Ferengi Plumber

All types of customers have crossed the threshold of the old barn. There's Eeyore, who was always gloomy. Cash Adams, to quote me Grandpa Joe, lived by the axiom of Get Cash, Pay Cash. Joe actually nicknamed Adams that because he didn't trust him; by labelling him 'Cash' Adams he shamed the man into paying up front for everything. California was a plumber who sounded exactly like, and I mean exactly like, Huckleberry Hound. And then there was the Ferengi Drain Cleaner.

For those of you not familiar with the Ferengi, they were meant to be the villains in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were a race of the future, and supremely, bizarrely capitalist, childishly obsessed with money making. They were the epitome of buy low, sell high. They were short, with oversized heads, ears, and bad teeth. They quickly proved too comic to be formidable adversaries for the Starship Enterprise and crew. 

One of them was somehow transported through a time warp to the late Twentieth Century, to become a plumber in Detroit and environs. He had an oversized head, massive ears, and was rather short. He was not bald, however, as our Star Trek, um, enemies were. Ferengi Drain Cleaner had quite a head of hair. So all you Trekkies out there, imagine Quark with an Elvis wig.

He also was manically concerned with getting things on the cheap. Ferengi guy constantly hassled me Pops and me for better prices. We learned through the grapevine though that his own prices were significantly above the curve. All, of course, for his own profit, as any caricature of capitalism would have it.

Ferengi Plumber. He was out of this world. He was out of his mind, too, if you ask me.

The Gaming Generation Gap

Their is a generation gap. It's always existed in one form or another. "You call that Elvis guy a singer? Now Rudy Vallee, that was a singer!" So it's patently false to say it's a recent development. It simply takes different forms.

For myself and my kids, it's in the video games we play. Theirs are all action packed, running around, role playing games with lots of flash and dazzle and sound. Mine are, well, video poker, with nothing at stake except pretend chips earned which have no actual value.

Pacing is everything for all video games. Theirs are, as I've said, running and shooting or racing around in carts as colors and all sorts of images fly by. With online poker, every player gets dealt two cards and then waits patiently for the next deal. Then we take our turns raising, calling, or folding - always patiently - until the next round is done. Then more cards are dealt and more things - patient things, I stress - happen, until someone wins. Absolutely no chance of seizures in video poker, I guarantee you.

Of course, there is action in my games. The background of the poker room changes with the seasons. Currently there's a Christmas train meandering about a simple oval track on a table behind the dealer. It's taking its time, and not difficult at all to spot, such as an enemy hidden behind a boulder would be in the kids' games. So while they're running around defending their turf amidst the flash and brilliance of their games, I sit at mine thinking: "Look! A choo-choo! And you can see the smoke puffing out of the stack on the locomotive!

The generation gap yet exists.