Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll takes note: NOT MY WORLD ANY MORE. She writes:

You begin to get a hint that the World thinks you are nearing the end of your tenure here when your mail consists largely of Hearing Aid ads, Walk-In Tubs and Cremation literature. It’s startling when you feel much younger and more alive than that. So a certain percentage of people apparently believe it’s time for you to move on, but the real shocker is when you begin to wonder if they aren’t right.

I suppose everyone who lives long enough experiences that moment when it becomes clear that it’s not their world anymore. Sometimes, it’s really BIG things – like your senescent, creepy, lying, corrupt Pedo-dent calling YOU – a righteous, elderly Jewish woman who has never done a single totalitarian or discriminatory thing in her entire very long life! — a “semi-Fascist.”

Why is the weasel word “semi” attached? It seems to me from a cursory glance at the historical record that being a “Fascist” is one of those “all-in” or “not at all” kinds of categories, like either being pregnant or not. But every single member of Team Biden is a blithering idiot – not a “semi-idiot” — so we have to make allowances. And the Team is led by a man who can’t remember for five seconds whether or not he has shaken hands with a person or how to get offstage without Dr. Mommy taking him by the hand. Who saw THIS coming?

His Mop-Top Kewpie Doll spokescretin explained that what Team Biden means by dangerous Ultra MAGA people is “if you don’t agree with the majority on any given issue, then you are an ‘extremist.’” That’s a direct quote, amigos. Sigh. In fact, “ten thousand million” sighs. Hey, you serfs, never for a moment forget that these people are our betters when most of them aren’t qualified to ask, “Would you like to see that shoe in taupe or black?”

I do not enjoy being called vile names. The last time a bitter hag called me a “Deplorable” (a terrible type of person she claimed hangs out in a basket, of all places…) and accused me of every bad thing on the “Ist List” – “racist,” “sexist,” you know the thing – I responded thusly in my third compilation book entitled Ammo Grrrll Returns Fire. I rarely quote myself, but I think this bears repeating:

“Hillary, you basket case of incompetence, lies, and incompetent lying; you burping Tupperware container of influence peddling, fee gouging and charity fraud; you rasping, coughing, plus-size pants suit of prevarication; you muffin-top of mendacity; you boring bin of dingbattery who sold a quarter of our uranium to Putin; you pathetic, insecure woman whose major claim to historic import is being born with female genitalia: SHUT UP!”

Fellow Deplorables may remember with unbridled joy that SHE LOST. And the name-calling was probably a significant part of the reason. It was one of the highlights of my life, right up there with the 1987 and 1991 Minnesota Twins’ World Series wins, my solo concert at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the birth of my child and marriage to my beloved, not necessarily in that order.

So, as I said, sometimes your clue that you are no longer able to cope with the world as it is currently ordered is huge and readily apparent.

And then sometimes it’s something as small as an app that doesn’t work. The latter issue arose last Monday afternoon. The previous Wednesday I had made a reservation at a slightly upscale Prescott restaurant for four guests for 7:00 p.m. (the earliest reservation they had because of the long holiday weekend). I had invited my guests. All well and good. And then came the “ding” on my crummy primitive cellphone indicating a text. It was an app from the restaurant asking me to “confirm” my reservation.

Silly me! I thought my word was my reservation, but I realize these are wacky times and I’m told that people don’t even bother to RSVP to wedding invitations anymore – they either show up with a couple of extra uninvited guests for the $180/plate sit-down dinner. Or don’t show up at all when the wedding hosts have to pay for them anyway. Okay. I get it.

Just by the by, we always found at Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis where I headlined for seven years that our “no shows” almost exactly equaled our walk-ins and we didn’t bother to REconfirm our reservations. It all worked out. Nobody had cellphones or apps yet, praise the Lord. An attractive woman with a big book and a pencil worked the reservations operation. Most weekends we had 300 people at each show, a sell-out.

One of my favorite cartoons some time ago showed a dowdy couple of late, late middle age showing up to dinner and saying to a snotty-looking maître d’: “Do we LOOK like we made our reservations online?”

Anyway, as resistant to technology as I am, I thought, “What could go wrong?” I hit the app and up came a record of my name (spelled wrong, but no matter) and my 7:00 reservation for 4. When they asked, “Would you like to confirm your reservation?” I hit “Yes,” because that was still within my skillset and patience level. Then came the question, “Are you SURE you wish to cancel your reservation?” Oh, for Pete’s sake. I clicked off the site, and tried again to hit the app. It informed me that “you have already answered this question.”

I tried calling the restaurant to speak to a HUMAN BEING, but of course, that is no longer an option in any Customer Service encounter unless they are in India and under the illusion that they speak English. Hey, I give them mad props for being considerably better at MY language than I am at theirs. But it’s still a challenge to figure out what they are saying. Anyhow, the reservation app gave me 7 other options, one of which was to reserve a party room for 14 people or more. I hit “3” which was allegedly for “reservations.” With a sinking heart and rising blood pressure I heard, “That is an invalid extension.” Okay. You’ve beat me. I give up.

Joe was just on his way out the door to jog and I implored him to stop in at the restaurant to sort things out. Even in his jogging clothes and mirth-making sunbonnet with a chin strap, he can be a severe and imposing presence, so I sincerely hope there are no unfortunate difficulties. (UPDATE: as the Power Line boys say – Joe said it’s all fine and the restaurant is not overly thrilled with the app either. Yay!)

Yes, yes, yes, “Boomer,” I know cellphones are the greatest things since fire and the wheel, but for probably about 20 years now I have found them mostly soul-deadening impediments to human contact, not even to mention a hazard on the highway. My favorite bumper sticker I first saw in Oklahoma said, “Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you want to meet Him.” (A prominent member of the St. Paul Jewish community was killed instantly when his little Audi sportscar left the road while he was on his cellphone. A thousand people came to the funeral.)

Back in the day, I would go to mail off my performing contracts or my electric bill (Northern States Power’s jingle was “electricity is penny cheap from NSP to you.” Haha. That’s definitely been shelved…). It was a friendly little East St. Paul Post Office and the personnel were uniformly courteous and just chatty enough. There would be a line of 10-15 people, and we would also chat amongst ourselves. Generally, you got to the head of the line in under 15 minutes, sometimes in 5.

Then came cellphones. The first time I noticed them, a young man could not either be alone with his thoughts for 10 minutes or converse with his neighbors in line and instead called a friend who was watching a very loud basketball game which the young man put on speakerphone so the rest of us could neither think nor converse. Time after time, I have observed whole families out to a family dinner in a restaurant, each member of which was on his, her, or xer cellphone, texting, looking at scores, paying no attention to any other member of the family. It always makes me sad.

Why, in MY day, whippersnappers, on the three occasions a year when we dined out, my sister pouted because she wanted to be left home with her friends, my brother was almost touching her to annoy her and my Mother was loudly computing how much cheaper she could have made the meal for at home. You know – good healthy, NORMAL FAMILY interaction!