Easy On The Green

Personally, I don’t care for golf because I don’t approve of animal cruelty in any form. From what my sons tell me of golf outings with their father (Husband Number 1 for those who keep score), a worm army, several chipmunks, and at least one slow-moving blue jay were placed in enough danger to qualify for government-sponsored relocation. Of course this is a man who considers tube socks haute couture, so his golf cart has been running on fumes for a long time.

Considering that fact, it seems like a good idea to encourage men to watch the Masters. It’s one of the only sporting events where they view an article of clothing as a prize. Not that the green jacket will go with anything they have on. When I think of what plaid has had to suffer for the sake of sport, I want to run down to Wal-Mart and buy up all the material scraps from the clearance table before they strike again.

Over the years, the talk on the course has not been, strictly speaking, about what to wear on the course. At least once the hot topic of discussion was “uniform balls” by which, if they mean what I think they mean, I’m completely embarrassed for their wives and mothers. What they say it means, according to a random sampling of an article in the newspaper delivered fresh to my pine tree each morning, is that they all use the same ball. Not the very same one, but little golf ball clones of the original. That way nobody is using, let’s say, a ball so juiced that the words “Fresh Squeezed” should be stamped into the dimples.

Golfers tend to go all white around the spikes when uniform balls are mentioned, but they agree that if such a thing were to happen, it could only happen at the Masters.

Apparently, the laws of space and time bend according to the Masters whim. Where else could you get 365 acres of flowers to bloom at the same time without having some neighbor kid pick them all?

Also, the Masters has its own vocabulary. Fans at the Masters are called patrons. Of course, that's what they call customers at The Chicken Ranch too, but when the price for a ticket surpasses that of a high-end Rolex, fans can be called Grand Putting Poobahs and wear tube socks with different colored stripes for every day of the week if they like.

This year, the golfing world is abuzz and everyone is Twittering about the return of Tiger Woods, who has spent most of his time putting out of the rough off the green as well as on. A recent article hit the newstands describing Tiger’s activities over the past year. You have to show two forms of identification and undergo full body decontamination just to read the headline. All I know is that any man who has made as many holes in one as he has is bound to be indulging in performance enhancement of some kind.

Which brings us to the last matter. Why are women allowed to play with the masters but not at the Masters? A woman can keep both hands on the club and her eye on the long ball without leaving anything unsavory in the sand trap.

It’s probably a good thing for the guys not to have the extra competition though. There’s not a woman alive who wouldn’t walk off with the top prize. It’s a blazer and purse to match—and they come in our favorite color. Green.

Check Me Out

I’m of the school that believes that as long as there are self-check registers in the grocery store, our quota for terrorists has been met. I’ve had paddle-wielding principals in elementary school that didn’t inspire the fear in my heart that one lone machine with a blank stare and twenty question does when it starts prowling through my personal effects.

However, since I’ve made great strides operating the toaster oven, I thought it might be time to give the self-check ninja one more try. Last time it took the produce boy, a store manager, and a passing grandmother with a customer card and a death wish to get me straightened out. This time it might not be so easy.

I checked ahead and was glad to hear that the manager that helped me the last time was still out on sick leave. Sure, I wish the man well, but anybody who goes all white around the mouth over an innocent mistake shouldn’t be in the people business. And anyway, I paid for those bananas.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though. Weren’t these touch screens a breeding ground for the kind of bacteria that closes up my head like the entrance to a nuclear reactor the day they all notice a funny smell? Or did they install touch screens on these things to make sure they’ve got a good set of fingerprints in case I make a run on the plastic bags and Tic Tacs? And couldn’t that midget behind me in the clever Boy Scout disguise lift my prints so that he could assume my place on the lower half of all the credit reports in the free world? Well, they’re not getting the goods on me without a fight.

“What’s that?” my husband asked as I snapped on my rubber gloves with the care and precision of a proctologist.

“Rubber gloves.” I picked up my broccoli and waved it at the screen like I was conducting Beethoven’s fifth for a vegan orchestra.

“What are they for?”

“Identity theft. And the common cold.”

“I didn’t know they were related. Have you alerted the government and the American Medical Association about your amazing breakthrough?”

“They already know.”

“Can we expect a Nobel Prize?”

“You’re being sarcastic. They say that people can lift your fingerprints off these machines and use them to steal your identity.”

“I don’t think Grandma Moses there has a fingerprint kit in her apron pocket.”

I surreptitiously checked out the Q-Tip of a lady behind us, flipping through Cosmo, white hair glowing softly under the fluorescent lights. She looked harmless enough if you didn’t count the keg of industrial strength prune juice she carried under one arm. If she was hosting a party, I hoped that she had more than a single bathroom in her apartment at the retirement home.

I sighed and peeled off my gloves. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Show me how to work this monster.”

Bill punched a button. The machine greeted us in a voice that passengers on an outer-Mongolion-bound stagecoach could hear without straining. He plopped a large cantaloupe on the scanner with a thud.

“Weight?” the electronic voice bellowed.

I snatched that melon off the scanner so fast it tried to quick dial the Farmer’s Market for assistance. The light above the register started flashing, and the display read, “Wait for cashier assistance” in an insulting font.

About that time my old manager friend walked in. He took in the blinking light, the angry checkout display, and me, holding a ripened cantaloupe like it was a smart bomb and the store was full of the folks in charge of gas prices. Without a word, he threw his name tag and price checker on the floor and ran out of the store so fast the automatic door flapped open and closed like a flasher on New York street corner.

“What’s the matter?” Bill’s brows were drawn together like they’d been shrink wrapped.

“I don’t discuss my weight with anybody who can’t give me a prescription for hormones.”

“Honey, the machine was asking for the weight of the cantaloupe. Not of you.”

“Oh. Perhaps I should explain to the manager when he gets back.” We listened to his car as it squealed past the outdoor furniture display and, dragging a two lawn chairs and a mini-cooler, screeched out of the parking lot.

Bill looked at me and rubbed his head. “How do you scare them off without even speaking?”

“I don’t know,” I answered trying to pull out a piece of plastic that was jammed in the payment slot. “But if he’s after my identity, he’s never going to get it.” With a tug, I pulled half of a mangled card out of the machine so fast I fell against the buggy behind me and squished some lady’s buns.

“Because I just paid for the groceries with your library card.”