Latest word is that the satellite will crash sometime today.
Maybe tomorrow.
Somewhere between the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
Gee -- thanks, NASA!
Thanks to my loyal reader, Cheryl of Deckside Thoughts, for this classic Saturday Night Live sketch about Skylab that sorta reinforces the point of my last post.
Unfortunately, just not the point about sexy multi-boobed space aliens.
Have a safe weekend, friends.
If you are reading this, plummeting space junk has not pulverized you. Yeah, you!
Instead, the biggest topic on most news shows this past week was about was how Two and a Half Men killed off Charlie Sheen's character. If only the writers had him die under a school-bus sized hunk of molten titanium that dropped from the sky instead of being splattered by a plain ol' Parisian commuter train …
You think at least one broadcast would have dug up a "disaster expert" for us. There's only a few hundred of them out there, unshaven and panhandling, since Irene-ageddon. Think of the economic stimulus if we were all told to again have our "to go" bags ready, this time not just with a 7-day supply of Power Bars but Kevlar helmets and asbestos undies. Instead, the little the media did report consisted of statistics about how unlikely it is falling space-age metals will permanently dent your noodle. (For the record, the odds are 1 in 31 trillion, which is exactly the same chance of survival TV critics, gave Two and a Half Men … eight seasons ago.)
Contrast this to 1979. That's when word came that the space station Skylab would come crashing down. Church attendance rose. Media outlets offered rewards for recovered debris. One of my elementary school buddies and I, armed with binoculars and wearing plastic replica Major League Baseball batting helmets for protection, sat on the steps in my front yard, peering through the July leaf canopy looking for flaming streaks in the sky. This week, when my kids learned about the falling satellite, they couldn't even muster excitement over the possibility of a wayward chunk causing an early school dismissal.
This is all further proof of how bored Americans have become with outer space. After centuries of fantasizing about advanced civilizations with sexy multi-boobed aliens and living on Mars, we boldly went where no man has gone before and turned up … rocks and gases. As a result, this summer NASA put the Space Shuttle out of its misery and Hollywood hasn't considered putting a new "Star Trek" series on the tube in years.
Today, Gene Roddenberry turns in his grave; the rest of America just turns over and hit the snooze button.
Dear Summer,
I'm so over you.
Maybe not physically. No -- definitely not, physically. I still yearn for your warmth. That's what happens when you thin your blood for three months with daily infusions that are three parts India pale ale and two parts avobenzone.
That will pass, though. I'll just continue to compensate by donning socks every waking moment, just as I have done this first post-Labor Day week. It's the first time I've had to do that since June. JUNE! Even though those leather sandals I bought this spring still have a good couple weeks of tread left, I'm willing to send them on a premature permanent vacation.
Speaking of near-death experiences ...
The minivan is in an annual state of seasonal disaster that's even worse than usual, thanks to you. Your enormous tropical disturbances and steamy jet stream waters last month sent us packing two days and an entire case of beer early from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Two adrenaline-stoked adults, two exhausted children and one confused Labrador retriever speeding off a barrier island at the ungodly August hour of 5 a.m. Then, 10 hours later, we arrive back at our Connecticut home only to discover, via an iPhone app, that the little dotted line projecting Hurricane Irene's eye shows her passing all of two miles from our house.
That was the last straw. For every pleasant yin you brought a much darker yang, my former friend.
Those picturesque afternoons and evenings on the back deck, sharing a cocktail or bite with family and neighbors? It was a sneak attack on my arteries and belly. You and your savory grilled meats, aromatic cheeses and sweet, sweet mojitos. I'm feeling my bad cholesterol level rising at the thought of that misbehavior you encouraged. My wife and son aren't happy about the golf-ball size welts your little winged terrorists left on their legs and arms, either.
The free tickets fate handed us to experience the many rides at that amusement park? They came with intolerable summer road repair standstills on I-84 and almost equally long waits inside. As for your other promised entertainments, those overpriced, underwritten 3-D family movies you pumped out every weekend ... promises not kept, ex-pal o’ mine.
The weeks of relaxation at home while our tween did sleepaway camp upstate? Ended early in an infected big toe and a nasty infestation of head lice. Sure, my thinning locks escaped the little critters, but just who do you think had to delouse the rest of the clan for an hour or so every day? For two weeks straight!
Summer, I'm going to hold a grudge against for you for some time.
At least until it stops raining.
And I get around to finally shoveling out the minivan. That's when I'm sure I'll start finding all those unintentional souvenirs you left behind.
The crumpled parking passes to the minor league baseball games.
The seemingly infinite grains of sand from along Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
The X-ed out sheets from the many rounds of travel bingo (how is it we never found a "bird on a wire"?).
The receipts from Gopher Ice Cream and Rita's Ice.
The collection of tiny pencils from golf courses both big and miniature.
Ghostly zinc oxide fingerprints from children and their pals.
All right, Summer, you had your moments.
Same time, next year … right?
Your friend,
Un
Playing the waiting game on Banks o’ Carolina as Irene blows down in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, I’ve written a little back-to-school diddy for all of you moms and dads over on DadCentric today. While I contemplate evacuation route options, read how the piece starts and then maybe click to read a little more:
Remember when you climbed on the bus for the first day of a new school year then you'd turn your head to see your parents fighting back the tears?
Now, as a parent yourself, you know that feeling.
Joy.
Pure, unfiltered, fully leaded joy.
As soon as that bus escapes view … (read more at DadCentric)
Call it emailer's remorse, but I feel partially responsible for the U.S. Postal Service's billions of dollars in annual losses, especially since it may now result in the closing of a post office in my hometown.
Yet I will carry on, like any real American, and blame the messenger.
A few Aprils ago, I stood in line with dozens of others to send our long forms and short hairs to the Internal Revenue Service. Behind the counter, a clerk became increasingly frustrated with explaining the difference between certified mail, registered mail and delivery confirmation to every single person who came up to her.
"When was the last time a letter you sent got lost?" she finally let loose to one patron. "It's going to get there. It gets there every other day of the year. Why do you think it's not going to get there today?"
The only such incident I recalled in my life was about 10 years earlier when a friend of mine never received a Christmas package I sent. I had addressed it to her house, so it was possible the mail carrier left it on her doorstep and a gang of seasonal thieves snatched it before she got home from work. All I need to prove that theory is to find a medium-build female crook wearing a powder blue "What the Duck?" novelty T-shirt while using a Signals' catalog star scope to locate the constellation Corona Borealis (literally, "boring Mexican beer").
Once I tried to frame the mail service. I told a college girlfriend I was trying to break up with over the summer that her letter to me never arrived. Turns out she knew something about postal operations and had the delivery traced to my mailbox.
We dated for another five months.
Meanwhile, back at the counter, here was an obviously loyal Postal Service worker -- one who believed in the competency and efficiency of her employer -- actually trying to talk people out of giving her employer money it desperately needed.
You had to admire her honesty if not her total lack of business savvy.
When my turn came, naturally she was my clerk.
"You've convinced me," I said. "Mail these tax forms and my check first-class, period. I trust you."
"That's what I'm talking about, baby," she said.
Then she asked if I wanted to purchase the latest commemorative stamp sheet of dead people.
I regretfully declined her offer, but today it has me thinking.
What else can the Postal Service do in its hour of need besides try to convince people to pay for services they usually don't need?
That's right: Capitalize on financially lucrative children's fads.
I don't know a single person who collects stamps, but the Things are always hounding me for the latest trendy "collectible" that they'll discard in six months.
WebKinz stuffed animals, then the WebKinz archrival, the NeoPets.
Pokemon cards and Bakugan tops.
Briefly, it was Silly Bandz, which are colorful rubber bracelets in the shape of animals or objects -- one of which, naturally, is a dollar sign. We have a few thousand of these regularly clogging up vacuum cleaners and plumbing (usually the dog’s).
Whatever the next Pet Rock is, the U.S. Postmaster General immediately needs to put its likeness onto postage stamps. Cha-CHING! Instant revenue in the USPS's coffers as parents and grandparents must fork it over or face ear-splitting tantrums.
Also, just think of the economic ripple effect it will have on our country's ailing tweezers and magnifying glass industries.