July 25, 2018 Article

The Old Coot wants to be a big tipper.

By Merlin Lessler

You sit down in a restaurant and a waiter comes over and says, “Hi! I’m Bobby, I’ll be your server today.” Big smile! Friendly! You walk into a hospital emergency room and get a different greeting. “How are you going to pay? The restaurant bill will be fifty to one-hundred dollars, less in the places I frequent, since my pallet is based on cheapness. The hospital bill will be twenty times as much as the restaurant bill, so you should get ten to twenty times the friendliness.

Bobby is working on a five to ten-dollar tip. I guess that makes all the difference. The hospital clerk doesn’t get one. Maybe they should. It’s not the clerks fault that the first thing they ask is how are you going to pay. That’s the fault of executive management, who probably never manned an emergency room desk, nor ever had to get in line at one. Nothing unusual about that. Most corporate decision makers never face the front lines that employees do, or ever experience their company’s customer service. If they did, our customer service experiences would surely improve.

Back to the hospital service, these organizations are a special case. They are non-profit, or so they claim when they erect a new multimillion dollar medical facility and apply for a non-profit exemption from real estate taxes. You would think a few customers running out on their bill would help them sustain that non-profit status. Of course, they do make money. How else could they build those new facilities all across the country.

I’m not saying the restaurants have it right. It’s just nicer. I don’t really need Bobby to tell me his name. It does no good, because like everyone else I meet, I immediately forget their name. Besides, they don’t call me by name. I get Sir, or Honey, or sometimes Sweetie at the places I frequent. It’s what happens when you’re an old guy. I call it the “Treat you like a child” approach. I’m not complaining; it helps get you ready for what you’ll be called when it’s nursing home time. When that happens, I’m going to be a big tipper.

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July 18, 2018 Article

The Old Coot goes out for the paper.

By Merlin Lessler

I was at the “Sunday Morning Old Man Grocery Store Club” meeting the other day. We assemble every Sunday at 6 AM. A couple of guys get there earlier, when they have to pick up groceries, but most of us are there for a New York City newspaper. That’s when they are delivered. You can tell the service is underway by how the cars and pick-up trucks are parked in the lot. They all face out of their parking space, so they don’t have to be backed up. We’re back up challenged. And know it!

It’s a men’s only club. I don’t know why. No one excluded women, that’s just the way it is. We’re there for a New York City paper. I’m there for the Times. It takes me an entire week to get through it. Half the time, I have to read it in the garage, because I yell at it, especially when I’m working through the opinion section. But even when I don’t agree with the columnist, I learn something. It’s a vehicle for broadening my outlook and continuing my education.

The store gets three copies of the Times and also a small number of the Daily News. It’s first come, first served. Which is why we’re so prompt in getting there. I bet the customers who arrive later in the day have no idea that these “exotic” big city papers are available.

Every so often, more often than it should, the “paper guy” is late. That’s when you’ll see us circling the parking lot or sitting in our cars, slumped over the wheel, sound asleep. I’m too impatient to wait in the parking lot, so I drive around town to kill time. I use the time to check on what’s going on in the village: who has a ladder leaning against their house (indicating a paint or repair job is underway) or what house has a new “For-sale,” or “Sold,” sign in the front yard. That sort of things. I make sure to swing by the drug store every so often, to see if a paper bundle is sitting in a heap by the front door. It means the “paper-guy” is on his way to the grocery store, since it’s his next stop. When he gets out of his van, we gather around and follow him inside, trying to make small talk, "Glad you made it.” - “Run into traffic today?” No matter what we say, all we get in return is a grunt. I don’t think he likes his job. Or us!

We get the cashier to open the bundles, but first we have to find her; she’s in the aisles returning stuff that people decided not to buy. It keeps her busy, since so few people come to the store that early on a Sunday morning. We grab our paper and get in line, nodding or saying, “Mornin,” to each other. We’re like a family, in a way, but we don’t know each other’s names. Still, we’re a close-knit group who meet most every Sunday morning and go through our newspaper buying ritual. Anybody can attend; we’re non-denominatial. Just don’t come late! You won’t get a paper.

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July 11, 2018 Article

The Old Coot overheats!

By Merlin Lessler

We’ve just survived a heat wave. The temperature has to be over 90 degrees for three days in a row to be sanctioned as a heat wave by the US Weather Service. I’m not sure we did that, but I’m not that technical, so I’m calling it a heat wave. The gloom machine started working on it a week or so ahead of time. “It’s coming. Heat! Mugginess. The sky is falling,” as Henny Penny would say. “Six more days till doomsday! Five! Four! Three! Two! TOMORROW! “Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”

Somewhere in that warning period, before Armageddon arrived, they started giving us advice: drink plenty of water – stay in the shade or air-conditioned spaces – do your outside chores or exercise routine early in the day.  Apparently, the weather people, and the news people, think we’ve never experienced hot, muggy weather before. That’s surprising, since it is summer, and this sort of thing happens here every year. Anyone over seven years old (the supposed age of reason) knows what to expect and how to handle it.

It wasn’t bad enough that the temperature got over ninety degrees, THEY (the media and forecasters) had to make it sound worse. They threw in the temperature/humidity index. “Your thermometer will show 95 today, but it will feel like 107. They do the same thing in the winter. “Think 20 degrees is cold? Well, when you factor in the wind/chill effect, it will feel like 3 degrees below zero.” THEY, work hard to make us fear the weather. Before it gets here – while it is here – and after it has passed.

It used to be so simple – weather just happened. The weather man was around, but he (and, it was always a he back then) usually got it wrong and nobody paid much attention to the forecast. Not anymore! Heck, the media is overrun with meteorologists focused on scarring the bejesus out of us. I guess they figure we will stay tuned and they can sell more ads.  And, as though that’s not bad enough, we are saddled with The Weather Channel, working 24/7 and the U.S. Weather Service who take control of our TV sets to announce an impending doom, often with alerts about conditions out of our area. You have to cover your ears to muffle the annoying loud screech they use before and after each announcement.

OK, big deal, so we had a heat wave. I wish they would make a single forecast to cover the entire year.  Summer = Hot, Winter = cold, Spring and Fall= a little of both. And, I wish they would calm down the Henny Penny Routine. The sky isn’t falling – it’s just an acorn dropping to the ground. And, thus ends my old coot weather rant, for the 13th time in 13 years. I guess I need to get over it, or seek professional help.

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July 4, 2018 Article

The Old Coot won’t give it up. Well, maybe?

By Merlin Lessler

I’m at that age where people ask, “When are you going to give up driving?” Now mind you, they haven’t ridden with me or witnessed any driving oddities to provoke the question. Their inquiry is simply based on how I look. OLD. I usually answer with a joke, and say, “After I run over a couple of pedestrians or hit the gas instead of the brake and drive into the south wall of John’s Fine Foods.   

The real answer is, “NEVER!” Followed up with an affirmation, like that used by people defending their second amendment rights, when they say you’ll get their gun when you pry it out of their cold dead hand. In my case, it’s the steering wheel you’ll have to pry out of my hand. Driving is one of the few things I have left. So what if I miss a red light now and then. Look at all the people who race through red lights on a regular basis, and most of them are young. Well, younger than I am anyhow.  So what if I get in the passing lane on a highway and never leave until I come to my exit. I’m not hurting anyone.

I would agree to a compromise about my driving. I’d be willing to mount a flashing, multi-color warning light on the roof of my car, to signal to the world that a senior citizen (I prefer being called old man, not senior citizen) is at the wheel. So, beware! That way, you can take steps to avoid my rare missteps. Just don’t blow your horn; it will jar me out of my stupor and I’ll veer into the next lane. And, don’t follow to close, no matter if I’m going 25 in a 45 MPH zone. If you do, be prepared to stop quickly, because I’m going to slam on my brakes to get you off my tail. I don’t know why; it’s just what old coots do.

Don’t blink your lights when I’m coming toward you with my high beams on. I know they’re on.  I need them to see. It’s another one of those, “They don’t make them like they used to,” things. And they don’t. Today’s headlights are dim and get dimmer every day of a car’s life because of that cheap plastic shield that turns opaque in front of that stupid little bulb that costs so much and does so little. Where was I before I got sidetracked? Oh yeah, when am I going to give up driving? Probably right after my wife reads this and takes away the keys. It’s not that hard to pry things out of an old, “live” hand.

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