How to open your safe when you’re drunk

When I was a kid, my dad put me to work in a little engineering shop. My jobs were to cut steel jackets on a lathe, and run the semi-automatic hacksaw.

Friday night everyone left on time. I waited for the owner to come by and give me my first paycheck.

He showed up very drunk, and couldn’t remember the combination to the safe. So, he called his wife; “Hey, Doris! What the hell is the combination? I need to get into the safe,” he yelled. He was so drunk he sat on the floor with his legs splayed out, leaning on the safe, yelling.

The office was in front, on a fairly busy street, and the front door was wide open. But I was so paralyzed I didn’t think to close it.

“Four to the left.” He yelled. “Then back around to, what? Seven? Okay then what?” He yelled. “fifteen?”

Two shots of yelling out the numbers, the safe opened, and he handed me a twenty.

I had earned twelve dollars that first week, not bad money for a fifteen year-old kid in the early Fifties. Anyway, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I hoped he’d come in drunk every Friday night.

The next Friday, he wasn’t drunk. I had earned fourteen dollars that week.

He handed me my pay. Six bucks, minus the extra eight he’d given me the week before. I must have had quite a look on my face, because he said, “That’s right, isn’t it? Fourteen—minus the eight I gave you last week?”

I nodded yes, and left broken-hearted.

Life gives us lemons—we know what to do

I’m getting some macular degeneration in my right eye.

When I close my left eye and look, it’s like looking at a fun mirror.

Everything is distorted through my right eye. And the distortion moves around when I move my head. Eyes, lips, and foreheads wiggle around.

Watching the talking heads on the news is the most entertaining. They’re saying serious things, but they look like rubber people. “A Senator was arrested today,” sounds even funnier when a rubber person is saying it.

There are others. 

With just my right eye Conan’s head looks even weirder. Same thing with Kelsey Grammer’s head. It’s the most fun with people with large foreheads—and for some reason, John Boehner.

I’m guessing people who smoke pot and have macular degeneration must have really wild visions.

I know, I know. I wrote “visions” on purpose.

When I’m sculpting, I don’t have to wonder what a shape might look like if it were a little more curved. I just use my right eye and move my head around until I see the shape that’s most attractive, then open my left eye and carve it. That’s making lemonade out of lemons, right?   

And sometimes there’s a little dark spot in the middle of my vision.

I saw a little bug on the brick floor in our living room today, so I stepped on it.

It wasn’t there.

A little later I came back and there it was again, the same little dark bug. So I stepped on it again.

Same result.

What’s with the British?

They serve their beer warm and their toast cold.

What’s that all about? Does anybody know?

And while we’re on the subject, who invented toast?

There should be a national holiday in his or her name.

It should be on a Saturday.

What’s better than warm toast with butter in the morning?

You got that, Brits?

Vivé La Albuquerque

We went to a French Bistro the other evening. The food was wonderful.

The atmosphere was charming. The music was wartime French—WWII.

And the man who waited on us spoke with a lovely French accent.

We’re pretty sure he’s the owner.

“Where are you from?” my wife asked.

“From Paris,” he answered.

“You came to Albuquerque from Paris. Why did you leave Paris?” she asked.

“Too many French,” he replied.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Corporate morals

Do major universities have a morals course for business majors?

If they do, it sure doesn’t seem to stick with them.

When these future captains of industry were children, their parents and teachers taught them not to hit other children; not to be mean; not to steal, and most other ‘not to do’s’ to help them through their young lives.

It seems that’s where it ended.

It would appear, from the outside at least, that Wall Street and the banking business are only about making money.

When did the moral part of the equation break down?

Did it disappear when these young people left home and went to college?

Right after college?

Does it disappear on the first spreadsheet in business?

There’s probably no box on a spreadsheet to mark for “moral.”

Maybe it’s the first business plan, the first year in the corporate world.

Shouldn’t there be a moral compass beyond what parents can give their kids?

Vince Lombardy said, “Wining isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Or something close to that. He was celebrated for saying it, and he never cheated, that we know of.

Other coaches took it to the business level; winning at any cost.

One in particular won by cheating. I didn’t give a crap; it was football.

But is Gordon Gecko the business standard?

“Making money isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Is that it?

Whatever happened to “enlightened self interest?”

I know Gordon said, “Greed is good,” or something close to that. You get the drift.

The point is; the lack of morals in business and banking affects more than football fans; it affects us all.

Sorry, didn’t mean to be unfunny.       

New Deli—not New York

We went to a new deli yesterday, to see if it was anything like a New York deli.

I ordered a corned beef sandwich on rye, with mustard, and a pickle.

The guy at the counter asked; “Would you like lettuce and tomato on it?”

“No thank you. Just corned beef and mustard, on rye, thanks.”

“Would you like cheese?” he asked.

“No. Just corned beef and mustard, thanks.”

“Would you like some mayonnaise on that?” he inquired.

“No. Just Mustard. No mayo.”

“And cheese?”

“No. No thank you. Just corned beef and a little mustard.”       

“Something to drink?” he inquired.

“A Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda.” I answered. (Very New York.)

“We don’t have that.”

“Fine. A Diet Coke.”

“No cheese?”

“Just corned beef.” I said.

“Okay.”

“On rye, with mustard. And a pickle.”

“You got it,” he said.

I sat down and waited. It came toasted.

Junk e-mail

The best part about junk e-mail is that when we delete it, it doesn’t end up in a landfill, or have to be recycled in one fashion or another. It shoots off into space.

Or does it? What if, as the really smart physicists say, no energy is ever lost, just redistributed in one form or another? What then?

Are we going to discover a giant, planet-sized ball of e-waste floating in space—right outside our atmosphere?

Is that giant ball of propa-sales-ganda-pitch-special-e-gook going to reach critical mass, coalesce, and come crashing back to earth to bury us all in an electronic maelstrom-hurricane-e-flood? Wiping out all thought and reason?

Oh, wait. We already have that. We call it television news.