Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Aug. 5, 2013
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When Boxes Burn and Feathers Fly Last week we had another one of those infernal thunderstorms which have occurred so often this summer that many Alabama residents are complaining of sever damage to their landscaped yards. The damage is largely due to bottom-feeding carp and catfish swimming around their flower beds, looking for worms, but it's damage nonetheless. At any rate, after that first volley of thunderclaps, and after the very first flash of lightning which momentarily popped our power off and made the hair on the back of my neck feel funny, we did what we always do at our house, which is to turn off the TV, the computer and the Internet router. We have this theory that if an electrical device is operating during a thunderstorm, it will attract lightning like a Burmese cat on top of a high voltage power line, but if the device is turned off, lightning will not “run in” on it. This may or may not be true, but it seems more reasonable than what some of my Indiana relatives used to do during electrical storms, which involved putting tennis shoes on the children and making them sit in the living room with two feather pillows in their laps (beds were way too dangerous due to the mattress springs). But eventually the thunderstorm subsided, and we turned on our electronic devices. Everything worked fine, except for the Internet router, which we call “the Internet box” because we are electronically illiterate. Several of the little lights that were not supposed to light up did indeed light up, and began to flicker suspiciously. The lights that were supposed to light up refused to do so. We turned the thing off and then on again, and the problem persisted. After a couple more on and off experiments, I decided to just leave it turned off. When I reached behind the router to turn it off again, I noticed that the on/off switch was moderately hot. And when I say “moderately, hot” I mean moderately hot like a space heater, or a soldering iron soaked in Japanese wasabi sauce (which can melt lead fillings with or without electricity). We had visions of our house engulfed in flames, so we unplugged the thing for the night. We could live without the Internet for awhile. After all, we're not addicted to electronic gadgetry, are we? Of course the answer to that last question was “yes.” All kinds of terrible thoughts raced through our heads. We don't text or tweet or twitter or tingle or twitch, but what about those essential e-mails, and what about keeping up with the latest international news, like that 46 lb. northern pike that Russian President Vladimir Putin says he caught last week without a shirt? Putin, that is, not the pike. And what about Facebook, where we learn how scary it is to find out that some of our “friends” are actually just a little nuts? And what about easily accessible material for a weekly humor column? Dang, we may have survived without that little “Internet box” thirty years ago, and life may have gone on without any serious problems, but now that we've come to depend on instant information (whether useful or useless) at our fingertips, a little electrical problem can throw us into a tailspin. Geez, if an evil genius were to somehow disable our electrical grids and shoot down our satellites, school kids who've been sitting in the same room, silently texting each other since they were five would have to learn how to converse again, and then where would we be? The din would drive their teachers mad. Fortunately, the problem with our Internet router was not a permanent problem. It is working now, and I think that has something to do with putting it in the freezer for a few hours and then hooking it up again, although I may be wrong. What I do know is that with the Internet back in operation, I was able to locate some really goofy actual headlines from around the country, which I will share with you: “Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creating jam” accompanied a 2013 Los Angeles Times video. “One-armed man applauds the kindness of strangers” headlined an article by Jay Cronley. We don't know who he is, but we applaud him anyway. In a 1996 Toronto Star headline, we learn “Marijuana issue sent to a joint committee”. Who else? This one is by a journalist named David Slapsted with an unusual grasp of the language: “Midget sues grocer, cites belittling remarks” Or how about “Psychics predict world didn't end yesterday”. Whew! I like this one, although I'm not sure why: “Alton attorney accidentally sues himself” How about the following AP report, headlined “Tight end returns after colon surgery”? Speaking of sports, in the June 16, 2008 Pittsburgh Press Republican newspaper, AP reporter Chris Duncan gave us the memorable photo of a baseball player being helped off the field, accompanied by the even more memorable headline “A-Rod goes deep, Wang hurt” And not to be outdone, AP reporter David Kravets once revealed, in bold headline print, that “Tiger Woods plays with own balls, Nike says” Or maybe you'd like a meal with the kids at the Gorman School, where “Students Cook & Serve Grandparents”. I'd rather visit the nearby Gorman Chinese Buffet, where although their sign reads “Pets welcome,” they only serve cats. And from an old edition of The Blade Tribune, we learn just how they enforced anti-noise laws in Oceanside, California back in 1986: “Police kill man with TV tuner”. Out of pure scientific curiosity, I'd like to know just how long it took them. But, to their credit, newspapers often correct their poorly worded headlines in subsequent issues. As per the following: “Correction A headline on an item in the Feb. 5 edition of the Enquirer Bulletin incorrectly stated 'Stolen groceries.' It should have read 'Homicide.'” Without our “Internet Box,” I could never have found these mishandled headlines. I'd have had to make up my own, and my imagination isn't that good. Not since that lightning strike, anyway. I guess I should've held both feather pillows, instead of giving one to the dog. |