Santa Fee

During my Christmas shopping today I came upon a clerk who was sorting through letters to Santa. What a fun job, I thought. She had a fine assortment of colorful notes all written in crayon. On the notes were drawings of Santa, sleds, dolls, toy trains and sugarplums. The volume of letters was huge – I’m not sure why she needed to sort through them all. Maybe the content of these letters determines what assortment of toys the store carries. Regardless, the clerk mentioned that many of the children put their cell phone numbers in their letters to Santa now. Wait! What? I asked her if I heard that right. She said that was indeed the case.  Now, as an empty nester, maybe I’m out of touch with the youth of today, but I didn’t think kids old enough to have cell phones would still believe in Santa. What am I missing here?  But apparently these kids expect a call.

Well, Uncle Tommy recognizes an opportunity when he sees one. So I figure yeah, if you want Santa to call your child, please send $19.95 along with your child’s name and phone number to our P.O. Box and we’ll guaranty a call within 48 hours after your check clears. Don’t forget to specify if the child has been naughty or nice.

Security Questions

I have difficulty with the security questions we get asked before gaining access to certain websites like online banking and such. My answers to these questions are wrong fairly regularly, even though I supplied the correct answer when I originally gained access to the website.  I fail the following questions typically:

  

•  “What is your favorite fruit or vegetable?” I have answered “strawberries”, “strawberry”, “tomato”, and “tomatoes” and fail every time.  These are my favorites but I think the computer is encouraging me to branch out and try other foods. Frustrating.
•  “Who was your best friend in childhood?” Tough one. Did I pick the guy from the preschool or the guy from high school? Did I put David or Dave? Did I include a last name?
• “What was the first musical instrument you learned to play?” Do we count the tom-toms and xylophone we played at preschool? The triangle in kindergarten? The wood blocks?

So, as you can imagine, I’ve been locked out of just about everything due to my repeated wrong answers.  Despite these frustrations, we here at Uncle Tommy feel these security questions are important, so we will be asking each of our readers to answer the following prior to each future login to our blog:

• "Who’s your favorite uncle?"
• "What author’s book are you especially seeking out this Christmas season?"
• "Will you buy the sequel?"

You can’t have too much cyber-security.

Prison Bus

There’s this bus I see from time to time that transports prisoners from place to place. It always seems to be around, and it’s the one you don’t want to put your kids on in the morning. It comes into town in the morning at rush hour and gets caught in the same traffic jam that I get caught in. A couple of times it’s been right next to me when I’m stuck in traffic. As I sat helplessly idle in my car I could feel the prisoners’ eyes staring down at me from my left. I dared not look back.  I sensed them reaching for the cord to ring the bell to let them out at the next stop. I had seen that movie The Fugitive where the prisoners escape from the bus. My immediate thoughts as I sat there were: “I wonder if they know me for some reason?  Who have I swindled? I wonder if they’ve seen The Fugitive?” There was no way out of the traffic congestion. I was boxed in. We were still two or three lights away from getting through the intersection and the worst part was that there was an old set of railroad tracks to cross before we got to the intersection. I of course wondered if the prison bus had to open its door and look for trains to the right at the crossing like the school buses did. I thought, with prisoner rights and all, that door was going to swing open and that a prisoner would come running out.  Well, we made it through the light, the door never opened, and I made it to work safely.

Recently I got to meet the local warden at a social event. He said that I looked familiar and we all had a good laugh. I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions and I learned a few things. He said that they don’t watch The Fugitive in prison.

Book Signing

As I near the publication date of my book, I’m having some trouble lining up places for my book signings. Who doesn’t like to get an autographed book for Christmas? But a lot of the book stores just aren’t calling me back for some reason. I figure they’re pretty busy this time of year selling calendars and such. Or perhaps the name Uncle Tommy has simply gotten so big that Barnes and Noble’s can’t believe it’s really me calling. So I went another direction and tried to call some check cashing places ‘cause everybody walks out of those joints with cash, right? Turns out that a lot of those places don’t have phones. 

My plan as of now is to set up a card table (it’ll be a nice card table) at Barnes and Noble’s regardless of whether they return my calls. What’s the worst that can happen? They throw me out and it hits the papers? Once that story hits the papers my book will fly off the shelves, autographed or not. 

Do I offer the gift wrap option?

Ballet Parking

I attended The Nutcracker Ballet yesterday. It was a fun experience – I truly enjoyed it. And it was very well done. The auditorium was packed. My only complaint, if I had one, was that I had to park pretty far away and it was a cold, wet walk to the theater. In a situation like that I bet a lot of people would use a valet parking service if it was available. So, it got me thinking – why not have the ballet school’s understudies park the cars for a fee? We could call it "Ballet Parking", and the kids could do it in full costume.  This would create another profit center for the ballet school and another opportunity to grab a piece of that competitive entertainment dollar. 

Of course, Valet Parking does have its drawbacks. It always has. I heard once of an event in Detroit where the host got up in front of the audience and said, “Those of you who used the valet parking service, there is no valet parking service.” Yes, it can be a pretty easy way for an enterprising young person to steal a car. That’s why I think it’s important for the kids to park the cars in full costume. They would look trustworthy. And the passing public would see these young understudies scampering back to the auditorium after parking the cars. This would draw more attention to the event and boost attendance at future shows.  This is a win-win proposition, I think.

Check This Out!

Have you ever gone through the checkout line when there’s only one checkout open but there’s like 5 people lined up, so they open the next register and say those magic words “Can I help who’s next?” I like those words. That’s a well structured question – pretty straightforward. The person who would be next would be the second person in line at the original checkout. That’s very clear. But it never seems to work out that way. The person third, fourth or fifth back always seems to get to move over.  Why does this happen?

I’ll tell you why. The person “on deck” or second from the register is usually looking at the magazines or eyeing the gum display and misses the signal. Of course, that's the big benefit of being second. You get access to all that stuff. So the answer is: If you’re standing there reading about Charlie Sheen or invaders from outer space, don’t get upset when you don’t get to go to the new register. 

Speaking of Charlie Sheen, I read at the checkout that he has started up a new moving company. It’s called “2½ Men and a Truck”.