If That Wasn't A Word It Is Now
Should it appear in the pages of either 'Collins' or 'Websters' then I want royalties.
I could have used a title about the elasticity of time, because, as anyone whom has ever performed a customer service role knows, bottomhole clients always exaggerate or outright lie about 'How long I have been waiting'. Art!
Back at Sainsbos we had several overhead monitor screens that displayed all the phone traffic statistics, and if anyone had been waiting more than 5 minutes, their number turned red, meaning a supervisor would bounce frantically along the floor looking for a free staff member to take the call. Then the irate caller would claim to have been 'WAITING FOR TWENTY MINUTES!' when it was actually six minutes twenty-three seconds. No, we were not allowed to retort 'YOU'RE A COMPLETE DOG BUNS LIAR!' even if we thought it.
<ahem, pauses to let blood pressure settle>
ANYWAY today's Intro is all about the Law Of Unintended Consequences, or perhaps Don't Escalate On A Theme Park Date, or even If You Can't Hold Your Liquor Don't Be A Hair-Splitter. Art!
Universal yet very very specifically in Florida
Here comes the detective part, for what it's worth. The Pizza Expert Narrator, hereafter PEN, stated that this event took place at a theme park in Florida, coyly avoiding their name. So it was either Disney or Universal, and I'm going to go with Universal just to be different. There was a later geographical clue that - doesn't help much.
ANYWAY AGAIN, our resident PEN goes on at length about how splendid they are at wrangling pizzas and ziti, which Conrad has never found a very appetizing name. Art!
Ziti
It's important to note that these pizzas were pricey, because a theme park likes to gouge their captive audience, so the procedure was for a customer to order a pizza, pay for it, get a receipt and pager, then return when their pager went off. My emphasis.
PEN also enjoyed working in the pizzeria thanks to the walk-in fridge and air-conditioning, which are both verrrry welcome in the heat and humidity of a Florida summer.
ANYWAY AGAIN enter Captain Entitled, or rather Captain Drunk Off His Bottom Entitled, who is full of urine and vinegar and abusing the hapless counter assistant. All they had done was ask to see his receipt. Art!
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| I feel the AI Art Generator has captured the essence of CDOHBE perfectly |
Mister Entitled ranted and tanted that he'd been waiting 40 WHOLE MINUTES! for his pizza, and refused to provide a receipt. He swore, loudly, at all the counter staff, claiming he was going to get them fired, that he'd get their managers fired, that he'd track down the deity in charge of theme parks and fire them -
Security turned up and he turned his manic attitude up to 11, shouting that they were 'fake cops' and daring them to call the Orange County Police - which clue doesn't narrow down this resort as there are lots in that particular location. Sorry. Art!
Security called the OCP, who promptly arrived, as they want their county's biggest money-earners to go on earning money. which is not best served by being laggardly.
Suddenly CDOHBE became well-mannered and quiet again, too late to avoid being put in handcuffs. One of the pizzeria staff had to go roust out his wife and son from the pool, which must have caused a few puzzled stares.
Well well Isembard Brunel, what are the consequences for being arrested at a theme park, and being put into handcuffs?
When his wife and son arrived, she gave him A Look, then walked off with their son. It was his 8th birthday and they'd come to celebrate. Or, mom and son were there to celebrate, CDOHBE was there to get drunk and aggressive.
All three were immediately escorted off the grounds, without a refund, and banned for life. Conrad's detectiving skills reveal they probably blew about $500 for that day alone, more if they were booked into a resort hotel. Art!
The elasticity of time: the cops found a crumpled receipt in his pocket. He'd been waiting all of 10 minutes. I know, I know, in his head they'd be CDOHBE minutes and therefore worth more than 1,000 minutes of other, inconsequential Hom. Sap.
I bet the ride home was rather fraught. However far away it was, Mom would be driving all the way thanks to her dipso dipstick hubbo.
Conrad Is Angry!
As the aphorism goes, if I'm breathing then I'm seething. Let us peruse the persiflage that the poltroons compiling Codewords have inflicted on the civilised world.
ELEGIACS: About as intuitive as BALNEOMANIACS, and you can thank Thomas Pynchon for coming up with that one. "Denoting or written in elegiac couplets. which consist of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter, or stanzas, which consist of a quatrain in iambic pentameter with alternate lines rhyming."
SO glad we got that one cleared up. Art!
MYOPE: NOT the conversational gambit of a ballfoot manager, who declaims that 'My 'ope is to retain the trophy, guvnah'. It is derived from the Greek 'Muops' meaning 'Short-sighted', and refers to a person such as Your Humble Scribe, who is functionally blind without glasses. Art!
Argus: imagine his optician's bill if he was a myope
ATONIC: NO! that's not a typo for ATOMIC I'll have you know. "Carrying no stress, unaccented", from the Greek 'Atonos', meaning 'Lacking tone'. Art!
I find this to be a tonic
Cunard Announce That The Titanic Will Be Slightly Delayed
Earlier today Conrad read about the Ruffian airline 'Aeroflot' having to cancel various flights, due to what they blandly described as an 'IT failure', affecting their information systems. Hardly worth bothering or worrying about, right?
Wrong. Art!
Aeroflot said it had cancelled more than 40 flights - mostly within Russia but also including routes to Belarus and Armenia.
The airline said an issue with its information system had also led to widespread delays.
Why did they have an issue with their information systems? Why, because a constellation of Ukrainian and Belarusian hackers got in there and sabotaged them. Art!
There Is A Precedent, President
Whilst on the subject of flight, in what has to be the most blatant bribe ever offered (and received!) the Qataris offered Donold Judas Trump a 747 just for him, which Mister Zeppelin Ego was delighted to get. The supposed 'conversion' to an Air Force One alternate will doubtless be hugely expensive and delayed and put off and avoided until DJ Tango is no longer Prez and can keep it for himself. Art!
Well, there is an earlier example of a prima donna getting hold of a strategic transport aviation asset, causing controversy and a general narrowing of eyes and sucking of teeth. Who can I mean? Art!
In case you can't read the text, South Canadian General Bedell Smith rashly made a bet that the British 8th Army wouldn't capture Sfax in Tunisia before the 15th of April, with a B-17 bomber as the prize.
Surprise! The 8th Army captured Sfax on 10th April. Monty promptly told the South Canadians that they owed him a bomber, and he'd take it NOW, please.
The South Canadian high command were seriously embarrassed by 1) making such a stupid bet in the first place and 2) losing it. They ponied up one B-17 with considerable bad grace, which didn't bother Monty one bit, as he was totally impervious to others criticism. His prickly, citric sense of humour must have left him delighted.
Finally -
Your Humble Artisan plans to make Avocado and Coconut ice cream later tonight. You will, inevitably, get to learn how it turns out. Chin chin!
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