In the Army Now?

I think my sixteen-year-old son may technically be in the military. Allow me to explain.

A while back, Son Number Two received a nice letter from Kathrine R. Helland, Ph.D., who, as you know, is the Director over at JAMRS.

What’s that? You don’t know what JAMRS is? OK, good, that makes me feel a lot better. I had to Google it, too.

The only other identifying mark on the letter besides the mysterious acronym was a “government seal.” I put that in quotes because it was made up of the standard Great Seal of the United States that you are familiar with – the shielded eagle with the “E pluribus unum” banner in its beak and an olive branch in one claw and spears in the other, signifying that we, as a country, know Latin and are not afraid to harvest fruit trees with weaponry.

Normally the seal is surrounded by the title of whatever department of government is being advertised. This seal looked a little fishy to me, though, because above the eagle it said “U.S. Government” and below the eagle it said “United States of America.”

If it’s not fake, it’s at least poor grammar and style since it essentially says United States twice, but that aside, I don’t think the “government” as a whole has a titled seal. That would simply be the one that only says The United States of America.

Anyway, after I got done grading the letter for official seal accuracy, I looked up the acronym and found out it stands for the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, which is a program run by the United States Department of Defense, which as the seal would accurately suggest, is a part of the U.S. Government.

Unfortunately, the Google search of JAMRS didn’t explain how to pronounce the acronym correctly, so I was left not knowing if I should say “jammers,” “jam-res,” “jammer-ess,” or “ja-missus.”

The letter from Dr. Helland asked my son if he wouldn’t mind spending fifteen minutes of his busy schedule to fill out a survey for JAMRS regarding his future plans and his likelihood of joining a branch of the military. This information would “greatly help public officials make more informed decisions when providing and allocating resources.”

Included with the letter was a return envelope and a crisp, new two-dollar bill.

There was no explanation for the money, however the letter did mention that JAMRS had included a “token of their appreciation.” The letter went on to state that if Son Number Two filled out the survey and returned it in the included envelope, there would be a further “token of their appreciation” for his time and efforts.

Son Number Two enjoys having money almost as much as he enjoys spending it, so he filled out the survey and put it in the mail. Sure enough, Dr. Kathrine sent him back a thank you letter with a five-dollar bill this time. Again, there was no mention of the money specifically, only that JAMRS was presenting him with another “token of appreciation.”

Hmm…

Call it what you want to, Doc, but the United States Department of Defense just paid my sixteen-year-old son seven dollars for fifteen minutes of work. To put it another way, the DoD has hired my son to handle paperwork for twenty-eight dollars an hour.

He’s happy as a clam, but I have a follow-up question…

You never specifically mentioned money changing hands, however the “tokens” were specifically said to be included to show appreciation for his time and effort. You’re from the DoD, but your letterhead has a seal that you appear to have made up in your office specifically to look official but not actually say anything about being from the Department of Defense.

This entire thing reeks of plausible deniability, because you know damned well that you are paying minors to do tasks for you, since apparently not including money up front and the promise of more upon task completion wasn’t getting the job done. No responses back means no data for you to blabber at someone, which means no job for you.

I assume that if you lost your sweet government gig, you might have to resort to the dreaded private sector where potential employers might find out your Ph.D. is in Art History. That would be a shame.

So, here’s my follow-up question – Which would you prefer? Would you like me to pursue a legal case against your department for illegal conscription of a minor into military service, or would you prefer to enroll him into the DoD pension benefits program, since he’s retired from active paperwork duty now?

Your choice.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

Something's Fishy Here

A grave injustice has been rectified. Our California courts have come to the rescue of reason and sanity and finally, once and for all, ruled that bees are fish.

It’s about damned time.

Bees, in a travesty of “law” and common sense, were up to this point considered insects. Can you imagine? Now they can finally take their rightful place in the animal kingdom alongside largemouth bass and great white sharks.

You see, in 2018, some conservation groups wanted four separate types of bumblebees to be protected by the California Endangered Species Act. I don’t know how bumblebee species get their names, but one of them was the Crotch bumblebee, which sounds like the end result of a very unfortunate situation. Another was the Suckley cuckoo bumblebee, which had to be a prank just to get people to say it out loud with a straight face, right?

Anyway, the endangered species act doesn’t cover insects – just birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, plants, and Keith Richards. Instead of simply asking for insects to be added to the endangered species act, these conservation groups, which shall remain nameless because they qualify as minors based on their apparent average IQ, argued that bees can and should be considered fish.

In 2020, the Sacramento County Superior Court struck down that argument on the basis that it made no sense whatsoever, and also ordered the groups to stop eating the paste.

Decades earlier, however, in 1979, crack cocaine was invented, which California’s 3^rd District Court of Appeals smokes religiously before making any ruling. On May 31^st of this year, while higher than the grocery bill, they ruled that bees are, in fact, fish.

Which brings me to the point of this particular column. I would like to bring an immediate motion to the California 3^rd District Court of Appeals regarding my classification as a human.

As the court is aware, humans obviously all evolved from apes. Many of the more advanced humans have wondered, if that were true, how come there are still apes? I am here to tell you, without a doubt, that some of us apes never fully evolved. My wife can testify under oath to this.

Since I am an ape, I do not fall under the definition of “taxable individual or entity” in any of the Internal Revenue Service code. As such, I am not only exempt from future taxation of any kind, but since I’ve been an ape my whole life, I’m owed a very large amount in illegally confiscated back taxes.

I had no idea this was the case up until now, but in my defense, I’m just a poor, dumb ape. I’d really appreciate it if you fine folks over at the appeals court could fire up those crack pipes and rule in my favor here. I’d really like all that money back.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy some nightcrawlers, grab my rod and reel, and head over to the almond orchard to try to catch us some dinner.

In case I run into a game warden, does anybody know the limit on bees?

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

Theft is Finally Illegal

Great news out of Sacramento recently for all you Californians who own cars. So, basically, all of you.

It took ten separate Senate and Assembly bills to get it done (I wish I was making that up), but stealing things is once again illegal.

It is possible that with these ten important new laws, someone hacksawing your catalytic converter out from under your car in the middle of the night could, in fact, be breaking some sort of law now, punishable by some sort of punishment of some kind.

That’s exciting news! For those of you unfamiliar with how the modern automobile works, allow me to explain. The catalytic converter is a metal box in the middle of the exhaust emissions tubular tailpipe system of your car that, in layman’s terms, converts the unwanted and poisonous gas, catalyte, present in your car’s exhaust, into water and pure oxygen using an interior grid filter mesh system made out of platinum, mink fur, and diamonds.

As you can imagine, these devices, about the size of an insurance executive’s wallet, are quite valuable. Roughly seven-eighths of the total cost of your car is the catalytic converter, based on data from top insurance companies and repair shops. The other three-quarters of your car’s value is any other part that gets dented.

Up until the distinguished ladies and gentlemen in Sacramento sprung into action, if a cop pulled over a meth tweaker out cruising the town at two in the morning, and said upstanding citizen happened to have one, two, or even a dozen catalytic converters riding shotgun, the police officer was forced to assume that those very specific and valuable car parts rightfully belonged to this man with no discernable access to personal hygiene products or logical itinerary for his evening.

Having in your possession a grand total of thirty-five cents, six cigarette butts, a hacksaw, and nine thousand dollars-worth of the same loose car part that is commonly stolen due to its value just wasn’t enough probable cause under the old laws.

Apparently too many legitimate catalytic converter supply house drivers on their way to the Chevrolet assembly plant in Antioch were being unfairly hassled by the cops when they got pulled over with nine grimy catalytic converters strewn across the back seat of their crappy ’97 Nissan Sentra with the donut spare on the right front wheel.

Oh, wait, that’s not how catalytic converters are delivered to the auto manufacturers? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Who could have known? Thank God we have ten new laws to sort all this out.

And never mind the cops’ hands being tied. I mean, the recycling companies that purchase catalytic converters with hacksawed tailpipe remnants on both ends from scabby, strung-out meth heads were obviously powerless to stop this crime wave. How could they have known these things full of precious metals were stolen and not the legitimate property of this skinny, toothless, itchy weasel who apparently owns twelve cars but doesn’t want any of them to ever pass smog again because he needs money to complete the cabinet renovations and granite countertops in his two thousand-square-foot sunroom?

It's just impossible to figure out some sort of system or enforcement that could have stopped that. What a puzzler!

Anyway, with these ten innovative new laws, Sacramento has come through for us big time. Crime is finally illegal again. Catalytic converter theft should stop any second now.

Now if we could just think of some innovative way to make drugs illegal… oh, never mind, I forgot. We’re going the other way on that one.

That should help.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

The Dumbest Rule I've Ever HOA'd of

Smack dab in the middle of our summer of endless road trips, bookended by two very long drives, we had a magical week of not getting in the car very much when we stayed at a rental house in Sunriver, Oregon. If you have never been to Sunriver, you should really go. And if you have been to Sunriver, chances are you’re still trapped there, because it is an insane maze of roundabouts and bike paths that looks like the planner’s three-year-old just scribbled all over the blueprints five minutes before the deadline.

It is a wonderful place to visit, nestled alongside the Deschutes River, with golf courses, waterfalls, hiking, biking, and some of the world’s finest microbreweries just down the road in Bend (if you can find your way out to get there).

All that being said, I don’t think I’d ever want to actually live in Sunriver. It has nothing to do with the area. Like I said, it’s fantastic, and I’m sure I would eventually figure out the road system. It’s just that I don’t think I would get along with the homeowner’s association very well.

If you have an HOA where you live, chances are Sunriver’s HOA makes yours look like a Libertarian convention. You are allowed to walk or ride a bike on the Sunriver paths, but never ever should you even think about riding a scooter or a pair of rollerblades. You can keep your overpowered e-bike in the garage and don’t even get me started if you think you’ll be riding a skateboard anywhere around here.

If you think you are going to have an RV or a boat, you’d better start planning your fully-enclosed structure in which to hold it now. And when you are done planning that structure, you can just shoot those plans over to the design committee, where we will completely change them to our liking. And don’t even thing about trying to build that structure yourself. All contractors must be registered with the HOA. None of those “outside” bozos.

Thinking of trimming your tree? Think again. You need a permit for that. Did one of your trees fall down? Don’t touch it until you talk to us and we see fit to grant you a permit to do so.

If you are planning to have firewood, you had damned well better stack it in a rectangular fashion. No linear stacking! This is not a third-world nation.

Paint color. Exterior light diffusing. How long the refrigerator repair guy can park at your house (four hours max). The list goes on and on.

Like I said, it’s a great spot to vacation, but if you’re going to try to fine me for cutting a branch off my own tree near my linearly-stacked firewood, we’re not going to be friends.

My absolute favorite of all the Sunriver HOA rules, however, came to light when we planned our patriotic three-hour Fourth of July tube float down the Deschutes. Our rental house was close to the river, and I scouted out (on my traditionally leg-powered bicycle) the perfect spot to get out of the river and walk about forty yards down the path back to our house.

When I went down to inspect the perfect little disembarking beach, it had a sign that said No River Float Take-Out Here. The sign went on to helpfully explain that no one on a tube is allowed to get out of the river anywhere in Sunriver, except at the marina (which is a private, members-only club and therefore off limits to you) and a public canoe take-out area four river miles further down.

You are more than welcome to enter the river here and swim, and then get out of the river here. You are welcome to enter the river here with a tube, and splash around right here, and then get out here. You are forbidden, however, from floating down river from anywhere else on a tube and getting out here.

Hmm… that’s pretty funny. I think we’ll just get out here.

Of all the crazy HOA rules – or just rules in general – that I’ve ever heard of, this one seems to be the least enforceable. This could actually be the world’s most unenforceable rule.

“You aren’t allowed to get out of the moving river.”

That is so stupid it’s humorous. I’m having real trouble trying to imagine anything as asinine as someone standing on the shore of a lake, river, or the ocean, and trying to tell someone else that they aren’t allowed to get out of the water.

We went ahead with our delightful float and got out of the river where we wanted to, because we’re logical American humans. I was actually hoping some HOA-loving homeowner, or better yet, a member of the board, would be there when we got out of the river next to their nice sign. I was really looking forward to someone trying to explain to me how attempted murder was one of their sacred bylaws. But alas, our river extrication was uneventful.

One of my goals in life is to never be involved in a lawsuit, but if someone tried to sue me because my family got out of a river, it would totally be worth it. I would have the time of my life tearfully explaining how my emotional support river otter (that I met that fateful day) can’t even curb the nightmares from the PTSD of my wife and children almost drowning at the hands of an evil HOA.

The only problem would be that I’d end up owning one or more Sunriver houses in the court settlement and then I’d have to follow all their other crazy rules.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

HIPAA Critical, Part IV

It has already happened twice at our house, and it still caught me off guard this week. No, not one of our teenagers saying, “I’m full.” Don’t be silly. That never happens. I’m talking about medical independence day.

Yes, that time-honored tradition of becoming completely in charge of all your own medical decisions with no input whatsoever from your parents at the ripe old age of twelve. You guessed it – I got blindsided by HIPAA, yet again.

You’d think I’d learn, but I suffer from a lifelong problem with being logical. Unlike the drooling, booger-eating bureaucrats who authored the HIPAA bill (most likely with crayons), I have met an actual twelve-year-old. As such, it just wouldn’t ever occur to me to put them in charge of what they should have for breakfast, let alone their medical decisions.

Waiter – “Good morning, what can I get you?”

Standard twelve-year-old – “Yes, good morning, I will have a fudge brownie, an empty glass, and a large bottle of syrup, please. And I do not believe I will be getting a tetanus shot this year. Or any other year. Thanks.”

So, there I was Monday morning, making a non-brownie and syrup breakfast for the boys, when my cell phone buzzed a calendar reminder. I glanced over to notice that I had ten minutes before Son Number Three’s doctor’s appointment was scheduled to start. His doctor is twenty minutes away from our house.

Holy crap! GET IN THE CAR!!!

I called the doctor’s office and had a stressful conversation with the appointment desk. They were really cool about it. The only reason the conversation was stressful was because I was having it while going 125 mph and sliding a Suburban sideways through intersections.

After I hung up and narrowly avoided an oncoming cement truck, I started to wonder, how did this happen? Why did I completely forget about this appointment? I obviously had it on my calendar, but why wasn’t I thinking about it. Why didn’t I wake up that morning with getting to the doctor on my mind?

Then I realized the answer. Usually when we have an appointment, I get about six emails and two or three text reminders ahead of time. “You have an upcoming appointment. Please let us know if you’re still able to make it.” “We’re looking forward to seeing you! Please fill out the pre-appointment health survey.” “Please let us know if you’ll need special assistance at your appointment, or an interpreter.” Yadda yadda.

I didn’t get a single communication before this appointment. I put it on my calendar six months ago and never heard from them again.

Well, we slid into the parking lot and ran to the waiting room, stopping only briefly for a nice lady at the front door to shoot our foreheads with the “you obviously don’t have COVID” laser. They saw him right away and I finally relaxed on the little spouse/parent chair in the corner of the exam room.

I apologized to the nurse for being late, thanked her for getting us right in, and then remarked how I had just realized I never received any emails or texts ahead of the visit.

She said simply, “Well, that’s because he turned twelve.”

OH, MY GOODNESS! Of course!! HIPAA!

Why was I even stressing? It wasn’t me that forgot the appointment after all. It was him! My irresponsible, medically-independent twelve-year-old son forgot all about his own appointment. C’mon, bro! Get it together. Why am I here at all, anyway? How come you didn’t set an alarm and jump on your bike at 5:30 A.M. to get yourself over here for your 7:00 appointment? For Pete’s sake, man.

When we were all done the nurse told me we could stop by the front desk on the way out and he could get his new twelve-year-old account all set up.

Hmm…

We set up the other two boys’ “private medical accounts” online, but I think I’ll skip it for Son Number Three.

They have no email address for him, and no phone number. So, whatever internet black hole they sent all the appointment reminders to, I want them to send the bills to the same damn place.

Let’s see how long they want to abide by the HIPAA rules then.

And if anyone out there is working to repeal these idiotic regulations, you can add “causes reckless driving” to the long list of things that are hazardous about letting a twelve-year-old be medically independent.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen

 

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

In-Law Breakers

We are currently visiting the boys’ grandma in beautiful Morro Bay, California. (Town motto: Come for the clam chowder, stay for the prohibitively excessive real estate prices!)

Our three boys have grown up visiting their grandparents here, playing at the beach and spending time with their cousins and their Uncle Jay. It has been almost four years since their Grandpa Dick passed away, and we recently traveled with grandma and Uncle Jay up to Alaska, where we spread the remainder of his ashes in the ocean where he loved to fish. (Don’t tell anyone we did that, though, because I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, and we didn’t have any permits.)

With both families back in Morro Bay visiting and reminiscing about the good times with Grandpa Dick, one of my favorite stories surfaced.

Six years ago, we were visiting here and had just finished up lunch at our favorite wharf-side restaurant. We were heading back to the car and my wife had Son Number One’s hand, who was seven years old at the time.

She saw an opening in the traffic, so she hurried him across the street in the middle of the block. He was resistant to go with her, tugging backward, and in the middle of the street, voiced his concern.

Son Number One: Mom, we’re dick walking!

[record scratch. Mom comes to a complete stop in the middle of the street]

Mom: Excuse me?? What did you say?

Number One: We’re dick walking. Why are we dick walking? We’re not supposed to.

Mom: ……

Number One: Shouldn’t we get out of the street?

Mom: ……

Number One: What?

Mom: …… Oh!!!! Do you mean jay walking?

Number One: Oh, yeah, sorry. Jay walking. That’s what I meant. We shouldn’t do that.

[sound of mom laughing so hard she very nearly pees her pants in the middle of the street]

I’m not sure what it says about his opinion of his mom’s family’s moral character, but our oldest son had been told the term for a pedestrian traffic violation and assumed it was named after his uncle. Then somewhere along the way, his unruly little seven-year-old brain mixed up father and son, and attributed the offense to his grandpa instead.

The result was pretty darn humorous, and something Son Number One will never live down. He probably wishes he’d mixed it up with his other grandpa instead, then he wouldn’t still be hearing about it. Dave walking isn’t nearly as funny. 

We miss you, Grandpa Dick! Glad you got to make it back to Alaska one last time, even if we had to bend or ignore a few rules to do it.

Why our sons would associate us with law-breaking activities continues to be a mystery.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Hands-Free CB

Here in California, our legislators have recently made the roads safer by passing a new law, which always works. We have been required to be “hands-free” with our cell phones in the car since 2008, but now they really mean it. No, really this time.

In 2008, we could still touch our phones while driving, and we could make a phone call while driving, but we weren’t allowed to hold the phone up to our ears. So what that meant was if you were on the phone and held it up to your ear during the conversation, you were breaking the law. But if you were on speaker phone and held a banana up to your ear during the conversation, you were well within your rights as a California motorist.

Also, if you simply held a banana up to your ear while not on the phone, that was OK, too. And presumably, if your phone was turned off and you held it up to your ear while driving, that would have been OK, since at that point your phone is really just an expensive plastic and glass banana, communication-wise.

Since January, however, we are now no longer even allowed to touch our phones in the car. We are still allowed to have a conversation on the phone, but the call has to be initiated without ever touching the phone. We can touch buttons on the steering wheel and dashboard of our space-age cars that will make our phones call someone, but we can’t touch the actual phone itself. It is now required to be duct taped to the roof of the car at all times. There has been no official word on where the bananas need to be.

We are also still allowed to talk directly to the other people in the car, but they will not respond, because they’re all texting each other.

omg. lol.

So here’s my question, oh-so benevolent leaders of this great state: What’s up with CB’s? I saw a trucker the other day just chatting away with someone (presumably another trucker, or possibly a truck stop hooker), holding the CB microphone right there in his hand, which was not even on the wheel of the enormous eighteen-wheeler he was piloting down the freeway. What’s up with that?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but a CB is exactly the same thing as a phone, only with less dropped calls. I realize that you only have to hold the CB microphone up to your mouth, instead of the entire side of your head, as with a phone or a banana, but something tells me lack of peripheral vision is not what you guys are trying to legislate. So why can’t I hold my phone in my hand and talk on speaker phone, but I’m perfectly welcome to hold a CB microphone and do the same thing?

Although, if I got a CB, I’d have to learn an entirely different language, so that may not be the best option. I’ll constantly be having to ask if other truckers have their ears on, and alert them to my 20. I’ll need to let them know if they have Smokey the bear knocking on their back door, and whether it’s Evel Knievel, a gumball machine, a county Mountie, or a plain brown wrapper. Or maybe it’s a Kojak with a Kodak, in which case they’d better listen to their bird dog and slide off the hammer.

That sounds like too much work, especially since most of my car trips are just taking the kids to and from school. I barely remember when to do that, so I can’t be keeping track of all the bears as well. Plus, I’m not sure I could fit an eighteen-wheeler into the school parking lot. And besides, I like my phone and I want to keep it. So I’ve come up with a plan.

Here’s the next big new idea that someone else can make millions on, since I’m too lazy to do it myself. We need CB radio microphones that plug into the headphone jack on our smartphones. That way we can all talk to each other on speaker phone, just as before, but now we’re perfectly legal again, since it’s a CB microphone and all. Sorry iPhone 7 users. You guys are out of luck on this one. You won’t get to have a cool trucker handle, or say ‘over’ after every sentence like we will.

So, anyway, I’m thinking we need those, or as an alternative, phones cleverly disguised to look like bananas.

Either way will be fine with me. Just let me know when they’re available on Amazon.

See you soon, I’m 10-7. Y'all keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down. Tome Raider over and out.

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Classless Action

Burlington Coat Factory has wronged me. Apparently. At least, a law firm just sent me a letter telling me they did.

It seems that at some point during the period of time from February 14, 2010 through January 28, 2015 I used a credit card to purchase something at a California Burlington Coat Factory, and when I did, those no-good bastards requested my telephone number, which obviously violated California Civil Code 1747.08.

So, much to my relief, a bench trial was held in the Orange County Superior Court from January 12^th through January 28^th of this year, of which I was an unknowing member of a class action lawsuit brought against those lousy, four-flushing, phone number-collecting coat monkeys.

Justice was swiftly served on April 14^th, and I and the other hapless victims of this heinous coat monger’s phone number collection spree have been made whole again. The options, however, for our restitution from this (anywhere from one to five year) period of living hell are unfortunately fraught with more peril.

We have been given two choices to compensate us for the mental anguish this unbearable situation has caused:

1) Receiving a cash award voucher for ten dollars, redeemable at any Burlington Coat Factory retail store for cold, hard cash.

2) A merchandise voucher for twenty-five dollars, good at any Burlington Coat Factory location in the United States.

What the hell kind of settlement is that? Either way, you are forcing me back into the lion’s den. Who knows what the BCF will try to take from me next. The last time I allegedly went in there they made off with my entire ten-digit telephone number for goodness sake. What’s going to happen next time?

They might get a hold of my four-digit house number. They might even get my five-digit zip code, or worse yet, they might use sorcery and get my nine-digit zip code, with the extra four digits that I don’t even know.

And what if I have something shipped from them? They might gain complete access to my twenty-two-digit tracking number. The horror.

If I feel like I can muster enough nerve to brave the terrifying BCF long enough to collect my just reward, I’ll need to sign and return my “Election of Class Award” form, stating under penalty of perjury that I actually made the transaction, and the phone number I gave those jackals belongs to me.

Hmm... It’s within the realm of possibility that I went to Burlington Coat Factory at some point in the last five years, although I don’t remember it. But seriously, sometimes I don’t remember what I had for breakfast by the time I eat lunch.

The phone number on the other hand... I have never seen this phone number in my entire life. And I don’t go around making up fake phone numbers. My wife did that the first time we met, and I certainly didn’t appreciate it.

And the class action notice was sent to an address that I haven’t lived at in seven years, so why did they have that as my address from five or fewer years ago?

Something stinks...

Unfortunately, this is not the first class action lawsuit I’ve been Shanghaied into. There was the time I owned a Toyota at some point during a ten-year period, and as a result was sent a check for $16.27 to compensate me for the carmaker’s wrongdoing of some kind.

Or the time I got a check in the mail for $0.51 from a soda company lawsuit, because I may or may not have bought soda at one point in my life, and the soda company was blamed for that in some way.

There have been others, and I never cashed any of the checks, and I’m not about to make the nice folks over at Burlington Coat Factory “pay” for something I don’t care about and they probably didn’t do anyway. They sell clothes. I’m just fine with that and don’t feel they need to be punished in any way for doing so.

What I want to know is can I start a class action lawsuit against class action lawyers, for illegally collecting, storing, and using my personal data - or it seems in this case, simply making it up - to force good businesses to pay for the opportunity to send me pennies while the lawyers themselves reap billions and billions of dollars from them, fundamentally driving up the price of every good and service in the United States of America?

Probably not.

It’s nice to have a dream, though.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Hands-Free Phones and Other Results-Free Laws

We here in California are just finishing up our first month under the new “Hands-Free” cell phone law. We are still allowed to talk on the phone while driving, and we are still allowed to hold the phone in one or both of our hands while driving, we just can’t hold the phone up to our ear while driving. This confuses me a little. If I hop in my car, hit the road and hold a book up to my ear for the entire drive, I’m well within my rights under California law. Substitute that book for a phone, and I’m an outlaw. Interesting.

I think the idea is to reduce accidents. A few years ago I was hit by a guy who ran a stop sign. He wasn’t on the phone at the time, he was just a really bad driver. Maybe we should outlaw those. A long time ago, I got hit by a guy on the freeway in LA. He wasn’t on the phone either, he just dropped his cheeseburger in his lap. When he went for it, he lost control of his car and bounced off mine. Maybe we should outlaw cheeseburgers.

On second thought, this is America. We can’t outlaw cheeseburgers. It’s every American’s right to eat cheeseburgers. However, I believe we have a very serious freeway/cheeseburger/lap/collision issue that needs to be dealt with in a responsible manner by our legislators. I propose the hands-free cheeseburger amendment of 2008.

If holding a phone to one's ear has become such a menace to society, then the cheeseburger issue must follow suit! How many lives could be spared, how many dollars could be saved if we could just get a handle on the “burger sliding out of the bun due to slippery lettuce” issue. Or the “sauce dripping on the pants because of the unseen hole in the bottom of the wrapper” problem. Or the “two handed pickle removal while steering with one elbow” maneuver. So many different burgers, so many different problems.

A hands-free burger initiative could tackle all these very serious concerns and get them under control so our roads can once again be safe. If just one fender is spared, if just one pair of chinos is left unstained to be worn a second day in a row, it will all be worth it.

Now, I have no idea what the hands-free cheeseburger device will look like. What I do know however, is that if we can just get this legislation rolling, the American entrepreneurial machine will kick in to high gear, and we’ll have a new industry in no time. Bluetooth will no doubt be the leader with the quick launch of the “Blue Cheese Tooth” burger holder or the “Cordon Bleutooth” burger holder. Apple will be close behind with the introduction of the iBurger. It will hold five times the amount of burger and automatically reduce the calorie count to single digits, but it won’t be compatible with any of your favorite burger joints, and it will cost $499.00 I can’t wait to be the first to get one.

Now of course, all the hands free devices in the world won’t help people stay out of accidents as long as we continue to ignore the real problem on our roads. Crappy drivers. It doesn’t really matter what our oh-so-insightful government takes away from us next. Until we can figure out how to legislate away crappy drivers, nothing is going to change out there. I had another idea about more police patrolling our roads and tougher standards at the DMV, but that’ll never catch on. Makes way too much sense.

Oh well, got to go, this is my exit. Watch it jerk! I’m typing here!

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen


Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!