar bill. The main character here, Stone Barrington, is a retired New York City detective who now practices law, although it seems more of a side job to his getting into jams and sleeping with every woman he meets. He also regularly hangs out at a real New York City restaurant, Elaines, on Second Avenue. The restaurant owner, the real Elaine, often appears in dialogue with the fictional characters. Woods seems to write one of these Stone Barrington novels a year (although he recently announced there will be two in 2010) and they are like potato chips – you can’t read just one.

After finishing that series, I saw a recommendation in a weekly magazine for a novel entitled Shatter, by Michael Robotham. It was one of the best, and scariest, books I have ever read. I followed that book with the author’s three previous novels, which contained some of the same characters.

Another book review led me to Rough Country by John Sandford, the author of many “prey” novels. I had never heard of him before, but this novel was about Virgil Flowers, a Midwest police detective with long blond hair and a proclivity for wearing rock and roll tee shirts. I enjoyed the book so much that I also read the two previous Virgil Flowers novels and eagerly await the fourth.

Finally, back in the library bookstore, I came upon a novel by Colin Harrison called The Finder. It looked interesting, so I invested another dollar for this hardcover book. Again, it was hard to put down once you started reading it. I subsequently got my hands on other novels by this author, and although they have completely different characters, each one I read seems better than the last.

I’m sure there are other interesting authors out there, and finding them by accident is one of life’s little joys.