Cold-brewed conundrum

The girl was uncomprehending, her face unlined but for the soft crinkle above her nose. She had mixed the ingredients for a large, cold-brewed vanilla latte but produced something much less than a large-sized beverage.

In the “large” transparent cup was only enough fluid to fill a container half its size, foam topping included. The girl — she preferred the title “barista” — knew exactly the proportions for a drink of this size poured over ice. I had asked for the drink without ice, or whipped cream topping.

She stared at the cup a moment and, finally, said, “I’m not sure what to do about this. I mean, you’re like asking for it without ice, and we always include ice. I mean, the recipe calls for it.”

“So, is this a problem?” I replied.

“Well, um, no ... not exactly,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t know the amount of ingredients to put in without the ice.”

The 20-ounce cup was holding what one would suppose was 10 ounces. I guessed at a glance she could double the mixture and not risk overflow. But then, I never have been a barista; there may be a complexity to the job that escapes my estimation. Also, someone behind the scenes might keep score on things like this, comparing amounts of fluid poured to the amount of money in the cash register.

I once held a job where exactly that kind of someone existed. For two summers during high school, I bagged groceries and helped stock shelves at a supermarket near home. The least appealing part of that job — besides rounding up abandoned shopping carts in the parking lot on 110-degree days — was re-shelving the items called “go-backs,” or merchandise people deposited around the store because they couldn’t be bothered with returning it to its proper place.

Maybe they would pick up a box of white rice instead of the brown rice they needed and realized their error four aisles later. Or maybe they decided they didn’t need rice after all. Onto the nearest shelf the rice would go, even if that nearest shelf was reserved for allergy medicine. Restocking go-backs involved cruising the aisles looking for out-of-place goods and putting them in a cart which I later emptied item by item when customer traffic was slow and I wasn’t needed to bag at check-out.

One colleague, a bagging veteran from way back, was more particular than most about the condition of the go-backs. Yes, some go-backs were damaged goods, dropped by customers who then didn’t want dinged cans or bent boxes. If the seals weren’t broken, they went back on the proper shelf anyway and discounted at the register.

This colleague, however, possessed a particular talent, he claimed. He insisted he could discern accidental from intentional damage — that is, he recognized which packages were torn and their contents consumed, which in the vernacular of the grocery business amounts to shoplifting. And, he believed he could tell who was doing the consuming, the customers or the employees.

Late one night as my shift was ending, he directed me to the storeroom adjoining the large outer entry where we unloaded inventory from trucks, reached into a small basket of damaged goods, pulled out a torn bag of Reece’s Pieces and said, “I know this is your doing. I saw you reach into this and grab a handful and eat it. I’ll have to report this to Merlin,” the supermarket’s general manager, who was not in the store at the time. Then the accusatory colleague dropped the bag back into the basket, scattering candies on the other goods and the floor, and bolted in three large steps through the storeroom door before I managed even a whimper of defense.

There’s a moment when a person meets an unfair charge or claim with sensory confusion as the brain tries to assess what the eyes and ears have presented against logic or belief. It’s the instant when one could be, as the saying goes, “knocked down by a feather” and not notice. One moment, your surroundings make sense and an assumption forms that they will remain in this order until you change them. The next moment, something unexpected kicks out the feet propping up this assumption and the brain hesitates like an engine with a drop of water in its fuel line.

Well, once my synapses resumed firing I moved to answer this allegation. When I caught up to him, the colleague refused to stop what he was doing to face me. He seemed certain of the charge and unconcerned with my response, a fluctuating mix of incredulity and outrage. Then he leveled another charge, still without looking at me or stopping what he was doing, that I wasn’t spraying the produce with cool water enough times to suit him.

This was the “pile-on” — a claim against procedure intended to suggest I was irresponsible and likely to be criminal as a consequence.

The colleague did not know at the time I had specific instructions on the care of produce that was given to me by our mutual supervisor, who already had left for the night. He also did not know that peanut butter was not among my favorite foods, so stealing Reece’s Pieces was nonsensical.

My parents were prepared to explain all this to him, and the general manager, the next day. They made an appointment to do so. The colleague, however, called in sick soon afterward. He called in sick the next two days, too. He looked fine to me though when he made his accusations.

After three days, he didn’t call. He didn’t show up again, either. By then, the general manager had dismissed the charge against me without prejudice. I continued working; the colleague, if I recall correctly, turned up at another store on the other side of town.

I doubt the barista with the coffee conundrum needed to concern herself with comparable banality. After looking at the half-filled cup, she said, “Well, I can give you a little more coffee or a little more cream, or I can split the difference, but I’m not sure how it’s going to come out.”

“How about a little more coffee?” I asked.

She reached under the counter into a small refrigerator and withdrew a carafe of coffee, poured until the tan-colored mixture turned a couple shades darker, then pulled out a quart container of cream and poured just enough to restore the drink’s original color. I presumed then that company policy dictated adherence to appearance over recipe.

Regardless, the drink tasted fine. I presume that’s all that mattered.

Her struggle ends

The last time I saw my aunt, Joyce Sheets, she was in her rocking chair, head tilted back and to the left, her silver-gray hair mussed by the head bands of an oxygen mask that she wore all the time by then. A portable respirator clicked softly from a metal stand next to her.

This was November — no, maybe December. Sometime right before Christmas, I’m sure. She was dressed in loose clothes, a housecoat and a blanket for her legs and feet. Two big down-filled slippers poked out from beneath the blanket. On her face, were bug-eye-frame glasses propped up not so much by her nose as the oxygen mask. Her face looked almost too small for those glasses.

But it was the eyes behind those glasses that drew my attention. They were bright and small and tired-looking. They told you she was still alive, still fighting, still thinking up bad jokes. But they also told me they had seen enough of all this, of the housecoat and those slippers and that infernal breathing machine that was a closer friend to her now than her husband and children. The world around her rocking chair was small. Full of love, mind you, but very small, and shrinking with each breath.

If you were to name the cruelest diseases known and list them with the worst in first, ALS has to be atop that list. It became famous for making Lou Gehrig a martyr and, somehow, a sports hero, though even he said there was nothing heroic about showing up at work every day.

No, real heroism arises after the farewell speeches. ALS robs sufferers of their ability to reach, hold and touch, so they can’t hug their children and grandchildren. It eliminates their mobility, so they wind up in wheelchairs or rockers, looking up at the pity flowing down onto them. And later, when every other motor function becomes a memory, ALS moves in on the lungs, resisting sufferers attempts to expand them.

My aunt once told me, in the rasp that had replaced her speaking voice, she felt as if she was always exhaling, always wondering whether her next breath would ever come. Her mind operated on two frequencies: in and out. That is, until her grandchildren were in the room. She felt then that her suffering was justified.

On Tuesday, my Uncle Les roused Joyce from her night’s sleep and prepared her for the day. He lifted her out of bed, helped her use the bathroom, bathed her and dressed her. He had learned to primp her hair, and she said he was doing a pretty good job at it. Then he made breakfast for both of them and sat at the edge of the kitchen table feeding her — one bite for her between every two bites for him.

This whole process from first kiss to last bite took nearly three hours, and it exhausted both of them. So Les carried her to the rocking chair about 12 feet distant, tucked her in and kissed her again. “I’ll be in the next room taking a nap, too,” he said.

It’s an old rocking chair with velvet flowers on its cushions and bare wooden arms. I used to sit in it to do college homework while babysitting my cousins Jennifer and Cynthia. Long before that, when I used to imagine rocking chairs were horses, I rocked back wildly and tipped the chair over with a crash. The frame fractured and thereafter the chair squeaked when it rocked — a raspy squeak much like my aunt’s enfeebled voice.

The chair sits at an angle to the rest of the furnishings so that the person in it can glance to the right and see a collection of family photos — baby pictures, graduation pictures, wedding pictures — atop a desk transformed long ago into an oversized photo album. Informal  snapshots stick out at all angles from the frames of formal portraits, and they’re all of smiling, laughing, playing children. I imagine that Joyce, her head lolling right on an almost useless neck, could see the smiles, hear the laughter in her mind, and agreed that whatever happened next was justified.

SPJ is my life, now

I'm writing a new chapter in my life by leading a chapter – the St. Louis-area chapter of SPJ, the Society of Professional Journalists, to be specific.

Election was easy; nobody else wanted the job. Installation this afternoon at the chapter's monthly luncheon was just as effortless. The current president pointed to me, announced I'm the lone candidate, asked if everyone in the room was OK with that, and upon hearing no objections declared the handover of power official and passed the gavel.

(Our group does not own a gavel; however, a cliche seemed a fair punctuation mark for that sentence.)

In fact, my one-year responsibility does not begin until June, but before then the current president will mount her formal campaign for regional SPJ chairman and needs room on her schedule to build a policy platform.

This is not to say we take chapter responsibilities lightly, passing around board memberships like copies of this morning's newspaper. SPJ remains an important resource to the local news-gathering community by showing ways that veteran journalists and budding ones can improve on their craft and deal with the changes wrought by technology and the Internet.

Rather, we'd like to think the quick transition represents an eagerness to move forward and impress how interested St. Louis-area journalists are in the state of the industry. Having the current chapter president move now into the regional chair, and subsequently a seat on the national board of directors, helps raise St. Louis' profile within SPJ.

As for me, I'd like to just see more faces to meetings, increase membership, brainstorm for ideas on bringing more online journalists aboard, and help out-of-work journalists continue to practice their craft to its fullest potential. I'm not sure how to do all of that just yet, but as ideas arise this vehicle may be the first place they see light.

Bad habits reduce your lifespan

I have bad habits, but none are listed in Yahoo's republishing of an Associated Press story. Does this make me a better person? Or is it proof I don't know how to have fun?

Why I'm waiting to buy an iPad

The gadget world went wild this past weekend with the release of Apple’s iPad, a tablet computer that resembles an oversized iPhone. Early estimates put first-day sales at 700,000, with more in inventory awaiting eager buyers at Apple stores everywhere.

I wasn’t among the eager ones; I steered clear of the lines and crowds at St. Louis-area retailers with remarkable self-control. Even now, after reading a couple dozen reviews and first-impressions of the device, my often twitchy gadget-loving fingers are still, my heart beats at a regular rhythm and I feel strangely calm for one who took enormous pride in muscling through like-minded throngs to snatch up the latest must-have, trend-setting, life-altering technology.

My uncommon mood could be a sign of aging. I look at my gray hairs and wonder how many were due to past gadget quests (A couple of scars certainly were). I peer through the stacks of dusty high-tech toys in my house and try hard to remember which ones evoked passion and which ones I merely liked and soon cast aside like an overeager kid on Christmas morning.

Or, maybe my calm results from the muscle relaxant I’m taking to ease a sore back (Here, I pause to praise the pharmaceutical industry for assisting me more than any gadget).

Probably both factors are at play.

However, one thing is certain: I have the wisdom of experience, and I point to those stacks of dusty gadgetry as proof.

Much of the menagerie consists of first versions and barely tested concepts launched with more hype than common sense. Some came from companies that vanished along with the hope their devices inspired. Some are third and fourth and sixth editions of good ideas that have not improved by degrees to remain interesting or relevant. Some are simply more strange than useful (Example: a pen-shaped document scanner that even James Bond wouldn’t rely on for important work.)

Yes, gadgets come and go and change, much like fashion. The ones that stay with us though are of prescient design, possess form and function in equal parts, lack quirkiness as a selling point. They are devices with which we need only our hands, and not our brains, to operate.

This is why Apple succeeds year after year with each new idea. The digital music player and mobile phone were time-worn ideas when Apple revealed the iPod and iPhone. So, too, is the tablet computer. Yet Apple’s products become market standards in spite of their hype. They’re monuments to technical simplicity — typical users need not rely on a manual to discern how they’re used; they just press that one round button at the bottom.

But that’s not enough to get me in the door of an Apple store lately. I already expect Apple’s products to be intuitive; what I need now is dependability. I now require some assurance that my first visit to an Apple store, either in person or online, will not lead to several others involving service or repairs.

In over a quarter century of using Apple products, I have taken five such trips, far fewer than with less complicated equipment such as clothes washers and microwave ovens, to be sure, but a majority of the trips coming within the past two years to try resurrecting dead iPods and laptops.

Apple service personnel explained away those equipment failures as particular to the model I owned.

“I’m sorry Mr. Sheets, but we’ve had trouble with these lately,” an in-store “genius” at Apple’s Genius Bar in West County said of my unresponsive MacBook last summer. “All I can tell you is, repairing it will cost a lot more than replacing it.”

Naturally, I heard this about a week after the warranty ran out.

So now, I watch the crowds rush in and out of Apple’s stores with iPads and I skim through reams of user feedback generated through the first 48 hours of our new iPad-infused existence, and I’m waiting for the first complaints to surface. None may arise, but I’m not so sanguine about that. (Apple already warned about a potential problem with excessive battery drain and promised replacement iPads to anyone whose new toy suffered from it).

Important to me at this point however is my understanding, accumulated through years of tech troubleshooting and related disappointment, that the first iteration of any idea often isn’t the best. The marketplace always sifts out surprise, and Apple will respond as always with an improved device that not only addresses current consumer complaints, but also major bugs that even Apple’s accomplished brain trust could not foresee.

Thus, six to nine months from now, the iPad finally will have become the device everyone wishes it was from Day One and truly be worth the $500 to $830 Apple expect you to shell out for it.

Besides, I appreciate all the geniuses at Apple and all the work they do. I just prefer not needing to deal with them.

Happy birthday, dot-com

Happy birthday, dot-com

I missed an opportunity to write a timely commentary on this, but it's still worth noting:

Three Letters and a Punctuation Mark That Changed the World

Sony pulls a Toyota

You may remember that Sony's PlayStation Network took a powder late last month.

For more than a day, the network and some games relying on it were unplayable on PlayStation 3s sold before last September, when the new slimmer systems debuted. The problem went away, the firestorm of criticism died down and Sony attributed the problem to a software "bug" that tricked system clocks into resetting a decade late.

Nice, but I'm inclined to think the term "bug" is generous to a fault. It suggests the software somehow tripped over its own shoelaces, when in fact software doesn't trip by itself -- if it falls, it's because people did something to push it. And in this case, those who did the pushing probably were inattentive programmers.

The network shutdown resulted when system clocks misinterpreted "March 1" as "Feb. 29," a date not on any calendar this year, and when the clocks couldn't find that date they kicked over to a default setting, Jan. 1, 2000. This is like a Y2K joke only Rip Van Winkle could appreciate.

As everyone lumped into the broad category between Harvard grads and Oprah watchers should know already, Feb. 29 shows up only on calendars for leap years, those quadrennial events that make us think we're getting more bang for our year.

Feb. 29 is in reality like that free cup of coffee you get after being overcharged for the three cups you bought before it.

Sony, in effect, spilled that cup and burned everyone at PSN, maybe burned their reputation a bit as well. Because no matter what excuse Sony offers, the fault lies with the dunderhead(s) who programmed a leap day to appear where none should.

That nobody thought during the code-writing process to consult a cheap calendar, or one that was turned to 2010, or ask someone nearby who might have a clue about when leap days appear -- well, that just makes Sony look almost as clueless as Toyota.