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Yes Dear!


Grumpy Bear

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“Have you added up ALL the gas you’ve burned to find the most efficient use of it?” She walks to my study stopping in the low light just outside the door.

 

Funny girl that wife of mine.

 

“It’s not why I do it dear”. Projecting my reply into the darkness.

 

“Oh?” she quips eyebrow raised; tapping check book to hand in an accusing manor as she ambles’ into the light.

 

You have to understand my wife went her entire life without breaking a bone or catching a stitch. Nothing ever happens to her and she never runs out of gas. Not that she hasn’t set herself up for it a time or two. Knowing this I also know the “reasoning” would be lost on her.

 

I have a few other good reasons to substitute…like;

 

“I just enjoy the drive dear and while at it, choose to learn a thing or three”.

 

In her most convincing three year old voice finger to cheek rotating her body about her toe. “Why?”

 

“It winds my watch”. I’m getting annoyed and she relishes that.

 

I’m trying to enter my newest data as she speaks and I refuse to meet her eye…..I can feel the stare like a heavy blankets on a hot night

 

No longer able to bare the interruption I stop…look up. and add at a measured pace, “Learning something and sharing it gives the day a purpose that isn’t self-indulgent”.

 

Being chivalrous generally works on her.

 

A short pause later she turns away setting the checkbook beside the keyboard, “They won’t appreciate it you know”; The reality of those words hang dead in the air.

 

I sigh, fixing my gaze back on my notes….“I know sweetie”.

 

I’ve seen the movie before. I just keep forgetting how it ends. Or want to.

Edited by Grumpy Bear
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is this like a Kardashian thing? or did the grumpster git deep into the liquor cabinet and git da good stuff out and indulge a bit? Nothing wrong with an adult beverage now and then, everything is OK in moderation.

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“Insight”, I hear echoing in my head, “…is the ability to look past the facade seeing clearly the supporting structure”.

 

It’s part of a public discourse we attended and immediately I get an elbow to the ribs.

 

“What?” I hoarsely whisper, the lapse of focus ending with realities rude painful call. Boney…….

 

“You catch that?” she whispers back.

 

Of course I caught it! Right in the ribs, but not what she meant I guess. I wave her off. “Later”. Oh and later does come.

 

“Well….?” A single word spoken after the door to the truck closes capturing its prey in a snare. No place to run in a single cab.

 

“Well what?” I mumble hoping the innocent act is in play. It isn’t.

 

After a pause for effect I smiled…”Obviously I lack good insight?”…She smiles back.

 

“We argue good”, she offers in truce.

Edited by Grumpy Bear
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Coffee is a simple pleasure. At least it should be. I brew a single cup each morning to savor from my ceramic Line-X Truck Gear cup under the Ash tree as I greet the days dawn.

 

After a few decades of truly bad coffee gulped down in buckets on the night shift taste buds get a bit numb to a wide range of insults. A lack of flavor, extreme bitterness and or weakness and, Oh, mustn’t forget cold. You can suffer much injury if it’s hot.

 

Seems like no matter how much time you allot for the experience getting a hot cuppa Joe enjoyed ‘To the Last Drop’ is seemingly impossible.

 

Retired for some time now I set off to find the “Perfect Cuppa”. I’m undecided if the lessons were actually worth learning as they speak poorly of humanity. Then again it is a pretty inoffensive way to address the topic. It skips right past religion and politics. I think that’s funny in its own rite.

 

Boiled down to its least measure (pun intended), it’s the marriage of hot water and a coffee bean. I mean how complicated can it be, right?

 

Pretty actually. There are two other important constituents. Your personal taste foremost and….wait for it….information. Which I assure you, you will not get.

 

Like wine and English tea there are two things people love about it. A chance to be snobbish wrapped in total ignorance. They can pull off the former due to the latter. Notice I didn’t assign a target to ignorance? The first is too snobbish to know its ignorant and the second just blissfully unaware it’s awed by such snobbery.

 

Wikipedia grapes. Did you note the hundreds of verities and then note how few are used to make wine. There are over 3,000 varieties of tea. Only a few are commercially cultivated. For coffee there are about a 100 species. Only two are commercially grown and of those; one comprises the overwhelming majority of production. Arabica beans.

 

Coffee like tea or grapes, the nuances of tastes are dependent upon the conditions they grow in. Meaning, as it does in the other examples, that taste is from batch to batch and from season to season even when the tightest controls are kept on the environment. It is this single unavoidable condition that yields ‘vintage years’.

 

Vintage goes right out the window unless there is a consensus among the snobbish as to what defines YOUR pallets dictums. I mean in the end you like a thing or you don’t. Taste is subjective, no matter how objective the test for it is or how honed the testers pallet. Only an idiot or one low in self-esteem would spend a grand on a bottle of grape juice he can’t stand the taste of just be seen drinking it.

 

The biggest variance region has over coffee is it controls the weather and the soil. Ever since the days of Folgers Juan Valdez Columbia has endeared itself to the psych. It is still the most revered region on earth.

 

Is that a fact or just the most successful marketing ploy in the history of coffee? Truth is; of a hundred labels ‘source’ is almost never on that label. Hum. Pretty important detail to leave off isn’t it?

 

Beans are graded by their physical attributes. I mean there are good apples and rotten apples. There are ripe apples and green apples. There are old apples and juvenile apples. There a large apples and small apples. Each and every one has a different taste even for the same variety and in the same season. Even from the same tree on the same day. It’s why you pick over produce is it not? In the world of coffee you have allowed someone else to pick it for you.

 

So beside region, grade is really important. Ever see that on a label? Not often.

 

Blending of beans from various sources can produce some unique flavor qualities. Then again the purity of taste from a single source can dampen the variations in taste common to the craft. Source and blend then can have a large impact on the final product. How often is that on a label? Especially if it is blended with FILLERS as most commercial coffee is.

 

You will see on occasion, ‘single source filler free’. Never will you see. “floor sweeps from around the world’, but if not labeled, likely is.

 

The roast is a topic that could and has covered many a book. Information is abundant and no need to cover it here except to say it should be on every label and it is most definitely not.

 

Last and by no means least is the grind whose type is a requirement of the brew method yet not even that single piece of information is on all labels.

 

Distilled the BASIC REQUIRED information is; region, blend, grade, grind and roast ….I have yet to find a label that contains all the most basic information required to brew a decent and somewhat repeatable cuppa coffee no matter how expensive the bean or how small and artesian the roaster. Think about that.

 

Anyone remember 1 and 3 pound ground canned coffee? It used to be the standard. So was a dollar a pound or less.

 

12 ounce bags of whole ungraded, unknown source, unknown grind or unknown roast beans or ground beans now go for north of a buck an ounce. They carry nifty names like “Eye -Jack” and “Study Hall”. Morning blend or Donut shop. Full of un-coffee like flavors like Hazel nut or vanilla.

 

We run off to some chain coffee store to buy an $8 cuppa with a name longer than the Mississippi of ‘I have no idea what’s in that cup’ coffee and are PROUD to walk out of that shop holding the thief’s branding up high for all to see our snobbishness while hiding our ignorance and empty wallets.

 

Truth of the matter is, most people that buy coffee for whatever reason don’t really like coffee. They like the feeling being seen drinking it gives them. Just like when you were eight and wanted to feel all grown up. Or perhaps the buzz.

 

It isn’t unique to the coffee experience is it? Wine, tea, trucks, homes, boats, clothing, jewelry, education…….should I continue?

 

What they are doing it supplying the greedy with the rewards of the greedy and robbing those who actually like coffee the experience of getting a cup worth drinking.

 

“Grumpy Bear, it’s bed time”

 

“Yes dear”. I DO lack good insight. "By the way, you were right dear".

 

​"I know".

Edited by Grumpy Bear
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“MARTIN”! Came the shriek from the bedroom. She was huddled in the middle of the bed wrapped around a pillow. Tom E. Cat by her side. At least my middle name wasn’t spoken. It’s fear not anger then. Whew!

 

As soon as I enter the room I can hear the rambunctious scratching inside the closet curtain and Tom’s ears full tilt in that direction. It’s as far as he ever takes it.

 

“What?” Mice are not uncommon this time of year.

 

“He’s in the closet”.

 

“He’s in the wall between the closet and dining room dear”. I offer proof by ransacking the upper shelf. “I’ll set some traps in the morning”.

 

“No!” comes the protest. “Not in the house the kitties will get their feet caught in them”.

 

“Paws Sugar Bear, paws. Okay I’ll bait them”.

 

“Whatever”. I'm getting the eye now. “Can’t you live trap like you did last time?” Best pouty face is being worn. She has a hard time killing anything. Not a bad trait but one that should have some practical limit.

 

“Mice are too small for live traps Sugar Bear”.

 

“You did it before”.

 

Hint, Never set a precedent. Gezzz, one time and not because I wanted to or had a better option. I trapped one in a bucket baited with peanut butter that was too tall for him to jump from shoved under the stove exhaust once. Not ideal but it worked and it kept the piece. I released him to the field. A fatal error on my part.

 

We have three useless cats indoors and one outside that has taken up residence in my garage. Graice (Gris) keeps the rodent population to a bare minimum outside as any good cat should but the three inside aren’t really cats. They just look like cats. What they are, are my wife’s furry children and spoiled rotten. Gris is the neighbors cat who thinks my mice are fatter and sweeter. Good kitty.

 

“Yes dear, I’ll try”. Gatos perezosos

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“They say you should be using premium gas in your truck dear”. She was reading over my shoulder.

 

“Who be they?” No need to look up I know what’s coming.

 

"You know...’THEY’…’those that say’”. A mild but playful whine in her voice. She finds this as silly as I do. ‘They’ that is.

 

We’ve never actually met ‘they’ but we’ve heard about them all our life. I’m not sure ‘they’ is a who. Maybe more like a what? Something that gives its authority to a thing in the absents of…what? Proof? Sound reasoning? Or perhaps ‘they’ is nothing more than a collective opinion. Hum.

 

I know ‘they’ have an opinion and ‘they’ even have a printed voice. See it all the time under the heading of Consumer Reviews. Sometimes ‘they’ are a catchy one liner in a news story at 6 O’clock. It is election time. Sometimes ‘they’ are a fathom in an advertisement that eludes to a ‘they’ when ‘they’ don’t exist whose purpose is to make a sale based on ‘their’ opinion or even a down right lie when ‘they’ haven’t said anything.

 

Even when ‘they’ have an opinion they do not have a single voice that can be questioned. ‘They’ bare no responsibility for what ‘they’ say. If ‘they’ say I should burn premium in absence of fact and I do ‘they’ don’t pay for the difference. Do ‘they’? Worse, if ‘they’ say something is safe when in fact it is not, ‘they’ don’t suffer for that error. ‘They’ won’t even likely know about the damage it caused. Maybe they do and profit by it. Think broker who sells a portfolio of ‘they say’ and does not share your loss. Anyway……

 

Sometimes ‘they’ are just a feeling you get from a raised eyebrow that says you’re not in step with what ‘they’ are telling you. Like everyone knows but you.

 

“’They’ pay for the truck?” “’They’ paying for the gas?”. “Insurance?’ “Tickets?” “Maintenance?” I volley back at her. “They go to work for me when I’m sick?” (Okay that’s silly, I’m retired).

 

A faked stunned pause follows.

 

“Then tell me what stake ‘they’ have in this that I should listen to what “they” say?” She loves to stir the pot.

 

“Grumpy Ol Bear”. She laughs. She knew what was coming too.

 

"Yes Dear". Gezzzz

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It just appeared on my desk one morning. A brand new tablet. No brand name on it so I’m stumped. You see, I’m not really much of a toys sort of guy. I still like landlines and tube tires if you get my drift. They worked and there wasn’t much of a reason to change them.

 

My wife on the other hand is a bonafide tech geek. She loves toys. Loves them so much it’s what she does for a living. She trades cars for them. So…..she thrives on a challenge and I had one for her.

 

“Sugar, could you look at this tablet for me?, I can’t seem to get it to do anything”. I did not yet know how funny this was going to be.

 

“Sure, leave it on the counter by my keys and I’ll have a look sometime at work today”. And off she went to get ready. Later that night she came home with a look that made me a bit uneasy.

 

“Yeeees”. I say.

 

“Well”, she says in an annoyed tone, “It hasn’t an operating system loaded and without an OS it isn’t going to do anything but power up and wait for operating instructions to be loaded”.

 

“Did you load one?”

 

“Nope. No name so I have no idea which one to load….unless I take it apart”.

 

At which point I have a flash of thought that punched me in the gut but I hold the entire thought in arrest.

 

“Well, how about we leave it on the counter until it writes its own instructions”. I offer. “I mean, it can do that, right?”

 

I get a look like I just grew a third eye. “Don’t be silly”.

 

“Silly? I seem to remember in grade school being taught life came from what ‘they’ called ‘spontaneous generation’ and if that be the case my dear something allot more complicated than a tablet wrote its own OS. Didn’t it?”

 

“In fact it not only wrote an operating system but an entire set of infinite bit adaptive leaning programs”. I don’t like toys but it doesn’t mean I live under a rock either.

 

“Can I think on that?”

 

“Yes dear, please do. I understand it takes a few million years for this to happen. We have time”.

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“Compare the Cadillac CTS AWD V6 Turbo and the Maserati Ghibli V6. The only thing these two cars have in common is a $76,000 price tag”.

 

“Quality and workmanship are as far apart as a Fiat is from a Bentley and Cadillac still believes they share the same market space. They must or they would be embarrassed to ask such a price for what isn’t any more car that a Buick LaCrosse, which is a fine car, just not a Maserati. I don’t find 30K in value in a twin turbo version of the same motor. What Cadillac lacks in quality and elegance they make up for in ego and arrogance”.

 

“Some nut job at GM will read this and next year and LaCrosse will jump 30K to save face a Cadillac”.

 

“Maybe some fifth grader would like to read these people the story of the “Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. Then very slowly explain it to them that once the goose is dead you can’t bring it back to life by selling the corpse for more than the eggs were worth”.

 

“Well at least you shouldn’t be able to. Ego isn’t the sole providence of the manufacture”.

 

“Did you hear what I just said?”

 

“Yes dear”. Which when translated means, have a glass of red and relax I'm not really listening.

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I buy a new truck that cost $1. How will that work out.

 

State SALES tax is 6% so I need $1.06. But I need $1.06 AFTER TAXES. State, Federal, Social Security and Medicare on my wages are about 17%. My $1.06 is then 83% of some number or $1.28 or $280 per thousand of the sale. Pretty steep but it gets much worse.

 

Trucks need a license, a title and some plates which are more taxes so I need more wages CLEARED AFTER TAXES. In this state 20% of the plate is TAXED as income. So yes. I get taxed when I earn. Taxed when I spend and taxed on the earning and spending on some ADDITIONAL part of the plate TAX. A tax on the taxed money used to pay the tax. I love Illinois.

 

If that buy requires a note it will have an interest rate and I will have to pay that interest with wages CLEARED AFTER TAXES.

 

It will also require full coverage insurance. I need more wages CLEARED AFTER TAXES.

 

It will have an operating expense paid for by wages that are taxed both as that money is made and as it is spent and all of that on the CLEARED AFTER TAX dollars used to pay those expenses.

 

It will depreciate and according to KBB over five years I will lose 63% of the initial purchase price which I won’t pay taxes on but unless I’m a business I can’t write off either. Even if I am a business my write off is amortized over five years and against the taxes paid on my gross earnings not off my taxes directly. True of the interest as well. Let me say that straighter. If I pay a dollar in interest or claim a dollar in depreciation I don’t get a dollar off my taxes. I get a dollar off my gross so I pay taxes on $999 instead of a $1000 and save less than 2 cents on that dollar. I don’t save anything. What I have done is light a fire to $18K.

 

Let’s put some numbers to this. A $28 K truck would cost @ $128 K over a five year span with 20% down on a 5 year 4% note and all other taxes, license and FORSEEABLE operational cost based on 12,500 miles per year and $2.20 gas and tax burdens on those wages CLEARED AFTER TAXES used to pay that cost leaving you with a $90,000 hole in your pocket and a rusted out $10,000 truck with over 62 thousand miles on it, if your average.

 

​Why would I want a fully optioned out one at twice the price?

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