Nice Try

You need to remember, as you read this blog, that I do not make any of these things up.

That being said, (Canadian friends - I'm sorry, but you may want to skip this entire blog entry...it's not personal):

1. Was travelling yesterday through Brantford, Ontario (home, ironically, of Wayne Gretzky) and noticed that Brantford is also home to the "Sports Hall of Recognition." Is this where you go if you can't make a Hall of Fame? Is this like the participation certificate of sports halls?

2. On a similar note, the CFL (Canadian Football League) has started its season again. There are a variety of reasons that I don't watch the games, but one of them is particularly relevant to the subject at hand. In the CFL, you can actually score a point for attempting a field goal, and missing. (As in "nice try" - "let's give them a point anyway!")

Completely true.

Your money's no good here

Have you ever been behind an old person at the grocery store? No, I mean a REALLY old person - the kind that still writes checks? You sigh as they fumble with the pen and write the amount out in long-hand. You roll your eyes and think, "Come on Aunt Bertha. Join the 21st century. NO ONE writes checks anymore!" Yesterday, I was Aunt Bertha. I got to the check-out and had nearly completed bagging my groceries in my eco-friendly bags when I decided to reach for my wallet. I quickly realized that I had left it in another more vacation-friendly bag. "Oh well," I thought to myself, "It's a good thing I have my checkbook." Wrong. I handed the check to my 15-year old cashier. He looked at it quizzically (I looked at this word very 'quizzically' for several minutes before consulting dictionary.com for the proper spelling) and then, with his eyes all scrunched up, told me he was still in training and would have to call his manager. Whatever. Go ahead. (said to myself while weeping for the future...) The manager comes over and also looks at the check...quizzically. "Is something wrong?" I finally asked, growing impatient with each furrow of their brows. "We don't take checks" the manager finally said. "Are you joking?" Usually I could not bring myself to be quite so outspoken in the face of retail authority -- that's why I married Ryan, so that I would never have to argue with someone about the value of tires or the quality/temperature of soup. I digress. The manager then went on to explain that they stopped taking checks 3 YEARS AGO!!! I fumbled with my explanation -- now there were a couple people behind me in line beginning to stare and I felt like that person whose child throws up in church -- people simultaneously feel both sympathy and loathing for you. Then the manager says to me, "Has it been a while?" What was he implying? That I'd been locked in the dungeon for the past 3 years and at my first opportunity to escape, I went to the supermarket? I don't usually write checks, I explained, but I hadn't realized that they were no longer considered legal tender. I guess pretty soon we'll be a cashless society where the tooth fairy just makes an online transfer to your account and you can swipe your debit card at church. Too late: At the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Dallas, people have been paying their tithe by credit card for years. Apparently, they want the points. (Does God give points? - more importantly, does He still accept checks?)