Supermarket Detective Agency

There I was, minding my own business in the local supermarket. I grabbed a trolley, you know, one of those miniature ones designed to carry baskets for lazy people who refuse to use basket handles… in any case I proceeded in my usual manner, making my way to household cleaners (before shelf food items and then finally fridge/freezer items… if you don’t do this you are weird, so there). I should mention that things were not going so well for me this day as I had accumulated quite a lot of common cold symptoms. To be more specific; groggy voice, coughing and sputtering, red droopy eyes and a snotty nose to top it all off (just keep that wonderful image of me in your mind for now).

Back to the story, I had already placed an item or two into my trolley before I decided to make a quick trolley-less dash into a crowded isle to pick up some soap. I legged it through the masses of smelly obese ladies buying beauty products to the soap section hauled a couple bars of Protex into my arms and legged it back through the ambulating wall of lard. When I emerged (unscathed) I was greeted by an empty space where my trolley once stood.

GONE!?

What…? Where could it…? WHO TOOK IT!?

It had only been a few seconds, a half minute at the most. The rational thing to do would be to go back to the trolley section fetch another one, reselect taken items and get over it. Alas, my mind was not of a rational state at the time and my thoughts followed this path instead:

“The Bastard! I don’t want to have to get another trolley! Why should I? I distinctly remember putting a green basket at the top and a black one at the bottom, I can find this trolley snatcher and get my vehicle back! They can’t have gone very far and they will only have gathered a few items (if any) in the interim.”

I scan my surrounding through red eyes (how about that one…) before:

“There! Old lady pushing identical trolley with few items at 3 o’clock!”

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t even think twice before walking up to her and asking her to return my trolley. I tried to sound friendly but my voice let me down and I ended up growling out a statement punctuated falsely by involuntary coughing.

“So *cough-cough* You’re the *cough* lady who *sputter-cough* took my *swallow phlegm* trolley!” I said, trying to smile after her eyes greeted me with some confusion and a bit of fear I guess.

“No.” says the old lady softly “I got mine from the front, but you can take one of my baskets. I’m checking out now”

I coughed my way though an apology before humbly (or at least as humble as a deranged coughing, snotty, psycho with a trolley fetish can possibly appear) accepting the offer and taking an unused basket from her. As I walked away, thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed, I spotted ANOTHER trolley that looked exactly like mine. Like an eagle fixing its gaze on potential prey from a distance, I locked onto to the trolleys driver (pusher?). An unattractive pudgy middle aged woman seemed a likely suspect for trolley theft as dastardly as had befallen me, especially so as she was wearing clothes that were at least 2-3 sizes too small for her (YUCK!). Only someone too lazy to carefully select proper clothes sizes so they can be comfortable would stoop so low as to steal someone else’s trolley to save a few measly seconds at the trolley stand!

I homed in on her and said “Hey! You took my *cough-cough* trolley, I was using that.” I was so sure! She looked at me, shook her head and said “No, I got this from the front”. Deflated, I apologized and decided to give up.

So, so sure… she MUST have been lying.

That's just stupid! These people are idiots!

I have the ‘How to…?’ page enabled on iGoogle. It basically puts up 3 random ‘how to’ questions and if you are interested you click the link and learn something new (hopefully)… you get the picture.

I would estimate that 30% of the ‘how to’ topics are worth reading, 69% are pretty uninspiring and 1% are utter trash. Today for example, one of the topics was ‘How to win an eating contest?’

I can answer that in three words “Eat the most.” So I was curious to see if there really was more…

This is the unaltered first paragraph of the article (with my personal views in brackets):

Be in good physical and mental shape. It is important to ensure that you're healthy and fit before trying an eating contest (Being a lard ass will probably also help…). Consult your physician before the contest and get their advice (they will advise you NOT to enter a stupid eating contest…). Make sure that you aren't on medication that shouldn't be taken with food (wow… someone actually did that!). Check with contest officials that EMTs and an ambulance will be present in the event of choking or allergic reactions (because you thought it would be a good idea to shove 70 hotdogs into a space designed to fit 2 hot dogs… and still somehow forgot that you were allergic to hotdogs!!!???), or third-degree burns on the roof of your mouth from searing hot taco beef (Contestant>>>“Hi honey I’m home, sorry I can’t kiss you today, I have third degree burns on my palate from eating too much searing hot taco beef”… “no, I did it on purpose, I thought that because they had a medical team and ambulance on site I would be immune to the effects of scoffing 180degC food. Boy was I wrong.” Spouse>>>”I want a divorce”).

I think we can safely file this ‘how to?’ topic under the ‘utter trash’ category. Anyone with half a brain would know that eating contests are stupid and people that enter them are stupider. It just gets worse and worse. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I read on (Does this happen to anyone else?) only to find out that people interested in eating competitions can join the MLE (Major League Eating) or the AICE (Association of Independent Competitive Eaters). They’re turning eating into a sport!

Sigh…

What are we fighting for?

Since the beginning of the human race we have witnessed the epic battle between two would be friends that have somehow become adversaries. It isn’t what you are thinking by the way. I’m not referring to some barney between two physical entities like Kane and Abel (See Bible: Genesis I think) nor am I referring to the ancient battle between good and evil… that’s far too long, boring and full of clichés. My thoughts today drifted onto the less well known but equally (if not more) interesting battle between Wisdom and Logic.

I was reminded about this age old battle during a Body Corporate AGM meeting for the town house complex I currently reside in. My case was to allow owners to have dogs (which have been banned for the last 20 years or so); I built up a logical argument and even had supporting scientific evidence to back me up. Needless to say, my science and logic were smashed onto the floor like a delicate package being handled by airport staff at O R Thambo International. I have to admit though, I saw it coming. The moment you present flawless logic to old people they immediately retaliate in Oldskerish (which is basically a mixture of wisdom, senility, experience, stubbornness and gibberish) even if they happen to agree with what you are saying. The oldskerish just slips out, they have as much control over it as they do over their bladders and farts.

So whenever I get a nasty oldskerish reply from an ancient I always keep my cool, I just say to myself “EEbEE one day when you are past your sell by date and all you can do for entertainment is annoy younger folk with your oldskerish and faint smell of pee you’ll look back at all this and smile”. Back to the meeting, I quickly realized that my science and logic would get me nowhere in a discussion where I’m at LEAST 40 years younger than the cars driven by attending members. I simply shrugged and bore the 45 minutes of verbal abuse that followed my short (and widely interrupted) talk on ‘why allowing dogs in our complex would be a good idea’. So I reacted how any young person would after being attacked by an overwhelming torrent of oldskerish...

...I got a dog

You may not realize it but these sorts of clashes between logic and wisdom happen very often. The reason they occur so frequently is that both logic and wisdom are seen as morally correct and favourable traits. A fight between good/right and evil/wrong is easy to call and even easier to take sides and support. When you put one form of good/right against another form of good however, things start getting a bit messy. Both parties tend to defend their beliefs to the grave because both parties are correct in the greater scheme of things. This is how a tiny difference in belief can spark war. Take the endless fighting between Jews, Christians and Muslims for example, take one step back from all the chaos and it becomes clear that all these religions are ON THE SAME SIDE! I’ll leave that topic for another day though.

Cutting a long story short, what I’ve come to realise is that Logic and Wisdom are complementary. People happy to accept one without the other need to work this out before they can progress in a civilized manner that won’t end up with one party warring with another over the resting position of a toilet seat for example. Once the two forces unite, you get something amazing,

…you get intelligence. Or simply, the ability to place things into the correct context.

Something so simple yet so evidently lacking in modern society. If you have no clear goal in life this would be a good start. Dedicate the rest of your days towards putting things into the right place and most of all, understanding yourself and what you do.

What say you?

One of life’s greatest childhood debates revisited

I often think back to when I was a kid. Back to a time when our developing brains had just grasped the English language and discovered its true potential. Sure we learn the basics first, ‘mama’ ‘papa’ ‘give me ..........’ but we progress ever so quickly from there. We learn to manipulate, lie, make and set moral boundaries that stay with us for the rest of our lives. Language and the ability to communicate is a powerful tool that is often taken for granted.

Back to my topic… I feel that one of the more interesting communication milestones reached as we grow is that of debate. It fascinates me that we learn this ability so early on in life given the rather pointless nature of discussion and informal debate in the life of a 4 or 5 year old. Still, we persevered and perhaps benefited from it at the end of the day (character building some would say…).

After having failed miserably at communicating our point across to adults (“…and that’s why I NEED a bag of Easter eggs and a large net for school tomorrow.”) we lower our standards and have the most imaginative and drawn out discussions with other random 5 year old kids we stumble across at school. I thought it would be fun to revive one of these childhood debates. Partially because it would be a terrible shame to have gone through all that and not used it to our benefit in a discussion now that we are older and more mature (of course we are).

Here goes…

Discussion topic: My Dada (grandfather) is way cooler than your Dada.

I really do believe that I had the coolest grandpa and I’ll be impressed if anyone can come close.

My Dada.

Sure he wasn’t a perfect man but he did have a band. He played almost every type of Indian instrument beautifully. I remember him happily jamming with all his sons in the lounge of our house at over 70 years of age. He even rode motorbikes! My dada was originally a builder and to my knowledge helped in the making of some of Durban’s finest buildings. He also managed to bag the daughter of the owner of a once successful soda pop company as his wife (go figure, chicks had a thing for guys in a band back then too…).

In his later years he occupied himself by building fine furniture (most of which is still in use at our home). It would have been nice to see him in action as a young man. Alas the majority of my memories of him are of him pruning the roses in the garden wearing his beige hat or in his workshop swearing in frustration at workers he caught mixing cement the wrong way or something along those lines.

How cool was your gramps then?

(Alternantively you could revive another debate topic that stood out from your past.)