My answers were (a) from everyday experiences as I totter down life’s highway, and (b) no.
My problem with ideas for the column is that I get too many of them, not that I get too few. Sometimes they dangle around in my head like Christmas tree ornaments until I decide to use them or get rid of them. Here are some little ideas I haven’t used:
I was watching a televised football game last season. The telecast came from the Metrodome in Minneapolis, and on hand was the Goodyear blimp. Apparently the producers didn’t notice that the game was indoors. I watched, fascinated, as the blimp’s camera kept showing the outside of the Metrodome roof. What next? Coverage of deep-sea diving by showing a blimp’s-eye view of the ocean?
Near where I used to live, there’s a place where a two-lane highway narrows slightly as it crosses a little bridge. As you approach the bridge, there’s a highway sign that warns, “Yield to Oncoming Traffic.” Fine. However, there’s an identical sign as you approach the bridge from the other direction. Imagine the resulting traffic tie-up if two drivers obeyed the signs and just sat there facing each other, each waiting for the other to make his move. In real life, what happens is that no one pays any attention to either sign, and drivers zip blithely past each other in the middle of the bridge.
Speaking of drivers and signs, why is it that virtually no one stops at a stop sign if nothing is coming? Drivers may slow down, but very few come to a full stop. This does not happen at red traffic lights. No one slides through one of those unless there is a sign that says it’s OK to do so. Maybe we should consider using lights on all traffic signals. The lights would replace printed signs that no one pays any attention to, like SPEED LIMIT 55, YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS, or HANDICAPPED PARKING ONLY.
I’d like to find whoever got the idea for putting those stinky perfume ads in the middle of magazines. They all smell the same anyway, so what’s the point?
Do they ever catch any bad guys as a result of the pictures taken by surveillance cameras? If a stick-up man faced the camera, got up real close, and assumed a threatening pose, maybe we’d get a picture that did some good. Watching the murky images from a surveillance camera on the evening news recently, I called to my wife, “Hey, look, Marilyn, your Uncle Seymour who’s been dead for 30 years just knocked off a convenience store!”
There’s a cover over the chamber that holds the air bag in your car. What happens to that cover when the bag goes off? Seems to me it could cause more damage to your face than the wall you ran into. I hope I never find out.
While having lunch at a buffet-type restaurant, I noticed with approval that the server wore rubber gloves as he placed food on my plate. My pleasure dimmed somewhat as I saw him at the end of the serving table, still wearing the gloves, dipping into the cash register to make change. It’s well known that currency and coins carry a bacteria count roughly comparable to the inside of a dumpster. Next time, I’ll serve myself. At least I know where my hands have been.
When I was eight or nine, we lived out in the country. One time I decided to run away from home. Without trying to talk me out of it, my very wise and very loving mother packed me a lunch for my journey. I went about 200 yards, sat down and ate the lunch, and went home, as Mother knew I would. She welcomed me back with open arms.
Excuse me, but I have to go now. I feel another little idea coming on, and it might even be enough for a whole column.
Jim Davis is a Pinehurst freelance writer.
