The Mysteries of Living With a Woman Redux or A Feuer Christmas Carol

Scene:  Christmas Eve morning in the Feuer household.  Tammy leaves for work before Richard.  She has a "hospital full of angry patients who can't be home for Christmas" to run while Richard only has one unlucky patient "who bit the wrong way into a candy cane the day before Christmas" to ameliorate.  Tammy is gone by 7 AM.  Richard finally works his way down to the kitchen at 8:30.  And there, in the semi-early morning dawn light he sees the note on his place-mat.  He already suspects it is not an "I love you, have a blessed day" missive.  Richard and Tammy have been together too long for the kinds of platitudinous crap trappings more commonly seen in 6 month old unions.  No, it is most assuredly a honey-do list on this, the most horrific, nauseatingly frantic, and insufferably annoying shopping day of the year.  So before Richard even sees the print on the sticky note he is "oh crapping", "you gotta be kidding me", and I don't freaking believe this" himself to death.  But, blessedly (Christmas miracle number one) the note is short.

Action: There are only two items on the list and they are conveniently labeled 1 and 2.  But helpful numbering system aside, the instructions are in "Tammy shorthand".  If you are unfamiliar with this time and space saving method of enumeration let me explain.  You see, even the most lengthy of instructions, lists, and commandments, can be squeezed onto a sticky note no bigger than 1" by 1" square.  If Tammy had been the set designer for Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments he could have come down from the mountain with not only the big ten, but the entire Torah on a stone tablet no bigger than your basic Etch a Sketch screen.  The key is to start randomly somewhere in the middle of the page, with really big print, and then when you start to run out of room, merely start twirling the paper around and around, writing smaller and smaller, utilizing every corner of the paper without regard to top, bottom, left or right.  And then, as with indecipherable ancient Aramaic, expect the generations that follow you to use this as a guide for their resultant behavior.  Or in my case, as merely a guide to how many, and what kind, of rolls to buy for Christmas dinner the next day.

Here then, for your interpretation, is the note:

It is obvious, if you are a student of semiotics, that the Pillsbury Crescent instruction was actually written down first.  The green beans were added as an after thought.  Thus the helpfully circled 1, 2 informational symbols inserted in the margin.  But the more significant sign of Tammy's thought process is the smaller typeface and banishment to that portion of the memo pad already taken up by the sponsor of the instructional note, the NJDOT, of the green bean commandment.  We can further assume, once we have this information, that the style of cut, size of bag, and brand of green beans will not be too crucially important to the success of the covered dish for which they are intended.  So we are good for the frozen food isle.

What is not so apparent is the number and possibly style of rolls to purchase.  In solving any Rosetta Stone style hieroglyphics one must first rewrite the words in the proper order of the translationalist's language.  So for us, commandment number two reads as follows, or so I thought:

28's =16 Pillsbury Crescent + 4 rolls.

My first thought, of course, took me back to eleventh grade chemistry class and those confounding oxidation-reduction equations where the number of electrons "in"must equal the number of electrons "out".   Could it be that we were having 28 guests and Tammy was trying to figure out if 20 rolls could feed 28 people without a loss of satiety?  I really had no idea so I knew what I had to do; recruit someone who spoke the language of honey-do lists.  So I showed the note to my dental assistant after we finished fixing the tooth of the hapless candy cane eater.  "Do you know what this means?  What are 28's?" I hopefully asked.  She, too, had no idea what the note meant.  Then, once at the supermarket I ran into a patient of mine who happens to be an engineer and a female.  I hopefully showed her the note.  She had no idea either.  But once I got to the refrigerated  section, it began to make more sense.  The crescent rolls were in packs of eight.  Oooooooohhhhhhhhh, I thought to myself.  She means two packs of eight.  But what about the + 4?  Still worried about buying an incorrect number of rolls for our carbohydrate deprived guests I asked a lady standing next to me what she thought.  After her initial shock at a strange man saying to her in the refrigerator section "can I ask you something?" (from her circumspect glare I really believe she thought I was going to proposition her) she had no insight for me.  So, assuming the note was making a distinction between crescents and regular rolls I bought a smaller pack of Pillsbury Grandes.  This was a five pack, but since there were no four packs of anything, I was satisfied with my ultimate decision.

The only thing now, standing between me and Christmas break relaxation, was the inevitable ten people deep lines at every register.  But here was Christmas miracle number two; I found a register with only one person in front of me and she was already ringing up the last item, a 12 pound, serves two,  fruitcake.  I was home 10 minutes later.  And it was only after taking the picture of Tammy's note for this post that I decrypted its full contextual meaning.  She actually wrote it utilizing a vertical columnar pattern a la Chinese characters.  Here then is the note reinterpreted:

2-eight packs equaling sixteen (as if I needed help with the addition) plus 1-four pack of Pillsbury Crescent rolls.  If you look again at the note more carefully you will see the columnar structure.  Numbers in one column and letters in the next column.  Mystery solved.  Except for the fact that I found no four packs of crescent rolls.  Here is how a man would have written the note:

1. 1 lb green beans
2. 2x8 pack and 1x4 pack Pillsbury crescent rolls.

That's how we order lumber by the way.
(ask a man what this means; 5x2"x4"x8' stud grade, and he will know).

And by the way, for Tammy's Christmas gift, I adopted mile 83.2 to 84.2 of the NJ Turnpike in her name because I believe her choice of sticky notes was a hint at what she wanted (being the cryptologist that I am) .  So don't throw anything out your car window while driving there.

The Spice Rack and Other Mysteries of Living With a Woman

Women are great executive chefs when it comes to planning holiday meals.  Able to conceive, plan, and execute a menu for a party from four to forty and enjoy doing it.   I consider myself a good prep and dependable line chef.  There is no shame in this.  Point me toward a huge pile of russet potatoes, the peeler and a sharp knife and I will make sure they are julienned just right for the chef de cuisine to turn them into gourmet papas fritas.  But task me with coming up with the menu in the first place and I will just call ahead for take out fries from the nearest burger joint.  So when my brother asked me to cut up some veggies for a crudites tray for my nephew's apres Bar Mitzvah party I was all over it.  But when he asked me if I thought we had prepared a sufficient quantity I was stymied.  "I have no idea", I lamely replied.  "Tammy usually tells me how much to make".  It is an absolute mystery to me how my wife seems to know with unflinching confidence what, and how much, to prepare for a party.  "Go to Acme and get a pound and a half of cooked shrimp for the hors d'oeurves" she steadfastly commands me as if I might mistakenly only buy one pound.  Therefore leaving each of our guests three shrimps short of what they actually desired.

Another source of great inscrutability for me is the spice rack . There are spices on display in our kitchen that were once used in 1997.  A particularly enigmatic one that comes to mind is cream of tarter.  I am not even sure that is a spice but my wife insists on it being perched on the spice rack alongside the more obvious Mediterranean oregano.  Some spices get relegated to the lazy susan in the spice cabinet but others are kept out on the hanging wall rack.  Allspice is in the cabinet but rosemary is on the rack.  Since neither have been used in anything served to me in the past twenty years I am unsure as to the logic of the organizational scheme.  But one time I did trade out the thyme leaves for the Season All (the most versatile of spices) and there was hell to pay.  Perhaps since the spice rack is visible to our guests it sends a certain message about our kitchen.  Fancy McCormick jars of rosemary, tarragon, Turkish bay leaves, and Saigon cinnamon all say Dean and DeLuca while a tub of Season All says Costco. If it were up to me we wouldn't even need a spice rack.  I would have garlic, onion, chile, and red pepper powders along side the salt and pepper shakers. And perhaps some coriander for my famous guacamole.

The puzzlement of the female character does not end in the kitchen.  My wife's sartorial vocabulary also eludes my cognitive frame of reference.  For example, please briefly describe the item of clothing seen in the photo below:

My wife, on a recent weekend away, informed me that I had left my "gold top" in the car.   "What's my gold top?" I irritatingly inquired.
"You know, for the outfit you are wearing tomorrow" she replied.
"You mean my yellow flannel shirt?  I am just going to wear it with my black jeans.   Men have shirts, not tops. "And furthermore", I firmly added, "I don't wear outfits."
Men have shirts and pants.  Women have outfits.

Then there is the matter of window treatments.  The idea that windows get treated is as foreign a concept to me as dressing a turkey.  If I were a bachelor I am quite certain the windows in my condo would have shades, blinds, or possibly, if I had a study, shudders.  If I did have the need to dress up the window frame I would take two measurements, width and height, and go buy some pre-made curtains at JC Penny which hang on a straight forward rod. In my house, however, we have swags, jabots, cornices, and lambrequins.  All custom sewn by my wife.  And in order to even fabricate a swag one needs the mathematical chops of Sir Isaac Newton. The formulas used to calculate the amount of material needed to sew a swag which will hang just so are complicated enough for an advanced algebra course. Yet Tammy can figure it out in her head while she is standing in the cutting table queue at JoAnn's while holding the bolt of calico muslin.  But for some odd reason she refuses to understand that a 15 watt CFL replaces a 60 watt incandescent.  Or even what CFL stands for. 

My final observation has been touched on before in this column (I promoted my blog).  When company comes over, even our own family, why must we hide all the evidence that we actually live in our home?  Every magazine, newspaper, glass, sock, and pen must be hidden from view as if we have newly arrived in our abode along with the guests.   I guess it's like your mother telling you to always put on a clean pair of underwear in case you are in an accident and the paramedics have to cut off your pants.  But much like the paramedics realizing many accident victims shit their pants anyway, your company surely is aware of the fact that there is usually a foot high stack of old newspapers on the coffee table so what's the difference.

Henry Higgins asked "why can't a woman be more like a man" many years ago so this topic is hardly new.  But I encourage you to send in your own anecdotes.  I even encourage "why can't a man be more like a woman" quips.

This is Rich, What's Your Bitch?

Dear Rich,

Why can't I get my sister/brother/mother/father-in-law to behave in a manner I find appropriate?  Why must they engage in behavior that exasperates me?

Signed,
The Well Behaved One.



Dear Put Out Daughter/Son/Mother/Father-in-law,

They are not going to change so you must......change. You can continue to bang your head against the wall hoping the wall gives before your head does, or you can accept things as they are.  Your choice to make, not theirs to comply.

Signed,
Rich

I have thus distilled 50 years of advice column writing.  I welcome your questions.

My Impressions of the Impressionists

So we went to the infamous Barnes Museum the other Sunday.  Oh, sorry, it's not a museum, it's a Foundation.   Founded by the extraordinarily curmudgeonly Dr. Albert Barnes.  Actually, that is a disservice to curmudgeons everywhere.  He was basically just pissed off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  As is well known by now to even the most dilettante Philadelphian, the art establishment  rejected Dr Barnes's vision over 80 years ago.  He espoused a unique organizational scheme to display the art he had amassed, a codification system that would reveal commonalities in design of various artworks to even the most casual art enthusiast.  The biggest problem with abstruse art, you see, is that the casual observer rarely appreciates it.  Art, it seems, must be put in historical context to fully understand its profound nature.  If we look at a so called masterpiece painted in 1783, for example, we may think to ourselves "big deal, I saw Bob Ross paint a prettier picture on PBS television the other night and it only took him thirty minutes".  That may be true but he did not invent how to make clouds look like they are actually reflecting sunlight.  Some fifteenth century Dutch dude figured that out.  Or it might have been a sixteenth century Venetian.  I have no idea.  But that is exactly the point.  Barnes would hang a few pictures with, say, brightly highlighted clouds all in a single cluster.  Regardless of in what century they were actually painted. So a dilettante like me could put the art in historical context and easily visualize the common design elements in otherwise disparate pieces.  Or perhaps not. I really have no idea what the hell Barnes was thinking.  The various galleries, while awesome in the sheer amount of great art packed into a small space, reminded me of a cluttered refrigerator door in the home of a too proud mother of an artistically prolific six year old.  My niece, the art historian, tried to explain the hodgepodge to me, but really, I was way more interested in the other people enjoying the art that day than the art itself.  I am more anthropologist than aesthete.

When I say that the other patrons were enjoying the art, I really mean that they were merely studying it.  At least as far as I could tell.  You see, the really odd thing to me was that not a single person in the entire place was smiling.....except me.  Not a smirk, grimace, grin, frown , nor harrumph, and as far as I could tell, no movement at all of the labial commissures on anybody's face.  I don't believe I even heard a sigh nor murmur of disgust in front of one particularly galling Renoir.  I, of course, exhaled a loud "how the hell did that get in here", hoping to at least get a nod of assent from the cute bereted beatnik standing next to me but she merely pivoted and focused her attention on the Delacroix adjacent to the Manet.  Which only forced me to harrumph even louder hoping to get some reaction.  Nothing.  In fact the only time I could get a rise out of any one in the entire museum is when I dared to stick my nose too close to a Seurat to see if the painting really was made up of tiny dots.  Then a blue blazered, overly austere guard came running over and told me to please step back from the art.  That got a harrumph out of my bereted friend.  A show of enthusiasm, I guess, is taboo in a museum of world class art.  Doesn't the very nature of art demand that it evoke some emotion in the viewer?  As far as I could tell the only emotion being felt in this place was one of funereal resignation.

But, I hear you protest, one must be subdued, like in a library, so as not to disturb the ruminations of the other enthusiasts.  To which I reply, the guards never shushed me, they only told me to stand back.  And believe me, I was doing a lot of disruptive emoting.  I would turn the corner into a new gallery and be blasted by a wall crammed with the most sublime art in the world and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm.  But the other art lovers were literally standing there frozen in a posture one would only expect to see at a cemetery while their mother was being lowered into the ground.  Yet they weren't crying.  One would be at a loss to figure out what, if anything, they were feeling at all.  And in front of world class art!  I really don't get it.  No wonder most people just go to Disney World.  At least there you can loudly cheer when your six year old daughter completes her spin art painting at Mickey's Wonderful World of Spin Art booth.

The Devil You Know

People will still be knuckleheads whether I am a libertarian or a socialist.  Some otherwise intelligent person will make a stupid decision whether I believe in more government or less.  FEMA will still be crucial whether we have a Democratic president or Republican.  And wealthy people will still always want to make even more money whether or not they must pay higher taxes.  Just ask a Rockefeller or a DuPont, or JP Morgan.  Those Robber Barons didn't stop making money or growing their businesses just because the Federal income tax was instituted in 1913 did they?  You had no idea when the Federal income tax was first instituted, did you?  I didn't think so.

That is why I am, have always been, and always will be, a Democrat.  Our country has gone too far to ever again be a nation of yeoman farmers as the first Republican, Thomas Jefferson, envisioned over two hundred years ago.  If a knucklehead in Long Beach Island, New Jersey decides to ride out the worst storm in 100 years, even though she could have easily evacuated to her brother's house 100 miles inland, then later says it was the worst decision of her life, the people in Culver City, California are going to have to help pay for her recovery whether they like it or not.  Because what is the alternative?  Let evolution take its course and weed out the unfit?  If I understand the Republican platform correctly, then most of the people who don't believe in big government don't believe in this basic evolutionary principle anyway, so now what?  All the faith based charities in the country are not big enough or organized enough to save us from ourselves, or Nature's fury.  Hurricane Sandy, and Governor Christie have only reinforced this idea for me.

I have heard otherwise charitable people say that if an adult makes an enlightened decision to wait out a natural disaster in spite of official warnings to evacuate, then we, as a society, no longer have an obligation to help them if they get into trouble.  The first responders, after all, will now be put in harm's way.  True, but firefighters, wilderness rescuers, National Guardsmen, policemen, and our Special Forces carry out risky maneuvers everyday to save stupid people from stupid mistakes.  So where do we draw the line on whom to rescue?  And who should decide, Sarah Palin?  Should a firefighter not try to save someone from a fire caused by that person's smoking in bed?

It's true that we, as citizens, must not be sedated into a zombie state where we wander around brain dead expecting the government to bail us out every time we step over the cliff.  But surely there is a happy medium where reasonable people can agree that sometimes the Feds need to take charge.  When I reflect back on the arc our Country, and civil society, has taken, I believe it has been what most Tea Partyers and conservatives would consider a socialist agenda that has moved us forward toward becoming a more compassionate and humane society: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Park Service, civil rights laws, female suffrage, labor laws, The Wilderness and Clean Air Acts, The EPA, FEMA, The Affordable Care Act (yes I said it), and Roe v. Wade to name a few.  All measures that the "conservatives" of the time were vehemently against.  There surely is abuse and corruption of these social engineering measures. But in what universe is corruption non existent where human beings are concerned?  Certainly not in Adam Smith's unfettered capitalistic world.  Nor in Karl Marx's definitely imaginary world either.

Look, I hate it just as much as the next guy when I work hard, pay too many taxes, and buy plenty of insurance, to see some reprobate drive to the Walmart in a Cadillac only to pay with food stamps.  But I hate it even more when some Wall Street asshole sells that same ignoramus a subprime mortgage he knows will default.  If we can't trust an expert, who can we trust, right?  So, in conclusion, I'm votin' for Obama.  As my Grandma Rose use to say, "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know".

In Country

  

Cat de Chelly.  Not part of this story,
but a Navajo ambassador never the less.

 The Navajo Nation is a quasi-autonomous political entity that encompasses a large parcel of land in the northeastern corner of Arizona.  It is so big in fact, that the Automobile Association of America publishes a map called "Indian Country" which girds the entire Four Corners region of the western United States.  A very cool paper map, by the way, that could never be replaced by a smartphone app.  At least not for anyone over the age of 35.


The Navajo Reservation includes several famous geographic landmarks that would be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a John Wayne Western.  Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly (pronounced 'shea') are two of the better known regions.  If you want to get your Clint Eastwood on, you must visit these iconic locations.  Just don't insult a Navajo woman selling her wares on the rim of the canyon.  Or BYO a  bottle of red wine to the local Holiday Inn Restaurant in Chinle, AZ.  Both will earn you a berating you won't soon forget.  If a Navajo woman chided Kit Carsen in 1864 like she scolded me, the Native Americans might still own most of the southwest.  I am exaggerating for effect of course, and the circumstance of the 19th century Native Americans was no laughing matter.  But I am still wincing from the chastening I received at the hands of a proud Navajo woman along the rim of Canyon de Chelly.  Especially since I only did what I thought was expected.  Leading me to lick my wounded pride by chanting my favorite mantra, "why does this shit always happen to me"?

Single Dad, artist, and Navajo historian extraordinaire,  Antonio

You see, at every viewpoint parking area there are a handful of Navajos selling Native American sandstone paintings, pottery, and jewelry.  It is like a crafts fair of Native American wares where you get to talk with the artists and hear their stories.  And while you are listening to Antonio tell you how he is a single Dad eking out a living selling modern interpretations of the petroglyphic art of his Anasazi forebears you are thinking, "what should I really offer this dude for his $25.00 sandstone painting"?   And, "Didn't I see that at the visitor center gift shop for less"?  There is no benchmark to determine the actual value except what the gullible tourist five minutes before me paid Antonio for his  souvenir.

World travelers like to crow about how they out-haggled a subsistence villager living in some remote Himalayan Valley and bragging, "you see this hand carved yak ivory tusk on my coffee table?  I paid only $10.00 for it!  Poor nomadic schnook".
Well you know what?  He is poor!  And he needs the lucre more than you need it.  He could have done more with the $20.00 you beat him out of, by feeding his family for three solid months, than you.  You, on the other hand, will piss away the $20.00 on one meal at a TGI Fridays back in America.  On this day, however, Antonio, pictured above, was more than willing to offer me a windy day special without much effort on my part.  It seems he had only two sandstone paintings left, the weather was deteriorating, and he wanted to close out his stock and leave for the day.  Two for the price of one and I could take a photograph with him as well (this normally requires an additional tip).  Sold! and on to the next "stall" where I had my eye on a beautiful turned ceramic pot with engraved petroglyphic designs.  The Navajo woman artisan had a potter's wheel in her van and she was turning her bowls on the spot.  This made the whole experience seem rather intimate.

So emboldened by the ease with which I had bargained with Antonio, and how amenable I had found the other male artisans, I offered her $15.00 for the finely detailed $25.00 crock.  Well, oh.......my.........god!  She did not look favorably upon this fiscal insult (I don't blame her either.  I just assumed one is supposed to bargain).  She proceeded to chastise me up and down about how much work it was and how she even had to dig the clay out of the earth herself (being Native American they know their natural resources), and that carving the decorative elements alone involved over 3 hours of labor.  She also assailed me with histrionic eye rolling toward my ignorant hubris.  I knew she was not going to back down because she still had a full stock of pots on her table while most of the other vendors had sold a lot of their items judging from their depleted display tables.  Either that or she knew I was an easy mark and I really wanted the bowl.  In any case the $25.00 really was quite reasonable.

So I sheepishly handed over the cash and accepted the crock from her even as she harrumphed in taking my money.  I am not exaggerating the encounter.  In fact, Tammy and I noticed that all the male artisans were more than willing to cajole us, while all of the female ones seemed to treat us with much more assertiveness and sternness.  Exactly what one would expect in a  matriarchal society like the Navajo, where lineages are tied to the bride's family, not the groom's (matrilocal as opposed to patrilocal).  Which really isn't very insightful, interesting or revolutionary but I tell this story just so I can vent about getting a stern lecture and being made to feel bad about an interaction that plays out a million times a day across the globe in bazaars throughout the world.

Which does bring me to another point about the pleasures of domestic travel.  The Navajo People share many American sensibilities with the rest of the nation but they also have a different zeitgeist and cultural outlook.  So in the Navajo Nation one can enjoy a sort of cultural tourism without venturing too far from home.  As for the BYO kerfuffle at the Holiday Inn?  The Navajo Nation is a dry country climate-wise and libation-wise.  So don't put yourself in a position to be admonished by the waitress.  It is not fun being scolded by your mother while on vacation.

Incriminate or Exonerate

I took a hike a few weeks ago in a state park on the outskirts of Scottsdale Arizona.  It cost me forty-six dollars.  And I am not including the gas money to get there, nor the approximately dollar fifty-nine for a PB&J on flatbread and some carrot bites I ate at the summit.  Maybe not a summit.  It was more like the top of one of the giant termite hills you see on Animal Planet shows about insects.  Except instead of termites, I was simultaneously attacked by fire ants, jumping cacti needles and the occasional dung beetle mistaking my beer hangover farts for an olfactory dinner invitation.  I am, however, including the forty dollars that was stolen right out of my wallet by an evil (or not) mountain biker, who, for some unknown reason, left me with a single dollar.

The part that really stings is the fact that I had wanted to hike a different trail, clear on the other side of Scottsdale.  If you are from New Jersey you might not get the implication of my words.  Clear on the other side of Scottsdale is not like clear on the other side of Cherry Hill.  It's more like Exits 1 through 4 on the NJ Turnpike. Cherry Hill might be sprawling, and Route 70 might be one giant parking lot, but there is plenty more desert in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area than there is abandoned farmland in NJ.  When you look at an AAA map of Arizona, one inch does not equal ten miles.  One inch equals thirty miles.  With the same traffic as Cherry Hill.  But without the Wawas.

Now, on this particular Friday everyone else in Scottsdale, AZ had decided to take the same hike as well.  I don't know how to explain this so you can visualize it, but the trail head parking situation was about as accommodating and welcoming as the beach access in Loveladies, NJ.  Unless you get there by 6 AM or own a mansion on the beach, you ain't gettin' in.  So after cruising the parking area for fifteen minutes, hoping the thirty-three other cars doing the same thing would miss someone pulling out, I decided to abort and do what I should have done in the first place, which was to drive out of town, fifty minutes, to the nearest state park.  And, as it turns out, my instincts had been correct because the only people in this park were me and that mountain biker.

Why do I say this?  Because during the seven mile drive from the unmanned entrance station to the trail head, I saw no other cars, and only one bicyclist.  And there were no cars at the trail head parking area either.  I say unmanned  entrance station because that is where my troubles began.  I am ashamed to admit this, but after driving almost an hour to this park I initially balked at the $6.00 entry fee posted on the aforementioned unmanned  entry station kiosk.  If you have ever pulled into a national park campground after hours you know what I am talking about.  The honor system.  You are expected to have exact change, to place that exact change into an envelope with your car make and model and license plate number clearly written, with the imaginary pen you hope someone left in the rental car glove box, on the outside.  And if you do find that pen, it is most likely bone dry of ink and half melted anyway from the desert heat.  And then you are to place that envelope in the little slot at the top of the cast iron pipe with the little door and Master Lock at the bottom.  So the ranger can collect your money later during his rounds.  But before you drop the envelope in the slot, you must not forget to tear the little ticket off the envelope with the corresponding ID number and place it prominently on your dashboard.  The driver's side only.  Lest the over worked ranger miss seeing it while you drive past going 15 mph over the park road speed limit.

But the first instinct, of course, is to stand there for ten minutes looking up and down the empty access highway looking for any sign of a ranger who could possibly catch you sneaking in with out paying the six dollar entry fee anyway.  And simultaneously engage in an internal debate about whether or not sneaking into a deserted state park is a victimless crime.  I, however, am not the criminal in this story.  Popular opinion aside, atheists do have a strong moral compass, so I paid the fee.  But in order to comply with all the rules I had to first find a pen and walk around to the front of my rental vehicle to copy down the license plate number.  And in so doing, I absentmindedly placed my wallet on the hood of the car while writing down the required info.  Need I spell it out any further?  It was not until I got out of the car six miles later and scratched my ass over my wallet pocket that I realized my stupid mistake.  I remembered I had seen only one other human being in the park and I hoped I could find my wallet lying in the middle of the road before either he, or a hungry rattlesnake, got to it first.

So while ironically speeding 50 mph on a 25 mph park road, I carefully scanned the highway for any unnatural looking debris as I headed back toward the entrance station.  And there, at mile marker 3, I saw my precious, lying directly on the double yellow line.  I picked it up, saw my license and credit card safely tucked inside, kissed it to God (even atheists obey tradition), and stuffed it back into my pocket without further ado.  I turned the car around and proceeded back to the trail head to at least get my hike in.  It was now three hours since I first headed out for a quick, free hike, fifteen minutes from my hotel.  Beating the afternoon heat was no longer an option.  Contrary to what you might read in a book on stress reduction, a bit of mindless physical exertion, especially in the blazing sun in the Sonoran Desert, does not necessarily make you feel better.  Especially if the only view from the high point is suburban sprawl, western style, interspersed with rocks, Sagebrush, a Starbucks, more rocks, a Red Robin, and the intermittent Saguaro cactus.  And it is 98 degrees in the shade.  But it is a dry heat.

Fast forward two hours to the Starbucks for a cup of iced coffee.  When I go to pay there is exactly one, one dollar bill in my wallet.  Now, as you may know, I suffer from a mild form of OCD and I am always fully aware of the number, order, denomination, and condition of the bills in my wallet.  Especially while traveling in foreign domestic states like Arizona.  If I have four singles in my wallet and one of them is torn, I make note of this because I will pay with that one first.  Sadly, this is not a joke.  So I was quite certain I had two Andrew Jacksons left after paying the six dollar entry fee for the above mentioned shitty hike.  My conclusion?  That lone mountain biker found my wallet, grabbed the forty bucks, leaving the dollar to allay his guilt a little, and tossed it back into the middle of the road.  So here is the question; Is he a greedy opportunist or a thoughtful samaritan?  He could have left the whole wallet and never taken anything, reasoning the owner would come back looking for it.  He could have taken the whole thing home and tried to contact the owner, hoping for a $5.00 reward.  He could have brought it to the ranger station, but he was on a bicycle and that would entail riding back 4 miles in the desert sun.  Or, worst case, he could have stolen my credit card as well.  It's lucky for me he ended up grabbing the cash and leaving the rest since I was flying home the next day, and being without any ID would have been a hassle.  But he did take my $40.00.   What would you have done?