ARRIVING FOR THE EARLY SHOW

There are many days, too many, that I stay at work later than any sane person should. I have been better in recent years because a coworker kept me honest about leaving close to quitting time, but then she retired. Another coworker has picked up the slack, though, so I am much better about getting my car into parent-pick-up traffic rather than post-Boston commuter traffic.

It's my morning routine that still needs a little finesse.

I have some mornings that I simply cannot sleep, so I leave for work early. Or, I have to get to the post office. Or, I need to escape from my complex because someone is going to be tarring at the ass-crack of dawn. 

I am almost ashamed to admit that this is my car, by itself, in the school parking lot, around 6:30 a.m. For clarity, my hours start officially at 8:20 a.m. I'm not suffering or anything. I get first dibs on the copy machine, no one stops me for an impromptu conference as I head to the mail room, I make myself tea in peace, and nobody looks at me suspiciously if I stop to pee in the deserted student bathroom.

That's right. No normal, well-adjusted person would come to work so damn early. As you can see in the pictures, even the specialty bus-vans hadn't left on their routes yet. However, in my defense, I couldn't sleep, and the complex scheduled speed-bump shaving (complex built them too tall last summer, and we are all scraping our cars' undercarriages) to start at exactly 7:00 a.m.. Since Mother Nature had already thrown off our paving schedule this past June, I didn't want to take any chances.

On a positive note, I was well-caffeinated by the time everyone else arrived at work. On a negative note, I lacked an audience for a good thirty minutes, and I probably whistled, sang, and danced some of my best material before that lot filled in. 

A DAY IN THE REVOLUTIONARY AMERICAN LIFE

I have a friend who is a relatively recent American citizen. I find it wildly ironic that he harbors a fascination for the American Revolution and the Fathers of the United States republic, as he is British by birth. Currently living in Los Angeles, not exactly a place I consider the cradle of staunch American values, my friend decides he wants to experience Concord when he visits his old Boston-area stomping grounds. My plan is to take him to some sites in Concord and perhaps even to Sudbury. After all, very little compares to hoisting an ale in the tavern of Longfellows' Wayside Inn. 

We start our day at the Concord Museum, which has some amazing artifacts. It also has a large, interactive map that depicts the timeline and troops and actions and locations of the events of April 19, 1775. The stuff that is on display is absolutely spellbinding: muskets, swords, silver-smithed kitchenware, furniture, documents, art, and sculptures, including two scaled sculptures by Daniel Chester French that are notably recognizable: The Minute Man and the Lincoln Memorial.

My next stop, however, is a near-fatal mistake.

I decide to take my friend, who is a voracious reader, to Author's Ridge at Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Buried here are famous American authors Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. This is my personal Valhalla, and I assume, stupidly I now realize, that my British friend would be as familiar with iconic American writers as we all are with iconic British authors. It's okay. I mean, we didn't have anyone over here writing when Chaucer was creating verse in Merry Olde England. As a matter of fact, we didn't have any famous literary now-dead white guys here at all during that time period. I figure, then, that it's okay to skip Sudbury since Longfellow isn't on the radar today.

We head over the the Old North Bridge, and trudge uphill in unusually hot autumn weather to the Visitors' Center. It is amazing to be on hallowed ground, and even my former red coat buddy is enthralled by the history of the Americans' bravado and chutzpah. Finally, we wrap up the day with a wonderful early supper at Concord's 1716 Colonial Inn, extending our Revolutionary-ish Era adventure.

After my friend catches the train back to Boston and I head home via back roads to my own place about twenty miles northeast, I can't help reflecting on the propaganda campaign that led us to this place where we are now. Sure, we are tax-laden, Congress is littered with nut jobs, and the entire monetary system is on the verge of collapse, but overall it's a damn lot better than most. 

PEEK-A-BOO HAIRBALL

We have a fabulous janitorial staff at our school. However, every once in a while, they miss obvious stuff. It's not their fault because most of the time they have to operate on auto-pilot due to staffing shortages.

I tend to run into the girls' bathroom in my wing because it is directly across the hall from my room, and by "directly," I mean that we can hear people fart in the bathroom as if we are right in there with them. Let's not even get into the next stages of personal potty functions. Let's just say this: The acoustics rival The Met.

The custodians do a great job of cleaning up after middle schoolers and making sure that the toilet paper dispensers are full. We haven't had paper towels in there since TikTok decided that stuffing wads of paper into the pipes to clog our entire septic system was a trend that all students should cling to and try. Yes, because some of them graduated to wedging paper towels into the bowls, now, nobody gets to dry their hands the old-fashioned, super-efficient way. We either stand under the useless cold dryers, or we wipe our hands on our own clothing.

That being said, the paper towels are the least of our worries. There hasn't been soap in there for over a week. It's not necessarily the fault of the staff. The soap is clear in its dispenser bag, so it's hard to tell if the thing is full, half-way, or bone-dry. I decide to leave a nice note, pretending that the soap just barely ran out that day, and I add a happy face.

It works! The following morning -- voila -- we have soap! It doesn't work so well with the floors in the room.

For a few days, my room has a fist-sized hairball of crap making its way around the room. One day it is near the computer. The next day, it's hiding under student desks. I have been watching it, waiting for either a kiddo or a janitor to dispose of it. Near the window. By the door. Between the rows. Next to the bookcase. 

It's like the official Classroom Prepositional Phrase Hairball.

Thursday night I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour because I am exhausted. Instead, monkey mind keeps my up until almost 1:00 a.m. Even though my alarm is set for 6:00, I am up and down all night and finally awaken for good around 5:15. Might as well get up. I play games on my phone, check email, look at the forecast, read the news, peruse social media . . . anything to deny work's existence.

Even though I stop to mail bills at the post office, I am still first into my end of the building at 7:10. I walk in, plop my backpack on my desk, and come around to sit in my chair. I have a vague sense that the Jaws theme song is playing softly somewhere in the background track of my life. Just as I am about to sit down . . .

I scream.

Is that a huge spider? Is it a dead mouse? Is it Rapunzel's hair extension?

Nope. It's the damn hairball. It is sitting right at my desk, staring up at me, challenging me from the overly-waxed tiles.

Defeated, I drop my shoulders, jerk my head back, jut my chin into the air, and lament, "Why me? Dear gawd almighty, whyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeeee?!" Then I grab a paper towel from my closet (because, hey, I know how to hoard supplies, especially if I pay for them), lean down, scoop up the hairy mass, and toss it into the trash bucket far away from my desk, dry heaving as I do because loose hair clumps unnerve me.

I swear, if that thing is back on my floor on Monday, I'm calling in an exorcist.

THE (SAD) ZOO

The zoo should have better enclosures and more animals. Seriously.

First of all, there are so few animals in each enclosure that a zoo visit is more like a piss-poor game of Where's Waldo, but with an admission fee attached. It becomes a random guess-filled walk, hoping that other people's children will be able to point out the invisible zoo treasures.

"Where is the snow leopard? Does anyone see the snow leopard?"

"Hey, lady. You see that hint of shadow about thirty feet up? That's the reflection of one of its paws."

When I went to the National Zoo in DC the first time, apparently the panda was dead, so that was merely an empty space left open and unoccupied. The second time I went to the zoo in DC, it was so hot that even the desert animals couldn't be bothered to materialize.

Today's visit to the zoo starts with an immediate deterrent: All of the parking spaces have been taken by people at a university-level cross-country track meet. Yes, the course runs between the zoo and a golf country club. So, those of us who are paying zoo patrons actually have to park along the side of a crazily busy city main street, hoof it past the track runners who don't bother getting off the sidewalks nor out of the way of people and small children, and attempt to push carriages over rocky, muddy, overgrown terrain.

What's even sadder is that the last two times before this visit, I went to the zoo to see Corpse Flowers. Yes, even the things that smell dead are more enticing than lazy, listless living animals. I mean, I understand that the eagle needs to be contained, but in a chicken wire cage the size of my apartment bathroom? And the wallaby enclosure is large enough that there should be . . . oh, I don't know . . . wallabies running around in it, rather than one or two dozing against the fence yards away.

There are a lot of things to see, just the same. There's a giraffe that licks a steel pole, snoozing lions (one of whom would die the following day), and some gorillas (that surprisingly have not been able to escape from this place since Little Joe made it to a local bus stop in 2003). 

This zoo is not as sad as some other zoos, but that is hardly a testament to its continued existence. It just seems that perhaps the zebra enclosure might have more grass and less rocks and muck. The monkey "house" might have enough monkeys to make it worth seeing, perhaps monkeys in action rather than the sad looking monkeys that belong at the tent city on Mass and Cass, begging for money and heroin.

In case you're wondering if I'm just bitching or willing to pitch in, I do donate to the zoo, and, yes, monetary donations. But that doesn't seem to make it any less sad than it is and has been for decades. It used to be much better, which should tell you how awful it is now since even then it was borderline pathetic.

Will I go back? Of course I will. I do love the animals, it's a decent walk, and I have a yearly membership.

STAY CHIPPER, MY FRIENDS

Sometimes metaphors happen.

I'm driving to work,

The upcoming day on my mind,

Meetings - emails - filing - data collection -

All kinds of useless cacophony taking place inside my brain.

A small dump truck pulls in front of me.

It's not really a dump truck dump truck.

It's one of those landscaping style trucks with six wheels.

It's pulling a trailer -

Not a big one;

One with a piece of machinery on wheels attached.

I take a moment and realize what it is:

A wood chipper.

Debris litters the intake chute, 

And the horrid metal gnashing gnawing mouthlike jaws

Laugh at me as I get closer to my destination,

Jeering me,

Lulling me into a false sense of security,

A Siren song of sadism,

Reminding me that work will 

Chew me up and

Spit me out

As sure as if a wood chipper awaits me at my desk.

Metaphors happen;

Sometimes the timing is unavoidable.

DUNKS ON THE . . . STOP

Anyone who lives anywhere in New England knows where the nearest Dunkin Donuts stores are located. True New Englanders measure travel distance in Dunks, as well. There are two Dunkins directly across the street from each other in the town next to where I live so that customers don't even have to worry about crossing one nearly-empty lane of non-traffic to get a coffee. 

One of the best advances in the Dunkins business is the app ordering. It means that you don't even have to interact with anyone. You just pop into Dunks (one of the twenty within a two-mile radius of wherever you are), look for your order, and grab it. No human contact necessary.

My daughter and I are on our way to the zoo with her daughter. Before we get there, though, we really, really, REALLY need Dunkins iced coffee. So, we pre-order, swing around the city streets where she lives, find a parking space in front, and I get ready to hop out and pick up the order.

Dunkins on the GO! Whoohoo!

Except that parallel parking in the city can sometimes be tricky. Now, lest you think we cannot parallel park, you would be wrong. I taught each of my children the proper way to parallel park before I even let them drive around on real streets. "It's the single most important driving maneuver you can master." Truth. Since I know that each child can, indeed, park properly on a city street, my daughter gets her SUV into a tight street spot like a damn boss.

The problem here is that she parks too well. When I try to open my door, not only is the car right at the curb as it should be, it is inches from a signboard and a telephone pole.

Dunkins on the STOP!

I glance over to my daughter, who clearly didn't want to be the one doing the touch-and-go for iced coffee. I shrug my shoulders like Max the dog when he finds himself riding, rather than pulling, the Grinch's sled. I guess I'm watching the baby while she gets our order.

Hey, at least we still didn't have any real human interaction, so there is that. And, we have coffee to keep us hydrated and caffeinated at the zoo. Win-win! Thanks, Dunkins! You truly are saving New Englanders one iced coffee at a time, and we appreciate you for it.

DO NOT CLIMB THIS TREE HOUSE

Anyone familiar with the Tewksbury Country Club's restaurant and it's lovely (shorter) golf course might lament the fact that it was sold suddenly and unceremoniously out from under many prospective brides and other venue securers. Many of us also were a teeny bit excited as it was sold to a brewery. Tree House Brewery, to be exact.

Having never been to a Tree House Brewery before, I did a tiny bit of research before going and discovered that not only were the reviews lackluster, but the company itself released its own press release saying something to the effect of, "Hey, sorry we're assholes and our service sucks, but, gee willikers, won't you just suck it up and give us another chance?"

This should have been red flag number one.

My friend and I pull into the nearly empty parking lot, walk up the charming stone steps of the former country club, and are greeted by a person with a squawking walkie-talking, a rumpled cardboard box, and a shitload of pink paper wristbands -- like they're prepping for the Thanksgiving Day Feaster Five Road Race, or something.

"Hi. We've never been here before. Don't we just go in and order beer?"

Oh, no. Jesuschristalmighty. That would be too damn easy.

The person inhales a huge breath, and, while the radio is still blasting voices, gives us a spiel that must be longer than a Henry James paragraph, and delivered at the rate of an auctioneer. I am suddenly reminded of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant courtroom speech. When she finishes, a bit blue around the gills from lack of taking in air, she smiles and looks at us expectantly.

Say, what? What in the hell did you just say? This should have been red flag number two. Can't we just go into the damn venue? 

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. We must download this and open that and QR code this thingamajigee and enter that into the kiosk, and what's your credit card, phone number, social security ID, rank, serial number, and the password to every bank account you've ever had. By the time we even get to the first room (more on this in a moment), I feel more violated than if I'd had a pap smear in the food court of the mall. So, we stand there, inside this first room, looking around at the familiar, wonderful, expansive venue, and notice that almost everything has been roped off -- the upstairs, the former restaurant -- like an abandoned mansion or the set for a horror flick. We are told to open our phones, use the internet, and go from room to room.

This should have been red flag number three.

Room one, as I just referenced, is the QR room. Yes, folks, here you can buy tickets for up to three beers. Step right up! The fun is about to begin! No more than three beers! All you can ever have here are three beers. That's it. No more. Ever. Never. My friend and I scan the code and I am able to open their "Buy your ticket here" but not any kind of beer list. So I step back outside to my long-winded pal.

"What if I want a flight of beer?"

Red flag number four.

Horrified eyes, completely and utterly aghast as if I have just killed her first born child and torn out its entrails, stare back at me. "We don't sell FLIGHTS!" she whispers harshly, as if I've just spit blasphemy in the house of God. Then she smiles her Mr. Sardonicus smirk and says, "But we do offer some samples!" Then she shoos us away like we are crap on her shoe.

I am able to open the ticket sale page on my phone because I am still connected to my car's Bluetooth. My friend's phone, which is much better than mine, just keeps buffering and buffering and buffering. So, we wander into room number two. Surprise! It's a golf and gift shop. Apparently, we are supposed to buy all kinds of crap on our way in, like Disney Land has gone backward and you must get your purchases out of the way first before you forget to spend more money. We look appropriately interested and wander into room number three, passing more roped off spaces like we are in an art museum that sadly lacks pictures. Plenty of docents (useless extra staff) standing around looking bored, but nothing really to enjoy. 

We move along to room number three. This is apparently where you buy canned drinks. Yes, canned. No need for a bartender here, but there is one, just the same. All she has to do is stand behind a gorgeous mahogany bar,  pop the tab, and overcharge the patrons. But, wait. We cannot order drinks because we cannot buy tickets because the Tree House Brewery QR site is still buffering. 

Gosh, gee whiz, and howdoyado. If this place is completely self-service and entirely web-based and web-run, shouldn't the Internet be strong and efficient? We shake our phones, as if that will help secure a connection, and wander over to the young lady standing behind the bar next to a fridge full of cans. We are about to ask what we seem to think is an obvious question, especially in this day and age of modern technology.

"What's the Wi-Fi password here?"

Red flag number five has just been raised.

She looks at us, glances around to make sure we are alone (we are - the place is practically empty), and sheepishly admits, "We don't have Wi-Fi."

I'm sorry, what?

She turns her head to the left then to the right, like she is a spy on a secret mission and is passing us covert information that might possibly get her killed. Still, we are the only ones within earshot. "Yeah, there is internet," she says quietly, "but no one is allowed to use it. Even the employees."

But, wait. How do we get drinks?

"You put your order in using the QR code on your phone using the Internet."

Using the Internet you don't have? We can't pay cash or simply hand you a credit card? The answer is no.

"Hold on, here," we say. "This is a one-hundred percent internet-based business."  Yes. "But you don't have Wi-Fi for the patrons." That is correct. 

At least the poor young thing has the decency to appear mortified. We look around. Everywhere, and I do mean all over the damn place, are signs for QR codes and online ordering. But, and this may seem like I'm nitpicking, there is zero access to said QR codes unless you are lucky enough to have your own Internet connection.

Okay, then. Red flag number six, it is.

We head to the tap room. Forty-eight beers on tap, they boast! Forty-eight! Now, we are just about the first patrons of the day. I count about twenty-six beers on tap. There's a rolling list on electronic boards behind the taps. They change so fast that I cannot even take in the information before it snaps to the next screen. I feel like I'm having a seizure. Finally, I notice a hard copy of the beer list, which is a damn good thing since we cannot open their QR coded beer list because, hey, there's no fucking Wi-Fi.

The list is typed up and very lovely, but 99.9% of the beers simply say names and then IPA after them. No descriptions. No information about said beers. No little catch-phrases to get you thinking about any beer in particular. So, me being me, I ask, "Can you tell me about the beers?" I notice that this is the same person from Door #1 who assured us that samples were available. 

"Uhhhhh, well, this one is an IPA."  Yes, dear, but tell me about the beer. What is it like? What's in it? "Uhhhhh, it's like . . . an IPA!" No shit, Sherlock. I'm not illiterate. What kind of beer is it? Is it fruity? Is it hazy? "It's, you know, beer!" May I sample one? Now, folks, remember: This is the person from the front door, the one with the radio and from whom we received our paper armbands, and who told me that, yes, they offer samples since they didn't sell flights. "Oh," she says to my face, "it's not really something that we do here."

What. The. Serious. Fuck. Red flag number seven.

I hand her my credit card. Nope. I have to have a paper ticket so they can take the paper ticket from me then mark my wristband with permanent marker to make sure I don't have more than three beers. "I would love to have a paper ticket," I say, "except that you don't have Wi-Fi so the internet doesn't work so your QR codes just keep buffering." Well, apparently that's not the problem of Tree House Brewery. No Internet service here on the back nine means no service, so move along, move along, move along. We are at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and even the White Rabbit isn't getting served without a damn paper ticket.

Big fat flying red flag number eight.

We finally manage to get two tickets into our phone cart, enter more information than was required to pass TSA precheck screening, and go back to the counter with our little paper tickets that we get from the nice girl who told us about the lack of Wi-Fi service for their web-based venture. I order a non-IPA beer, one of three on their list because, hey, wouldn't you just know it, the other taps ran out of beer at 1:00 in the afternoon, two short hours after opening to an empty house. The beer she (Door #1 Girl) hands to me in a clear Solo cup has a four-inch head of foam. Yes, an $8+ cup of beer, $5 of which is freaking air bubbles.

"Try it!" Door #1 girl says. Um, it has foam on the -- "TRY IT! TRY IT NOW!" I take a mouthful of foam and attempt to sniff my way into the beer. "Do you like it? Isn't it great?" Listen, bitch, I can't even drink this motherfucker. Who taught you to draw from a keg? When I finally get a taste, I almost gag. It's a fucking IPA.

You know where I'm going with this: Straight to red flag number nine.

My friend chuckles and says to the girl, "I think your keg is dead." No response from the Stepford employee.

While we sip our drinks, we go online on our own Internet because, hey, we have our own Internet service outside on the patio, and start reading reviews. Yup. Many experiences just like ours on the threads and in comments and for reviews. It's quite enlightening.

While outside, we go over our ticket purchase for the beer and discover that the tip has been included in the purchase price. A tip. A TIP. I hate to point out the obvious, but no one waited on us. Not one person was put out at all nor actually helped us, nor interacted with us in this experience beyond our insistence that someone help us. This is an entirely hands-off experience run by human automatons who cannot pour a decent cup of beer. I could tap a keg better at age fifteen than these yoyos can with expert Tree House training.

Red flag number ten - because I am sick of tipping (or paying for bags) when I'm the one doing the self-checkout shopping work. I'm the one who should be getting a tip.

As we leave, another young hipster is now manning the door (that we've had to find because the EXIT is actually roped off -- big surprise -- and it is literally a labyrinth in this place). I figure he is young, he grew up in the computer age, he has always had Internet access. 

"Hey," I say, "how does this place think it will survive as an Internet-based operation if it doesn't have any Wi-Fi?" He smiles a bit embarrassingly, shrugs his shoulders, and agrees with us. "I'm not trying to be a dink here," I continue, "but, son, this is like saying you're opening an all-American burger joint but you don't have any meat to serve. If Wi-Fi is the base of your business model, why wouldn't you actually have Wi-Fi?"

Red flag number eleven because having a business model that essentially doesn't exist in your actual business is not a model at all. It's a flaming disaster. It's the Titanic of business models. 

Since I've no desire to return to the seven rings of Dante's Tree House Inferno until Beelzebub actually calls for me, beer in hand or not, I'm going to pass on ever again visiting this brewery.