An aphorism that for me rings truest is “The shortest line is the slowest.” I can’t think of many things in life more profound.

As one who hates keeping people waiting in line, whether in a bank, supermarket, big box or anywhere else, I sympathized with a gentleman in front of me at Wal-Mart last week who used the wrong card to charge his goods.

As soon as he realized his mistake, I sensed we were going to be there for extra innings. Whether the customer was close to being over the limit on the card, or he simply preferred to use another, we never found out. By that time, a couple of customers behind me started getting impatient. The checker, not knowing how to cancel the transaction, needed assistance from customer service and went into rush mode, which means about one step every 12 seconds.

Continue reading →

    “You can’t change the rules after you play the game.” There’s no other way of saying that.
    I’d be redundant to simply rephrase it, play verbal checkers and substitute a few words, like this: You can’t change the rules after you’ve already agreed on them, even if you’re unhappy with the outcome of the process.
    There, that’s not really better, just different.
    Until last night, I was involved in a process with others in which every participant has gotten many chances to voice his or her opinion. My concern, for several months has been that mere whim trumps agreed-upon rules, and when the outcome displeases one, there’s the desire to re-create the past.
Continue reading →

   In an almost-forgotten class on American history, we covered inflation, the illustration being that after the Civil War, the currency ballooned so much that people practically needed a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread.
   Doubtless, the buyer would still be wondering, “Will this be enough money?”
   Several years later, I got a practical application of the principle when I took my youngest son, Benji, to the new McDonald’s in town.
   Twenty-five years ago, in the nascent days of direct deposit, we’d walk to a bank, deposit most of the check and draw out a bit of spending money, this era antedating debit cards as well.
Continue reading →

    It’s not as if I can scale walls, leap tall buildings at a single bound or perform acrobatics on a trampoline.
    The implication that I could came from Karen Rieniets and Barbara Dorris, both of whom just assumed I had something to do with the rearrangement of letters on the marquee at the long-closed Serf Theater downtown.
    To review: Last week I took a photo of some changes on both sides of the marquee. For years the sign had advertised “In Her Shoes.”�
    Someone got to the sign and changed the words to “Heros Shine.” The photo cutline commended the alterers for having used all 10 letters to come up with a different, original, movie.
    But our features editor, Lee Einer, said the plural of “hero” takes two “e’s.”
Continue reading →

After a meal for nine of us Trujillos at a splendid Santa Fe restaurant, Los Potrillos, where the Mexican food is authentic, I plunked down a tip, all in coins. Well, I suspect the waitperson did some quick math: $2.50 for a meal of about $65, or less than 4 percent.

Inferring I’d left him 10 quarters, the server must have thought, “Este chango es un cheap-o.” So I assured him, “Son dolares”: they’re not quarters but dollars. And therefore I wasn’t such a Señor cusco after all.

But that’s the problem. After buying stamps from the often-out-of-order machine at the Las Vegas Post Office, I ended up with a pocketful of Sacajawea dollars as change. The coins were minted in 2000, to replace the unpopular Susan B. Anthonys of July 1979 vintage.
Continue reading →

Probably as a remnant of a Valentine’s party, someone at the Optic left a box of chocolate-covered cherries in the break room for all us hard-working staffers to enjoy. They vanished the same day — no thanks to me.

Here’s why:

I grew up — as did many of you — in an era when visits to doctors were rare. My first visit was for what I thought was a hearing loss.

Continue reading →

Whose job is it to ensure people’s safety? How do I respond to a tough biker who’s aware that I strongly support helmet laws — not just for people on Harleys, but for kids on skateboards?

Fishing for today’s topic, I got a TiVo-type glimpse of the NBA Wunderkind LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers as he got knocked down (and almost out) in a game against the Mavericks on Wednesday night, when the back of his head lost a battle with the hardwood floor. Does this mean I’d be in favor of helmets for basketball players as well? Perhaps.

But here’s how I zoomed in on this topic:

Continue reading →

   An Albuquerque weathercaster, Bill Eisenhood, used to include an “amazing fact? each evening. One such “fact? was a mnemonic device in which one could recall the names of all the planets. It made such an impression on me that I can’t remember any of it.
   Just for kicks, I sent in a question: What is the longest word one can type using only (not necessarily all) the keys in the row above the home keys of a standard typewriter?
   Eisenhood appeared to be so impressed with that factoid that he led off the weathercast with the question. The news anchors at the time simultaneously blurted out the answer, as if they’d actually figured it out. No way! Obviously, they’d heard the weatherman spill the answer before airtime. I’ve asked the same question to dozens. Nobody has yet to give me the correct answer.

Continue reading →

    What have been the top stories this year? In terms of time and space, the who’s-the-father-of-Anna Nicole Smith’s-baby? ranks in the top 5.
    Britney Spear’s haircut and rehab certainly deserves honorable mention, as do items such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to begin pulling troops out of Iraq.
    Those of us who read a variety of newspapers and watch the news are aware of lots of puffery, the practice of treating celebrities as newsmakers.

Continue reading →

    A home-grown e-mail making the rounds covers the theme of “You know you’re from Las Vegas if …” It’s similar to the paradigm made famous by comedian Jeff Foxworthy, which declares, “You might be a redneck …” And here he inserts something like “… if at least four of your dogs get killed whenthe porch of your trailer collapses.”
    The Vegas version contains some extremely witty entries. My favorite reads: “You know you’re from Las Vegas if you were threatened constantly with, “La Llorona is going to hear you if you don’t stop crying.”

Continue reading →