Now you're cooking

This weekend, I've attempted to make a dent in my home maintenance to-do list, which means I had to make a run to the home improvement emporium. I needed weed and crabgrass killer for the nutgrass and other weeds I discovered while mowing yesterday, and some bags of pre-emergent for the next crop, which typically emerges in January. I needed fluorescent tubes to replace the long-dead ones in my clothes closet. And I needed a tube of Liquid Nails and some grout/adhesive for the soap dish that mysteriously fell off the wall of the guest bathroom a couple weeks ago. You know: the usual stuff.

So off I went to the store, where I wound my way up and down the aisles on my own personal scavenger hunt, checking items off my list as I went. My last stop was Lawn & Garden, where I dumped a few bags of pre-emergent in my cart, did not buy a garden gnome, and took my place in the check-out line. There, I waited while a guy in a bright yellow rain slicker scanned the items in the cart ahead of me. Then I waited while he proceeded to have a rather intense discussion with the customer. Something about grilling. I wasn't really paying attention.

When it was my turn to check out, Slicker Guy set about scanning my items – and then it happened.

“So. Do you have a grill?” he asked me.

“Um… yes?”

I detected a rather disturbing intensity in Slicker Guy's eyes, and I wondered whether 'yes' was the right answer, or the wrong one.

“Charcoal?”

I had my suspicions about where this line of questioning was headed and considered lying. But I'm a terrible liar, so I told the truth. “No, I have gas,” I said. Straight-faced. Somehow.

“Propane?”

I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition! I thought. I turned to the diminutive Asian woman behind me, who silently pleaded with her eyes for me to just leave her out of it.

“No. Natural gas,” I admitted. “We had a drop put in when we built the house.”

Slicker Guy's eyes sparkled with evangelical fervor, and I knew I should have lied.

“Oh, man. You just don't get much heat from natural gas. I've got…” And off he went on a five-minute screed BTUs, the benefits of charcoal, and how if I really wanted to learn to grill – and who wouldn't? – I had to get serious and start watching some guy on the Food Network who only uses a charcoal grill.

That's when I turned to the woman behind me and said, “Didn't you say you needed some information about charcoal grills?”

Yes, I'm probably going to hell for that, but I escaped and lived to burn chicken breasts to cinders another day.

Out of the gate, slowly

[5:20am, scant seconds after silencing the clock radio with a slap across the top of its head]

Turtle: I'm sorry.
Foo: What?
Turtle: The cupcakes.

[dramatic pause. freshly-wakened neurons stretch, sputter half-heartedly, and ultimately shrug non-existent shoulders]

Foo: What the hell?
Turtle: 'Cause my leg kicked out.
Foo: Honey, what are you talking about?
Turtle: I don't know.

Renewal

I got a card in the mail last week notifying me that it was time to renew my driver's license, and would I kindly take time off from work to schlep to the nearest outpost of the Texas DPS to address the matter. No biggie. I took today off so that I could prepare for tomorrow's drive to Florida in leisure, so I got myself around, rounded up the check book and my social security card (do you know where yours is?), and headed up county.

At the DPS, the line was mercifully short, and the only real delay was the time required to fill out a form with a bunch of yes/no questions (in English, and also in the official language of Texas) that seemed very interested in establishing whether or not I'm prone to various sorts of seizures. As if anyone wanting a license would actually answer “yes” if he/she were. Personally, I'd rather have questions regarding the applicant's legal status and whether or not he/she were entitled to hold a license. But that's just me.

Over the years, I've seen the renewal process change. First came the electronic signature thingy, which inexplicably provides no visual feedback so that the result always looks like something forged by a crack addict in the midst of withdrawal. Then came the requirement to be thumbprinted – in ink, initially, and now electronically. Sometime in the last ten years or so, subtle, hard to fake designs incorporating the state seal were added to the license itself.

This time, there was a new twist.

“Please take off your glasses and stand with your toes on the white line so I can take your picture,” the unusually pleasant clerk directed.

I did as I was asked and removed my glasses. Unfortunately, having done so I was no longer capable of discerning where the white line might be, much less whether or not my toes were on it. After a few uncomfortable moments, the clerk suggested I put my glasses back on, stand with my toes on the white line, and then remove my glasses. Which did the trick.

Next, the clerk used a big pair of scissors to cut the top edge off my license to invalidate it and then gave me a receipt way too large to easily fit in my wallet, which I was to carry in my wallet to make my invalidated license kind of valid until the new one arrives.

“So, why did you have me take my glasses off?” I asked. “I'm not vain about them; that's just the way I look.”

She explained that “we” – by which, I assume, she meant herself and the rest of Texas DPS and not including me – are using face recognition technology now, and that doesn't work with the glasses on. Face recognition?? What's up with that? I can't even figure out how to use T9 to compose a complete text message, and we've got face recognition data being tied in to our drivers' licenses?