The Wizard Will See You Now

Somewhere in China, deep in an underground factory, gangs of underage, underpaid workers labor to turn out one of the worst products ever inflicted on an unsuspecting world....bank pens. Although the technology for making a simple pen is at least half a century old, somehow whoever makes these pens for the bank market can't seem to get it right. I dare you to walk into any bank and find a pen that works. It's really laughable that they chain these suckers to the furniture so that gangs of defective pen thieves won't make off with them. It also seems silly in an age when computers rule that it is even necessary to fill out the deposit slip by hand in triplicate like they did in Grandma's day. Memo to Citibank: You own a trillion dollars worth of computers; lose the G** D*** pens!

You struggle, strain, and try every way you know, but the barrier will not give way. You tear at it, scratch it, even bite it, but no luck. What devious security device proves so impenetrable to your most clever attempts to crack it? Is it some lock box skillfully made to prevent tampering with your valuables? An encrypted computer system that even James Bond is powerless to decode? No friends, its the un-openable cellophane wrapper on your music CDs. Even if you break through the outer defenses of the cellophane, there are the tape strips around the plastic case to deal with. I'm afraid to take the tape off for fear there is an exploiding dye pack to mark me as the intruder. Memo to the music industry: It's a freakin' Bee Gees CD....enough with the homeland security already.

You step up to the roving bar and order a Beefeater Martini with a twist, straight up. You're looking sharp in your "wedding suit" as you casually look around, feeling the admiring glances of every woman in the room. (OK, maybe it's just the gay busboy.) You shoot your cuffs, showing the recommended one-half inch of shirt protruding from your suit sleeves, and make your way to the table where your wife is sitting. You lift the rim of the chilled glass to your lips as you sit back to bask in your coolness. And then it happens...a horrible scream escapes your throat as the one pin you forgot to remove from your new shirt penetrates your back! Memo to shirt manufacturers: five or six pins should do the trick.

Let's stay on the packaging rant for a moment. Why is it when I go online and buy an item the size of a deck of cards, it comes in a box big enough to fit a lawn mower, and the extra space is taken up with those styrofoam "peanuts". I'm finding these things weeks later hiding under furniture or clinging like fugitives to the sides of the garbage pail. And how about those hard-plastic bubble containers that defy opening without the loss of a limb, or the bubble wrap they put in to protect an object during shipping. If you accidentally step on this stuff it sounds like the St. Valentine's Day massacre.

I like the way a suit comes back from the dry cleaners. First there is the plastic sleeve over the hangar, the one that may cause death from asphyxiation if a child or a Democrat gets hold of it. Then there is the plastic tab that holds the suit together as it it were buttoned; why not just button it? Also, the sleeves of the suit are stuffed with tissue paper to help keep its shape; the damn suit looks better empty than with me in it! I guess they have to do something to justify what they charge for dry cleaning a suit these days. (That's another scam...how do you "dry clean" anything? Memo to self: Separate blog needed on this.)

Memo to the wizards responsible for these abominations: ...FIX IT!

SEE DATES ABOVE RIGHT FOR OTHER POSTS FROM "BRAINDROPS". ALSO, READ MY OTHER BLOG: SPALDEEN DREAMS

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