COLUMN: Thingamajig

We live in a divided world, where tempers can flare at the drop of a hat. Add a pandemic to the mix, and you've got a short-fused populace desperately low on patience. Pity those poor folks whose job is to be nice to the rest of us, because we're mostly all terrible. If you think YOUR fuse is short, imagine what it must take to work in retail these days.

I thought I was the king of social awkwardness. That's why it's reassuring to experience awkward moments that AREN'T my fault.

Last weekend, I was working on a project and needed a thingamajig. I can't go into detail, because I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But the easiest place in town to procure said thingamajig is a store I try not to frequent. Let's just say their corporate owners subscribe to a different set of values than my own, and it's a place I prefer not to support.

But I really wanted that thingamajig.

In the great ethical battle in my brain, it turns out I value material goods over moral integrity. Good to know. "Besides," I argued with myself, "it's not their employees' fault that their owners are horrible. Get off your high horse and go shopping." So proudly I strolled into a store I try to never enter, for once grateful to be wearing a mask. I went to the customer service desk and happily ordered my thingamajig.

Or so I thought. After fooling with her computer for almost 20 minutes, the clerk (who was very nice) gave up and said their system was down. She asked if I could possibly come back in a day or two when their thingamajig expert would be working. Sure, I said. It happens. A couple days later, I returned and successfully ordered my thingamajig.

Or so I thought. I was told I'd get a call when my thingamajig was ready. I never got a call. Several days later, I went back and inquired. "Oh, it's been here for days," the clerk said. "I thought you were going to call," I said. "Well, it's here now," she said. Okay, fine. At least I was going to get my thingamajig.

Or so I thought. It was the wrong thingamajig. "This is what you ordered," she said. "No, it's not," I replied. She was super nice and said they'd rectify the problem and asked if could I come back in a couple days. I did. The thingamajig was there and it was perfect. Success!

Or so I thought. Procuring the thingamajig was easy. Paying for it, less so. They brought the thingamajig to the cashier, I presented him with my credit card, and he slid it throught the little payment doohicky at the register. As he was waiting for it to process, he turned to the cashier next to him and struck up small talk.

Except it turned into large talk. They talked about the weather, then his car, then his work schedule, then some general complaining about his schedule and life in general. Mind you, all the while he's standing there with his back to me, my credit card in his hand.

I went from being mildly annoyed to really annoyed to kind of amazed and finally just amused. After about four minutes of a literal front row seat to this guy completely ignoring me, I eventually coughed and let out a timid "helllOOOooo?"

That's when the cashier spun on me and exasperatedly said, "Can I HELP you, SIR?"

"Umm," I replied, "Just need my credit card and maybe a receipt?"

I watched as this poor guy's brain suffered the equivalent of a Windows Blue Screen of Death. It took him a good fifteen seconds to fully reboot. He looked at me, looked at my credit card in his hand, blinked, looked at me again, and said, "Wow. I totally spaced on you, eh?"

I'm not sure which one of us felt more awkward, but I like that I'm forgettable enough to actually forget me in the middle of a transaction. 

We all have bad days. Once, when I was a greenhorn at the paper, I answered my phone just as my computer really DID get the Blue Screen of Death. In MY mind, I was efficiently taking stock of the situation and determining the fastest way to get up and running again. From the customer's perspective, though, I'm pretty sure they just heard a guy go, "Classified Advertising, this is... umm...," as if I'd suddenly forgotten my own name.

So cut our friends in retail some slack, they've earned it. I have mad respect for anyone who has to deal with weirdos like me every day. For what it's worth, my thingamajig is great, and I don't think my great moral compromise upset the natural balance too much. I might even (gasp) shop there again, if my name isn't... umm...   

COLUMN: Spring Has Sprung

I did one of my favorite things this weekend.

I took my big stupid winter coat and put it on a hanger at the back of my closet. If all goes well, it's staying there for a good long while. 

Back to hell with you, winter. I am officially over you. If Jack Frost shows up again this month, I'll greet him in short sleeves and a light jacket. It's spring.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that these few weeks right now are actually my favorite time of year. It's that perfect sweet spot when temps get warmer but the humidity doesn't, and when you can enjoy the outdoors before the air fills with murder hornets and the ground seeps with creepy-crawlies. This is my magic time.

Once upon a Shane, I used to proudly tell anyone within earshot that winter was my favorite season. That Shane was obviously deranged. I'm not sure what caused me to finally see the err of my ways, but I'm guessing it involved a few factors:

* I started hating winter when I learned to drive. Riding shotgun as a kid in winters when my parents would drive me to school was amazing. One time my mom hit some ice and the car did a full 180 in the middle of the street and I thought it was more exciting than any fairground ride on the planet. I reckon my mom did, too. It's less fun when you're old and responsible and realize that people don't live forever. These days, even if there's only a dusting on the streets, I'm white-knuckling the steering wheel like its the end of days.  

* I started hating winter when I learned you don't get snow days as an adult. When I started working here, I should have told HR that I lived 17.5 miles away at the end of a winding dirt road atop a top river bluff. Instead, I was honest and owned up to living in residential Rock Island. It takes a lot to get snowed in there -- and if you can't get a day off to play in it, what's the point of this whole snow business anyways? 

* I starting hating winter when I bought my house. Owning a home is fun. Owning the driveway and walk-ups? Considerably less fun. I remember being annoyed when the over-worked maintenance guy at my old apartment complex didn't shovel the walks in a timely enough manner to suit my 20-something needs. Today, I'd kill to have that maintenance guy at my beck and call, even if he took his sweet time. 

* I started hating winter when Christmas lost its magic. Inclement weather and freezing temps didn't matter as long as I got FREE STUFF every December. I didn't care what the weather was like outside; I was too busy playing with FREE STUFF! But when you realize your favorite holiday has morphed into a three-month-long ode to consumerism, those roasting chestnuts start to smell a little funky.

* I started hating winter when I realized you can't go to outdoor concerts in January. I miss you, Codfish Hollow. I miss you, EDM festivals. A few more weeks and we will be storming barns and dancefloors with gusto. This will be a summer of music in the air. 

* I started hating winter when "pandemic" because a part of everyone's vocabulary. Being cooped up inside with people for half the year is less fun when everyone may have toxic cooties. Cases are on the decline, and now that we can go outside and not breathe each other's air, maybe we can even manage to keep the Zetacron Epsilon Decepticon Variant or whatever's next at bay.

* I started hating winter when I reached the age where falling down hurts. A lot. I'm prone to at least one classic winter pratfall per year. If there's even a glimmer of ice on the ground, my foot's bound to find it. These days, all it takes is a stiff winter breeze and my ankle snaps like a twig. What can I say? I'm a delicate flower. I thought I'd actually made it a whole winter without falling -- until the other day. You remember, when we were grilling out on Friday, hiding from tornadoes on Saturday, and then getting a surprise inch of snow on Sunday? On Monday morning, I accidentally found a patch of black ice and suddenly took up figure skating for a hobby. The figure I made wasn't pretty.

Take a hike, old man winter. Spring has sprung. If you need me, I'll be outside -- until I see my first bee.  

COLUMN: Dance to the Cold War

Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight:

The political divide in our nation is wider than ever. The next COVID variant could show up anytime. Supply chain issues continue to wreak havoc upon shelves and wallets. Bob Saget continues to be dead.

Oh, and I almost forgot: the Cold War's back on, Russia's threatening the free world, and we all need to get second jobs to afford enough gas to drive to our first jobs.

Neat.

2022's on a roll -- and I'm supposed to be the positive, light-hearted guy around these parts. That's just swell. There was no bright side to the pandemic, and I'm certainly not going to find one hiding behind the vague and shadowy spectre of World War III, either. A few weeks ago, I distinctly remember telling a friend, "Man, I miss the 80s." I take it back.

Sure, I miss video games, MTV, and Chess King. But I can't say that I miss the ever-present fear of armageddon. I certainly don't miss the duck-and-cover drills we used to do in grade school. I don't miss Olympic boycotts. I don't miss the sleepless nights after seeing "Red Dawn." Going back to an Us-vs.-Them escalation with Russia feels like umpteen evolutionary steps backwards.

But if history serves, there's one thing we CAN look forward: a bunch of really iffy anti-war protest music on the horizon. In the 1980s, if you ever forgot that your life was in a vague state of constant peril, all you had to do was turn on the radio. If you got a song stuck in your head in the Eighties, there's a good chance you were humming odes to nuclear annihilation without even realizing it.

Here were some of the best:

NENA, "99 Luftballoons." To be fair, not many people Stateside even realized this German-language hit was about the apocalypse. It was just a bop, no matter the words. Dive into the German lyrics, though, and it becomes a creepy tale of itchy trigger fingers who bring about armageddon by mistaking floating balloons for an incoming missile attack. Creepier yet was the English language version, which added the intro lines, "You and I in a little toy shop, buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got, set them free at the break of dawn until one by one, they were gone." In other words, in the English version, Nena herself was directly responsible for the end of the world. Well done.

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, "Two Tribes." Yes, when the counter-culture needed to craft a stern rebuke of global politics, who better to take the helm than the flamboyant braintrust behind "Relax" and "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." The iconic "Frankie Say Relax" merchandise turned into "Frankie Say War!" shirts, and the accompanying video featuring mud-wrestling Reagan and Chernenko impersonators was the perfect touch of class the Cold War needed. 

CULTURE CLUB, "The War Song." It seemed like every 80s band had to have their protest song, and none were more insipid than Boy George's clumsily wonderful sing-along. "War, war is stupid / And people are stupid / And I heard them banging / On hearts and fingers / Say no more war / Woah, yeah / War." As trite lyrics go, it's pretty epic -- but also spot-on. War IS stupid and people ARE stupid. Score one for Boy George.

CCCP, "American-Soviets." Okay, this wasn't a chart-topper, but if you ever spent time in the 80s at Bettendorf's Stage 2 teen club, you danced to this banger every night. This German synthpop gem urged Reagan and Gorbachev to put the nukes away and instead play a spirited game of chess (seriously.) But it was always a treat to see pasty goth kids angry-dance while lip-syncing lyrics like, "Why did the Russians invade Afghanistan?" And that angry-dancing goth kid was probably me.

STING, "Russians." I'm pretty sure Sting assumes he single-handedly ended the Cold War with this maudlin classic from his first solo album, where he ponders whether "the Russians love their children, too." He's already trotting it back out already with new performances this week. Admittedly, I was 14 when this song came out, and hearing it was one of the few times I stopped caring about video games for a few fleeting moments. 

GENESIS, "Land of Confusion." Phil Collins and Co. made some absolutely brilliant records in their day. This wasn't one of them. Still, the accompanying video with its terrifying Reagan puppets is nightmare fuel to this day.

PRINCE, "Ronnie, Talk to Russia." The best way to fight the red menace in the 1980s was obviously with purple swagger, so the U.S. would occasionally launch a Weapon of Mass Funkiness from the Minneapolis maestro himself. Whether it was his warning that "everybody's got a bomb / we could all die any day" on 1999 or this more direct apporoach from the "Controversy" album, who knew global politics could be so sexy?

Here's hoping the situation in Eastern Europe calms down before Bono and Coldplay have a chance to sing about it, because then no one wins. President Putin, please end this madness before we take extreme action. We have Justin Bieber and we're not afraid to use him.   

COLUMN: Ukraine

It's hard to be the light-hearted guy when the news is filled with pain and sadness from the Ukraine.

There's no such thing as a "good" invasion, unless we're talking about four mop-topped dudes from England. But why does Russia's invasion of Ukraine seem especially horrific?

I know diddly about Eastern European politics. It's not something that tends to come up too often in my day-to-day concerns. If you want in-depth political analysis, don't turn to the dude who usually writes about cats and Facebook. The only thing I know about Ukraine is that it's a really hard territory to control when you're playing Risk.

My knowledge of Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is next to nothing. But the bravery he's shown over the past couple weeks has been legendary. If Russia ever tried to come after ME, I'd shamelessly be on the first bus to Anywhere Else. When the US offered Zelenskyy refuge, he instead asked for ammunition. When Russia claimed he was in hiding, he took to the streets on Instagram. I have no clue if he's been a good leader, but you can't knock his courage and devotion to his people. His recent speeches will be read in history classes for the rest of time.

I may be a buffoon when it comes to world politics, but not when it comes to bad TV -- and before Zelenskyy entered politics, he was an actor. Most famously, he was the star of a Ukranian TV show called "Servant of the People," in which he played -- you guessed it -- the president of Ukraine. And a few years ago, Servant of the People was available in the US on Netflix.

Out of curiosity at the time, I watched a few episodes, and it's easy to see why he became so popular in the Ukraine. In the show, Zelenskyy plays a high school history teacher who shockingly wins the Presidency when a video of him complaining about corruption goes viral. Zelenskyy's character crusades for good in a government dominated by shallow bureaucrats. If you can cope with subtitles, it's a funny and optimistic watch. Zelenskyy plays such a charming guy on the show, it's hard to conceive that anyone would want him dead, let alone his nearest neighbor. It'd be like if suddenly Canada were to put a bounty on the head of Steve Carell or Kelsey Grammer.

But perhaps Russia's biggest misstep was their failure to realize this is the first major wartime incursion to occur in the age of social media. Even during fairly recent conflicts like the Gulf War, the only color commentary we experienced was from embedded reporters in the warzones. But if you want to see what it's like in Ukraine right now, all you need is a smartphone. Some of the most moving scenes I've witnessed over the past week have been filmed by Ukrainian teenagers on TikTok. The world is bearing witness to families cowering in basements, old ladies confronting soldiers, and passionate townsfolk stockpiling Molotov cocktails. We're seeing first-hand the sadness, the bravery, and the absolute pointlessness of it all.

The downside, though, is that you can't always TRUST what you see on social media. Already some videos purporting to show atrocities have been debunked as fake. Russia circulated a video online they claimed was an unprovoked Ukranian attack, and it turned out to be a video of a Finnish military training exercise from years ago. If you're watching the war unfold on social media, make sure you're actually witnessing the real thing.

It's also made for some seriously uncomfortable web surfing. Just today, my video feed on TikTok went from Russian soldiers (who look like confused high schoolers) immediately to a video of someone's pet duck... to a clip of Ukranian kids having dance-offs in a bomb shelter... to perhaps the cringe-iest video I've ever seen of some young American social media influencer doing a sexy dance in a blue and yellow bikini as a "tribute to those suffering in Ukraine." Maybe there's just no hope for humanity.

War is horrible, as is the helpless feeling of watching it play out from afar. I'd ask for a rousing chorus of "Give Peace A Chance," but in today's age, it would probably be delivered in a 30-second Instagram clip featuring any number of Kardashians and a rap from Macklemore. Here's hoping the sanctions and the world's reaction will show Putin that actions like this will no longer be tolerated on the global stage. Of all the armies in the world, the most powerful might end up being the kids of TikTok.