You're never too old to learn the lessons of life, but I've noticed the tuition gets more and more expensive...

• Shop shop. My car got totaled a few weeks ago and it’s a while before the Chicago Auto Show. I’ve been forced to settle for the next best thing: wandering around parking lots and checking out the cars. I’ve learned a lot from this exercise, including the fact that parking lot security guards have no sense of humor.
  
• Dashed dots. I wrote recently about how valuable I am to all the companies that want nothing more in life than my data. Nobody actually wants to sell me anything; they just want to sell my search history. I’m starting to wonder, though, if they’re doing it wrong. Mom always told me to save everything because it would absolutely, 100%, guaranteed be worth something someday. Then, and I know this will be a shock to any parent who has offered precious heirlooms to their adult children, it turns out nobody wants all the crap I’ve been saving for 50 years. Is it possible that all these data hoarders had moms like mine?
  
• Red eyes. Speaking of data points, I went to the eye doctor for my annual check-up a few weeks ago and they did a half dozen screening tests before the doctor showed up. When he called up the results, the screen pulsated with numbers highlighted in RED RED RED. Not a problem, he said, because I’m doing just fine…FOR MY AGE. Sigh.
  
• Era sure. For almost two decades, we divided history into pre-and-post-9/11. Now, it’s pre-and-post-Covid. I can’t wait to see what the next crisis will be and…strike that…I’m fine with waiting a long, long time.
  
• Vintage cab. I know I’d get lectured about it in a Progressive ad, but I’m one of those old guys who starts up conversations with people on the elevator. Sometimes, I’ll make a small joke that makes them smile or laugh, and I know it gives them new energy as the doors open on their floor and they run off to their next adventure. 
  
• TBC. I’m listening to a very successful man as he relates his life story and just about all his narration includes his father’s story. After a while, I get the sense that he sees his own life as a continuation of his dad’s journey, which seems to make sense. We’re all continuing on a path that our parents continued from their parents in a stream of history we cannot trace beyond a handful of years.
  
• Whaddya know? I’m taking photos of surfers off a California beach when a guy with a board comes up to me to ask about conditions. I pointed to a bunch of people in the water and said, “None of these guys is finding the waves they want,” so he decided to try his luck further down the beach. He probably should have asked me if I knew anything at all about surfing before asking for advice, but that’s a life lesson for another day. 
• Looking down on people. Every time I take a flight across the country, I look at the small towns and giant farms that fill the landscape and think about how the folks below might see the world. Rufus Miles observed that where you stand depends on where you sit, which probably explains a great deal about differing perspectives. In many ways, the people in flyover country are living in a completely different universe from me, even if we share the human condition in almost every way.

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So, when you meet someone who has been sick for a long time, should you ask them how they’re feeling?

At first, this looks like a no-brainer. Of course, you do. What kind of lowlife, inconsiderate, uncaring, ice-in-the-veins mass of worthless protoplasm wouldn’t ask a sick person about their health?

This one.

Yeah, if they just came home from the hospital or they just had some procedure done, I’ll ask about it right away. But, if they have a chronic condition, it’s not going to be one of my top five conversation starters. I’ll probably get to it eventually, but I’ll do them the favor of ignoring the issue as much as I can. If it's fatal, I'll make an effort not to talk about it at all.

Maybe, people who are chronically ill get tired of the questions. Maybe, they’re sick of being sick and want to change the subject. Maybe they want to be seen as more than their malady. Maybe, they want someone to ask them if they’ve been any place interesting lately or whether they saw that new show on Hulu or if they think the Bears will get into the Super Bowl. (Bears/Super Bowl questions are always good for a laugh.) Just maybe, they’re tired of talking about their illness and they’re damned tired of having it define them.

I’ve actually asked a couple of chronically ill people who say they hate being treated like avatars of disease, and I understand the conflict in their lives. Any chronic condition is what we have, but it isn’t who we are. The topic will come up If the conversation goes on long enough, but we don’t have to dive into it like it’s our secret handshake.

I’ve seen people wearing T-shirts that say things like, “Ask me about my grandchild,” or “Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee,” but I’ve never seen one that says, “Ask me about my goiter.” Maybe there’s a reason for that.

We all want to be seen as complete human beings who have layers, just like ogres. We want to talk about the things that interest us and excite us and trigger our pheromones. No matter what challenges we’re dealing with, we have days when we just want to forget about it and have a normal life.

The funny thing is, the standard opener for pretty much all of us is, “How are you doing?” Almost always, that’s a vague question that can simply trigger whatever is top of mind. But when we know a person isn’t doing well at all, another opening might be preferable. IMO.
 
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There’s a theme running through this week’s incredibly wry and witty observations about the world outside my apartment. Big prize for the first person to figure it out…

• Winging It. The sound is getting unbearable in Chicago’s suburbs as cricket mating season moves into full passion. You cannot pass a tree without hearing a few hundred males, scraping their wings to make that godawful chirping noise while every female in the area resigns herself to doing the deed with one of them. It’s a lot like every campus bar in America, but more of the guys are going to get lucky.
  
  
• Magic Fingers. Is there anyone who thinks you need to push the elevator button once for each person who is waiting for a lift? Is there anyone who thinks they can make the elevator come more quickly if only they push the button five or six times instead of only once? Is there anyone who thinks the elevator is off on its coffee break and needs to be reminded that people are waiting, so an extra button press will get its attention? Of course not. Nobody is dumb enough to think any of those things. And yet….
  
  
• Been There. I wandered past Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace the other day, where the sign proclaims it’s been his personal nativity scene since 1899. (Before then, it might have been someone else’s birthplace, but they were nobodies and we don’t care.) It got me thinking about birthplaces, though, because it’s a silly thing to commemorate. Hemingway was born in Oak Park, which means that’s the town he left to achieve fame and fortune. Walt Disney was born in Chicago, but he and Roy set up their cartoon studio in Los Angeles. Ted Kaczynski was born in Chicago, too, but he achieved his fame in Montana. As with the rest of life, the place we start is less important than where we finish.
  
  
• Third Wind. There’s an old woman wobbling down the bike path, walking with her arms splayed out so far that you’d think she’s on a tightrope over Niagara Falls.  She has muscular legs, so maybe she was a runner a long, long time ago. Right now, though, she’s a very old woman, struggling to keep whatever’s left of her strength and balance intact. Also right now, I’m very impressed.
  
  
• Men Who Know Too Much. I’ve always believed we should trust the experts, mostly because those are the people who learned the details that they need to gain, you know, expertise. Still, I understand how people can really be suspicious because, in our daily experience, it turns out they’re a bunch of idiots. Take a ride on a bike and you’ll see the number one criterion for designing bike lanes is never to have ridden a bike in your life. (Interviewer: “Have you ever ridden a bicycle?” Applicant: “Yes, almost every day.” Interviewer: “Next!”)
  
  
• Open Secrets. In the good old days, my mailbox overflowed with credit card offers that totaled several million dollars over the course of a year. Now, when I get mail at all, it’s often a five-page letter about a data breach at a company I never heard of that manages data from another company I never heard of that got my information from some app I was forced to download in order to get my tacos delivered. Progress!!
  
  
• The World Is Not Enough. One of the goofiest ideas that’s making the rounds in some political circles is that billionaires aren’t motivated by money, simply because they have all they could ever need. Poppycock. Also, balderdash. It’s part of the human condition to want more and believe we deserve more, no matter how much we have. I knew a woman who said she was compensated fairly and didn’t need more money, so her family had her committed. (JK. I never knew anyone who said that, so no action was required.)
  
  
• Shocking Statistics. On a similar note, I just read a survey of Americans that indicated they think things cost too much, they aren’t making enough money, interest rates are too high, raising kids is too expensive, the government isn’t doing enough for them, the government is doing way too much for everyone else—especially THOSE people—and there’s nothing good on TV. As you might expect, I was very surprised at all of this information.

Yes, I’m easily surprised. Also confused and flummoxed and shocked and aghast and titillated and, hang on, I need to check my thesaurus…   

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I’m not sure it’s even possible for me to serve you better, but we’ll give it a go and see how it all works out...

• Shy of retiring. I know a guy who should be retired now, and he could be retired...except, he can’t. He has the money, he has the achievements to boast about, but he can’t leave, because he has no idea where to go. He laughs at the people who told him his job wouldn’t define his life, because it does define his life. He’s watching as the reaper gets closer, but he can’t seem to find the exit ramp.

 

• Juggling knives. Everyone makes a big deal about the chefs, but the greatest artists at the restaurant are the bussers who find a way to balance 25 plates, 17 glasses, and 297 pieces of flatware on one arm as they clear the table.

 

• Grounds for improvement. It’s 11 a.m., the restaurant opened for brunch at 10:30, and the waiter tells me they don’t have any coffee yet because it’s still brewing. I’m thinking these people are incompetent idiots who don’t know how to run a restaurant. How do you open for brunch without having any coffee ready for people? Then the guy across from me says, “Fresh brewed? Great!!” Clearly, I need an attitude adjustment, or maybe much lower standards.

 

• D. No opinion. We’ve absolutely hit the tipping point and gone over the edge with AI. Suddenly, I ask a friend what they think about something…I dunno, ketchup on hot dogs or duck versus rabbit…and they send back a response that’s clearly generated by AI. Maybe they don’t have any opinions unless the bots say it’s okay, or maybe they’ve been bots all along.

 

• Sharpest tool in the box. Have you ever noticed that the fanciest knives have the dullest blades and the knives with the cheapest handles are sharp enough for brain surgery? There’s probably some life lesson here about worthless trinkets in fancy packages, and I would spend some time thinking about it, but I’ll be busy for the next three hours, trying to slice a bagel.

 

• Doing it just for you. Every time I get a notice that some vendor is moving or consolidating or changing their hours, the missive starts with the same promise to serve me better.
       “To serve you better, we’re moving to cheaper offices down the street and there’s no free parking.”
       “To serve you better, we replaced all the people on our help desk with AI chatbots that will parrot the same FAQ sheet you already have.”
       “To serve you better, we’re adding a 30% service fee to all orders.”
  
  I think this “serve you better” idea came from the same people who wrote To Serve Man.
  
  
• Serving YOU better. To serve our readers better, this week’s post will have only seven items, rather than the normal eight, and this paragraph will be included as one of those items. In order to avoid raising our prices, we will be charging 3% to everyone who reads this paragraph.

 
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I’m looking out the window, watching the grandkids playing in the yard, and I realize, yet again, that theirs is a completely different world from mine. In the scrum, even the preteen is still a child, doing everything the seven-year-old is doing, and vice versa.

All the happiness gurus tell us we need to live in the present and this is why. For the moment, and that moment is going to end all too soon, the now is all they need. In a real sense, this moment is all that exists. There are no wars or politics or bills to pay or expectations to meet; no deadlines, no criticisms, and absolutely no Zoom.

Ignorance really is bliss and I envy them for a moment. I watch them run and laugh in a world I inhabited so long ago I cannot recall it. For this moment, at least, their life is filled with fun and friends and pretend…and the laughter is so impossibly precious it creates its own sense of awe. Calling someone childish turns out to be the ultimate compliment.

There’s something about the freedom and the innocence of children that reminds you of a world that we might be able to attain if we could figure out how to make it so. We couldn’t live in that world all the time, of course. There are still the challenges of finding a place to eat and sleep, but we don’t always have to bring those complications everywhere.

As we age, everything we have and everything we do has a value attached. We develop a self-defeating habit of carrying our baggage everywhere, comparing each experience and interaction with a different world at a different time. We frame our days in the context of something that happened to us or our parents or a friend-of-a-friend and we want/hate/need/reject the moment we are in, seeming to prefer another place and time that was, or is, or will almost assuredly be…worse.

The word “profane” refers literally to items left outside the temple, the impure possessions that do not merit entry into the sacred place. Maybe we should think about our baggage that way, as a profanity we are required to check at the door. If we’re lucky, we can abandon some of it when we leave.

As I watch them play, I’m thinking about the years ahead, the challenges of adolescence, the pains of high school, the doubts of careers, the burdens of mortgages. They can’t see it coming, and we should absolutely not tell them about it. This is the peak time, the time they cannot appreciate while it’s happening because they cannot know what’s ahead.

While I'm watching, hoping they get the last atom of enjoyment out of their day, I’m also trying to figure out how to get more joy out of mine. A second childhood is looking better all the time.

The real innovators, my favorite barfly, and the hidden sex appeal of eggs are all haunting me this week. They can be haunting you, too, if you read on…

• O’ PIONEERS! Every so often, I wonder about whoever it was that invented stuff we take for granted today. Who came up with the idea of bacon, for example? “Yes, it’s the stomach and, yes, it’s really gross and pretty much 115% fat, but it’ll be great after we douse it with carcinogenic smoke for 15 days.” Who was the first guy to eat an oyster or decide to build a house on stilts in Venice? And then we get to circumcision. “You just had a son? Great, I’ve got a terrific idea for him. It might sound weird at first, but hear me out…”  
• THUNDER TAKES THE CREDIT. I’ve heard a lot about tech companies getting special treatment after their CEOs visit the White House, so I thought I would check out exactly how big a deal they are. Turns out, not so much. Amazon is in the top ten among employers, but I didn’t find Apple or Microsoft or Alphabet in the top 25…and Tesla didn’t even get into the top 50. That doesn’t make them unimportant, but there’s a difference between the headline and the full story.
• BOOK CELLAR. Several years ago, when one of my textbooks came out, a reader noticed that I had referred to all the practitioners in the book as she, none as he. We agreed I was now a hero of the feminist movement, but those were the good old days. Today, some readers would complain that I am too woke, while others would rip into me for my tradviews on gender. On the plus side, maybe the controversy would have sold more books. 
• PHLEBBED OPPORTUNITY. An area hospital is looking into a partnership with a company that makes blood-test robots and everyone is very excited because the machines are 95% effective. Wait, did they say 95%? That means we’ll need a phlebotomist standing by as every 20th patient needs human intervention and another phlebotomist to do the tests on the people who refuse the robot’s services. We could always just spend the money training more people for this in-demand job, but tech investments are so much cooler.
• IT’S LIGHT O’CLOCK. We need to move the world’s clocks ahead two hours all the time and we can skip Daylight Savings. Yeah, we all feel bad for the farmers who have to wake up with the chickens, but they had their millennia and now it’s our turn. I don’t want the sun coming in my window at 5:47am. I want it at 10:15 a.m. like any civilized human being. Then dinner at eight and a nightcap under the stars at ten.
• BUY ME A DRINK FIRST. So, a drunk guy who’s 25 years old, which I know because he told me at least 25 times, sits down next to me at the bar and tells me he needs some advice. He’s sure I can help, he says, because I look like I’ve had a ton of “life experience.” Usually, I don’t like euphemisms, but I think I’ll take that one anytime.
• SORRY, I WASN’T LISTENING. Sometimes, the person you hate the most comes up with a really good idea and you have to recognize their wisdom. Hah, just kidding. We never listen to anything from people we don’t like, so we’ll never know if they said anything smart in the first place. Ignore this paragraph.
  
• EGGS AIN’T CHOPPED LIVER. Everyone’s still talking about egg prices, so I checked into the numbers and it’s really crazy. The average household spends about $173 per year on eggs, so a 25% price increase is roughly forty-five bucks. Meanwhile, we spend about $230 on potatoes and more than $1,100 on coffee, but we aren’t paying any attention to them. I guess eggs just have more rizz.
  

 
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