This started out as a post about a recent lunch with a colorful old friend that devolved into one of my rants about… well, never mind. That’s all water under the bridge. Suffice it to say, while the original title was “Benefit of the Doubt,” no amount of repetition of that phrase (even under the thinly veiled guise of satire) could change the fact that I was judging my friend a bit harshly.
OK, OK, a lot harshly. When my wife read it, she had just one laconic, devastating pronouncement: “Not very nice, is it?” The teacher eyebrows, that frown: Uh-oh. I’m back in second grade here. It’s gonna be clapping erasers after class. Or detention. Or worse. Yep. I’m busted.
Let it never be said that we here at dewconsulting.net/blog are anything but nice. In fact, let me take this opportunity to sincerely apologize – to my wife, to my old friend, and most importantly, to anyone who feels the immediate need to take cover in a backyard bomb shelter whenever I wheel out the satirical howitzers. My bad. To make amends, I’m revising this post under the same title. Though if I were starting from scratch, I’d probably call it “Wear & Tear.” Or maybe “Second Grade.” How about “3 Mottos & a Keurig?” Whatever. As is often my custom in these pages, let me just say this:
Read on… if you dare.
A long flight out of DEN back to SMF last night threatened to get a whole lot longer when two things happened that ended up cancelling each other out. The first was that the TSA guys decided to send me through screening twice when they discovered that the Keurig coffee maker in my carry-on (I’d picked it up for next to nothing at our neighborhood recycling center just the day before) contained within it a 14 oz. internal reservoir – full of liquid – that’s separate from the one you see and fill on the outside. Who knew? In today’s post-9-11 world, of course, that liquid translates into a big TSA no-no.
After politely introducing himself, the TSA supervisor (Toby) offered to let me use the Philips-head on his key ring to try and get the thing apart to drain out the water. Otherwise I’d have to ditch the Keurig. (Not. Gonna. Happen.) Or, worst case scenario, I’d have to go back to the ticket counter, check my carry on, and probably miss my flight. After fiddling around for 15 minutes or so, I gave up. Because while the Keurig Company may make a damn fine coffee machine, they don’t make ’em easy to tear apart. At least it’s not so easy in an airport full of harried travelers when your only tool is a borrowed screwdriver on a key ring, and Toby is peering over your shoulder intent on finding the hidden detonator.
Lucky for us all…
Severe weather in the Midwest delayed the arrival of our “equipment” (gotta love that peculiar airline term!). So, my second trip through the TSA line – after checking the bag containing the Keurig at the Frontier counter – turned out to be strictly no-harm-no-foul. I even had time before our delayed departure for some fried rice at Panda Express on concourse A: Lucky me. So, as I said before, my personal coffee-maker delay and the airline’s weather delay ended up canceling each other out. Other than the $50 fee for a last-minute checked bag – Frontier charges for absolutely everything – I was happy as a lark. Happy as a clam? I never can figure out which of those metaphors to use. Ah well, I’m a mediocre (and frustrated) writer at best. But that’s another post for another day. Which you will NOT be reading here. Because I’ve taken it down. Okay, Honey?
Ahem.
My Airbnb guest, Mikaela, had been at my place for two weeks and I hadn’t heard a peep. No news is good news, right? That’s my motto at least. Then, the night before my flight back to Sac, she called in a panic. In fact, she sounded so flustered it was hard to decipher exactly what she was trying to say. But finally I figured out she was saying she needed to leave a day early because there had been a death in the family. Oh, and also? She’d driven her car into my garage door. “I’ll pay for the damage,” she promised, tearfully.
It wasn’t entirely clear to me at this point whether she’d driven her car all the way through my garage door? Or whether maybe it was merely a dent and a scratch? Either way, no sense fretting over the uncontrollable. That’s my other motto. I told her not to worry, we’d work it out after I got back. I’d have a look, call Carmine ( my handyman), see what he thought, and get back with her. “Go to your funeral. Have a nice day!”
There. See? What’d I tell you? Here at dewconsulting.net/blog, it’s “all nice, all the time.” Well, with maybe a tiny tinge of acid. But just a tinge. A tincture. A soupçon. (Note to self: Must use one of these in a Word of the Day post, pronto!).
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We landed in a driving rain storm at SMF two hours past our original ETA. I walked out to the curb and hopped in a SuperShuttle with 4 other people. Some of them had been waiting around for quite some time. On the ground, as in the air, bad weather will do that to you. “Next time I’m taking Uber,” the bulky gruff guy up front in the shotgun seat grumbled, grimly facing forward. “Shared ride? HA!”
Me, I don’t really care how many stops we’re making because I’m close enough to the airport, I’m almost always first off. So, I was – paradoxically – in a relatively good mood. I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me, here from China to visit his daughter. Turns out, my daughter’s back from China recently too, so we had a nice talk about daughters. Also about the surveillance state lurking behind the great economic behemoth of the Far East. Hey, when it comes to casual conversation with fellow travelers, go deep or go home: Yet another motto of mine.
In the full light of day…
Damage to the garage door turns out to be not so bad. Bang out the dent, touch up some paint, it’ll look good as new. I probably won’t even need to call Carmine. But I am gonna charge her $50 for the hassle, the wear-and-tear. That’ll offset my checked bag charge on the Keurig, see.
Hey, we may be nice around here. And people do deserve the benefit of the doubt. But let’s not forget: Business is business. And we’re not in second grade any more.