UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

Caffeine. I love it. I hate it. I need it. For most of my life from the time I was 3, I have consumed at least one glass of Coca-Cola a day. Today, most informed parents might think twice about giving a 3-year-old a sugary, caffeinated beverage, but in 1977 it wasn’t much of a concern.

In high school, a friend introduced me to the wonders of Mountain Dew. Truly the best thing to come out of Appalachia besides I-85. It’s a magical beverage. I think the secret is the brominated vegetable oil.

Oh, who am I kidding? It’s the caffeine and sugar! (And, OK, maybe the yellow no. 5.)

In college, I discovered an even more sinister mistress… coffee. Forget the sugar… that’s kids’ stuff. The pure caffeine jolt of a bracing cup of coffee is for mature audiences only. (Try double-brewing coffee sometime. It’s quite a kick: Brew a pot of coffee, then dump the grounds, add more fresh grounds, pour the brewed coffee back into the pot and brew again. Ah, that’s pure Def Leppard-style adrenalyzed goodness! You won’t need sleep for about 67 hours.)

Yes, coffee. Black gold from the rainforests of South America, or the jungles of Sumatra, or the veldts of Kenya. (OK, I don’t know much about the climate and topography of Kenya; I just know they produce coffee, and somewhere in Africa they have “veldts,” which I know about from some educational film I saw in seventh grade. That’ll have to do for now.)

Sweet, sweet coffee! OK, bitter, bitter coffee! But it is a bitterness that is oh-so-sweet.

Most mornings, I grind my own beans and brew a fresh pot to take to work in my handy-dandy Thermos. But sometimes I am running late and the contrary-to-all-known-forms-of-logic thought pops into my head that it will take me less time to hit the Starbucks drive-thru on Roswell Road than to brew my own. This, of course, is never the case, and it runs me 3 bucks a pop to boot! (Enough with the colloquialsms, already!) But I go there anyway.

Chances are, if you’re reading this and you live anywhere within the known universe, you have either been to a Starbucks, or you’ve driven by a Starbucks, or you have a Starbucks within approximately 4 feet of your present location. (OK, Starbucks ubiquity jokes are getting old, but everyone deserves to pick some low-hanging fruit now and again.)

But chances also are that you’ve never been to a Starbucks quite like the one on Roswell Road.

The guy who works the drive-thru at this particular Starbucks is the most insanely enthusiastic person on the planet. When you approach the microphone to place your order, he comes over the speaker with a maniacal “GOOD MORNING!!!!! WELCOME TO STARBUCKS!!!!!!!!!!” that will curl your hair (if it’s straight) or straighten it (if it’s curly) or grow it back (if you’re bald).

Then the most bizarre thing of all. Each day, he writes a message on your cup holder with a Sharpie. I imagine he gets in at 4 AM so he can write his message on 1000 cup holders, and I just pray that he picks a single message for the day and writes the same one on each. If he actually thought up something unique for every individual customer, it would prove he is the anti-Christ. I have (thankfully, I think) forgotten most of the messages I’ve gotten on my cup holders, but here are a few that come to mind:

Sleep Is Overrated!

I mainly remember this one because it was on my cup today, and the full memory-splintering effects of the venti latte I ordered haven’t yet taken over. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Starbucks’ twisted cup sizing, “tall” is the smallest, “grande” is medium, and “venti” is the largest. I think “venti” means either “55 gallon drum” or “too obscenely big for anyone but a gluttonous American” in Italian.) This is a fairly straightforward message, and one entirely appropriate for a customer ordering a venti latte, also known as a guy who has to work for the next 48 hours straight directing air traffic, or me. I have no excuse, other than that I like to perform mild forms of self-torture.

We All Shine On!

I really, honestly, don’t even have a clue about this one. It was just so bizarre that it stuck in my brain and forced most of his other messages out. I really wish it would go away.

Too Many Secrets!

I got this one a couple weeks ago, and it was truly the most disturbing. I mean, how did he know???

If, by chance, you enjoyed this rant, be sure to check out Part II for the ongoing log….

On January 16, President Bush warned, “Time is running out. At some point in time, the United States’ patience will run out. In the name of peace, if he does not disarm, I will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm Saddam Hussein.”

(As an aside, when performing a Google search to get that quote right, I found that, according to CNN, Bush also said time was running out for Afghanistan to hand over Osama Bin Laden on October 6, 2001. Al Gore said time was running out for ballot recounts in Florida on November 30, 2000. And we all know how far those idle threats got both of them. OK, sure, we bombed the hell out of Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban. But we’re still playing “Where’s Waldo?” with Osama, and the promise of the “liberation” and “democratization” of Afghanistan is little more than a cruel joke. Meanwhile, Al Gore went on a Ben and Jerry’s binge and wimped out on even trying to get elected again.)

“In the name of peace” we’ll start a war. I am reminded of President Merkin Muffley‘s desperate cry, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!”

Anyway, I’m not here to criticize the President. (Really! I mean it!) I agree, time is running out. Saddam Hussein has some serious questions to answer. Does Iraq have chemical or biological weapons? Has Iraq illegally imported weapons technology and raw materials? Is Iraq developing nuclear weapons?

Does Saddam dye his hair, or is that a toupée?

Of course, some of these questions carry more weight, a greater sense of ominous foreboding, than others. But all have merit, in their own way.

I mean, look at the guy! Look at those jowls! He’s 68, for cryin’ out loud! The only 68-year-olds I’ve seen with hair that black were Ronald Reagan and Bob Barker! And even Bob Barker eventually realized the Just for Men wasn’t fooling anyone!

(Another aside: Is it just me, or does Saddam somewhat resemble George Orwell’s description of Big Brother in 1984: “The enormous face [because of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as being a metre wide], with its heavy black moustache and the eyes that followed you to and fro….”)

You know, I’m very reluctant to get into the kind of grandiose moralizing President Bush seems to slip into with ease. The word “evil” crosses his lips far more vigorously, enthusiastically, and frequently than it does my own. And so I must ask, is Saddam really evil? OK, he lets Iraqi children in desperate need of medical attention die in crowded hallways of dingy, dilapidated hospitals. Sure, he summarily executes underlings who merely whisper the slightest hint of dissent. Yes, he beats down all opposition, stages fake “spontaneous” demonstrations by the people in his honor, and builds glorious palaces with grand entrance halls with poetry expounding upon his greatness written on their walls in foot-high gilded letters. If you’re inclined to use a word like “evil,” I guess maybe Saddam fits the bill.

But I think, by and large, the world (at least, places where right-wing talk radio and extreme right-wing talk radio do not constitute the range of public discourse) has moved beyond the simplistic moral dualism that can accommodate an absolutist concept like “evil.” Pinky-finger-to-lower-lip, six-years-in-evil-medical-school, hold-the-world-hostage-for-one-million-dollars, sharks-with-frickin’-laser-beams-attached-to-their-heads EVIL!!! Come on… today the very notion of “evil” is a bumbling caricature of the already exaggerated action movie villain!

Sure Saddam is a sadistic bastard. But maybe he just doesn’t have the proper outlets for his frustrations. Seems to me, he’s merely feeling the creeping malaise of old age, the icy breath of the Grim Reaper on the nape of his neck.

So what’s an aging dictator facing his mortality to do? Those ho-hum, down-in-the-dumps, life-gotcha-down, rainy-day blues are easy enough to fix. A little nip here, a little tuck there, a visit to Sy Sperling, a red convertible Porsche and a trophy wife 40 years his junior, and Saddam’ll be feeling like he’s a young, invincible dictator again!

Maybe deep down, he really is just jealous of America after all! Let’s give him exile over here, and he can take over as CEO of a major corporation. I hear there are a few job openings….

OK, all of that said, I really do think Saddam’s a dangerous sort — a menace to the international community who needs to be dealt with unflinchingly and unanimously by the United Nations. If “evil” really does exist, then he’s just this side of “evil” from the likes of Stalin and Hitler. But I also think that it would be prudent, now and in the future, for us as Americans to question our leaders a bit more about their full motivations for going to war against Iraq, and about some of the nagging issues of the timing involved and its relevance to other matters, both foreign and domestic. America’s still a country where we have the freedom to raise a stink if we don’t like how things are being done. And that’s something worth fighting for!

Today has been an interesting day. I arrived at work this morning to notice that the strange smell some of us perceived yesterday in the office was even stronger today, and generally was of the natural gas variety. We called the gas company and they sent someone out to inspect our equipment. He found no gas leaks, and informed us that it was his “educated guess” that there was a dead animal somewhere in the building.

Sure enough… I moved aside a panel of drop-ceiling tile and looked inside, and about 2 feet from my face was a huge dead rat.

Another coworker, much bolder than myself, grabbed a plastic bag, and using the bag as both glove and receptacle, picked up the dead and now partially decomposed rodent, and took it out to the dumpster.

The most disturbing part, of course, is that it’s highly unlikely that this rat was working solo.

Now, before we get started, I just want to say, China has a rich cultural heritage and is full of intelligent, creative people. China had gunpowder when Europeans were still hitting each other over the heads with sticks. China had paper when the Greeks were still drawing geometric shapes in the sand… with sticks. But long after Europeans started eating with forks and knives, the Chinese were… well, still using sticks.

But I’m not even here to make fun of chopsticks. I like eating Chinese and Japanese food with chopsticks. It makes the experience more authentic, and it is humbling to see how incompetent I am with these, while someone like Daniel LaRusso can catch a fly with them.

Anyway, as I said, I like to try my “nice Chinese food with chopsticks.” I think you see where I’m going with this.

For years, one of the delights of going to a Chinese restaurant has been that unmistakable red chopsticks pack with the incomprehensibly mangled English instructions. This perennial favorite is dying off, sadly. Most of the time now, you either get chopsticks wrapped in plastic, or in the updated, white-paper version of this, with (mostly) proper spelling and grammar.

So it was with much delight last December that I asked for a set of chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and received the classic red wrapper. I saved it, and here it is…

Now let’s have a look at the details:

I have no idea what the Chinese characters on the front of the package say, but if they are in fact a pictographic depiction of something, it appears that in the first frame, a man is gingerly approaching some kind of dragon/serpent creature. Next, he leans in for a kiss. The two get into a tussle (is the dragon giving him a spanking?), and in the end the dragon has donned a sombrero and is patting the guy on the bum as he walks away.

I like how this starts off. It seems to suggest that every Chinese restaurant is simply called “Chinese Restaurant.” And then the misspellings begin. “Glonous”? Well, it’s fairly obvious what’s happened here: Someone apparently gave the typesetter some handwritten text, and the typesetter, unfamiliar with the Roman alphabet, sometimes mistook letter combinations for other letters. Either that, or they were just relying on some early OCR software.

OK… now where did I leave my thurnb? And how do I tuk and hcld something under it?

This is the definitive step… these words are so deeply ingrained in my subconscious that I almost call these devices “chcosticks” when I ask for them in a restaurant.

Yes indeed, with the tirst and second chopsticks in place, now you can pick up anything… used Kleenex, condoms, Michael Jackson’s prosthetic nose… what is that, anyway?

By the way, the restaurant in Stevens Point is called Chef Chu’s. It’s attached to the Best Western Royale hotel, and I give it very high marks! I didn’t have much hope for quality at a Chinese restaurant in central Wisconsin, attached to a Best Western and newly opened in a former Country Kitchen-esque restaurant space, but the food was actually quite good… a very nice hot-and-sour soup, excellent potstickers, and a very tasty moo goo gai pan with big pieces of fresh vegetables and tender chicken.

Oh yeah, and vintage chopsticks!

It is always with mild amusement that I listen to people complain about the incompetence of the sales staff at CompUSA or Best Buy or Radio Shack, or of the technical support people they get on the phone late at night or on weekends.

Think about it for a minute. Even though the economy is down, there are still plenty of well-paying high-tech jobs for people with knowledge and skills. If a person actually knows enough to be competent with computers, they will be able to get a better job than a thankless, $6.50-an-hour sales floor job at CompUSA, or working the graveyard shift doing phone tech support!

Now I am not saying there’s anything wrong with these kinds of jobs. Nor am I saying people seeking these services don’t deserve to be met with intelligence and courtesy. But in a market-driven economy, some things have to give.

If you want to walk into a store and pay under $1000 for a brand-new PC that’s roughly 10,000 times more powerful than those used to guide Apollo 11 to the moon, you’re going to have to accept that the place you’re buying it from can’t afford the overhead to hire people who can tell their heads from their asses (much less their hard drives from their RAM).

And if you’re going to get 1.5 Mbps broadband Internet access in your home for a little more than the cost of dial-up, and a tiny fraction of what businesses used to pay for T1 lines (in the “olden days” — about 3 weeks ago), your ISP also won’t be able to hire people to answer your phone call at 2 AM on a Saturday who have any skills beyond basic literacy so they can step through the phone script they’ve been given.

Accept it. Do the research yourself so you know what you want before you get there, and be glad you live in a world where electronics hardware and demeaning, thankless labor come cheap.