Rick Horowitz

Those Toyotas: You've Been Taken for a Ride!

                 What’ll it take to put you behind the wheel of a brand-spanking-new 2010 Toyota?

            It’s Non-Stop Bargain Days here at Frantic Fred’s Four-Star Motors -- and it looks like highway robbery! So c’mon down and check out the bargains just waiting for you -- all makes, all models -- at prices that simply can’t be beat!

            Climb inside the Toyota Accela for the ride of a lifetime! Or check out the Toyota Ignora -- 287 horses straining at the bit and ready to open up on the open road. Just hit the gas pedal and away you go!

            Hit the other pedal and away you go, too! In fact, you’ll be amazed at the feeling -- like no driving experience you’ve ever had! But like we always say here at Frantic Fred’s, those are the brakes.

            Hah!

Up in the Air, His Suspicions are Kindled

              WASHINGTON -- I’m in 9B. He’s in 4C, five rows ahead. He’s a congressman -- an influential congressman, but aren’t they all? -- heading back to the Nation’s Capital to do the people’s business.

            I make the same instant calculation I always make in this kind of situation: “I know who’s in the headline if the plane goes down.” Not that I’m expecting the plane to go down. I’m just saying.

            Anyway: In a few minutes, we’re airborne, and a little while later, they announce that it’s OK to use “approved electronic devices.” I’m traveling light on this trip -- no iPod, no headphones -- but what’s a flight to Washington without looking important? (Or at least busy.) So I pull out my laptop and try to catch up on some work. Up in 4C, meanwhile, the congressman is looking at his Kindle.

Another Day at the T.S.A.

              Rrriinnnng! Rrriinnn --

            “Good morning, and thanks for calling T.S.A., ‘Your Travel Partner.’ This is Janet speaking -- how may I help you?”

            “I want to make a reservation.”

            “Certainly, sir -- that’s what we’re here for! Now, I’ll need some information from you. Let’s start with dates -- do you know what day you’ll be traveling?”

            “That will be 25 December, please.”

            “Christmas Day! That’s one of my favorite days of the year to be going places. And your final destination?”

            “Paradise.”

            “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we -- “

            “Detroit. I meant Detroit.”

Isn't That Minneapolis Down There?

            SOMEWHERE OVER PENNSYLVANIA -- “I just don’t buy it.”

            The beverage cart is rolling up the aisle -- coffee, tea and disbelief. The flight attendants on this evening’s flight are talking about what everybody’s been talking about: the suddenly famous (and suddenly former) Northwest Airlines pilots who made the big boo-boo.

            Missing your runway by 100-plus miles will get you talked about, no question about it. Flying on past the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when Minneapolis-St. Paul is, technically speaking, your “destination” is definitely a conversation starter.

            Some of the conversation -- no surprise here -- is a bit waggish, like the longtime friend and lifelong Washingtonian who was impressed most of all by reports that the wayward craft had so completely missed its mark that it actually flew out of Minnesota airspace and into Wisconsin.

            It was the first evidence he’d ever come across, he said, that Minnesota and Wisconsin were, in fact, separate places.

            Ba-da-boom.

            Meanwhile, back at 30,000 feet...

Obama's Beach Books -- and Yours

              Consider the beach book.

          Or do you prefer the term “beach book”? Surrounded by quotation marks, that is, like “fast food,” or “date movie.” “Beach book,” with its suggestion that there’s one particular type of book --  and only one particular type of book -- that’s supposed to accompany you to the summertime house near the large body of water.

          (Sno-Cones optional.)

          I don’t buy it.

          Neither, apparently, does the current president of these United States.

Symptoms of the Biden Flu: Running Off at the Mouth

            WASHINGTON, Momentarily -- Thrown repeatedly off message by a series of poorly timed or ill-considered comments by the government’s second-ranking official, the Obama White House is giving serious thought to putting Vice President Joe Biden on a perpetual seven-second sound delay.

            According to two senior administration sources who requested anonymity, the White House is weighing the benefits of implanting a computer chip just above the vice president’s jawbone, where it would receive electronic impulses from Biden’s brain and temporarily reroute them to a monitoring station within the West Wing for real-time review. Non-controversial statements would be relayed back to Biden’s mouth for delivery, while others would simply be blanked out, even as the vice president appeared to continue speaking.

            “It might look a little awkward,” one of the administration sources admitted, “but it sure beats the alternative.”

At the Pump: Down with Gas!

            MILWAUKEE -- At exactly 12:01 p.m. on Saturday, November 15, 2008, I saw something I was sure I’d never see again in my lifetime.

            I saw a “1” as the first digit of a gas-station sign. 

            That’s right:  Gasoline -- good old American, straight-from-the-Persian-Gulf-or-somewhere-just-as-scary gasoline -- at under $2.00 per gallon.

Harley Fest: Yes, We Have No Bandanas

           Milwaukee -- We’re gunning it down the Interstate, my biker buddies and me. The wind is whipping through my hair, and my ears are filled with that deep, distinctive roar.

            Bikes ahead of me, and behind me, and even more coming over the hill in the other direction.  We shout road code to one another -- a quick “Thanks!” and “You bet!” as I slide over a lane to let a brother pass by.  A glance.   A nod.

            It’s the fellowship of the blacktop.  They’ve got their Harleys, and I’ve got my ’95 Mazda Protege.  Four-door.

            And an active imagination.

New Orleans: The Flood Last Time -- and Still

            NEW ORLEANS -- This place will break your heart.

            It will also set your toes to tapping, make you grit your teeth in anger and frustration, make you shake your head in wonderment, make you smile, make you cry.

            “We’re back!” New Orleans shouts.  “Tell your neighbors!”

            “We’re still hurting,” New Orleans whispers.  “Don’t forget us.”