WAKE UP LITTLE SUZY -- and everyone else with a bleeping bleeping battery backup on their electric smoke alarm system

The other evening around 3:00 a.m.,   the gg was awakened from an unusual good night’s sleep by an intermittent beeping sound.  I knew immediately the sound was coming from the smoke alarm on the ceiling just outside the bedroom door.  According to the manufacturer, its purpose was to alert me that the backup battery in the  alarm system needed to be changed.  I think the real purpose is to cause geezers like the gg to be even grouchier than we already are.  Let me explain:

To protect me and the missus gg from death by smoke inhalation or fire, the builder of our house installed smoke detectors in virtually every room.  As everyone must know, their purpose is to alert the homeowner in the event of a fire in the home so that the occupants can safely and timely exit the home.  Mine are hard wired so that they operate off the house’s electricity, as opposed to batteries.  However,  these systems do include batteries as a backup in case of an electric failure or service interruption.

Now, under what circumstance would you suppose a person needs for an alarm to inform him that his house was on fire?   I can think of only one:  when he or she is sleeping, which generally occurs during the nighttime hours.  That is the only time the gg can think of when a smoke alarm would have value.  And I am supposed to take comfort in knowing that if the electricity to my home is interrupted while I am asleep, the battery back-up in the alarm will still cause the alarm to be sounded in the event of smoke or fire.  So why at 3:00 a.m. on this morning did I not feel comforted by that fact?  Keep reading.

Now, is there any  circumstance that would cause the electricity to my home to be interrupted while I am sound asleep at night in my bed?  Let’s ignore the fact that as geezers there is no such thing to begin with as a “sound” sleep.  So we’re always awake enough to detect the smell of smoke or feel the heat of fire without the need for an alarm to tell us.  Heck, if there's fire, we can just pee on it and put it out -- that's usually why we're awake in the first place.  But I digress.   The only circumstance I can think of would be a storm so intense that it caused the electricity to go out.  But wouldn’t a storm that intense cause us to be awake in the first place?  And what are the odds that a fire would break out in one’s home at the same time  we are sound asleep, and  when the electricity to the smoke alarm is out?

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These smoke alarm manufacturers have thought of everything – everything, that is, to drive us geezers crazy.  In their wisdom, they added a feature that causes the alarm device to put out this incessant  beeping noise to alert us whenever the battery in the back-up is dead or is dying and needs to be replaced.  The gg is convinced that this feature is designed to employ only between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. and never during the daylight hours.  Not one time in the gg’s life have I ever experienced this bleeping dead battery bleeping during the daytime hours when I am wide awake.

And what did it mean for the gg on this particular occasion?  It means that in the middle of the night, the gg must get out of bed, and through bleary eyes somehow find my way to the garage, retrieve my stepladder and lug it  into the house without scratching the paint on the side of the car.  Then,  set it up under the bleeping  smoke detector after  trying to locate the drawer that holds the extra battery we keep (don't we?) just for this occasion, and after sifting through our legion of instruction pamphlets to  find the one that tells how to change the battery on the smoke alarm (or going online at 3:00 in the morning to watch a You Tube video instructional).  And all the while thinking about how the manufacturer thought he was doing me a favor and providing a valuable service with this back-up battery scheme.

If the gg ever has another house, you can rest assured there will be no back-up battery powered smoke alarm system anywhere in sight.    In the unlikely event of a perfect storm (no pun intended) that results simultaneously (a) in my home’s electricity being interrupted (b)at the same time as I am sleeping and (c) at the same time as my house is consumed by smoke and fire,  I plan to be able to go on sleeping as if nothing was happening.  There are already  too many things competing to interfere with my sleep – I surely  don’t want or need to be awakened by something telling me my backup batteries in my smoke detector are dead.  If the worst should happen, I’ll just assume the smoke and fire are a sign that the gg has died in his sleep and has gone to hell.

gg

HE'S B-A-A-A-A-A-A-K

The gg is back after another fairly long hiatus.  Actually, this was the latest in a number of hiatuses (or is it hiati?  Licensed grammarians please reply.)  

I will try to be more consistent and timely with my postings from now on.  Perhaps I'll see if my pharmacist can recommend something to improve my regularity.

Thank you for your patience and loyalty.

gg

Just 15 Minutes Less of Car Insurance Ads Will Save You 15% or More of Your Sanity

Most of us, if pressed,  would probably agree that TV commercials have improved in terms of their quality and appeal over the years; and my guess is that most of us would attribute the use of comedy for much of that appeal.  Some do it better than others and some do it worse and more often than others.  And it’s the latter that work the gg’s  grouchiness into a lather.   So many of today’s commercials are repetitive, playing over and over and over again until we the viewers know the lines by heart.  Take my favorite (or least favorite as the case might be):  GEICO.  They must have advertising deals with every network.  I cannot remember watching any TV show in recent memory without being bombarded by three or four GEICO commercials.  You know the ones I’m talking about – those inane “everyone knows that, but did you 

know …” commercials.  And here’s another one:  those USAA commercials where the young boy thanks his mother for making him safe and protecting his future or his father or grandfather for their service when all they did was buy a life insurance policy (from USAA of course).  And then there are those ads for Progressive Insurance featuring Flo, but at least those seem to have a bit of a variety and are not the same old ads played over and over at virtually every commercial break.  I suppose we  should expect those kinds of repetitive ads from insurance companies since they seem to have all the money; and they obviously have the best marketing experts who’ve told them that this sort of constant, repetitive advertising works.  But before you get to thinking that insurance companies have a monopoly on this type of  advertising, think about  CIALIS.  There is a sameness about those ads as well, along with the obligatory warning to see a doctor if you have an erection lasting more than 4 hours.  (Hey, all you fellow geezers out there – honk if you plan to call your doc the next (first?) time you get a 4-hour boner.  I didn’t think so!)

So what can we do about it, my fellow grouches?  Well, we can do our usual and just, well, grouch, or we can take affirmative action.  Frankly,  the gg plans to continue to grouch whenever one of these repetitive ads airs on my favorite TV channels.  But I’m also going to propose this solution:  Since 15 seems to be the popular number, I propose that any time an ad that is repeated more than once every 15 days on any TV network program subjects the advertiser or its agency to a fine equal to 15% of their advertising budget for that 15 day period.  And then there’s that other trustworthy remedy – the remote.

gg

WHAT POLITICIANS SHOULD LEARN FROM CATS

The November elections  are long behind us but you’d never know it by the array of campaign signs that still litter our roads and public rights-of-way  across the land.  It’s bad enough that we the people have to endure months of crass and coarse political name-calling, verbal warfare and patently false advertising  leading up to election day in November; but to be constantly reminded of that months after the election is over is almost more than the gg's grouch meter can withstand.   My two cats do their pooping in their litter boxes but when they’re through, thankfully they cover it up immediately and don’t leave it uncovered to stink up the house.  If only our polluting politicos could learn something from them.  Yesterday, I watched two NFL playoff games on TV.  By now, with the games over,  the fans have left, the players have showered and returned to their million dollar homes, the stadium bleachers have been swept and  cleaned of trash and debris and the lights have been  turned off.  Why can’t  politicians  cover up their litter and remove their signs after their games are over?    The answer is probably that they aren’t required to.  The gg has a fix for that:  I propose a 15-day grace period after each election for politicians to remove their signs from public rights of way ; any signs  not removed after that date would subject the politician or his campaign fund  to a fine of X dollars (to be determined by each municipality) for each day that the signs remain.   I plan to launch a campaign to put my proposal into action.  May I please have permission to place a campaign sign on your property? 

gg

PLEASE DON'T TOUCH, OR DROP

A tisket,a tasket, a green and yellow basket;
I wrote a letter to my love and on the way
I dropped it, I dropped it.
~~19th Century Nursery Rhyme~~

If one of our contemporary football TV play-by-play announcers had written that old poem , it wouldn’t matter whether the letter writer had actually ever had possession of the letter – that is, actually held it in his hands. The only thing that would matter to him is that the intended recipient – his “love" – didn’t receive the letter. If he wrote it, and she didn’t receive it, then a priori he must have dropped it on the way.

What I’m getting to is the penchant these announcers have for proclaiming that any forward pass that touches the hand or hands of a receiver without being caught is “dropped.” Never mind that the pass might have been thrown with so much velocity that no human hand or hands could have caught it; or that no receiver’s arms are long enough to catch the ball thrown that far over his head or away from his body. Doesn’t matter – to these masters of the malaprop, the receiver “dropped” the ball. Never mind further that the clear and unambiguous definition of “drop” is “to let fall, intentionally or unintentionally.” That means before the receiver can be said to have “dropped” a pass, he must have had it in his possession to begin with and then let it fall. This is hardly ever the actual case; in fact, when that happens, it's called a fumble.

I suppose this is something we game watchers will need to adjust to so long as those who do football play-by-play and commentary on our TV screens are former coaches or jocks and not polished linguists. And it’s not like this is the first time;, they’ve already given us other malaprops. And the next time we hear about a “dropped” pass, we do have options: we can grouch about it or we can “audibilize” and change the channel.

gg

Feeling Melon-choly

Something remarkable has apparently happened right before the old gg’s eyes and I must have missed it. I’m talking about the elevation of the lowly melon –yes, the cantaloupe, the honeydew and our favorite down here in the hot Texas summers, the watermelon – into the lofty realm of the fruit family. This revelation came to me two days ago in a restaurant Mrs. gg and I visited. For an appetizer I ordered a fruit salad from the menu, thinking I would receive the usual assorted mixture of apples, grapefruit,pears, peaches, banana, etc. that one normally associates with a fruit salad. But to my surprise and dismay, the waitress brought me a bowl of chopped up melons, with nary a fruit to be found. Have any of you readers ever had this same experience? Did it make you grouchy as it did me? I thought for an instant that perhaps I had become a victim of some kind of bait and switch tactic but then I began to wonder: Is it possible that some people –restaurant owners among them –consider a melon to be a fruit? I used another instant to think about challenging the young woman who was our waitress but then I told myself she’s probably making no more than minimum wage and working too many tables to be held responsible for confusing melon with fruit. More importantly, I knew Ms. gg would not be amused in the least were the young lady to have shoved a bowl of melon into my face. So I just kept my powder dry and ate my melon, which was not difficult since I actually do like melon. It’s just that on this particular evening, if I’d wanted melon I’d have asked for melon. But I did vow when I got home to conduct the necessary research into the differences between melon and fruit. Here’s what the gg found: Fruit is the “sweet and fleshy product of a tree or flowering plant that contains seed.” Melon is “any of the various typically sweet gourds.” In other words, fruit comes from a tree or flowering plant, whereas a melon comes from a gourd. This was enough to convince the old gg that fruit is not melon and vice versa. I intend to put these definitions on a card and carry it in my pocket whenever from now on I go into a restaurant and order fruit or, depending on my mood, melon, and use it to confront minimum wage earning, over-burdened and under-appreciated waitresses who need nothing more than to be educated on the difference.

gg

No Tickee -- No gas

The experience I'm about to describe occurs more and more frequently, and every time it occurs it chaps the GG’s wrinkly old rear end. It's this: I pull into a filling station (yes, I still call them that) to gas up. I gas up, replace the nozzle, screw the gas cap back on and then push the “Yes” button on the gas pump when it asks me if I want a receipt. I wait and wait and wait until it finally becomes clear that the spool of paper on which the receipts are printed has run out of paper and the gas jockey inside the station has not bothered to replace it in probably weeks if not months because he probably doesn’t care. If that alone is not enough to ruin my day, sometimes this message will appear: “Your receipt is inside” or “See cashier inside for receipt.” Listen, it’s bad enough for old geezers like me to have to pump my own gas, check my own oil and air up my own tires. I making sure I get a receipt without having to trudge all the way inside too much to ask? Why can’t they bring the receipt out to my car? I can’t think of anywhere else I go to purchase something where I’m not given a receipt on the spot, so why can’t these people at the filling stations do the same thing? That’s the least one could expect in return for the exorbitant price we pay for their gas. I have a standard letter I mail to the Customer Relations department of every gas company I visit that fails to provide me with a receipt at the pump. Most of the answers I get, if I get any at all, say that the station I mentioned is independently owned and they (the big gas company) have no control over its operation. My response is to say that, just like these "independent" stations that sell their gas, I too am independent and that means they have no control over where I buy my gas. As they say in another business: "no tickee, no laundry"