What Masks Are Not For

If someone had told you a year ago that one of the biggest topics of discussion in 2020 would be masks, there isn't anyone who would have believed that.  To wear or not to wear, how to wear it, when to wear it, what kind to wear and is wearing one important or effective-these are just some of the topics of conversation that have come up with people around the world this year.

However, absolutely no one is talking about what masks are not for, so I decided to share some thoughts with you.  We know that wearing a mask properly you can look forward and look to the right and to the left, but you don't want to attempt to look down. I realized this one day when I was working and walked into the men's room and walked up to a urinal. Yes, I am going there, with this conversation.  When I looked down I could not see anything! The urinal was there and I was there, but where was "you know what?" Masks are not made for this.

Eating? Are you kidding? When you go to grab a grape or pretzel or carrot while driving, there's no way you can get that past the mask.  If you're driving it's impossible, because you would need two hands to pull the mask back with one hand and force something into your mouth. Masks are not made for this.

Drinking? The great thing about a water bottle with a straw is that you just suck on it and you get water. But, with a mask on, you cannot get the straw to your mouth, it is frustrating if you're thirsty.  Masks are not made for this.

Kissing? It is not recommended. First you would kiss your mask and then the mask of the person you're kissing and I guess you get to the lips of the other person? I have not tried this, but masks are not made for this.

Taking a shower or a swim with a mask? I'd like to see that happen.  Are there waterproof masks? Not likely, but don't try this at home, masks are not made for this.

In conclusion, when the subject of masks come up, think about what they are not for and not all the rest of the stuff.  Maybe that's what masks are really for-to be amused about what they are not for.

Maybe not, but it's a lot more fun thinking about.

RIDER COMMENTS IN MAY AND JUNE

She had been in Myrtle Beach twenty years and I asked, "where are you from?" She said, "I'm from my mom." (Alcohol influenced answer)

"If I was an Uber driver now, I'd be killing it!"(maybe not the best choice of words?)

"I have a baked chicken and mashed potatoes in my purse for my brother. He sucks at cooking."

First guy: "I don't know why my finger hurts." Second guy: "You put it in my mouth at 4 am." First guy: "You bit my finger?"

"I got so distracted by our conversation I left my phone here."(in my car)

"When I called my fast food manager on the phone and told her that the doctor said I had a collapsed lung, she said, "are you going to be at work tomorrow?"

"I'm still trying to make my wife into what I want her to be."(married 10 years)

Him: "I'm going into work to make money and then they take it away for rent." Me: You do get something for the rent, right?" Him: "Sure, I don't have to live out in the woods with ants crawling on me."

(Single, male Uber driver from N. Carolina) "I've gotten a lot of dates and I've recruited people for work while I drove."

(College student who went to catholic schools her whole life and was not religious) Me: Did you find it uncomfortable at times?" Her: "No, for the most part I just grinned and bear it."

"I liked the names Jennifer and Vanessa, so I named my little girl-Jennessa."

"I build robotic drones for pest control."

Said one eighteen year-old-girl to the other, "don't be a bitch in the car on the way home."

"We picked North Myrtle to live by throwing darts at a map."

"Thank god I wasn't a boy.  My mom wanted to name me Amadeus after the old movie."

(50 year-old male who is a Respiratory Therapist and with his wife(?) was not wearing a mask) "I choose not to wear one, I don't think they work.  The virus is like Tuberculosis and we don't protect ourselves with masks for that. Eventually this will just be a form of the flu."

"When I was younger we would ride our bikes past Trump's Mar-a-Lago before it was his. The security was so old that on top of the gates there was broken glass bottles to keep people out."

"You're the nicest Uber driver I've ever had."(not alcohol induced answer)

"Our cab driver said he has five drivers who won't come back to work, because they are making so much on unemployment."

"Moving here from New York is the best decision we've ever made."

"I was named Tamiracle because I was a miracle baby."

Two servers from Indiana said, "we were fired from our jobs so we could collect unemployment. On top of the unemployment we're getting $600.  We visited Orlando a few weeks ago and we're here in Myrtle Beach this weekend for the first time."

"When I lived in Atlanta I worked only 12 miles away in the city and it took me over two hours to commute each way.  I don't miss it. Today, working from home in South Carolina, I've driven only 8,000 miles in the last six years. My dealership keeps asking when I'm coming in for an oil change."

Too Much Jeffy? (Blog #300)

When I was in college and went home for the weekend my roommate used to say he was on a "Jeffy break."  He really was missing me, but didn't want to say so.  I thought of this the other day when I was told that someone was catching up on my blogs, a bunch of them at once.  I thought that would be "too much Jeffy" for one sitting.  I think I'm probably funnier and more interesting in smaller and shorter moments, which leads to my real topic.

Believe it or not, this is my 300th blog dating back to to December 2017, two and a half years ago.  If you do some quick math that would mean that in the thirty months I posted ten blogs a month or two and a half blogs a week. Sometimes they come in bunches as they will this coming week, so beware.

I started writing this blog mainly for my Dad and children so they didn't miss out on anything that was going on in our life as we worked on "becoming southerners." Sure, there were times that they wished I would not written about something, but you can't please everyone.  During this time, I've discovered that I really do enjoy writing, no matter how trivial the subject might be at times.

How long will I continue to blog? When I run out of things to say, I'll stop then.  Thanks for reading and I hope every once in a while you read something interesting or something that will make you laugh.  You never know-it could actually happen!

Put A Long Q-Tip Up Your Nose?

It's just a theory, but maybe one of the first things to go when you get "old" is your hearing.  These days, it doesn't help when people are talking to you and they are wearing a mask, how are you supposed to hear everything they say?

My wife wanted to get tested for the virus and I asked if she wanted me to go with her. She said she did and told me that they put a swab on your tongue, or something like that.  It sounded simple and painless, so I agreed to go.  Later on we were talking about something else and she suddenly said, "put a long Q-tip up your nose."

I had no idea what I did wrong, which is not unusual.  However, it sounded so odd and painful I had to ask her what she was talking about.  The procedure to get tested for the virus has nothing to do with a swab, but they stick a long Q-tip up your nose instead.  My enthusiasm for going dried up very quickly and it does not sound like something I want to do.

We didn't go that day for the test, but it may be another day. I'm not looking forward to it, but maybe they have some smaller ones for my ears?

The Bag

It's not unusual to lose something, it's very common.  Sometimes its minor and sometimes it's important.  Recently my credit card disappeared.  It must have fallen out of my pocket and I canceled it and got a new one.  I've mentioned this before but wouldn't it be great if you could go online and put all the information in and within 24 hours you get to see a picture of where you left it? You wouldn't be able to get it back because it would automatically go to "the land of lost things." However, at least you would know what happened.

How often though, do you find things? Sure, I still find money on the ground, but if it was something important and it was definitely not yours and you took it by mistake?  Here's the short version of what happened: two of my riders were rushing to get a train. I got to the station and grabbed a suitcase and ran inside the station with them to find out we missed the train by two minutes.  The girlfriend went to the ladies room and I went to the men's room while the boyfriend got his money refunded.

I walked outside to find the girlfriend standing there with a bag on the ground and a suitcase. The boyfriend comes out and we decide to go to the next train station to get another train. The girlfriend takes the suitcase and I take the bag and we put it in my trunk.  Hours later we arrive and empty the trunk and find out that the bag I grabbed is not their bag.  It was sitting in front of the station and no one was in the station, we were the only ones there.

I am three hours from the train station where I took the bag. I call the station and no one was looking for the bag.  There are two names and addresses on a poster board, one in Pennsylvania and one three hours from where I am. The bag has some clothes, a few other things and some inexpensive (?) jewelry or pins. I decide to drive home and figure it out later.

Arriving home, I look up the name on the poster holder on Facebook and I find him.  I send him a message(on messenger) and I don't hear from him.  One of his friends on Facebook is the person who sent the poster to him and I send a message to her.  A day later, I have heard nothing. On the second day my wife sends the girl a message on Instagram and she replies that she's sent her friend a message to call me.

That's when the story gets more bizarre.  I didn't mention that my wife looked through the bag and found pot and not something you would use to cook.  She also found something to vape with and that is expensive too. I get a phone call during dinner from Jeff who is from New Jersey.  His son left the bag at the train station on Friday, twenty-four hours before I picked it up.  He was sending his son home to Northampton, PA. which is only twenty minutes from Phillipsburg, NJ where we used to live.

The son has some mental health issues and has had a heroin problem.  The father told me that his son had recently stolen his motorcycle and the Dad knocked him out with a bat.  He also said something about harpooning him also, but he didn't draw any blood.(no, I'm not making any of this up) The Dad was told by a judge that his son who is in his mid-30's has to get help in Pennsylvania since he's a resident there.

The Dad paid someone $100 to take his son to the train station with a bag of food and the bag I found and buy him a train ticket.  The son for some reason walked into the train station parking lot and into the hospital parking lot and went into the hospital looking for food.  They kept the son for evaluation.

The father seemed very nice and told me I could keep "his" pot, but I politely declined.  He also said if I was in his area I should call him, because he has a very large pool table.  He has a friend in Myrtle Beach who owns a gas station/liquor store and I could drop the bag off there.  I left the house immediately and I made the drop of the bag with the pot to a guy who also was from New Jersey.

And, that's the story of "the bag."

Haagen-Dazs is 60 Years Old Too This Year!

The other day I learned something very trivial but meaningful to me. Haagen-Dazs is celebrating their 60th birthday this year too.  When I looked it up there were a number of places that said it was created in 1961 and not 1960, but according to their "new" special birthday design on their container of coffee ice cream, this is their 60th birthday. I don't want you to think that an empty pint container of 14 flavor ounces with NO GMO ingredients is displayed on my desk in front of me, I just memorized that information.

In case you don't know, Haagen-Dazs makes some amazing ice cream and their coffee ice cream is definitely my favorite.  Where did it come from and how did it get that odd name? Glad you asked, that's why I'm here. It was invented by a couple, Reuben and Rose Mattus, a Polish Jewish couple living in Bronx, New York. (home of The New York Yankees) Reuben created the name as a tribute for Denmark's treatment of Danish Jews during World War 11!  They apparently sat around the kitchen table brainstorming any name that sounded Danish until they came up with the name, that really means nothing.

The original flavors were chocolate, vanilla, and coffee and it is considered to be a "super premium brand."  I'm always amazed at people who drink coffee, but don't like coffee ice cream.  And yet, I love coffee ice cream and don't drink coffee. I have recommended Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream to many people and I think I should be getting a discount every time I buy a pint. If you have never tried their coffee ice cream, there's no better time than right now!

It Was 52 Years Ago Today-June 5, 1968

I've always loved history and there are certain moments in time that forever change the future. I've often wondered, what if that moment never happened? One of those obvious moments was on November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but it was today in Los Angeles, California, that another moment changed history significantly.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's younger brother and his attorney general, was shot after winning the Democratic Primary in California as he ran for President of the United States.  His final words in his acceptance speech were, "now it's on to Chicago," and he was shot walking through a cheering crowd at The Ambassador Hotel.  He died early the next morning at the age of 42.

I recently watched a terrific special on Netflix about his life.  He was a very unique man and a very unusual politician.  He was one of nine children and the father of eleven children. He had a connection to people that few other politicians have ever had. It is believed he would have won the Democratic nomination and faced Richard Nixon in the fall if he hadn't been shot. If he had been elected President of the United States there would not have been a Watergate and there's a good chance that the Vietnam War would have ended sooner.

With the events this past week it is easy to say that maybe the greatest moment in his life came on another tragic day in our history, April 4, 1968. One hour after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated,  he was scheduled to make a campaign stop in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Over the next few days there would be riots in 76 cities across the country with forty-six people dying, 2,500 people injured and 28,000 people jailed, but in Indianapolis there would be no riots.

That night his remarks lasted only five minutes.  He was unprotected; there was no police or secret service and he was warned not to go into the area to speak, because he could not be protected from the crowd.  He spoke without notes from his heart at a podium on the back on a pickup truck to a crowd of less than a thousand people who did not know that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed.  Below are some excerpts from his speech:

"Ladies and gentleman, I'm only going to speak to you for one or two minutes tonight because I have sad news. I have sad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens and for people who love peace all over the world- and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee. He dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings and he died in the cause of that effort."

"For those of you who are black-considering the evidence, evidently there were white people who were responsible.  You can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization-black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another.  We have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times."

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice for those who will suffer within our country, whether they be white of whether they be black."

"So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King-yes, that's true-but more importantly, to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love, a prayer for understanding that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country.  We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it is not the end of disorder."

"But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in the country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people."

At his funeral, his younger brother, Senator Ted Kennedy said his brother was, "a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

How Fast Do You Have To Move For No One To Realize Your Shirt Is Inside Out?

This is a question many of you have thought about it, but were afraid to ask. I don't want you to think that I went to work and worked for hours with my shirt inside out, however, I do want you to know that it did really happen to me the other day.

I did put my shirt on in the dark and that was my first mistake at 4 am.  About 10 am while I was delivering to a hospital I noticed a tag on my side and then immediately made it to a bathroom to turn the shirt "right side out?" When I got in the hospital I had put a visitor's pass on my shirt and after turning my shirt "right side in?" I realized the label was now inside my shirt.  It's not easy getting a label off from the inside, but I did it.

So, how fast do you have to move for no one to realize your shirt is inside out? It depends on where you live I think.  In New Jersey things are always moving quickly and people are used to it and would probably notice it easier.  In South Carolina, it's a much slower pace.  However, I'm moving at New Jersey speed and I don't think anyone could notice.  Maybe if I wore the shirt inside out the whole day someone would notice?

Maybe I'll try that next week?