Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I was thrilled by the many American victories in the Olympics. None more than that of Jim Shea, Jr., the son and grandson of former Olympic champions. He won his gold medal in "Skeleton" (a type of sleigh ride down a chute), by a scant five-hundredths of a second (0.05).

I thought it would be interesting to put that winning margin into a real time frame. After all, five-hundredths of a second requires such an abstruse perception that few people, aside from the Enron auditors, can bring meaning to that type of number. But armed with a genuine Olympic model stopwatch that's just what I did.

"Honey," I said, pulling a shirt and a pair of slacks from the closet. "What do you think of this outfit?"

"That's what you're going to wear to the dinner party tonight?" - was her nine-tenths of a second (0.9) response.

"Of course not," I lied in six-tenths of a second (0.6); knowing that that's what you're going to wear, really means: that outfit should've been given to the Salvation Army twenty years ago.

I clocked an entire week of happenings in the house and was able to beat Shea's time only once: "Tomorrow's garbage day," my better half said in four-hundredths of a second (0.04) as I put the key in the door.

I think even Shea's grandfather would have been impressed.

What's with the furniture business? Who are they kidding with all those ads: 30% off, 40% off, and now - for this week only - up to 70% off. I would worry about anyone who bought a piece of furniture at retail. Perhaps the key reason for Bill Clinton's singularly successful presidency is that he and Hillary never bought anything; 100% off 100% of the time, no wonder he was a Rhode's Scholar and beat Impeachment.

In fact with the mid-term elections around the corner, I would love to see every candidate's furniture grade, i.e., has the candidate ever bought a piece of furniture at list price? That's more important than anyone's stance on taxes or education or the war on terror because it shows moxie.

Come November the media would be doing the country a great service if they published every candidate's "mfg" (moxie furniture grade). No mfg, no vote and let's make sure to keep an eye out on those Election Day sales.

People can laugh all they want about the restaurants in Florida with those off season specials and our world-famous Early Birds. But what happened at a posh London bistro as recently reported in the New York Times (February 25th) probably - and I feel strongly about this - couldn't happen down here. A party of six bankers, according to the Times ran up a tab of $62,700.00 (yes, you read the figure right) for several bottles of wine with their dinner,

To try to make sense of this I popped over to my favorite eatery to check with the maitre de, a life-long restauranteur. Beckoning him over, I asked: "Max, if I came in here with fifty or sixty-thousand dollars to spend, what could I get?"

"Well," he said, his eyes narrowing, "you could have the restaurant and my time share in Acapulco."

"No, that's not what I'm getting at," I said pointedly. "Tell me, Max, if you had to name one wine to have with dinner - you know, like it's your last meal - what would it be?"

Max paused for a moment, his brow furrowed: "I would have to say Manischewitz's Golden Blush. It's in a class by itself.

"Wow," I said, "it must really be something. How much is it?"

"$4.25 a glass, $3.50 on the early bird."

"No, I mean how much for a bottle?"

"A whole bottle?" Max asked, incredulously. "No one's ever ordered a full bottle. I'd have to check with my accountant."

"Oh, the hell with it Max. I'll just have a Coke."

"Okay…. good…. a coke," Max said. "But listen, about that time share, maybe for you - and this would be just for you - I could do a little better."