The 'They Might Be Giants' show on Friday night was a lot of fun.  We got there early, and in a giddy show of support, we each purchased a T-Shirt - me choosing a traditional white jobbie with cartoon figures of the Johns in their younger days, and Charles went with the new shirt sporting The Mesopotamians, which was also the first song they played.  In exchange for the bucks spent on the shirts, we got a free giant foam hand in the permanent position of #1, like what you would get at a baseball game, only this one said 'They Might Be Giants' on it.  We were irrationally pleased by their generous gift at the time, but now in the light of day I'm not really sure what to do with the thing.

They played at the Variety Playhouse in Little 5 Points, which was the perfect venue for them, and I do believe it was sold out.  I expected the crowd to be a happy and polite one, and they didn't disappoint in that regard, but I wasn't quite prepared for how many people seemed to be unfamiliar with the concept of hygiene.  Perhaps if TMBG wrote a song about cleanliness, they might try a little harder?  I mean, we are talking about some SERIOUSLY rank individuals.   I should not be able to smell someones hair from 3 feet away, nor do I want to smell someones smoky, skunky dragon pits every time they raise up their arms.   

We were lucky enough to get actual seats instead of standing, but as it turned out, the crowd stood for the entire show anyway, so we weren't able to use them once things got going.  Strangely, the couple who were sitting in front of us had been napping in their seats until showtime, and chose not to stand up, even when TMBG first came out.  When the rest of us clapped and cheered, they looked around with a pained expression like they couldn't believe we had all gathered in their bedroom and woken them so rudely from a sound sleep.  They tried their best to go back to sleep, slumping down in the seats and laying their heads on each other, but eventually the loud music and boisterous crowd ended up being too much for them, so they left, while giving all of us the dirty stink eye along the way.  Their exit meant more breathing room directly in front of me, so I was happy with their decision, but I have to wonder how they ended up at a concert when clearly all they wanted was a quiet place to catch some zzzz's.

The show was high energy, full of old and new songs.  I was surprised they didn't ever play "Don't Let's Start", not even as an encore, and I would have liked to have heard "Spider" or "Evil", but they did pull out some favorites, like "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" and "Doctor Worm", so I've got no complaints.  I don't know how in the world they remember the words to all 8,000 songs that they've written...the only explanation is that they're geniuses, which...duh.   

We are batting 1,000 for good seats lately: 



 

Perhaps I would have been a good investigative reporter, because apparently, I have no qualms about asking questions that are really tough for people to answer.

For example, just yesterday, I was on the phone when I saw the Bottled Water Company delivery guy walk past my door carrying some full bottles. I also saw him walk past with the empty bottles, and heard him say goodbye by the front door, so I realized he was finished with us. I got off the phone, and jogged out the door after him, calling for him to stop. When he turned around, I told him that we had run out of cups a few days ago, and I had bought a sleeve at the store myself to tide us over, but as he could see, we only had a few left. He stared at me. I asked him if receiving cups was still one of the services offered by his company, and he nodded. I asked him if we could perhaps GET SOME CUPS, and he stood there as if frozen, pondering. Finally, he shrugged and said, "I can bring some in. If you need them." Success! I had managed to drag the truth out of him - we were, in fact, entitled to cups. I am awesome! Of course, after that I STILL had to clarify for him that yes, we need them, so could he please dig in his truck and produce a couple of sleeves for us? Still, I felt like the hard part had been handled already - just forcing him to admit that it was part of his job to supply us with drinking containers means that I am a badass.

A few minutes ago, I took a call for Boss 2. I told the caller that Boss 2 was on his line, and asked if he would like to hold, or would he prefer to leave a voice message? From the stunned silence that followed, I could tell that I had struck a nerve. So, I pressed harder. Would he like me to transfer him over to voice mail? He was welcome to hold for a few minutes if he'd like, would that be preferable? I could practically hear him squirming. Finally, after a few false starts and lots of hemming and hawing, I got an answer. He decided to hold. Once again, I managed to push my way past all the barriers and get to the heart of things. Fear me! I am heady with power.

I'm pretty sure I was born at exactly the right time....after air conditioning had been invented, but before text messaging and the steady decline of the public school system in Metro Atlanta changed the way people started writing in general.

There is a website where alumni from our high school can communicate with each other on a large message board. It contains notes from people who graduated in the 70's, all the way up to people who graduated in 2006. It seems that the more recently the person graduated, the more incoherent or ridiculous the messages are, at least to me. I am admittedly an old curmudgeon sometimes, but I'm not completely unhip and find some slang terms to be amusing and sometimes appropriate. But I can't really get behind communicating via abbreviations, 95% slang and poor grammar on a regular basis, which is what I fear is happening when I see posts on the board like these (no corrections made except names removed, and one word I prefer not to have on my page was altered with **):


Example 1: what it is folks ya boi chillin located in ohio for now but it is gravy


Example 2: Yo what up yall this is [name deleted](..I know yall remember precyse ...right?lol..) but anyway I'm doin good. I did 2 years at columbus state now Im bout to transfer up to another school up in atlanta. Anybody wanna get in touch with me im on facebook, myspace, and all the rest of that mess....so get at me!


Example 3: what up 03 where is everybody



Example 4: Hit me back cuz you know I'm not about to even send a detailed message if you're not even checking this negr**! LOL!



Example 5: What schoo are you at i see that ur in Alabama with a 334 area code. Im at Alabama State University.



One thing that seems to be common in the messages left by people from older classes is that there is an effort made to spell correctly, include punctuation, and even use complete sentences. It worries me a little that the generation pouring out of high schools and colleges now prefer to communicate in a way they consider to be cool, instead of in a way that shows they at least came away from high school with a little education and maturity. Do these kids know how to put together a decent, professional resume? Do they know how to write an actual letter or business document without the use of abbreviations and regionalisms? I would really like to know what kind of term papers these kids turned in, because we were graded on every aspect back in my day, and lazy writing would have gotten us a big fat F.

Maybe it's just that I am resistant to change when it doesn't suit me. I see how many people create user names and subject lines all over the web using (what seems to be) random upper and lower case, like "blUeeYeDDivA2" and I wonder how that whole trend even got started, because for me it's hard to type that way, especially with any consistency. It's also a little harder for me to read things that are written that way, or written like the messages I copied above. I had to take a moment to re-read "what it is folks ya boi chillin located in ohio for now but it is gravy", because on the first pass I really wasn't sure what was being said, and that was his entire message. There was nothing to identify him except "ya boi", we are left to wonder if he meant that he is only in Ohio temporarily but not to worry about him, or is he saying that one day he might leave Ohio but at the moment, he likes it just fine? Yeah, I guess no matter how many times I read it, I'm not sure what was being said there.

I do hope that these kids are just so exceptionally talented that they can write professionally when the situation calls for it, and write in their own youthful dialect when they prefer to be casual. I personally find it easier to just write the same way all the time, and would want to come across on the message boards to my peers as at least intelligent enough to write coherently, but that could just be the old coot side of me coming out. I never thought I would be shaking my head at "these kids today", especially when I'm not yet in my 80's, but here I am, disappointed and weeping for the future.

I bank with RBC Centura (Royal Bank of Canada). In 1985, I got my first job, so I opened a checking account with a local bank, Tucker Federal. Over the years, I never had any reason to take my business to another bank because there were enough branches scattered around to keep me happy, and before I knew it, I had the same bank account for 19 years. Then, I got a notice that Tucker Federal had been bought out by RBC Centura, and that if I chose to stay with them, I needed to do nothing more than wait for my new ATM card and checks to arrive in the mail. Easy enough! They opened a branch right by my house, so why not stick with them?

And so far, dealing with RBC has been basically fine. I pay all of our bills online, Charles' paychecks are automatically deposited, and I only get paid once per month, so we don't require much in the way of human interaction. But there is one thing that started when I became an RBC Customer that makes no sense to me whatsoever...prank calls.

Every few months, there will be a message on our home phone from a representative with RBC Centura, always someone different, and from all kinds of locations, some local, some not. The messages will always reference my name, so I know they meant to call me, and never say what the call is about, only that they want me to call them back. So, I do. Every time, I call them back, more than once. Every time, I get their voice mail, leave them a detailed message including my work number, and wait, but they never call me back. This has happened enough times to make me extremely curious. The first few times I was concerned enough to call my local branch and ask them what the call could have been about, but they never knew. Our balance is never negative, we don't have investments of any kind...I can't for the life of me figure out why I get these random calls that never amount to anything. I eventually stop worrying about it, because I figure if it's really important, surely they will call me again. Still, it's a little irksome, and not something I ever experienced in my days with Tucker Federal. Maybe it's something they do for fun...randomly pull up an account, leave an official sounding message on their voice mail, and then giggle every time the poor customer calls back and leaves fretful messages for them.

So, I have this friend who has recently invested in a newly formed ambulance company. They have been running one week, and already she has many tales to tell me. All my life I've been under the impression that I should call for an ambulance if:

-Someone is bleeding profusely

-Someone is unconscious

-Someone is having a seizure, heart attack, stroke, etc.

-Someone has broken a bone that would make it too difficult to transport them in a car


There are probably other similarly critical situations that I might deem serious enough to dial 911, but the key word there is critical. Turns out, there are lots of other reasons why people call for an ambulance.

- People on Medicare who have run out of medicine, or lost their medicine, will call to be driven to the hospital to get more medicine.

- People with ailments like bad headaches, the flu, etc. will call because they think if they arrive in the Emergency Room via ambulance that they will be seen by the doctors more quickly than if they drove themselves.

- One woman called because her son's ears looked bigger to her than they had looked when he went to bed.

So, I guess the time that a bug flew into Charlie's ear and was buzzing around making him a little hyper and insane (with good reason), I guess I could have called 911 to have someone else come and squirt alcohol in his ear to kill it and then flush the tiny carcass out of his ear canal, instead of doing it myself. How silly of me to not think of that. Evidently people will call over a lot less. Crazy!

One call they got was from the police to come pick up a dead body - a guy had been hit by a train. (Another thing I did not know - people still get hit by trains a lot. It just seems so easy to NOT get hit by a train that I'm surprised so many people have problems avoiding it, but apparently, drunk people are drawn to railroad tracks like flies to honey. In fact, I think I am going to replace "like flies to honey" in my vernacular with "like drunks to railroad tracks".) So, the EMT guys were not in a huge hurry - generally for the dead body pick-ups there is no need to race around with the sirens and lights blaring - and they got there when they got there. They saw that the guy's leg was cut off near the hip, and was dragged down the tracks a bit, so one of the guys heads on down to retrieve the leg, and the other one goes to tend to the rest of the body when he realizes THE DEAD GUY IS ACTUALLY NOT DEAD. So, suddenly they had to haul ass and get to saving a life, pronto. They managed to get him to the hospital in time to save him, and when they followed up later he was being fitted for his new prosthetic leg.

Yay for happy endings and all, but why did the police call him in as a dead body? Well, because they never even felt the guy for a pulse, that's why. Isn't that AWESOME? Doesn't that fill you with CONFIDENCE that if one day you are in a life or death situation that the initial responders might not bother to even check your vitals before declaring you a corpse? We should all take that as a big lesson that we need to either die thoroughly when the time comes, or do our best to blink or wiggle some fingers if we are close to dying, because otherwise, we could end up shivering inside the big refrigerator in the hospital basement.

So, the guy who works with my uncle, who liquidated his whole retirement savings for that Canadian lottery scam, actually went through with it. He flew to Texas last week, met with people, gave over the cash, waited for their guy with the Federal Government Special Clearance to come back with his chemicals, and was then told that the scumbag ran off with his $40,000.00. I KNOW!!!!! Crazy, right? Who could have possibly seen that coming?

He was then told not to worry, because they are GOING AFTER THE GUY, and will GET HIS MONEY BACK! All they need from him now is some more money, so they can pursue the rotten thief who has CHEATED THEM ALL! Oooh, they are SO MAD at that filthy scoundrel, and they are going to leave NO STONE UNTURNED until they find him, as soon as he gives them the funds to chase the guy down. And you know what? He's considering it. Because it's worth shelling out a little more money to get back the money that was already stolen. I mean, that's just plain logic. He's a savvy businessman, that one.

No word yet on whether his wife has filed divorce papers, or if she is just trying to have him committed instead. I wonder if it's possible to do both?