No Need to Alert Mensa

Have you seen those TV commercials for the ice cream bar which ask you what you would be willing to do to have one? Yeah, I know-after you’ve watched the first one you’ve seen the entire series even when you haven’t-not intended as a complaint or a shot, but that’s how it works out. 

I think my complaint with that always seems to be a “lack of imagination.” It carries over to lots of other things in life- from movies (seriously, how many more Transformers movies do we really need and when do the Autobots finally transform into something that writes a decent script with less than stilted dialogue) to TV comedies where the current hot show reminds you of something you watched as a kid that when you did that your folks said it reminded them of something nearly pre-historic.

And while I’ve got at least one foot on that soapbox, might I ask for something, anything, with a few less zombies in it? Or if nothing else, put them in a musical or romantic-comedy. Neither would be walk-off the earth new I realize but definitely different. And that would be terrific, at least from where I sit.

Meanwhile, when I skim headlines and come across stories on crimes such as kidnapping, the hair on the nape of my neck stands up, not that anyone would ever kidnap me (see O. Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief for a preview of that coming attraction) but because I worry about my family to the point where it’s more than an obsession, it’s kind of a hobby. That kind of crime has always seemed to be especially dastardly, at least in the fragile construct of a world I have  

And then, you have these chowder heads.  Who thinks up a demand like $8,500? You couldn’t round it up to ten or down to five thousand dollars? And maybe ask for a car or insist the victim throw in a Pocket Fisherman, “or your pet ferret gets it.” Seriously.

The resources in time and talent expended in pursuit of a clown car caper like this, and the diversion from other far more serious situations is just the kind of thing that causes law enforcement officials around the globe to lose their collective composure, among other things that get misplaced. 

I fully expect to read where the original demand also included a Klondike Bar but with temperatures s being what they are right now in California, the criminal masterminds feared it would melt.

-bill kenny