Rats! I thought I had found something to change my life. Someone shared a Google document with me the other day, and when I was reading it, a little microphone icon popped and informed me that I could just talk and it would type what I was saying.
I’ve heard of these voice-recognition deals before but had never tried it. Of course, the first thing out of my mouth was an expletive of disbelief — something like, “F-k me!”— and there it appeared, right on the page in black and white. But then I started having problems with it. I was going to talk this column out and not have to type, but it started sending me mixed signals, telling me it couldn’t hear me and I needed to get somewhere quieter, even though I was in a silent room. I think it blanked out on me when I spoke the phrase, “Personally, I don’t get the big deal about the Greensward, and now I’ll probably be stoned in public.” (Imagine that!)
So there. I’ve said it, and now I’ve written it. Hate me if you must, but I just can’t seem to get all lathered up about grass. Hell, I wish the grass in my own yard would die so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. And I live close to the Memphis Zoo, so why don’t all of you who insist on parking on the grass just come park in my yard for free and do me a big favor. And save yourself some money and moral guilt. While you’re there, do you mind trimming the hedges that are about 20 feet taller than my roof?
Don’t get me wrong. I adore Overton Park (and the work the Overton Park Conservancy is doing) and spent most of my high school years skipping class to hang out there with my guitar and some friends singing Cat Stevens and Al Green songs. And, of course, people shouldn’t be allowed to park on grass in a park as beautiful as Overton Park, but I just don’t feel the emotional upheaval so many people seem to be feeling. I’m more worried about other things in Memphis, but I’m happy that so many of you are fighting the Greensward battle because maybe it will finally be resolved and we can move on to other things.
Maybe if I paid more attention to the Greensward issue I would understand why there are so many yard signs and banners and protests and arguments over the grass, but I just haven’t had time. I’m too worried about someone hacking into my refrigerator.
Yes, I saw an investigative news piece the other day about how hackers are hacking into people’s doorbells, security systems, televisions, home robots, and everything else that can be hacked in order to get to the home computer and steal bank information and the like. Now there’s that to worry about. I wish someone would hack into my refrigerator. They’d probably vomit. Hackers, you are more than welcome to find your way into my refrigerator, and, while you’re in there, would you please find a way to hack out the leftover crawfish from April’s Overton Square Crawfish Festival, the leftover smothered cabbage that is now emitting visible gasses, and — at any given time — the six to eight tuna cans with about a half teaspoon of tuna in each one because one of the cats won’t eat actual cat food and prefers tuna at different temperatures at different times of the day. There are also the lemon halves that now look like fuzzy little baby geese without legs, and I’m all but certain there’s an old Krystal lurking in there somewhere like Waldo.
Joewarut | Dreamstime.com
And if you’d like to hack into my television set, be my guest. You’ll see that I watch the local news for one hour every morning to keep up with the homicide rate and most recent revelations about hair extensions, then one hour and 10 minutes of NBC’s Today show for my Matt Lauer and Tamron Hall fix and to see concerts by today’s music superstars I’ve never heard of. The rest of the time it’s a tossup between Chopped on the Food Network and Law & Order Special Victims Unit on whatever channel I can find it on.
See what you can do with that fascinating information over in Romania or wherever you are. But don’t hack in there while I’m actually watching Chopped because I become a sinister person. If you’ve ever watched that show, you’ve noticed that the contestants are more in competition about their personal sob stories than they are about creating their culinary concoctions from baskets filled with disparate delicacies. Someone in the family has recently died a horrible death, and they are on the show to honor that relative. Half of them are recovering crack heads. Some have horrible emotional issues they are trying to overcome. Others have been in prison and are trying to get their lives back on track by making a great soufflé. It goes on and on and on to the point that I just start screaming demeaning insults at them from the couch. “Hey, idiot! Knock off all that whining about your dead mother, and just do something with the yak testicles, cotton candy, and lima beans!” “So what if you were in the military and have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Stop yapping about it, and stuff that ox meat with some dill pickles and bubble gum! Win that $10,000 for the Greensward, and let’s move on!”
