Lingering Aroma

Just to be straight with you, dear readers, I don't care one whit whether you smoke dope or not. Your choice. The truth is I've come to the point that I think even drugs beyond marijuana should be legalized, the whole kit and kaboodle. We spend too much money fighting them and our prisons are too crowded with drug offenders. Legalize the whole lot of them and then treat them like alcohol abusers, busting those who drive high and so forth. Yet none of that means I don't cast a scornful eye on outrageous drug use.

Last Monday morning at 10 o'clock I had two young plumbers (or guys who pass themselves off as plumbers) pull up to the Shop, needing a chuck on their drain cleaning machine. Fine. I put on the part and took their money. But they were not only higher than kites, their van emitted enough smoke that you may have thought it on fire. When they opened the sliding door to bring their machine in, literal clouds of smoke poured out of the vehicle. If you've seen, I believe it's the comedy Scary Movie, you would have an idea what I mean. In that film, at one point a group of teens were smoking so much weed that their car looked like a cloud had been contained inside.

The van these fellows drove was very nearly like that. It was as though they'd picked up a cloud and were showing it the sights.

I can't believe that anyone would let them into their house to snake a drain. Further, I can't imagine the kind of house which would allow them in, although apparently they exist. 

And all this at 10 AM on a Monday. I couldn't wait for them to go away. The next three customers, spread out over about an hour, remarked on the smell of weed in my Shop afterwards. It was that bad. Bad enough that my conscience wonders if maybe I should have gotten their license plate and called the cops.

Yeesh. Could you at least try to be professional?

A Grand Night Out

Yesterday I was at the UPS Store to ship a bunch of drain snake cutters to a customer in Glennie, MI. The young man at the counter goes, "Oh wow! My family has a vacation home in Glennie! Ever been there?" he asks.

I tell him I've driven through it (it's about 3 hours north of Detroit) but that's all.

"You better like fishing because that's all you can do there," he comments.

I mention that I think it's close to a little city on Lake Huron called Tawas. "It is, about twenty minutes," the guy confirms. Then he adds with a wry smile, "Tawas is where the people in Glennie go for a night on the town!"

New York City and Chicago must not hold a candle to Tawas, then.

Self Analysis

I've long held to the standard that you aren't the best judge of your self, your motives, or your actions.  You're either too harsh - especially if you're Catholic, ha, ha - or too lenient. Indeed I will editorialize for a moment and say that unfettered leniency is the hallmark of the secular world, and look where that's gotten us. Still, know thyself, the unexamined life is not worth living, and all that. You should examine the things you've said and done, and probably more the things you've said as they might be the best window into your soul. And when you're trying to establish yourself as a writer, you discover very quickly that you've put a lot on the public record.

On the whole I like what I've written. Yet that doesn't mean I don't appreciate reasonable criticism. With five books available on various platforms and with each having garnered anywhere from 40 to 180 reviews, some brief, some extensive, I almost - almost - find the critical ones the most fair.

A more routine negative comment is that my writing is at times a slog. I could get angry, except that it's true. Sometimes I'm just bridging a gap because I couldn't figure out how else to jump from A to B and it shows. 

I've been advised that it can be hard to stay interested in my stories, and I know that to be true. My personal favorite book of mine is A Subtle Armageddon. Yet even I must concede that it drags at points. I think that story has to drag a bit, given the parameters inherent within the tale, but so it goes. 

Ah well. Before I go on too long (quiet, Ron) here's what I'm about today: links to my books. Buy them. If you are into examining your motives, you'll find that you've occasionally spent your time less wisely than in helping an aspiring author rise among the greats. Yes, that's cheeky. We writers can do that.

A Subtle Armageddon

Michael's Story (Kindle)

Michael's Story (paperback)

The Interim Generation (Kindle only)

David Gideon (all formats)

The Sublime to the Ridiculous - Family Lore (Kindle only)

Joe Wasn't Worried

I spoke yesterday about picking up drain snakes from Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) this past Tuesday. As it were, me Grandpa Joe picked up parts for Dad a time or two. Once in particular led to a bit of honest concern.

You think I drive rattletraps? Those who know Joe know I don't hold a candle to him on that count. That old man drove a few vehicles which should never have been on the streets. He took one one day, towing a trailer behind it, to Electric Eel to get some stuff. I don't remember which one it was. But it made an impression, a decidedly negative one, on Dick Hale, the owner of Eel at the time.

Mr. Hale was no stranger to risk and no coward, being a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. But when he saw what Joe was piloting, Mr. Hale was sincerely worried about Grandpa's safety. So much so that he called me Pops later in the day to be sure Joe made it home all right.

Dad thought it was funny. Joe just said, "Aw hell."

Loading Zone

We, me brother Phil and I, had a huge amount of drain snakes and accessories to pick up at Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) yesterday. It was so big that about halfway through the loading process I began to think about what I could afford to leave behind for a later, return trip. I wasn't sure we could pack it all in the cargo van we had rented for the purpose. Then I thought, "Dad could do it. Dad would be able to figure out had to load everything."

From that point forward, that van was getting every single part of my order on board. It was going to happen. No doubt about it.

We began studying the problems involved in what had become the jigsaw puzzle within the cargo space of the van. A rearrangement here, a couple of small boxes slotted into tiny spots, a reminder that what had to come out first had to be left by the back doors, slide a few things behind seats, and plain old stubbornness led to - ta da! - getting that entire order on board for the remainder of the trip, to Indianapolis and Detroit respectively.

Dad could do it. In fact, Dad did.

Never The Twain

I don't whether I'm going for incredulity or curmudgeonly with this one. We'll all see as I hammer onto my keyboard.

Yesterday I sold some cables to a perfectly nice young man. I'd say he was 25 or so. He's been to the Shop before, and always calls me sir or Mr. Cosgriff. He never argues price, simply buying what he needs. The guy never gives me grief about cost or service.

Yet he plays his music loud from his work van and leaves it on all the time he's in the old barn. The lyrics are always vile and disgusting and blasting right in front of my place of business. Interestingly too his dog is aways with him, a tiny lap dog of some kind, smaller than a chihuahua. He lets it run all around the Shop barking and yapping. It's never really in the way; indeed it's nice enough to me. Yet it's highly incongruent to the music. That, and the fact that the customer is himself huge, hulking over the toy dog.

That's admittedly unimportant.  To the other stuff, I doubt I ever will but part of me wants to say to this young man, "You're so nice and considerate. Why do you listen to that terrible music and blast it out for the whole neighborhood to hear? You're better than that." 

I genuinely like him. He was buying cables because he'd lost all of his in a broken sewer. I honestly felt bad for him when he told me that. I mean, yes, I make money selling drain snake cables. Yet that doesn't mean I revel in someone's ill fortune. 

Still, the loud, terrible music. I simply have trouble understanding how the two things fit together: nice and considerate all around except for that. It's just beyond me.

Cartoon Monday

Did you know that Mr. Magoo is a graduate of Rutgers University? Indeed he is. Class of 1928.

Bugs Bunny is an American Grey Rabbit by species.

Similarly, Daffy Duck is an American Black Duck.

But Porky Pig is simply a domestic pig.

Woody Woodpecker is a pileated woodpecker. I don't know what that means either.

Tom from Tom and Jerry is a domestic shorthair cat. Jerry is simply a pest. But man, he can dance. Ask Gene Kelly.

Would you like to know more? Well, not today from me. This is as far as I got in my research.

Foggy Morning

I, as so many elderly, am a weather wonk. I look up whether it's going to be raining, snowing, or sunny on March 10 even as I know there's no way that, when March 10 actually arrives, the current forecast will hold. But I check it anyway.

This morning for Detroit I was informed we'd have freezing fog, whatever that is. And I mean whatever that is, because I never heard the term before. So I looked it up.

It's fog which freezes when it touches cold surfaces.

You know, I kinda imagined something more dramatic. 

The Lady in Line

I found myself in line yesterday at a Dollar General behind a woman with a full shopping cart, and there was only one cash register open. I knew this would delay me, but so it goes. She got there first and that's that. 

That didn't annoy me so much, really. What annoyed me was when she began placing her items before the cashier for scanning. "I want to stop at $30," the shopper told the young woman.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You filled your shopping cart as you browsed about the store, obviously speeding past the amount you could afford. You couldn't have kept a basic running count as you put things into the basket? You couldn't decide before you were at the checkout what items you wanted? 

It was rude and inconsiderate. The thing is, though, I ended up feeling kind of sorry for the woman. Judging by her speech and actions, I'm not sure how responsible for herself she really was. I was left with the impression that she honestly didn't understand the totality of what she was doing. 

It left me unsure what to think. I believe we make a mistake to completely absolve folks of such behavior lest personal responsibility be thrown overboard. Yet I don't know hiw accountable such people can be. Demanding too much when they perhaps can't help themselves may be too strident. Yet expecting nothing at all of them seems to me an affront to their dignity on another level. It amounts to pandering, to treating them as beyond hope of becoming better people. 

I'm just thinking out loud here. But they're thoughts I do think we do need to think.

Pure Copper

Whenever me Grandpa Joe would scrap out a fried arc welder he would toss the stripped copper into a 55 gallon drum. When the drum was filled, it was me Pops' job from early on to take it to the scrap yard.

The scrap yard they frequented was owned by an old gentleman. When Dad would go to put the drum on the scale the old man would ask him, "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" He would motion with an upward pointer at the beginning, turning it down until he was pointing at the floor when he finished his question.

"Yes, sir," me Pops would always answer. He would add, "I can dump it onto the floor to show you."

Holding the palm of his right hand up as though to stop Dad in his tracks the man would reply, "Your word is enough."

This happened every time, me Pops often related, that he took copper out to scrap. "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" "Your word is enough."

Dad wondered if perhaps it was some form of ritual, simple habit, or the owner's way of letting you know that he trusted you while being sure of what he was getting. Or maybe he simply believed in believing in people.

Well, a man's word should be his bond, right?

Let's Do

I visited my doctor yesterday for a routine checkup. All right, visited may not be quite the right word. It's isn't like we threw steaks on the grill and hoisted a few, you know.

"You haven't had a tetanus shot in awhile. Let's get a tetanus shot," the Doc told me.

He talks like that when he thinks I need something, but he never joins me. 'Let's see a cardiologist' or 'Let's go get four quarts of blood drawn' or 'Let's get bonked on the head with a mallet' he'll say. Yet it's always only me.

I didn't mind so much until the mallet thing. 

Nah, Nobody'll Notice

Several years ago me brother Phil had the opportunity to repair a drain snake cable. I don't recall where me or me Pops were that day, but so it goes.

The man brings in a large cage type snake to have an end installed on a cable he had broken. It's important to know that the unit was cage style, because that means you could see approximately how much cable was in it. The particular machine Phil dealt with had a capacity of 100 feet of 3/4 inch cable. This too is important to understand.

There was around 20 feet of cable in the machine, me brother guessed. "I can put an end on that, but it's really not enough to work with on main sewer lines," Phil advised the guy.

"But you can do it?" he said. Being told it can certainly be done, he instructed Phil to do it. So Phil did, and the man paid him.

Me brother went outside to help him load the machine onto his pickup truck. Then the man let the truth come out. "I rented this from a place and lost over 80 feet of cable in a sewer, so that's why I wanted you to put an end on it. Do you think they'll notice?"

Phil had to stifle a laugh. "I imagine they will," he opined, in as kindly a manner as he possible

What do you think? I bet you'd notice it was missing. Things like that are pretty obvious.

Marty's Retirement

We've had odd ways of being paid at the Shop. One invoice was settled in all ten dollar bills. Another involved $1890 in singles. One fella paid me Pops in two dollar bills all the time, every time. But we were never paid in quarters until yesterday.

This particular client, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has been a royal pest, a total nuisance, for as long as I can remember. He became so bad we threw him out about thirty years ago with a vow to never do business with him again. We eventually relented. No good deed...

Anyhow, he owed me a hundred fifty bucks for a cable installation. "I only got quarters, Marty. Can I pay you in quarters?" Sure, fine, anything to get Cloyce out of my hair, at least for the moment.

He came in an hour later with the change in a bag. Unrolled. "There's only a hundred, Marty, I'm sorry, but I need my machine. Can I bring you back fifty?" Yes, all right, fine. Just get out of here.

When I got home last night I decided to go ahead and roll the quarters. There was $89.80. Not only was Cloyce short, one of his 'quarters' was a nickel.

So you know what? I'm retiring, effective immediately. For Cloyce only. I even edited my phone so that his number will come up Cloyce I'm retired. He better enjoy that machine, because from where I sit this morning I will never work on his stuff again.

Doesn't he owe you $60.20, Marty? Indeed he does. But I'm certain he'll forget about it and will argue he paid in full when he tries to come back again, and to be rid of him for sixty bucks in this day and age is a bargain, a price I'll pay without thinking twice. I shouldn't have ever allowed him back in the door in the first place.

The First, and Last, Place I Looked

Please tell me this has happened to you. Please tell me I'm not the only one.

I needed a distributor tube to finish a snake repair. Don't worry about what it is, just trust me it's essential and that I had to have it. When I began fixing the drain machine it came from I had set the thing aside for when I could reassemble said snake.

Saturday I was all ready to finish that repair. I could not find that tube anywhere. Ninety minutes of searching came up with zilch, zero, nada. Finally surrendering to the omnipotent forces of drain snake repair I decided to leave it to Monday. Well, after I tripped over some junk which should not have been there to trip over and skinned up my left knee pretty bad. But that story is for another day. You've done that too I'm sure.

I opened the old barn at 6:30 this morning to put out an APB on that distributor tube. May as well start early, I figured, because if I don't find it by 8 I'll just have to go to the parts house and get a replacement on my dime. Right is right, eh?

The first place I looked was the top drawer on my work bench. But it's not there. It cannot possibly be there. That's the first place I looked on Saturday.

It was there. 

How in the name of all that is good and holy could I have overlooked it? It wasn't hidden, wasn't buried under the flotsam and jetsam which hides so much in the Shop. It. Was. Right. There.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who's done that. Please.

Spam Spam Spam Spam Unlovely Spam

I get a ton of email. Of course, I have four active accounts. That undoubtedly uh, accounts for much of it. But if I were to guess, I'd say between them all there's around 100 or so new emails each day.

They're nearly all junk. I get messages from websites that I likely had a vague interest in yet they pester me as though their business depends on mine. Many of them are book promotion entrepreneurs, all of whom assure me I'll have the next Amazon best seller with a blockbuster movie deal if I simply give them mucho dinero. A lot are for senior products, unsurprising given my age. Many are from companies I dealt with once yet can't let go of the hope I'll buy from them again one day. The sales firm where I bought one heater for the old barn in 2017 comes to mind.

About the only email box which rarely explodes of a morning is my business one, which I guard closely exactly because of that. I don't want to neglect a client or prospect merely because they get buried in numbers.

But there is a point to which I'm happy it's all emails. I'd be swimming in paper if it were all traditional snail mail. The vast majority of email solicitations I can simply delete. I could build a funeral pyre if it were all print copies of nonsense. All that would make is a great send off one day. 

On Time For My Non-Appointment

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. Well, at least I thought I did. 

I received a text Wednesday reminding me to be at the doctor's office at 8 AM Friday. Try as I may, I couldn't find the paperwork for it; I typically get a sheet telling me who I'm seeing, what's to happen, what to bring, and so on. So, okay, I must have lost it. I resolved to be at the Detroit Medical Center Friday morning.

Having been informed through the text to arrive twenty minutes early, I walked into the lobby at about 7:35. I was told by security, "You can't go up to registration (which was on the second floor) until 7:45." That makes it kind of hard to be 20 minutes early for an 8 o'clock appointment, but so it goes.

Allowed upstairs promptly at 7:45, I was called by a clerk to her workstation. I presented my driver's license as I.D. Typing into her computer the woman remarked, "Um, you just had a sonogram of your heart January 9, Mr. Cosgriff."

"Yeah, I know that," I replied.

"This says you have one scheduled today. I can't imagine why." She paused. "Maybe I should check before processing your appointment."

A few minutes later she returned. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Cosgriff. We scheduled this appointment inadvertently. Your sonogram was great and you don't need another." She paused again. "The med tech said she called and left you a message about it."

"Oh, I must have missed it, I suppose." I took my cell from my coat pocket, where I had left it on silent to not disturb anyone during registration or while seeing the doctor. Pulling up the call log I noted that the med tech had indeed left a voicemail. At 7:46 that very morning. 

Why even bother by that, uh, time? You're calling me at that late point to tell me I don't have to show? Where do you think I'd be fourteen minutes before an appointment that I was expected to arrive twenty minutes ahead of (even though I couldn't register until fifteen minutes before)? Just tell me when I get there. It's what happened anyway.

So while I had no necessary appointment, my heart had a workout just the same.

Pacino? Really?

A reviewer was kind enough to say the following about my book Michael's Story:

I liked it. A lot of original thinking in here. The color coding -- although that doesn't begin to explain it -- was a unique touch. And reading the prose I didn't get the impression that it was written by a machine. Recommended.

A lot of original thinking? I'm really not sure that's the case, but thank you. It doesn't seem to be written by a machine; I must say I'm very glad to hear that! Charlie Gehringer was Detroit's true Mechanical Man, not I. Recommended; thanks again! Yet perhaps the most interesting observation this reviewer had, and I cut it from the actual review so as to hold it back for effect, "The book is like Al Pacino: short but intense." An interesting quip, I must say.

Is Michael's Story actually like Pacino? Find out here for Kindle or here for print copies.

Penny For Your Thoughts

I had to be out early the other morning (you know, the other morning), so I went the drive through route for a quick breakfast. My change was to be $7.30 after I gave the attendant a twenty. "I don't have any pennies. Is that okay?"

"Fine," I replied. I don't why she felt she had to tell me that, though, seeing as the quarter and nickel she handed me for the thirty cents literally, uh, foot the bill for my change.

She probably has gotten used to telling that to most everyone I'm sure. Perhaps management insists upon it. Still, the instant she apologized about the lack of cents (a pun!) I did find myself thinking, what's that to me, given the circumstances? Oh well.

The Best Time

I'll admit up front that I was a bit cranky yesterday. Okay, I was a lot cranky. Being under the weather didn't help.

Yesterday was not a good day. Everything which could go wrong, as the saying goes, did go wrong. Consequently I wasn't in the mood for intellectual lightweights.

So of course one called. I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. 

The conversation began easily enough. "Can I come in tomorrow morning and buy some cables, Cosgriff?"

"Sure. We open at 9."

"So what's a good time to come in?" Cloyce then asked.

In exasperation, my head dropped to my chest; my eyes closed. I took a deep breath. "Anytime after 9 is fine, Cloyce."

He persisted, "So what time, Cosgriff?"

"Ten Thirty-Two and Fifty Four seconds," I mouthed off, off the top of my head and into the cell, perturbed.

"What time?"

"10:32:54."

"Oh. So tomorrow about Noon?" 

I wanted to hit my own head with a mallet. Several times. "Yes. Noon is fine," I answered, gritting my teeth.

He better get here.

Ill at Ease

My apologies, friends, but I have some kind of bug and am having trouble making myself blog. Yet I don't want you to worry, so here's my modest effort today. Hopefully there'll be more, and better, tomorrow!

New Theater, Old Movie

I went to the Senate Theater in Detroit last night. It's an older neighborhood theater on Michigan Avenue in the southwest side, and is being rehabbed by a group of volunteers. I was simply curious to check it out, it having been around since 1926. Old architecture is always interesting.

The evening began with an organ recital on the massive instrument which originally was to accompany silent films as they ran. The music was indeed spectacular, in a carnival sort of way. That's not an insult; it was fun. But the music was a bit over the top.

Then came the feature: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley Kubrick directed. It has its moments, but, like the organ recital, was decidedly over the top. 

I suppose that was part of the point. Yet I can't escape the feeling that it's the sort of movie we're supposed to like because we're supposed to like it. A 1960s bit of Hollywood telling us what to think, it seemed. I walked away thinking that Strangelove was a film with a reputation which is beyond its real value. Think Psycho. Not Hitchcock's best, but a showy piece of cinema.

Still, I think I'll go back again. They're offering Buster Keaton's silent Our Hospitality on April 11, with organ accompaniment. I've never been to a silent with the full treatment, so I figure it's worth a look.