Month: April 2013

I sometimes wonder why people have such a wicked sense of humor (How do you pluralize sense of humor? Is it sense of humors or senses of humor or senses of humors)

I remember one time walking down the street in the evening and admiring the beauty of the large moon. The next day, I see a you-tube video pasted all over my Facebook page explaining the beauty of the moon and how to make sure that the phenomenon was really a matter of perception. When closer to the horizon, it seems bigger, that is all.

The problem is not the video. The problem is the place asking one to verify for yourself by bending and observing the moon through your legs like this:

Before you know it, the roads are full of chaps bending over and trying to verify the size of the moon through their legs. There is nothing more inviting for a practical joke than a person attempting that on the road. Do you think there is some kind of reality video app for everyone who clicked the video to see them bending over and making fools of themselves on the street? There was one man who was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. He had that prosperous-lawyer-or-accountant look about him. One minute, he was breezing along admiring the large moon and the next his stride faltered. It is hard to see whether a man is blushing from the back, but in his case, proved easy. He was blushing pretty indeed. He looked discreetly over his shoulder, discovered we were walking behind him, and might boot him on the back if he exposed himself to the risk and shelved the idea. But, had he been a man of stronger nerves, I should not have been surprised if I had seen him peering through his legs at the moon.

There are three or four methods by which people get you.

I don’t know whether you’ve seen these numerous posts that tell you life’s most wondrous things will unfold before if you cock your eyes and type ‘1’. I usually ignore these, but gave in to my curiosity just once. I cocked my eyes and sat at the edge of the chair waiting for life’s mysteries to unfold before me as I typed ‘1’. But I swear nothing happened. Nothing. I suppose that is the mystery of life.

There is nothing to expect when you expect it.

Then of course, there are these huge matrices of letters telling you that the first word you find describes you the best. I found ‘TUB’ I wonder what that means…oh well.

Public policy is powerful. Public policy shapes our daily actions more than we realize. There are also results that are not always foreseen by the policymakers.

Take the experience of shopping for instance. Recently, the county we live in passed a decree that forbade businesses from doling out plastic bags. We could buy one for 10c if really wanted, but the idea was to encourage more environment friendly bags.

Where before, people were before doing their shopping in the most organized manner possible and sometimes preferring to finish up their grocery alone, the recent public policy of no plastic bags and charging 10c for the bags has increased family togetherness.

I walk into stores and I see large families shopping together. There is a sea change I tell you. The change is best explained in the check-out lanes where the harassed looking clerks ask you whether you would like a bag for 10c and you look him in the eye and say, “No Siree! No I don’t. You see I have 5 children of my own and I offered to babysit three of my neighbors. Then, I just borrowed a bus and came grocery shopping!”

There is a look of utter disbelief on the clerk’s face. The table is full of groceries and the customers have no bags! This is when the customers stoop in with a bugle call to the children, “So Ed, Louis, Dennis and Menace pick up the bread, milk, meats and sauces. Don’t hold the eggs and yogurt in one hand Millie! Tie a string around the goat cheese and hang it around the baby’s neck. Anne, do you have the pastas? Good! Whose that child? Does she belong to our party?”

“Yes Father.”
“Well…come here then and lend a hand with the ice creams young lady.” Nobody is spared. The produce is collected and the family outing is done without spending a dime on bags.

That is economy.

PS: I like the idea of no plastic bags, and marvel at how a simple policy can change people into bringing their own bags. The environmental awareness was the same before, yet the implementation of the policy made all the difference.