I have been trying to cultivate patience and deliberation now that I’m retired. I want to achieve a Zen-like state where I move through the vicissitudes of life with peace, tranquility and inner calmness. I want to be like Yoda or Mr. Miyagi (“The Karate Kid”).And then I tried to open a box of Grape-Nuts.
The box said it was easy opening. Yeah, and I’m the Duke of Earl. Whoever wrote that probably penned the memorable line, “You can keep your plan.”
The top of the box had two flaps. In concept, all you have to do is separate the flaps to open the box. One of the flaps even had a little tab so you can close the box after use. What could be easier?
I tried to separate the flaps with my thumb. No dice. So I tried to slide a knife blade between the flaps. Couldn’t do it. My knife is sharp enough to cut paper and stout enough to butcher a hog, but apparently it’s not good enough to open a cardboard box of breakfast cereal. That’s pretty pathetic for a survival knife. I’d starve to death if the world went to hell when I was trapped in a Frosted Flakes warehouse.
The reason I couldn’t slide the blade between the two flaps is because the glue used to close the box had fused the flaps together. I have a suggestion for the company’s Vice President for Packaging Design. How about using something other than super glue to hold the top flaps of the “easy opening” box together?
Frustrated, I did what men typically do when they encounter resistance. I used brute force to tear the top of the box off.
Then I encountered the inner package. It was made of some type of plastic that resists tearing. My guess is that it is recycled Kevlar from old bullet-proof vests. I tried to pull the top of the package apart. I might as well have tried to peel a bowling ball. I understand the importance of food safety, but is it really necessary to put Grape-Nuts in a hermetically sealed package like that? It’s breakfast cereal, not the Ebola virus.
If I had the inner peace and tranquility of Yoda or Mr. Miyagi, I would exercised patience and deliberation. But by then the dark force had come over me, and my inner animal (a rhinoceros, I think) had emerged. I ripped the inner package apart. It was a Conan the Barbarian moment for sure.
The result was inevitable. There were hundreds of little Grape-Nuts scattered all over the kitchen floor. (Why are they called Grape-Nuts anyway? They are not little dried crunchy grapes. The package says they are made of wheat and barley. Calling them Grape-Nuts makes about as much sense as calling them Squid-Nips.)
As I walked across the kitchen floor to get the broom, the sound of my footsteps—crunch, crunch, crunch—was like the sound of one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest. I was reminded of the words of Yoda: “Patience you must have my young padawan.”
I have a long way to go to reach the desired Zen state. I will work on it. As Mr. Miyagi said, “Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything.”
What?
News Update. A couple of posts ago, I poked fun at the local paper, The News Observer, over the scarcity of newsworthy events in Fannin County. A front page story in the paper concerned a fight at a middle school basketball game between a Fannin County player and a Pickins County player. I questioned whether this is front page news.
It was alleged by some Pickens County parents that a racial slur by a Fannin County provoked the incident. I thought the paper’s coverage was less than complete because it did not report the race of players or the content of the alleged slur.
I certainly did not expect read any more about a spat at a middle school basketball game. But, sure enough, The News Observer, apparently desperate for any news to report in boring Fannin County, had a front page follow-up to the story in a recent edition.
It seems the Pickens player was charged with assault, battery and obstruction of an officer and has been under house arrest since the incident. Mind you, this is a kid who is probably 12 or 13 years old.
A second hearing on the charges was scheduled in the local criminal court but was postponed so that school resource officers and Fannin County Sheriff’s deputies could interview additional witnesses about the incident.
It strikes me that this is one hell of an investigation for a fight between two middle school basketball players. Then it occurred to me that maybe the criminal scene in Fannin County is just as dull and boring as the news scene. Other than the occasional DUI case and meth lab bust, there’s probably not a lot of interesting crime happening around here. That may account for the lengthy investigation. The investigating officers are probably glad to have something to do.
The paper reported an additional detail about the incident. It said that the incident caused players, coaches and fans “to fill the gym floor before order was restored.” So it was not only a fight between two players, but a near riot, at least by Fannin County standards. I speculate that if school officials had not been able to quell the disturbance they would have been compelled to call out what passes for the National Guard in Fannin County – a handful of middle-aged civil war reenactors. Now that would have been newsworthy.
If, indeed, the incident caused the stands to empty, it is curious or, perhaps, bad reporting that the original story did not include that fact. But I’m skeptical of the accuracy of the reporting. Did the players, coaches and fans truly “fill the gym floor”?
I’ve been to a middle school basketball game. You're lucky if all the players’ parents show up. I doubt there were enough people at the game to fill a large bedroom, much less a gymnasium floor.
I suppose it is understandable if the incident was magnified in the eyes of the officials and the reporter. After all, any sort of event that disturbs the boring tranquility of Fannin County is unusual and likely to be sensationalized.
I will probably be reading more about the Great Fannin County Middle School Riot. I hope so, because now I’m interested in how it turns out. I may even go to the hearing and do a little investigative reporting of my own.
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