I was watching TV the other night.

Actually, I was watching Late Night TV.

Well, really, Late Night TV was on, but I wasn’t really paying a great deal of attention. So I missed the intro before the actor came out. But I did look up from my new book on the History of ’sin’ in pre Prohibition Chicago, and when I saw the actor’s face I thought “I know him. He’s that actor. The one who was in Lord of the Rings. And his name is…” And then I couldn’t remember his name.

I found this annoying. But I was determined to remember the name and consequently sat there, listening to inane Movie Industry banter, whilst I concentrated - on what I don’t know - and tried to recall the name.

I refused to resort to the IMDB, because that would be cheating. See, at this point it wasn’t so much about knowing the right answer as it was about being able to remember the right answer.

One name kept coming back. Noah Berry. Except it couldn’t be him, because when I looked up that name on IMDB - somehow looking up a name I already had wasn’t cheating when looking up a movie to find the right name was - I confirmed that Mr. Berry was an established actor who succeeded in making the jump from Silents to Talkies. Noah Berry: 01/17/82 (that’s 1882) to 04/01/46.

Eventually I remembered the actor’s name. It’s Elijah Wood. Yes, Lord of the Rings, that Elijah Wood. After I remembered the name I looked him up on IMDB too. Elijah Wood: 01/28/81 (that’s 1981) to Well, now actually. Unlike Mr. Berry Elijah is still alive.
I understand that I couldn’t quite remember an actor’s name. I don’t understand why I was so convinced he owned someone else’s name. Sort of an Old Testament, biblical kind of first name mix up perhaps.

The typewriter store is gone.

Actually, the typewriter store has been gone for a long time, but one can now truly say that the business that used to be the typewriter store is gone.

Many, many (many) years ago someone asked me to fix their typewriter. They didn’t want me to fix it personally. Just take it somewhere and get it fixed. It wasn’t an old typewriter. It was one of the new fangled, IBM Selectric, electric typewriters. For the youth of America allow me to explain that an electric typewriter was the battleship steel piece of hardware that everyone used to have on their desk, or on a little fold out table to the right of their desk, back before everyone had a PC on their desk. The Selectric was the state of the art typewriter, because it could perform state of the art word processing functions… Sort of. If I remember the most exciting feature was that it could ‘remember’ the last line typed, and then you could change some of the words in that line, and the typewriter would go back on the page, and erase undesired words (actually cover them over with ‘White Out’) and then retype any new/changed words over the old words. It was Cool & Groovy. It was also the size of a VCR. Actually, it was the size of a VCR from the period, which meant it was around the size of a radiator from a 2-½ ton truck. How those little typing tables ever managed to support those enormous typewriters still remains a mystery to me.

Anyway, I needed to get this Selectric typewriter fixed. This was before Al Gore invented the Internet, so I trotted out my phone book and looked up typewriter repair businesses. I found one, only a short drive away, and brought in the Selectric to be fixed. There was a big sign on the front of the building that said “Type Writer Repair” and an even larger sign sticking out of the roof, shaped like a Selectric Typewriter that said the same thing. Once inside the building I noticed signs advertising the repair of telephone answering machines.

When my answering machine broke, years later, I remembered the sign and took my machine there. By this point the sign on the front of the building now said “We Repair: Answering Machines & Typewriters.” The big sign up on the roof, shaped like a Selectric Typewriter, still said “Type Writer Repair.” Back then telephone answering machines used cassette tapes to record messages. The repairman tried to tell me that I just needed to buy a special telephone cassette tape from him, and that would fix everything. The special cassette tape cost $25.00. I went somewhere else, where they replaced a rubber belt inside the machine for $30.00, but at least the thing was working again.

Then, even more years later, my FAX machine broke. By this time Al Gore had invented the Internet. So I used it to look up the closest FAX repair shop. The address looked familiar, but it wasn’t until I arrived that I realized my new FAX repairman was actually my old answering machine, typewriter repairman. By now the sign on the front of the building said, “We Repair FAX Machines & Phone Modems.” The big sign on the roof had been changed substantially. It was still shaped like an IBM Selectric Typewriter, but all the parts of the sign designed to make it look like a typewriter had been removed. So now it was a sort of beige rhomboid that said, “FAX Machine Repair.” They did a very poor, and expensive, job of repairing my FAX machine. I decided never to go back no matter what sort of equipment they began fixing.

Last week I was at the Post Office and on the way home I drove past the former Typewriter store. The big sign on the roof is still shaped like an IBM Selectric Typewriter, but without any of the additional features designed to make it look like a Selectric. So now it’s a big white rhomboid that says in green letters on a white background, “Hydroponics.” The square sign on the front of the building now says, “Tomato Eyes Hydroponic Something.” I was driving pretty fast and didn’t catch the whole sign. On either side of the text were sort of decorative maple leaves. At least I think that they were maple leaves. At least they were shaped kind of like maple leaves. Perhaps they were something else? Or perhaps they actually were maple leaves, because they’d be less controversial.

Glad to see that the proprietor, if he’s still is the same guy, remains a nimble entrepreneur able to keep up with constantly changing business demands. On the other hand, I wonder if the owners of the Porn Palace, whose name keeps changing, that’s two doors down the street objects to the changing nature of his neighborhood?

Today, before I processed my various emails, I had a quick look at the headlines. Fifth or sixth from the top was one that said, “Public Care Keeps Girl Alive But Cuts Loom.” I was confused, so I clicked on the link to read the story. It appears that a patient had health issues so dire that she remained alive only through the intervention of; expensive drugs, expensive machines, and expensive health care professionals. However, now with the flagging economy funds for the necessary medical support might no longer be available to her. Hence “Cuts Loom.”

Sadly, that’s not what I thought the story was about. When I first read the headline I thought that it meant; 1.) Public monies were paying for the hospitalization of a girl, and thus keeping her alive, and 2.) For some reason she resented weavers, and/or the weaving business, and had destroyed a machine designed to manufacture cloth. See “Public Care Keeps Girl Alive” (pretty normal interpretation there) “But Cuts Loom” (as in she took scissors, or perhaps a large knife, and attacked a loom.)

Perhaps more of a commentary on me than the headline.

Recently I began a bit of housekeeping on the blog; checking if anything should be deleted, trying to remember what stories had already been chronicled, that sort of thing. Oddly enough, the first point that jumped out at me had to do with dentistry. For a while there I was writing quite a bit about dentistry. Well, perhaps not so much about the profession of dentistry as about the individual who was then my dentist.

I wasn’t actually present when he was thrown out of the jazz club on Sunset Boulevard. And if I remember correctly, he managed to get someone fired, not so much over his extrovert behavior, but over his prodigious consumption of very pricey liquor before revealing that he had apparently mislaid his wallet.

On my first day as a patient he grabbed one of those elastic tube things that dentists somehow use for something, and tied off my right arm, and began to explain the method by which someone – presumably when he was a dental student – would tie off an arm to inject heroin.

On my second visit, whilst injecting me with Novocain, he sent his assistant out of the room so that he could ask me a personal question. Much to my surprise this had nothing to do with my treatment. Instead he wanted to let me know that he’d been having sex dreams about his very attractive receptionist. What concerned him was that lately these dreams tended to involve both his willowy receptionist and her tremendously fit Australian husband. He wanted to know if I thought that there was anything odd about that. In case the reader may be wondering, when a highly trained professional is leaning over you, one hand in your mouth, and brandishing a seemingly huge syringe, it is very difficult not to tell him that “Everything seems completely normal” to you.

My new dentist,  is far more geographically convenient, more stable,  doesn’t keep suggesting major dental surgery (possibly to offset gambling debts?), and is far less entertaining in the office.  All he wants to do is talk about cars in general, and specifically the old Porsche that he’s restoring. On the other hand, his office manager has children at my old High School, and she agrees with me that the, now retired, principal was a major loon.

I suppose that life is a series of trade offs.

Well, much to my surprise, my much-detoured IRS check has finally arrived. Let me recap;

1.) I have lived at the same address for a very long time.
2.) My original IRS refund was decreed ‘Undeliverable’ by the Post Office, and returned to the IRS.
3.) The only way the IRS could think of contacting me to inform me of the above problem was to mail me a letter, to the ‘Undeliverable’ address, explaining their difficulties.
4.) I phoned the IRS at one of the telephone numbers on their letter and had a chat with some sort of government clerk who insisted on being called by his last name.
5.) “Mr. Smith” couldn’t think of any way to address the problem other than to resubmit the check, and hope that it came through ‘somehow.’
6.) The check actually did arrive in the mail. Delivered by the same postman, to the same postal address, which last month had reduced the original check to ‘Undeliverable’ status.

Now, it seems to me that just repeating an operation that has already failed, and hoping for the best is no way to run a railroad. Or mail me money. I suppose that this is more of a comment on me. I mean “Mr. Smith” was right, wasn’t he? He did exactly the same thing that failed before, changed nothing, but it worked this time. My doubts that he had thing completely under control were clearly without merit.

I know enough about dogs, mostly from TV documentaries, to realize that they live in a different world from ours. According to numerous actors narrating for PBS, we live in a visual world, looking at things, and dogs live in an olfactory world, smelling things. Dogs do look at some stuff. As I’ve indicated several times on this very blog my dog watches TV. Actually, he sees things on TV, and then either ignores them, or barks at them.

Now I can’t discern the subtle differences about what my dog is smelling when we go for our daily walk… Well, car ride and then walk, but I have made some observations about what the little white dog seems to be seeing when we’re out and about. To my mind it appears that the great panoply of the world is neatly divided into four broad categories; 1.) The ‘Evil Postman’ (which may or may not be our actual postman, and consists of all letter carriers, and may therefore also be either a man or a woman) who must be viciously threatened where ever encountered, 2.) Dogs, who must be viciously threatened, unless it turns out that we’ve actually met them once before, 3.) People, who must be viciously threatened, until they come over and pet him, 4.) And squirrels, which are apparently the rodent version of the Postman, and thus would be savagely dismembered, if only we could get up into the tree and eviscerate them.

Once, whilst taking our car ride to the place where we then dismount and take our walk. - It’s a long story, involving costly canine operations, and several weeks of substituting car rides for dog walks when the little white dog was physically incapable of walking – the ‘canine passenger’ looked up from his fluffy, going for a car ride, pillow and saw a squirrel running along the phone line directly above us. He leapt up, bumped his nose on the windscreen, fell back on the pillow, and erupted into a tirade of barking with his emotions running so high that he finished up ‘extruding his breakfast all over the passenger compartment of my automobile.’ (He shat all over us to use more conventional English.)

Now every time we pass under that specific phone line he looks up at it and barks. Fortunately, we haven’t had a repeat of the automotive effluvia episode. For some time I thought that he was barking at the memory of the squirrel, but a few weeks ago I noticed that he’s actually barking at a specific section of the phone line. The point at which a large plastic junction box is located. Well, to me it’s obviously a plastic junction box, but perhaps to him it looks like a squirrel cowering in terror from his heroic barking.

A few days later as we drove past the ‘plastic squirrel junction box’ he indulged in some horizontal barking out the passenger window. I looked across and there at the curb was a half dozen crows having a drink. At least to me they looked like crows. From the dog’s reaction they were clearly black, feathered squirrels splashing about in the gutter.

Later, once we’d reached the actual walking portion of the ride/walk, he went positively nuts, slipped his lead, and darted ahead two houses. He looked positively crestfallen when what I suppose he thought was a wounded squirrel on someone’s front lawn turned out to be a twisted, dry leaf rocking back and forth in the breeze.

And the next day, he made exactly the same mistake, at the same location, with the same leaf. Perhaps he has a bad memory, or really does need spectacles for his vision.

Please refer to Episode I if this topic is new to the reader.

Well, today I received a second letter from the IRS. It came to me at my imaginary home address of 1234 Elm Street, Hollywood, USA. (For an explanation of the imaginary address again please see Episode I.)

This second, computer generated, letter informs me that; 1.) “Another refund check has been issued for the above tax period,” 2.) “I should receive the replacement check within the next 30 days,” 3.) “You need do nothing further to receive your check,” 4.) “Unless the above is not your mailing address.”

OK, I don’t have to do anything, unless the address they mailed the letter to is not the address at which I receive my mail. But if the address to which they sent the letter is not the address at which I receive my mail, then I will not receive the letter, which contains the instructions on what to do, if I do not receive the letter.

Umm, maybe programmers don’t think about these sorts of things the same what other folks do, but if the mailing address doesn’t work, then how will I receive the letter telling me to do something about the, apparently broken, mailing address.

Stay tuned for the next gripping installment of “Your IRS At Work.”

Or perhaps ‘Post Office of the Brain Dead,’ or ‘IRS of the Brain Dead.’ But read on and compose your own appropriate title.

My mailing address is not; 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789. It’s not, but let’s just pretend that it is.

Yesterday I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service. The letter was mailed to me, successfully, at 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789.

The letter informed me that the IRS had attempted to mail me my Federal Income Tax Refund check at the address 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789. However, the United States Postal Service informed them that the check was undeliverable at 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789 and consequently the check has been returned to the IRS.

Now at this point the story is merely about the USPS, who have proven themselves unable to deliver a piece of mail to me at the address wherein I have resided for several decades. An address to which they appear to have no difficulty delivering all sorts of other mail, which while they do not contain checks for me still have my same name and address on the envelope containing the check from the IRS. What is the Post Office thinking?

However, the IRS, now figuratively if not literally, holding my returned check in their collective hands, decided to contact me in order to notify me of the problem. Remember, the silly Post Office says that the address 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789 is undeliverable. So rather than phoning me, the IRS has my phone number, or emailing me, they also have my email address, they mailed me a letter informing me of the problem. They sent a letter to 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789 informing me that my check mailed to 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 56789 was returned as undeliverable, and what would I like them to do about it. What is the IRS thinking? I mean, if the mailing address doesn’t work for the first item of mail, the check, then why would it work for the second item of mail, the letter informing me that the check was undeliverable. This makes the IRS look pretty silly, and by that I mean sillier than the Post Office. So that’s pretty darned silly.

On the other hand, the reason I’m ranting on this subject is because the second letter was successfully delivered to me yesterday. So I guess that’s back to making the Post Office look silly. I mean it’s the same address, what could be the difference that made the first envelope undeliverable? The weight of the envelope? The color of the envelope? The size of the chip on my letter carrier’s shoulder?

So I phoned the IRS to see what could be done about the problem. The computerized phone messaging menu wasn’t too complex, and the music on hold wasn’t too obnoxious. Too loud, but not too obnoxious. And it only took a half hour for a human to come on the line to help me. The automated computer voice told me that the wait time would be only 10 minutes, and I timed it at 30 minutes, but still that might be pretty fast for the IRS. And, unlike any other customer service phone bank to which I’ve spoken, the IRS representative insisted that I call him ‘Mr. Smith’ rather than his first name. But aside from that, he seemed pretty helpful. Well, he did keep demanding to know which tax form I’d used. I didn’t know the answer to that, so he said that he couldn’t help me unless I told him which form I’d used. We went round and round for a bit. I kept telling him about the letter, and he kept demanding to know which tax form had been used to pay the taxes for which I now had a question. Eventually I asked him if the number of the tax form would be on the letter I was holding, and he said, “Sure. What’s the number of the letter that you’re holding.” I told him that it was CP31, and he told me where to look for the number of the tax form, and once I’d told him that, then he asked me what letter I’d received. I told him CP31, again, and he was ready to help me.

Then we spent around 20 minutes discussing the letter/check problem. It took me a while to get through that I didn’t understand why a check couldn’t reach me at 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 5678, but a letter could reach me at 1234 Elm St. Hollywood USA 5678. Eventually he admitted that this did seem a bit weird. Then he asked if I could just receive my refund check at my business address. I informed him that I had a home office, with the same address as my home address. Then he asked if I could have my refund check sent to my wife instead of me. I informed him that I wasn’t married, and then asked if I had been married wouldn’t my wife’s mailing address be the same as mine, I mean if we were married and living together. He said “Hmm” and explained that he was just trying to “Think outside the box.”

So eventually he decided to just ‘Release the check’ again and mail it to the same address, which hadn’t worked the first time, but maybe it would work this time. I asked him what we would do if the check was returned a second time, and he said, “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Then he asked me if there was anything else he could do to help me, and when I said “No” he said a polite goodbye and hung up.

It really is the Post Office’s fault, but somehow the IRS managed to make the USPS look better.

Programmers always have stories about end users and passwords. Mostly these center on the hilarious misunderstanding of the nature of passwords. Hilarious is a relative term, programmers tend to be pretty dull people. Every business has at least one employee who listens politely while the representative from I.T. explains about why everyone has their own password. Explains how the password must be kept in a safe place. And then the employee writes the super secret password on a post it note, and sticks it to the edge of their computer screen, where they won’t lose it, but where everyone else in the office can read it. After this the computer guy politely explains that putting the password up in public, where all the people in the department can see it, sort of defeats the purpose of personal secret passwords, and then the employee goes to a supervisor and complains about being persecuted by the jerks who understand computers.

This story isn’t exactly about that, but it is about passwords.

Imagine if you will a programmer/consultant who was only just coming to grips with the fact that he was being paid to do what the client, in this case the president of the company, asked and not necessarily to do anything useful. At one point, the day before the company Christmas party, the programmer was ushered into the president’s office and asked if he was any good at rhyming words. After a brief, but confusing, exchange it developed that the president was trying to write a funny poem to read at the Christmas party, but she had realized that she wasn’t very good at this. So, naturally from her point of view, she thought that she’d stop the programmer, who was billing her hourly, from writing programs and switch him to billing her hourly for writing a poem. No matter how many times he said, “You’d still be paying me at the same rate to write a poem. Are you really sure you want to do that?” She still thought it was a really good idea.

Let’s pretend that the name of the company was CPM-I. CPM is a more businesslike version of a nickname created by a non-programmer who when listening to the above poem story said, “What’s the name of this company? Crazy People Manufacturing?” So the programmer started calling the client CPM, but when it began to seem that all his manufacturing clients seemed to share the same sort of zany characteristics he was forced to start numbering them, as in; CPM-I, CPM-II, CPM-III, etc.

So, shortly after the Holiday Season, and a wildly successful poem presented by the president at the company Christmas party, the company’s I.T. manager approached the programmer for help. The I.T. manager was also the president’s sister, and had a sweet heart deal in which she showed up around 10:00am, left around 2:00pm, and was paid wheel barrow loads of money for spending most of her four hour day playing computer solitaire. The sister was also very touchy about the programmer/consultant, suspecting that his presence somehow would undercut her responsibilities as the president’s sister, or for playing solitaire 20 hours a week. So it was rather unusual that the sister would come to the programmer for help. Her request was password related.

CPM-I used some 20, very large, CNC (computer numerically controlled) machines to lathe, mill and cut high-grade steel for airplane parts. The company had a stand-alone (not connected to the PC network) computer that ran a CAD-CAM (computer aided design, computer aided manufacturing) program that created a ‘part program.’ This ‘part program’ was then saved on a 3-½ inch floppy disk, which was inserted into one of the big, expensive, CNC machines that then used the information on the floppy to tell it how to cut the, very expensive, steel part.

The problem was that this CAD-CAM program required a password. Now the password had originally been kept on a post it note stuck to the side of the computer screen for the CAD-CAM system, but after the programmer had mentioned to the president that this was a bad idea from the standpoint of system security the post it note had been taken down, and thrown away. Unfortunately, no one had thought to memorize the password, or write it down anywhere else. So now no one knew the password, and no one could log on to the CAD-CAM system, and without the CAD-CAM system no one could program the 3-½ inch floppies, and without the 3-½ inch floppies no one could run the big CNC machines, and without running the big CNC machines the company couldn’t make any parts.

So round about 11:00am the I.T. manager came to the programmer and asked for some help in determining the password. The president had picked the password 2 years before, and she’d said that it was all digits – so numbers not letters – and it was only 4 digits long. The I.T. manager had been typing in numbers at random for around an hour, and she was wondering if the programmer could come up with something that would list all the possible 4 digit combinations, and then she could type them in, and check them off as she did so. Whilst the I.T. manager and the programmer were sitting there talking over the problem the president, who had picked the original for digit password came over and offered to help out.

President:
Four digits, huh?

Programmer:
Yes, that’s right. Your sister says that you picked a four-digit password.

President:
How about SUCK?

Programmer:
What? Um, no. You said it’s a for digit password.

President:
OK, how about BLOW?

Programmer:
Um, no. Those are four letters. You said that you picked four digits

President:
OK, I’ll just leave it to you and my sister.

I.T. Manager:
I think you’re lucky that she stopped at those two, and didn’t just keep saying every four-letter word that came into her head.

Two hours later the programmer came back with a list of all the possible four digit combinations for testing as the password. The I.T. manager was back in her office, getting ready to go home for the day.

I.T. Manager:
Oh? Thanks, but I don’t need that any more. I figured out the password myself around noon.

Programmer:
What? Well, that’s good. Now we can use the CAD-CAM system. But why didn’t you tell me when you found the password? I mean, the company just paid me for 2 hours work that I didn’t need to do for you.

I.T. Manager:
Huh?

Programmer:
OK, so what was the password.

I.T. Manager:
After my sister made those guesses at the password I decided to think like her. So even though she said it was a 4-digit password I decided that she didn’t really know what digit meant, so I just started using every four-letter sex word I could think of. Here it is.

(She writes the password down on a post it note and hands it to the programmer)

Programmer:
DOME ? How is dome a sex word?

I.T. Manager:
Not dome. Do Me! You gotta think like my sister.

Having thus finished a very productive day the I.T. Manger went home at 1:30pm.

Maybe this only bothers me because I’m a programmer. For programmers, “It’s either a 0 or a 1.” The lights are either on or off. Things are either right or wrong. Or perhaps it’s because I’m an only child. There are lots of editorials on the Internet that seem to blame people’s behavior on that sort of thing. Perhaps I’m just some sort of a twerp who doesn’t understand how the world works.

A few months ago a friend, whilst listening to my complaints about minor domestic issues, suggested that I just “Lie About It.” She is of Greek extraction, and therefore far more sophisticated than I in interpersonal matters. I was at the end of my tether, so I gave it a go little realizing that it would be so successful that I am now awash in a sea of falsehoods.

My aged mother likes to wash clothes. As the years have passed she has not grown less competent in this task so much as more erratic. In some operations she has become flamboyantly unsuccessful. Now we’re not talking about simple laundry adventures here. It’s not just red socks in with the whites, or bleach in with the cashmere sweaters. It’s the completely inexplicable, and yet completely predictable flooding of the garage where the washing machine is located every single time she washes any size volume of clothing. As may be easily imagined, this is very bad for all the non-waterproof items stored immediately downhill from the washing machine. Taking my friends advice, I unplugged the washing machine. Mum has yet to discover what is wrong with the appliance, and why it is that now only I seem to have the necessary technological skill to run a load of laundry. This bit of covert sabotage, “Lying” if you will, has resulted in;
1.) I am repeatedly berated for my laziness and worthlessness, in this case because of my inability to ‘fix’ the washing machine. So in essence no change there from my daily routine.
2.) The laundry is no longer ruined, and mum’s steamer trunk, and my tax records, are no longer flooded on a regular basis.

So, from a programmer’s standpoint, this is a “1” The operation is a success, despite the otherwise unsavory issue of deliberately misleading a trusting parent.

Having succeeded with laundry I moved on to the subject of bathrobes. Previously there had been a great deal of confusion over bathrobes. There used to be a new and lovely, soft and warm pink bathrobe received as a Christmas gift last year. There was also a not so nice, thin and not nearly so warm, much older, pink bathrobe from the 1990’s. And there was the very old, very thin, threadbare, blue and yellow item left over from the 1980’s. The mere existence of a choice over bathrobes seemed to engender not only angst, but also a great deal of confusion. Repeated advice along the lines of, “That’s not the new bathrobe. The new bathrobe is more fluffy and comfortable than that.” or, “No, that’s not the new bathrobe. The new bathrobe is pink. That one is yellow with blue stripes.” didn’t really seem to be much help. So one day I stole all the bathrobes except the new one and gave them to the Salvation Army. There was a brief period of Stalinist revisionism on the subject, in which I had to deny the very existence of any bathrobes other than the new, fluffy, pink one, but after a few weeks everything seemed to settle down. So aside from an uncomfortable feeling that I was now working for The Ministry of Truth (“The chocolate ration has been increased. There never were any other bathrobes.) lying seemed to be working here as well.

Finally I applied the technique to luncheon, or more accurately to the preparation of TV dinners. Mum likes Healthy Choice TV dinners. More accurately, mum will eat Healthy Choice TV dinners, and complains less about them than other foods. However, even these frozen delicacies have a problem with the included desert. She loves the ‘Cranberry, Mystery, Fruit Compot,’ but can’t stand the other deserts. This is odd, because it means she rejects the ‘Peach Cobbler Thing,’ and yet loves peach cobbler. She loathes the ‘Apple Crumble Thing,’ and yet wolfs down apple pie. A prolonged period of investigation, in which I made inquiries as to just what was wrong with the deserts and was berated for “Asking a lot of damn fool questions,” unearthed the surprising revelation that the offending deserts were bad because they weren’t red like the good ones.

So now when I’m micro waving a lunch I check the box art. If the desert isn’t red I remove a small bottle of food coloring from the cupboard and furtively add it to the offending item. Mum has yet to notice that the various deserts taste different. She has noticed that the frozen food companies seem to be packing the good colored deserts more frequently.

Yes, the new strategy appears to be a rousing success. And yet I suffer from the same sort of unease as when you tell the trusting family dog that he’s going for a car ride, and take him to the vet instead.