Have you ever taken what was probably a slightly too-long vacation from work and come back wondering if you still had a job? Afraid they’d found someone else who could do your job better or (more likely) cheaper than you could? I’d like to thank J. Dilkas for filling in while I was out recharging my idea tanks. It’s good to get away from things for a while so you can start seeing things clearly again. I tried for a while and it wasn’t working. Until I realized my glasses were filthy. I really don’t know how they get that way. I can clean them, put them back on my face and within minutes, and without anything coming near them, they can be as smudged as the inside of the gorilla enclosure at the zoo. I try to look past it, ducking and bobbing like a budgie, but I think that only, somehow, adds to the smudging. Maybe it’s my eyebrows, though it’s not like I’m Andy Rooney or anything. OK, eyebrows aside, I’ve come to realize it’s exactly like I’m Andy Rooney. Think about it. “Did you ever notice how you can never get the shower the right temperature?” “Did you never notice how you’re always dropping crumbs on your baby’s head?” “Did you ever notice how your barber doesn’t speak the same language as you?” “Did you ever notice how the people you don’t want to hear singing at a concert are always the ones right behind you?” “Did you ever notice how smoke detectors are so ugly?” “Did you ever notice that if you order poutine and onion rings everyone looks at you like you’re a pig?” “Did you ever notice that no one has ever invented a hat that looks like raw fish on rice?” Good lord. When I brought IFtaGH to the Standard, I figured the worst I could do was become the Cathy Guisewite of the place. My dream was becoming the Dave Barry. I forgot there was something beneath Guisewite: Rooney Ack! But it’s served me this well, I guess. Kept me entertaining tens of readers, so I guess I should just embrace it. CBS, consider this my audition tape: Did you ever notice now your glasses always seem to get smudged even though you haven’t touched them? It doesn’t matter that you or anyone else hasn’t come near them. Somehow, a smudge will appear. I like to think it’s the ghosts of Doug Ault or Roy Hartsfield, though I know it’s not. I don’t know what they’d be trying to tell me by smudging my glasses. I just like to think they’re around, even if it’s just to bother me. When we go out, my wife, patient soul that she is, is always waiting for me by the front door as I rifle through coat pockets and trousers, looking for something to wipe away the smudges. I rarely find anything other than a crumpled LCBO receipt, some Freedent wrappers and possibly a tissue I forgot to stuff up the sleeve of my sweater… But last week my wife had an epiphany of sorts. “I’m going to sew microfiber linings into all your cuffs and shirttails and onto the backs of your neckties,” she said, “So you always have something to wipe away those damned smudges and I won’t have to wait by the door any more.” “Like those terrycloth fingers on cross-country skiers’ gloves to wipe the snot away?” I asked, “But all over and with the little cloths the opticians give away?” “Precisely,” she answered. I’m not sure when my wife got so clever. It must have happened when I wasn’t watching. Because my glasses were smudged. I’m Michael Takasaki. We’ll be back next week* with another edition of “Ideas Free to a Good Home”. *probably sooner __ Ideas Free to a Good Home is a clearinghouse of ideas we’re too lazy to develop ourselves.
