Church of Target

Every once in a while, I like to skip church. I lead a highschool Sunday school class that I rarely miss but some times after Sunday school, Bev and I will slip out the back and start the rest of the day. This is a story about one of those days and how I learned something in the house of Target.

We love our Target store. Although last week, we dropped in and they had no envelopes on the shelf. What's going on Fishers? Somebody better let the postman know to get a larger bag. The people of Fishers have reverted to snail-mail. I had hoped that they would. I have found that snail mail is very therapeutic both in the writing and the reading. I made this discovery while writing my wonderful children a letter a week while they are away at college. So Ben and I are entering our fourth year of correspondence; Grace and I just our second year. Welcome aboard Fishers. Sometimes the old ways are the good ways; it is good of you to join us.

Back to Target; we love our Target Store. It is the super duper sized one. Three Sundays ago Bev and I slipped out of church early and headed over to Target for a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Having just passed the electronic, (my toy store) we are heading towards the grocery area to get some essentials with a side trip planned for small kitchen appliances to look at toaster ovens. Our toaster oven had died. Actually, the timer thingy had died so the lever wouldn't stay down allowing the wires to get hot. It would, but it required placing a heavy object on the lever holding it down. This required more concentration that I was prepared to give bread toasting. So rather than have the inevitable small kitchen fire, Bev and I decided to spend a few extra bucks and move up to a toaster oven.

We were making good progress along the back row; past the automotive, the sporting goods, the toys for boys and suddenly our way was blocked by a lovely two year old girl in the middle of the aisle all crumpled down on the floor in the deepest throes of despair; hugging the Disney Princess Castle.

 And no wonder, "the Disney Princess Dollhouse is the quintessential princess castle that your little girl will love. With three stories, themed rooms and over 50 play pieces, this castle will bring her favorite fairytales to life." Their copy not mine. I know that you know that because you thought to yourself; "how would Roger know that the Disney Princess Dollhouse has over 50 play pieces?" I wouldn't. I swear, that I have never seen the quintessential princess castle in my life. Besides there's 53 pieces, but who's counting.

This little girl had seen it before though. Undoubtedly, this young family had relied on the Disney Channel to soothe the savage beast inside of this princess wannabe and Walt had taken the opportunity to show her how grand her favorite fairytales can be. There was the one where she meets her prince and he works to put her through med-school then as her practice takes off, she divorces him for a 21 year old Chip and Dale dancer with the cute cleft chin and that princely derriere. Or may be it is the fairy tale where you are blessed with ability to lip sync reasonably well, hair that bleaches blond well, and pushy parents that get you an audition. Your fairytale comes true and you get on a children's musical television show. Things go well for a while, but you get older and you figure out that you have to reach an edgier audience so you kiss Madonna on an awards show, have two kids, go nuts and have your mommy parts shown all over the internet because while your parents were fit enough to pimp you out at a young age and keep a close eye on your trust fund, they didn't have sense enough to teach you how to dress.

Don't get me wrong. I do not believe that Walt is the problem here. Walt is doing what he does; finding an audience, telling them that they have a need and then showing that he can fill it. If it weren't for Walt, 100 million Chinese prisoners wouldn't have anything to do while serving their prison sentences. Boring!

I am all for advertising to children during Saturday morning cartoons. I say wall to wall cocco puffs, lucky charms, and trix. If Life thinks that it can trick one or two future type A's into getting their parents to buy them Life cereal because it is good for them, more power to them. Kids need to see the wide variety of toys and sugary cereals available to them so they can make informed decisions in the Super Targets of America. You don't want to make the mistake to throw a tantrum for a worthless piece of crap that you will lose interest in a week later.

Stop advertising to children on Saturday morning or children's channels? No!  Take away children's advertising and what’s next; banning testosterone supplement advertising on sports talk radio? Didn't we learn our lesson when we stopped cigarette advertising?

So, I missed church that Sunday. But church snuck up on me in Target that Sunday. This little girl was not puddled down on one of the side aisles. No, this was fairytales coming to life important. She had dragged the castle box out into the main aisle. The entire congregation could see her passion play; her tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. Her shrill cries carrying for many aisles, and then her dad did a wonderful, beautiful thing.

He knew that it wasn't about him. His daughter's behavior wasn't a reflection of his skills. He didn't jerk her up or act out for the benefit of those who might be disapproving of his parenting skills. No he walked over to her, got down on her level and said "I'm sorry hon. We can't get that. It's just too expensive. I wish we could but we can't." As she calmed, he said, "help me put it away." And while still very sad, she did.

No matter how badly we may want it or need it, we can't always get it.

Maybe later?

Sure. Maybe later.

Take care

Roger

A little Help Here?

It has been a harrowing four days. Bev and I have been in a life and death struggle with Cujo the red eyed black lab. I don't know if his name is really Cujo. It is just my lame reliance on cliche evil dog names to describe my woes. However, he really is a black lab and he really does have red eyes, and he scares the crap out of me.

He is actually the evil half of a pair of labs that have started to visit our home during the middle of the night. These are dogs with serious boundary issues. Most importantly, they have befriended my dogs and think that it is appropriate to start playing some time after 3:00 a.m. We are just simple country folk. New York, New York may be a town that never sleeps but come 9:30 p.m. the sidewalks of Sharrittville are rolling up for the night. That includes our dogs.

So Cujo starts barking for the Sharritt dogs, Henry, Hugo and Lucy (HHL for short) our two Jack Russels and an older Golden-Sheppard (to you city folks a Goldard or a Sheppden) mutt, to come out and play last Thursday/Friday morning at 3:00 a.m. It started last Thursday night with an unauthorized doggy play date between our dogs and these two black labs. I finally decided to acquiesce to the request at 5:00 my usual waking time.

It is interesting how those living the simple life and those in the fast lane cross paths at 5:00 a.m. From time to time, we are able to give shout outs on Facebook to each other as our awake moments pass like those two sheep dogs on the Wiley Coyote cartoons on Saturday mornings. "Good morning Fred." Good night Fred."

So play they did. Yelping and frolicking around the yard. In general, they were causing such a ruckus that it was time to shut down the party and bring HHL inside.

That is when the troubles began. I went out and called my dogs and they were having troubles concentrating on my commands. I managed to break through their hyperactive lack of attention. They wouldn't come in but at least they stopped running away so I went out and picked up Henry and brought him into the house. Well, that was unacceptable to Cujo. With bared teeth, raised hackles, and a bark that changed timber from fun loving frat boy into wife beating hill jack, he chased me back into the house.  Off I ran tail between my legs and dog in my arms. Which meant that I still had a dog to go. Armed with the trusty kitchen broom I trudged back outside and rescued Hugo.

Thoroughly embarrassed and chastened, I abandoned all country boy pride and called the police. I always find it humiliating to have to dial 911 for things that need attention but aren't emergencies. I mean "trapped in house by a vicious and virulent red eyed dog" is not in the same league as my house is on fire. I have always had the philosophy that if you come upon a situation and the first words out of your mouth are "O shit!" then 911 is appropriate, but if the first words out of you mouth are "O crap" then let's develop a different number to call. Let's discuss the situation and you can send someone out in about 45 minutes or so. I can start some coffee to share when you get there. It gives me the opportunity to reflect and get my thoughts together.

That was not to be in this world of one size fits all emergency numbers. So I call and Officer Doty responds right away. I go out and explain the situation. He gets out of his car. He can see Cujo just in the periphery of his high beams; not barking, not growling just standing there, making a complete fool of me. I could hear the skepticism in his voice and tell by the way he sauntered over toward Cujo that he didn’t believe me. Walking off  towards the house, I was sure that Saturday's Anderson's Herald would have "Sissy Ingalls man calls police to deal with supposedly barking dog" in the police blotter.

Thankfully Cujo did not disappoint. He took exception to Officer Doty coming between him and his friends and commenced to growling and barking and showing those glowing red eyes. I was also pleased to see that Officer Doty felt menaced and that the police blotter would read "Ingalls man calls police to subdue menacing red eyed virulent black lab." History is written by the victors.

Well the Ingalls police department does not arm their officers with kitchen brooms to ward off attacking dogs. They arm them with guns and tazers. I am about 100 yards away when I hear this pop and Cujo just start yelping and then everything goes silent. I am not ashamed to admit that I have cried during all of the great dead dog books; Old Yeller, Sounder, Where the Red Fern Grow. So I thought while it was maybe a little sad, I was not shedding any tears for this menace.  Plus on the upside, I knew there would be no mention in the police blotter about a police action dog shooting. While relieved, I wasn't insensitive to the situation. I found a nice big empty dog food bag and took it out to the officer so Cujo would not bleed all over the back of the squad car.

I had to put on my best poker face though when I got out to officer Doty and there was no dog. "Where's the dog?"

"Oh I tazed him and he ran away."

"YOU TAZED HIM?  YOU TAZED HIM? WHAT ABOUT JUST SHOOTING THE CRAZY DAMNED DOG, I THOUGHT?" I said, "I suppose that's best. There is a lot of paperwork to fill out when you shoot them."

"Nope, there is a lot of paper work when you taze them. There's a mountain of paperwork when you shoot them."

So I gave him the vital information for said paperwork. He encouraged me to call back if they returned and they would try to get animal control out to deal with the situation.

Saturday night rolls around and Cujo comes back at 3:00 a.m. This time I am not messing around. I dial 911 and say my piece. Out comes Deputy Conrad of the Sherriff's department. Deputy Conrad was a no nonsense cop that wasn't going to mess around. I could tell by his crisp neat uniform, his brightly polished shoes, his high and tight cropped hair cut.  I could tell that he meant business by the way he shined his million candle spotlight at Cujo. I could also tell that he wasn't going to get out of the cruiser to chase any dog at 3:00 a.m. across dew covered grass in spit shined shoes.

"You know you could shoot the dog yourself, don't you?"

"Kinda, but some people get weird when a civilian discharges a weapon."

"Well good luck. Call us if you need us."

That's what I had done. I had called. I had followed the rules. I hadn't taken matters into my own hands. I had abandoned the inner tough guy in me and in the end was still left with the problem. It seems like there is a lot of that these days. Waiting for shovel ready jobs, waiting for someone to say that storm's getting close, you had better get out of here, waiting for someone to stop spending money that we don't have, and waiting for them fix problems that they can't fix. And in the end, we're just left with a long story about our own incompetence.

Take Care

Roger

Progress?

It appears that the indiana state department of education has abondoned teaching hoosier youth the ancient art of cursive. what's next, capitalization rules? lets  just do away with punctuation while were at it, people will figure out what we mean if we repeat it over  and over again and turn off auto correct,.!? :)(:():

About two weeks ago, the Indianapolis Star declared that the education department was committed to turning our children into a bunch of uneducated typists by dropping cursive from the curriculum. I know what you are thinking. "Come on Roger. We pay you for timely insightful, pithy commentary on society's trends.  Two weeks old does not timely make."

Back off! Grace has gone to Ghana for 10 months. That's right. She said "if I can't learn cursive in the states. I'll go to a perfectly good third world country and learn how to make a capital Q." Off she went just like that.  So the past two weeks have been a bit emotional for dear old dad. I was afraid that I might start ranting and lose the laser like focus you have come to enjoy and expect on the pages of this blog.

Where was I? Oh right.

With any great societal shift, winners and losers emerge; the sweat shop seamstress and the Luddite respectively so to speak.   "What's a Luddite?"  (This just in. The Indiana Department of education decides the Industrial Revolution and modern history isn't needed by glorified typists so it will be dropped from the curriculum.) Come to think of it things didn't turn out great for the seamstress either, but look at these jeans I got at Walmart for $5.

The winners:

The orthopedic surgeons, who will do all of the carpel tunnel surgeries on the stupefied typists and do thumb replacement surgeries for generation X in about 30 years. Lol

The guy who invented the typewriter keyboard. I wonder how long before we declare his victory complete by having  kindergarteners sing their a, s, d,'s to the tune of 1 little 2 little 3 little Indians.

The losers:

Our children are losing the opportunity to communicate in a form that traces its roots back to hieroglyphics. How else would you explain the capital Q? Quick! Grab a piece of paper and write "The Quakers of Quincy are Quintessentially Quaint." In cursive? You ask. Of course in cursive; now stop stalling for time and start writing. I guarantee that it looks more like that funky man dog on the wall of a pyramid than that flowing backwards above and below the line upside down S that Mrs. Ash tried to teach me. 

The United States Post Office (as if they didn't already know it) is the biggest loser. No cursive means no pens, means no paper, means no snail mail. Unless we expect future generations to write in big block letters with crayons. 

This could be the logical progression. "Here Tommy draw this picture to hang on your family's fridge. Now Tom write a letter to Santa using these big block letters." Who knows? Several years later a group of important people may get together and decide to have Thomas write a declarative document because he is good with a phrase and his big block crayon letters will add a sense of gravitas to the occasion.

WHEN, IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS, IT BECOMES NECCESARY FOR ONE PEOPLE TO WRITE SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT WE WILL DO SO IN BIG BLOCK LETTERS WITH A CRAYON!

This just in. The Indiana department of education has decided to drop American history and the use of satire as a rhetorical tool from it's curriculum.

Take care,

Roger