MaineCourse

Unrelated Bits

Every Christmas we have dinner with the Hopkins, at their house. This year was our first without Matthew who stayed home with the flu. When we got home that night, Diane began coughing, just as Matt had been, and before morning had her own case of the flu. I held off until Sunday and Susan until about 2 AM Monday morning. We now have a 100% infection rate, and this is with three of us having had flu shots. Fortunately we’re pretty well caught up, the tree is fully decorated (thanks to Susan) and and a bow has been added to an important present.

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For Matthew’s first tennis lesson, not too many years ago, I loaned him my Blackstreak, the racket I won following a tournament in 1962. When he arrived the first day, his teacher looked at his racket and said, “There are two kinds of tennis rackets, and this isn’t one of them.”

Scouting for a suitable Christmas present for Matt, I thought, why not hub caps for his BMW. They were, afterall, popular in “my day.” When I mentioned them to Matt, he gave me the same look, but with an added measure of disdain, that his tennis teacher must have given that racket. “It’s all in the rims dad. You buy custom rims and they run about two hundred a piece.”

With that information, I drove up the hill to Advanced Accessories in Boxborough to follow up on the rim, hubcap theory. “You can spend anywhere from fifty dollars a rim to two thousand,” I was told.

“Then how about hubcaps, my son claims they are worthless.”

“They rattle around, then fall off. Your son seems to know more than you do .”

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I trudged off to CompUSA this morning, to buy a new trackball for my computer. My old one was four years old and the spinning rubber grommet had worn down,
and split, so there was no recovery. While cruising the Mac aisle, that looked like the back of an unkempt walk-in closet, with junk strewn about, I overheard a conversation. I bring it up because Bob Hopkins and I were commiserating Friday night about the loss of subtlety in our culture.

“You wouldn’t believe how fast this computer is.” I had my back to the guy and I couldn’t see which computer he was referring to. But his friend, simply nodded.

“You know my G3 at home? It’s is a three hundred and fifty megahertz machine.” He slowed down and carefully enunciated the megahertz rating, and I thought, Oh he’s being really precise.

“And this machine is ONE POINT TWO FIVE GIGAHERTZ.”

There’s the comparison, I thought, now he’s going to do the math.

“Do you know how much faster that is?”

His friend finally chimed in with, “Lots faster.”

I waited for the result of his long division, “Gazillions,”
he replied.

“And this machine is ONE POINT TWO FIVE GIGAHERTZ.”

There’s the comparison, I thought, now he’s going to do the math.

“Do you know how much faster that is?”

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Definitely should be on Marilyn Vos Savant's list of the most dumbfounding questions.
Along with: "Do astronomers add a day to each light year every four years?"

My commiserations on your flus. (Or is it flues?)
Hope you all recover soon.

Posted by rakkity.

Isn't Matthew the conservative car owner who wants to re-paint the Bimmer white to be as faithful to its roots as possible? Wouldn't hubcaps be restoration ornamentation, whereas rims would be modernization accessories? The tennis racket was an oblivious insult to your child, potentially socially humiliating, and certainly a physical handicap, but I think the hubcaps are appropriate, and I know they're well-intentioned.

On the demi-eve of flying off to the Southwest to visit my parents, we're all waiting with bated breath to see if the minor symptoms lurking about will blossom into full-fledged plague, likely traceable to the doorstep of The Father of This Blog. Not that he didn't warn us.........

Posted by daytimer.

Mike, you got one key word wrong in the retort by the teacher on the racket.

The correct word: neither (of them).

Posted by The Editor.

Posted by Michael at December 22, 2003 09:31 AM