Mail

Kids these days have it so easy with email that when they actually have to mail something, they don’t know how. My sister was recently in the post office and wanted to mail a letter. She handed it to the cashier, who weighed it.
“Forty-two cents,” he said.
“No, really,” laughed my sister.
“No, really. Forty-two cents,” the cashier said again.
“I don’t want the whole book of stamps—I just want one,” she explained.
“Yes. One stamp is forty-two cents,” he explained, wondering under what rock my sister had been hiding for the past ten years.
“Are you kidding?!” my sister exclaimed.
The cashier eyed her. “Are you?”
My sister thought that a stamp cost seven cents.

Muffins

The other day, I was with my girlfriend in a coffee shop, and I saw the largest muffin I have ever seen in my life. Three of them sitting right next to each other. It’s actually more frightening as I look back on it now than it was at the time. These were about ten times the size of normal muffins. Enormous. Small footstools, they were. Family-style muffins. For a large family. Imagine eating one of those in one sitting. Holy crap. That’d be your daily value of carbohydrates for about the next week.

Listening

Here's an interesting topic: Talk show hosts on the radio who take calls from listeners—and then don’t let the listeners speak. They talk all day and we listen—they can’t just let someone else speak for the one or two minutes they’re on the air? They took the person’s call, for Pete’s sake! Why do they bother taking calls if they’re just going to shoot down what the person says and reiterate their own view? It seems pretty pointless to me. A discussion would be far better. I understand that these hosts are passionate about the topics on which they speak, and I respect that. But passionate and close-minded need not be one and the same. I’d like to host a talk show. But I would let the listeners speak. Sometimes it’s funny what people say. A lot of times, in fact. If people listened more, they’d get more laughs out of it and maybe have more stories to tell. But it really is true that so many people don’t really listen—they just wait for their turn to speak. Have you noticed this? I’m sure you have. The point was brought up in the movie “Fight Club,” and I thought it was a brilliant observation about humanity. Why don’t we listen more? Why aren’t we more patient? Our culture demands instant gratification, so that’s what we’re conditioned to want and seek. Imagine how much more productive and helpful we could be to each other if we just listened more! Hopefully, someday, more people will begin to realize this.