Susie's Snippets

Last week we had an “incident” that involved misread tickets to a baseball game. It wasn’t the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. We have a history of ticket situations and let me start by saying, my husband is consistently correct in reading tickets and finding the correct seats.
Would the same could be said for ushers at events.
I first noticed it at a football game – one at which I was not in attendance. My husband and his brother went and, as is his custom, my husband insured that they arrived in time to find their correct seats, sit down, and watch the pre-game activities.
All was fine until about 5 minutes before the game, when two guys came in and “challenged” their seats. They were wrong, and finally determined they were several rows off from their ticketed places. Meanwhile, two incredibly large men came in and sat beside my husband, who was already pretty wedged into his seat from his brother. There was no place for his arm, so he had to either extend it straight out in front of him (an uncomfortable position to maintain for several hours), or place it around the large gentleman to his right. Fortunately, that was fine with “Bubba” and they became friends.
The game started and action was unfolding when four latecomers came in. They didn’t wait for a break in the game, but started into the row in front of my family members, effectively blocking the view of the downs. Then one of the women began to say that my husband was in “their seats.” He shut down that conversation rather quickly and of course, looking at the four impressive male figures, they wisely sat down and were quiet. Quiet enough to hear my husband say, “People, get here on time!”
You don’t want to mess with him during a football game.
He’s much more easy going about attending the theater. We have season tickets in first row, loge. This is the first elevated level above the floor. They are great seats and we’ve had them for over a decade. So we pretty much know where we sit.
It never fails that at least once a season, folks who have first row balcony (the level above us) come in – or are ushered in – and challenge us for our seats. This disrupts everyone in the row as they traipse in, lose the argument with us, and then clamor back out.
The good news is that this is always before the play begins – because that’s the rule. No seat arguments after the show starts! The bad news is the ushers don’t seem to consistently know loge from balcony.
So last week, we went to our first minor league baseball game. Again, to the seats we’ve had for about 9 years now. We share season tickets with four or five other families, so we get 5 or 6 games a year. They are great seats and we’ve not had a problem. Until last week.
During the fifth inning – and not between innings, or during a time out – a couple came in and very loudly and belligerently informed us we were in their seats, because they had season tickets. The usher made my husband leave his seat – disrupting the view for all beside us – and show his tickets. Turns out the couple were in the wrong section (go figure). Again, why didn’t the usher know where sections 110 and 111 were located? Why interrupt our game-watching and inconvenience us? We’d been there an hour already!
So ticket woes are our theme this month, I guess. But we have another game and two plays to attend in May so we’ll see if it gets better. Maybe I should apply for an usher job…

Today I watched a solar eclipse, with all the excitement and giddiness of a 7-year-old. So, basically, the way a once-in-a-lifetime celestial event should be watched.
I squealed with delight when I saw the tiny thumbnail moon starting to cover the sun. I watched as it went from a wedge of cheese, to a Pac-man, to the full-on, total solar eclipse. It was stunning. It was truly phenomenal. And then I watched, slack-jawed, when the ring appeared.
It was a day I will never forget. Just 90 minutes or so, and only three minutes of total eclipse, but it was simply astounding.
While I stood gaping at this amazing wonder, I realized that we had the chance to view it through ridiculously inexpensive glasses. We could even take pictures! The crowd that had assembled in the area clapped and cheered as the moon totally covered the sun. Kids ran exuberantly around the square, parents hugged each other, and elders watched while sipping water. It was a community event to behold!
It also made me wonder what people thought who didn’t have the science, the explanations, and the cute little glasses. In other words, any time in our history, what did people think about a total solar eclipse?
Eclipses are included in most cultures throughout history. Across the globe, myths and legends grew up to explain an eclipse. Many of these involved the belief that the sun is being devoured by some animal, even mythical ones such as a dragon. In China, folks would bang drums and make loud noise to scare off the beast and return the world to daylight. In German cultures (again, historically), it was believed that the sun and moon were married and occasionally needed to be “together.”
In the seventh century B.C.E., a solar eclipse over Greece resulted in these words from the poet Archilochus: “Nothing in the world can surprise me now. Zeus has turned mid-day into black night and now dark terror hangs over mankind. Anything may happen.” Of course, the ancient Greeks are actually responsible for the word “eclipse,” which comes from the Greek word for “abandonment.” They thought that the gods were angry with humans and that the sun would abandon the earth. That would be a bad thing, certainly.
In South America, the Incans believed solar eclipses were a sign of the sun god’s displeasure. This would require leaders to try to determine the source of his anger and appease him.
Scholars have noted that two total solar eclipses were visible in North America in what is now southwest Colorado just two years apart in the 1250’s. These events coincided with a major exodus of the Anasazi people, who left their settlements for another area. Historians believe that a drought was the main cause for this departure, but astronomer Tyler Nordgren believes the eclipses could have affected these ancient people on a psychological level. In other words, having had two eclipses in two years, it was a “bad place, and time to move on.”
All-in-all, I’m glad we have the science to explain eclipses. More importantly, if I had needed it – and I didn’t need it – the eclipse cemented for me my faith that God exists and truly has created a marvelous universe (or ten or fifty universes).

My favorite food-related memory from childhood is red-tipped fingers. As I was growing up, pistachio nuts were always dyed red. For many decades after this practice stopped, I thought it was because red dye was considered dangerous. I found out just recently that was a complete misunderstanding on my part. According to The Spruce Eats, red pistachios used to be imported from the Middle East and were blanched and discolored. To make them more attractive, they were dyed red. In the 1980s, there was a huge increase in American grown pistachios. There was no longer a need to dye the pistachios red because they no longer had unappetizing stains.
Back in my childhood, red pistachios were a favorite gift for the holidays. I grew up with a bag of them in my stocking every Christmas. And every January, my fingers were red-tipped.
Why did my fingers get so red? The dye didn’t come off that easily. But in order to open the pistachios, I had to use my teeth to pry them apart, then get the nut from the shell with my fingers. The wet shells did cause the dye to come off on my fingers, so after about 10 nuts, my fingertips would be colored red.
Why did I have to use my teeth instead of my fingernails to pry open the shells? Because I bit my nails. Badly. My poor nails were far too short to pry open anything.
As I sat here tonight, eating about 50 pistachios and watching a Hallmark movie, I suddenly was overwhelmed by the memory of those red-tipped, little girl fingers. I might have escaped my childhood without that memory, had it not been for a terrible parenting blunder my father made.
I apparently didn’t bite my nails the first six years of my life. Coincidently, my sixth Christmas was the year I discovered pistachios. But that year, sometime in the early fall, my father was sitting next to me and picked up my hand and said, “I’m so glad you don’t bite your nails like your brothers.”
I had two older brothers and I guess they both bit their nails. I hadn’t noticed, to be truthful. But this was the colossal blunder dad made. You see, I loved my father and I always wanted to please him. But I idolized my brothers.
They bit their nails? Well, then, so did I. That very night, lying in my bed, I started to pick and bite at those fingernails.
Let me digress to say that I was able to quit that horrible habit in my late 20’s, but my nails have never been strong or long. I keep them clipped short to make sure I don’t fall back into that habit.
Fortunately, breaking the nail-biting habit coincided with pistachios being prevalent without dye and with my marriage to a wonderful man, who always puts a bag of pistachios in my Christmas stocking.
So while I sit here contemplating a few more pistachios, and looking at my unbitten nails, I remember that little girl. She wanted so much to be like her brothers, and she loved pistachios. Turns out, not much has really changed in all those years. Just the fingertips.

One of my favorite comedians, Bill Engvall, became famous for his tagline “there’s your sign.” He would use it after something was said that was really obvious to imply that the person making the statement was…well, shall we say, a little dense, and there was a snappy comeback. Here’s one of his examples.
Bill was driving on the interstate when he hit a stoppage. He got out of his truck and walked forward and saw a semi, wedged under an overpass. He was talking with the driver when the state trooper showed up and started walking toward them. Bill said to himself, “Don’t say it, don’t say it,” but sure enough the Trooper said, “Get your truck stuck?” and without missing a beat, the driver answered, “Nope! I was delivering that bridge and ran out of gas!” There’s your sign, Bill would say.
I found a lot of similar stories on the internet. One person related that when friends or acquaintances came to her home, they would notice the litter box and say, “Oh, have you got a cat?” She would quickly respond, “oh, no, that’s for company.”
I’m not sure if that won her more friends or not, but it was funny. There’s your sign.
Another gentleman indicated that he was looking for work and noticed that every job application had a blank for who to be called in case of an emergency. He said he wrote, every time, “an ambulance.”
There’s your sign.
Now, up until recently, I had not had any direct experience with being asked an obvious question (well, okay, sometimes folks will see me coming in dripping wet and ask, “raining?” – but I’ve never had a witty comeback for that). But that all changed a week or so ago.
I was in a shoe store. This store sells only shoes, nothing else. You could count the small rack of socks near the registers, but really, it’s only shoes. A young woman with three tattoos and green hair walked up to me as I entered and asked, “What brings you in today?” I looked at her for a moment and before I had time to think, I blurted out, “I’m interested in buying a refrigerator.”
She didn’t quite know how to respond, had that deer in the headlights look, and I couldn’t help laughing.
There’s your sign. Now let me say for the record that I don’t think her tattoos and/or green hair had anything to contribute. It was just a vivid picture.
By the way, and apropos of nothing, the easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement. I have discovered this truth about seven times in the last year. There’s my sign!