Grievances, Inc.

There’s no right jacket

There’s no jacket that’s right as rain. Or right for the rain. Or for the wind or the storm or the snow….

Why doesn’t a jacket come with a hood, be waterproof and have a fleece lining? Why does it always have to be one or the other? And why is the weather always all of it together? And if a jacket has both the hood and the water-proofing then it doesn’t go with your work clothes. If it goes with the black formal trousers, then it invariably doesn’t have a hood. If it has a hood, it isn’t water proof. If it is waterproof, it is not a wind cheater.

Okay, you get it. And I bet you can’t do anything about it either. But London Fog can. Why does London fog make this bulky, fleece-lined, wool-lined, down-filled jacket without a hood? If you are wearing something that insulated, wouldn’t your poor uncovered head cry out in agony, cos no cap in the world can have the wool and fleece and down that your London fog jacket has? Something worth thinking about…..

Oh, so there is a fourth zone?

Picture this: a week before we were all to leave for Colorado in ’03, my boss was giving us the know-how on how to reach him “……..and remember I am two hours behind,” he concluded.

“Oh California is only 2 hours behind us? I thought three.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “California is three hours behind us. But we are moving to Colorado”
Like it makes a difference to an artless Indian who’d traveled 24 hours around the globe to play with bugs that were the same indecipherable creatures anywhere……

“Oh, I thought they belonged to the same zone. So there is a fourth zone?”

You can hardly blame me that I didn’t know a fourth zone existed till I was practically scheduled to land there. All the television commercials go, “.. 9/8 central…. 8 eastern, 5 pacific” If you’re looking at a time stamp on an email it is either eastern or central, sometimes California….

Who was to know there was a zone in between all of that….
Physically dominated by the rockies, and probably the best known zone as the crow flies, it is a shame that the rockies are not represented on the cultural map of the Americas. The people that know it call it the mountain zone…How about the ‘hitherto unknown’ zone?

There’s someone better than Jon Stewart

After resigning to the idea that Sampras was not indeed the unquestioned God of tennis (viva la Federer), I had gotten used to lookin up to Jon Stewart to fill that “infallible” void, as to getting my weeknights’ sleep, my midnight laughs and pretty much all else.

So, when a fellow-Stewart advocate told me recently that Bill Maher is quite amazing, I took it with a pinch of salt…..unfortunately I had to gulp down that salt pretty quickly after HBO on demand (and what a demand that is!)

Bill manages to get a hundred and one points across while being unbelievably funny at the same time. Stewart’s funny alright; but more often than not you are left wondering where he actually stands on the issues--- I know that’s not his job, instead that is exactly what he’s trying to steer clear from ---bein political ---but we already know he’s a left wing liberal and we love it ---why not give people a little more to love…..

Plus Maher is an unabashed heathen (can’t stand Jon Stewart's constant references to his semitism), so skillfully intolerant of even mildly-conservative ideologues and oh-so-single....

And Bill takes the brownie point in handling the other self-possessed Bill ---- O’Reilly, ladies and gentleman----- and actually stimulating his funny side (if ever there was one).
Plus, he doesn’t have any of the detours (read: This week in God, Back in Black) that Jon so heavily relies on.

Maher’s arrogance-----well-deserved, I hasten to add ----- absolutely takes the cake (Jon's nice even to a screaming Giuliani)…Bill has no qualms about revealing his disdain for local news channels or the non-elite (lines unheard on any other show: ‘that’s why he’s a taxi driver’ or ‘the local news channel is for cats caught in trees’).

Stewart is certainly not far behind Maher on intelligence or wit, but Bill Maher is simply better cos he’s not afraid to flaunt it.

The Sociability Quotient

There’s an intelligence quotient and then there is an emotional quotient…Why isn’t there a sociability quotient?

As a self-proclaimed ambivert I demand that there be an SQ pinned on my shirt. So that the extra-cheerful, more-than-merely-vocal guy in that corner realizes that I can’t just walk up to him and say hello. If he comes over and makes the effort, I’d be more that happy to oblige a greeting. But I can’t voluntarily come up to you and ask you how you’re doing or make a casual comment about the folder you’re carrying. Not because I have a problem with you or your folder, but because that’s the way I was made!

Hell, I spent about the first two years in this country figuring out the best way to fit in the “how do you do”, the “good” and the response to their “how do you do” within the fraction of a second it takes two human beings to pass each other. And that was task enough! In any case, if a person with an IQ of 10 can get away with performing badly on the SAT why can’t I get away with being the prude at the party? The world is an unfair place.

So this is how it works: you rate your sociability skills from 1 to 10. If you fall at about 3 and your acquaintance is at about 7, then it befalls on him/her to say the first hello, make the recurring phone calls and invite you over for dinner. That’s the way God intended, if I can mention Him a few hundred words after invoking the name of the unparalleled heretic, Maher.

And on the off chance that your friend is a “1” on the Sociability scale, you’ve got to learn from your sociable pals on how to carry on a conversation with a person that mumbles a barely decipherable “uh-huh” to your comment on Bush’s social security plan. Not a fan? Okay, how about the Italian restaurant across the street--- surely food is a non-controversial issue? Everybody I know loves it. Still “uh-huh”? Then try your last resort: the weather ….(Disclaimer: Might get you a response in Colorado, but don’t try that in Seattle or Pittsburgh. Could be fatal).

So, while the guy at ten talks and smiles non-stop and the guy at one says “uh-huh” and considers the job done, it’s the poor guy at five that has to ‘go both ways’….In this case, it’s not fun, believe me…..I’ve been with the ones and the tens….

There’s no substitute for meat eaters

I mean the meat, not the eaters (though there’s no substitute for them either!)

Yesterday, I went to a Thai restaurant with a couple of friends and I realized I am being discriminated against just for loving meat. My friend is ruled by the virtues of animal-rights and he wanted the chicken substituted with tofu. He was obliged immediately. I am ruled by the virtues of good eating and I wanted beef instead of shrimp. The waitress gave me an unsettling look that was quickly transformed to what could pass for “contrite”. “I don’t know if we can do that.” And they didn’t. She had a very sheepish (read: triumphant) smile on her face when she announced, “Pad thai with chicken and shrimp”. I should have told her exactly what I think of shrimp--- “Seafood is just where it belongs---in the sea. So leave it there.”

I deserve to get my beef just the way my pal deserves to get his tofu…..I demand to proclaim my choice of meat! I demand that when I order a good angus burger I don’t want lettuce spilling out of it. And I ask for “chicken” salad for a reason (or rather it comes as the unavoidable side with my pasta)----I don’t want to pick out two pieces of chicken from a plate full of lettuce and tomatoes. And I demand that the carrot doesn’t sit there impersonating the cow in my beef stew!


A dollar is never a dollar

I rented a car from Dollar rent a car two days ago and it cost me a hundred dollars---a whopping 40$ more than it would cost me from any other place. The McDonald’s dollar menu is always close to two dollars with tax, I have never found anything in the little bucks dollar store for a dollar, or at Family dollar. And while I am on the subject, no coffee at 61c café, the hip, elite student hang-out in Pittsburgh is ever 61 c.

Why call it a dollar when it isn’t a dollar? If I want it, I’d buy it anyway.

If you absolutely want to buy something for a dollar, walk up to the check-out counter --- IMHO, the only place in the world where a dollar means a dollar.