The Once-in-a-While

Daily News

1  Evidently, we began falling victim to the Wanabe Global Cyber Attack on Friday of last week. I got the spelling from the subtitles on my tee vee, an old Dynex, if you were interested. 

2  Everybody seems panicked. Frightening. 

3  I may go into hiding. 

4  Microsoft supposedly has some sort of patch to protect us, but I don't really know. I may hit up Facebook to get the honest scoop. Then again, I may not. I'm pretty lazy that way.

5  Meanwhile, I have deadlines. 

6  I had an incident far worse happen upon my person on Friday. To begin, I woke up with a slight cough. Nothing serious, but worthy of a trip to the store for some cough drops. Once you think about going to the store, you might as well pick up a few other items while you're there. We all do that, pretty sure. 

7  I had some fresh crab meat that I wanted to eat while it was still fresh. I remembered that the Sports Illustrated with Draymond on the cover had a recipe for tailgate crab cakes in it. Providence reared its lovely head.

8  In fact, it had an entire recipe page that had a bunch of ingredients, AND it was crab cake sandwiches, with separate recipes for the crab meat, and for the sauce. Here's a pic directly from SI. Yes, those are barbecue chips on the sandwiches:

Yummy, yummy, yummy Sports' Illustrated

Crab Cake sandwiches. 

9  Having been born in San Francisco, I developed a love for all seafood. Crab wasn't just food, it was a link to the past. My grandfather Cesare Restani taught me how to crack crab, and how to use the claws to dig out the meat.

10  I needed a few ingredients I didn't have, not the least of which was fennel seeds. I knew the mainstream stores like Raley's and Safeway were going to be busy, what with Mother's Day virtually beginning on Friday. 

11  We have this hidden gem of a store called Food Source hidden a few miles down the road. Any time I think the mainstream places might be crowded, I reverse field and head for the Food Source. It's relatively easy to find because it is near a liquor store with a huge cow on its roof. Food Source, for those who don't know, is actually a Raley's in disguise. 

Arbitrary fake cow on the roof of a liquor store near
our Food Source. 

12  So I was going on a grocery trip for cough drops and fennel. Not glamorous, but a nice outing for a guy in shorts. 

13  On the way, I remembered that I was running low on shampoo, and when I got inside, I was pleased to see that they carried the classic formula for Pert 2-in-1 shampoo. I'm convinced the bottle design was inspired by the picture below it.

Pert gal. I'm convinced she inspired

the bottle of Pert, above. No reason. 

14  If I may reveal some of my beauty secrets, I always liked Pert. I don't have enough hair even to care about shampoo really, but I always found Pert to be pretty inoffensive. I will often wash my hands and face with the stuff, and emerge clean as a whistle. 

15  I took the Pert and placed it in my shopping cart, and then continued through the store, forgetting whatever else I was supposed to get. 

16  The Food Source is one of those cavernous stores, almost Costco-esque. The Pert was an easy find, but looking for a tiny container of fennel seeds? Not so easy.

17  I LOVE when that happens, incidentally. It means I can swiftly move up and down each aisle quickly, and log some walking miles on. Big stores work for me because Sacramento can get pretty hot. An air-conditioned store can help me maintain a four-to-five mile daily walking routine.

18  So. Cough drops and fennel seeds. A tisket, a tasket. 

19  I moved gracefully through each aisle, at what I regarded an inconspicuous speed. People were all moving at their own relative speeds, so I don't think they noticed me. 

20  I remember my Dad claiming he was invisible in stores. Like father, like son. 

21  I must have shot past the spices eight or nine times, because you go down the aisle, and then down the next. LONG aisles in that place, so the walking miles begin to stack up. 

22  I finally found the spices and headed for the checkout. 

23  I stood for a second trying to eye the shortest line. I then heard the voice of a little girl say, "Excuse me?" My hearing gets worse with each passing hour, so I wasn't sure where to look for the voice. 

24  I looked down and saw this little girl with her Mom. She pointed to the area under my shopping cart.

25  The top to the Pert bottle had fallen off (that's a Pert drawback) and I saw a turquoise trail of Pert a mile down-the-aisle, it's source being the bottle of Pert in my cart. 

26  The Pert caps are notoriously sloppy, but this one was everywhere. The floors of the Food Source are glossy cement. Old people shop at the Food Source, so I worried about someone slipping. 

27  I placed my cart over the heart of the spill and searched for help. There is no feeling more helpless. Fortunately, I saw a young Food Source guy and flagged him down. He got on it

quickly, came back with a full roll of paper towels, and began wiping in circular strokes. I thanked the girl, whose Mom was proud of her, and I thanked him.

28  I joked with a few shoppers but REALLY wanted to turn invisible. I slipped away, moving six aisles over. I remember wishing I could push a button and vanish.

29  I found myself in aisle ten, right in the middle of the store when I again looked down. What I saw terrified me. I saw that my original Pert trail had curved through every aisle I had walked. I had somehow designed a booby trap that could conceivably kill tens of thousands of men, women and children. I had inadvertently become The Pert Monster of Food Source! Dun, dun DUNNNNNNN!!!

30  I rolled my cart towards the checkout area and saw the devastation of the Pert storm that I, this old geezer in shorts and horn-rimmed glasses, had wrought.

31  The trail of shampoo went up and down aisles eight, six, four, and two. This became a calamity of epic proportions. 

32  I arrived at the checkout area and saw that the young man was still wiping the first three feet or so of a three-mile Pert serpent. This stymied me.

33  I told him to tell a manager that he might need more help, and he got on it. I sheepishly moved to the checkout with my cough drops, fennel, and Pert bottle, which I had wiped clean with my shirt sleeve. 

34  I wasn't going to leave without taking it with me. I just wasn't. Don't ask me why, but I'm pretty sure I was seeing to it that that the Pert would do no further damage. I hopped back in my car and made my way safely home. I turned on the evening news to hear of any reports. There were no reports of any slippage at the Food Source. My relief knew no bounds. The Food Source took care of its own.

35   And I emerged from it all clean as a whistle. 

36  Moving On, Part One: Anybody lookin'?

37  Old geezers in shorts.

38  America craves stories about them.

39  Whenever I get a haircut, I hunt down magazines that feature those fellows. 

40  Retired geezers. There's a reason we have them around, I suppose.

41  I swear to you.

42  There's a reason we have them around.

44  I gottago.

45  We'll see you again.

46  Have a GREAT day.

47  Live life.

48  Love life.

49  Peace.

~H~

fin.