Cheers: to first snow. To that first pre-commuter snow, filtering down through the orange glow of the streetlights and settling evenly across every plane and curve, before footprints and tire tracks. To the first time you hear the night city snowplows rumbling, to the flint-and-gunpowder smell they leave behind them as their blades strike sparks off the pavement. To the excitement it brings children as they stare out the window at its pristine whiteness.
Jeers: to first snow. To that first commuter snow, turning to wet dirty slush before your eyes. To the parking lot plows running traffic lights and splashing slush, all keen and eager to demonstrate their plow prowess (plow-ess?) clearing the lots of customers new and old before the rain arrives in full and clears away the snow for free. To the drivers who can’t be bothered to clear any window on their vehicles, except for one strained sweep on the windshield with their wipers, because all that matters is where they are going, right? To those who think speeds are always the same, regardless of conditions, and believe that the only stopping distance you need, slippery or not, is a half a car length. We salute these paragons of personal privilege, laud them for their roles in keeping our accident rates high and our insurance rates higher, bow down to their need to arbitrarily and dangerously cut off two lanes of traffic for their necessary Tim’s large double-double. Can’t wait for the joy of black ice.
Cheers: to silly legal pursuits. A California author is apparently trying to trademark the use of the word “Dark” in titles for novels and books. Good luck with that: search “Dark” on Amazon, and you get over 200,000 hits. Of course, some are for chocolate and others are for coffee — heck, some are even for jeans — but scores of them are books that use “Dark” in their titles already. Prediction? Trademark attorney makes money, effort eventually fails. If it doesn’t, we plan to take action to trademark the word “the” and charge five cents for every use.
Cheers: to retail staff. Now that we’re heading into the Christmas purchasing season, it’s timely to remind each other that the people who work in retail are exactly that — people. They don’t deserve condescension, contempt, rudeness, rage or any of the other bad behaviour that short-tempered shoppers feel they are allowed to dish out. Oh, and by the way, even though there’s a counter or a grocery store belt between you and them, they can still hear everything you’re saying about them into your cellphone. So why not choose to be something less than the Grinch customer that retailers dread? As the old saying goes, you get more bees with honey than with a sour, vinegary disposition. Ho, ho, ho!
