Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

One of my readers queried me on a great figure of speech, asking for my favorite oxymoron. "Easy," I replied. "I'd go with minor surgery.

"How so," she answered. "Wouldn't you say it's a tough term to define?"

"Not really," I countered. "There are but two aspects to minor surgery. The first is, will the procedure keep the surgeon from eating dinner on time. After all, years and years of donuts and coffee on the fly while in medical school and then for the endless training in their specialty makes a sit-down dinner something every doctor deserves, even psychiatrists."

"I'll go along with that," she said thoughtfully. The second one of course, and this is very important, is that the patient lives through the procedure. Patients who expire under the knife always pass away due to "complications from routine surgery," not minor surgery. Clearly, once these two prerequisites have been fulfilled, you are left with one magnificent oxymoron, Minor Surgery.

It finally happened. I never thought it would, but it did. The New York Times reports that at Boston's Logan Airport, a few Avis shuttle buses got lost between the terminals and the Avis parking lot. Give me a break, people. How could it be that between the satellites and spy planes we have the ability to spot a camel turd in the middle of the Gobi Desert from an altitude of 60,000 feet, but not be able to locate the Continental terminal at an international airport?

Now it's easier to understand the problem I encountered the last time I rented a car. As the cheerful woman behind the desk explained it, they had my confirmation number but not the car I ordered. "Well, in that case," I asked, "just what is it that you're confirming?"

"We are confirming," she said patiently, "that you reserved a car with us."

"Fine, I'll take it," I snapped.

"The problem," she said, "is that the car you ordered does not show up on the computer. I can give you the same make car in a different size or the same size car in a different make."

"Whatever," I said, and was signed up and gone in two minutes. On the way out of the lot I passed a string of six, maybe eight, parked Ford Taurus's, which was the car I had originally ordered.

My generation has seen a lot of change and most of it for the better. Fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door; tapes of Barney able to anesthetize your grandchildren for half an hour or so, enabling you to take a nap; Starbucks coffee and so on.

The biggest change, of course, has come in financial planning. Years ago, my wife and I could plan only up to Thursday because we never had any money left for Friday. Luckily, that was the day I got paid.

Now there are hosts of financial whiz kids out there telling us what to do with all the money we scrimped, and over a lifetime, saved for. One of those palookas cold-called me the other day and asked if I had anything "available."

"Gee," I said, "pity you didn't call me a few minutes ago. I just wired a guy who called, two hundred thousand - said there was a good situation he was close to, and he would let me in on it. Why don't you give me your number, and I'll have that guy call you. This is a good thing; believe me, a chance to get in on the ground floor. And even more important is that… uh, that…"

"Who were you just talking to?" my wife asked as she walked in.

"I really don't know," I replied. "The line went dead."

"Maybe they'll call back," she said.

"Honey, you could bank on it!"