My Observations, While Walking Around The Neighborhood












Your Recommended Oatmeal

I was getting tea at the Quick-Chek convenience store and noticed a sign showing Quaker Oats’s “Recommended” method for preparing instant oatmeal. Their formula, and I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera so I could get this down exactly and be escorted out by the clerks, had three steps: first, put a packet of instant oatmeal powder in the bowl; second, add up to a half cup of hot water into the bowl; and finally, stir. Those with long memories will remember this is one step more than was required to set up the original late-90s Snoopy-helmet-style iMacs.

I see what they’re doing by listing this as just their “recommendation”, though. They imply they are open to other concepts in instant oatmeal preparation. Perhaps they even mean it, but I have doubts. Can I be sure that, if I were to soak my oatmeal with three-fifths of a cup of hot water some alert Quaker Oats representative among the Quick-Chek staff wouldn’t race over and slap the bowl out of my hands, crying, “You mad fool!” and shake her head, mournfully? Of course not. Or if I refused to stir it, trusting instead that the inevitable entropic heat-death of the universe would, someday, eventually make itself felt in a bowl of uniformly mushy, cold oatmeal? Would they take some action against me, especially if it isn’t a 24-hour convenience store? I feel certain they’d never let me get away with skipping out on the bowl. Maybe they’d let me go with not putting the oatmeal powder in, but I bet they’d gossip about me.

So I’m tempted. Maybe someday when I’m just about to leave town for months and they won’t be able to follow me.

Rethinking Money (Again)

You know, now that we have the whole idea of putting money in different denominations on the table, I realize there’s no need to reduce it to powers-of-two the way computer programmers think makes sense. Really any set of relatively prime numbers will do just fine in terms of being able to make amounts of money you really don’t need, because the charge at most convenience stores is $2.92 if you’re there at breakfast time, $11.25 if you’re there in the afternoon or evening picking up a few things, and at the fast food place is pretty much going to be $7.14 for lunch plus another $1.42 if you go back for a McFlurry after.

So since we’re completely free to choose, let me design a set of currency that comes in denominations of 3, 7, 11, 24, 31, and 55 dollars, with additional bills worth negative two, negative thirteen, and negative twenty-nine dollars to make the vending machines happy. That should fix things.

Courtesy Question

Q. I hope you might settle an etiquette question about holding open doors. One need hold the door only five to ten seconds before leaving without being thought rude, according to my pet ferret’s favorite yawn. This feels too short a time to me, as I have been holding open the door at a Wawa convenience store in Zilwaukee, Michigan, while waiting for this couple to decide whether they’re going in or not, since April of 1958. How long should I wait?

A. There are no Wawa stores in Michigan, not until 2019 when one pokes in, confused and looking for the bathroom. If you are certain of your current state, and who is, then we would have to say you should wait six more years at minimum.

I Miss Out On My Wheelbarrow

I was in Walgreen’s, which is not a joke by itself except to the CVS partisans, and noticed by the checkout counter a transparent plastic stand featuring a sign: “FREE!!!!! If we fail to offer you one at the time of purchase.” The stand was empty. The cashier didn’t say a word about it.

What am I supposed to do with a checkout counter transparent plastic stand? I bet the stand is a loss-leader, and they’re hoping to make the real money selling me the Walgreen’s to fit around it. But I’m on to their game. It’ll serve them right if I go to Music Comics instead and buy the stuff to open a Music Comics shop. Although they’ve palmed off some free comics and flyers on me, come to think of it.

Maybe I can open a shop holding nothing but the stuff I’ve got thrown in free from other shops. That’s a good plan. Anything I charge will be pure profit.