Racing from pillar to post:
Gasoline: $3.47 a gallon at Costco, over a dime a gallon below the average rate in Phoenix. Lines out the wazoo. Across the street: $3.59 a gallon. Bought $8 worth, 2 1/3 gallons, enough to guarantee I could get to work and the client’s without getting stuck on some godforsaken freeway.
Real Estate: Neighbor’s house on the market: $399,000. What are they smoking?
Great Desert University: Not a soul in sight. Peaceful. Too bad you can’t have a university without the students.
Client: Forks over $300 for proofreading a detective novel. I’m in love.
Food: La Maya back from Costco, $200 down and almost nomeat purchases. Reports toilet tissue and aluminum foil prices up $2 per package; believes price of dental floss has doubled since last purchase. Food prices out of sight.
Heard in the Costco: Dad to young adult son: “Well, with the cost of groceries like this, we won’t be able to keep having Melvin over for dinner all the time.” Son to dad: “Uh-huh.” Inflation bad for parasites?
Seen in the Times: Jim Lehrer News Hour loses Archer-Daniel-Midland sponsorship; budget woes worst in program’s history. U.S. in danger of losing last adequate daily broadcast news program on the air.
Bargain of the Day: GDU offers vehicle-sharing program to employees, s’pposed to save you great wads of cash: $35/year plus $9/hour. What are they smoking?
Dog: Infection looks better; appetite improved; nose still ominous. Sound of dog’s breathing: huffadollar huffadollar huffadollar….
Big Brother Visitation: In 40 minutes, City shills report to neighborhood association on decision about which structures will be ripped out to make way for trolley rail route. Tune in same place, two or three hours hence.
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Big Brother Revisited: We heard distorted statistics from a half-baked survey that purported to show the neighborhood consensus was the exact opposite of what it actually is. With a bar graph that represented 16 people’s survey responses in a different proportion from the responses of 150 people, they tried to tell us the 16 people carried the day. Conclusion: we want the City to tear down an entire row of houses, reroute feeder street traffic through three small neighborhood roads, and build a ridiculous “barrier wall” between the survivors and the mess they’re building on 19th Avenue. Neighbors are now planning to riot at City Council chambers next week. Funny will be there. We also will waylay our councilman at his monthly Marie Callendar’s breakfast on Thursday.