Why we don't need to give our autographs anymore

In the early 1990s, I was working as a Daily Republic sports writer, covering an Oakland A's-Minnesota Twins baseball game at the Oakland Coliseum. About 90 minutes after the game – having interviewed the managers, some players and written a game story or column – I walked out of the stadium toward my car.

As always, a collection of fans – mostly young fans – waited outside the tunnel that led from the Coliseum clubhouses to the parking lots, looking for autographs.

"Hey, are you Scott Erickson?"

I didn't respond at first. Then I realized it was a kid. Maybe 10 or 11. Asking me if I was Scott Erickson, an outstanding pitcher for the Twins (he won 20 games one season). Scott Erickson was 6-foot-4, 220 pounds. I was 5-foot-10, 175 pounds. He was six years younger than me. But we both had dark hair, I guess.

The kid wanted an autograph!

"No, sorry," I said, feeling bad for the kid, but great for me. He thought I was a major league baseball player! I was a sports writer for a small newspaper who occasionally played city league softball (badly). But he thought I was somebody! I was like Navin Johnson in "The Jerk!"

That feeling stayed until a few days later when I covered my next game. Same thing. Game ended. I wrote my article and headed out to my car.

"Hey is . . . no, never mind. He's not a player." 

Different kid, very different (and accurate) perception. No autograph in either case, but one gave me the illusion that I had some sort of similarity to a 6-foot-4 guy who could throw a baseball 90 mph.

I didn't give any autographs because they weren't needed. Just like they're not needed for a credit card.

(Columnist trick! If you can't think of a way to lead into a subject, consider something similar, write about it and then add a paragraph to explain the correlation. In this case, follow that paragraph with a parenthetical paragraph explaining what you did. You learned something today.)

Did you know that you don't need to sign a credit card receipt? That when you go to a restaurant and put the meal on a card, when they bring you back the card, receipt and a list of suggested tips, you can write a total and not sign the card?

It doesn't matter and it hasn't mattered for a long time. In fact, Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express (all the major cards except Diners Club, which I just discovered still exists but is not issuing new cards in the United States) all dropped the requirements to sign.

In 2018. Six years ago.

We haven't needed to sign credit card receipts (or those credit card readers) for six years!

Still, many places expect us to sign for the card purchase to be "official." It doesn't make it official. Signatures are not even used to detect fraud. No one checks your signature against anything because the card companies stopped requiring signatures in 2018.

I don't know how that makes you feel. It makes me feel like we're continuing a social contract that's outdated, like not wearing white after Labor Day or men taking off their hats while indoors or using a duel to settle a dispute. We don't have to sign for our credit cards!

However . . . while I think it's a good idea for you to make a scene at a restaurant by refusing to sign, I'm not going to be the guy who tries to explain this to a waiter who brings me the ticket. I'm not going to tell the cashier at CVS that my signature isn't required because that went away six years ago. I'm not going to refuse to sign when I get a haircut and the stylist (or barber) asks me to sign.

I'm not going to do it for the same reason I wouldn't pretend to be Scott Erickson. I'm not doing it for the same reason I didn't tell the kid who said I wasn't an athlete that I could switch hit and ground out to second base from each side of the plate in softball.

Because it's sometimes easier to go along than to make someone uncomfortable.

It's what Scott Erickson would do, at least. And I don't know if I've ever told the story, but I was mistaken for him once ...

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

An invaluable lesson learned as a young McDonald's employee

The good folks at McDonald's say that one in eight Americans will work at one of their franchises at some point of their lives. You deserve a break today, so my high school stint at McDonald's can offset that statistic for you and six other people.

Politicians and business leaders have used their McDonald's experience to burnish their working-class appeal. Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. Jeff Bezos worked at McDonald's. Heck, Jay Leno worked at McDonald's.

Brad Stanhope also worked at McDonald's. There, I learned one of life's most important lessons: Stay focused.

McDonald's was an important job for me. After losing my first two positions (including at a supermarket where I was fired by a boss who told me in the middle of the store that I didn't need to come in anymore), my confidence was shaky. Working at McDonald's allowed me to be around plenty of people, get training and realize that I wasn't (totally) incompetent.

I was a senior in high school, working at McDonald's in my hometown of Eureka. One of the roles I filled was being the guy who emptied garbage cans, cleaned the bathrooms and was a gofer for everyone. That wasn't all I ever did – I also took orders and repeatedly scalded my arms while making french fries – but on the winter night in question, I was the cleanup guy.

It was wet and cold around 8 p.m., which is typical for that area. The Pacific Ocean was a few blocks west of the restaurant, so it was foggy. As I remember it, there were just a handful of cars in the large parking lot.

I checked the three garbage cans spread around that massive parking lot. Being Eureka, there were always people wandering around. There was a substantial homeless population even then and some of those residents would look in the McDonald's dumpster, searching for food. That made sense because we would make the food, set a timer and throw it out after a certain period.

Anyway, I wandered the dark parking lot thinking of whatever a 17-year-old thought of in that era. Sports. Girls. School. "Welcome Back, Kotter." The Bee Gees. I grabbed one full bag of trash, went to another can and grabbed that bag. Then I walked to the dumpster, climbed up the short ladder, opened it and . . .

A GUY SPRUNG UP LIKE SOMEONE JUMPING UP FROM A CASKET.

OR MAYBE FROM A JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

I gasped and almost fell off the ladder. What the heck? 

The guy was equally surprised. He was dumpster diving, about to find some food when . . . some kid opened the lid and surprised him!

I didn't tell him to leave. I probably apologized for bothering him. I tossed the bag to the part of the dumpster away from him and told him it didn't have any good food.

I was mad at myself. I wondered if I screamed. I hoped I didn't make the guy feel bad. I was mad that the guy was there.

Nobody saw it. Nobody knew about it. I doubt I am the only employee of that or any McDonald's who had that experience. But it stuck with me: Always stay focused.

When Bezos or Harris or Leno talk about working at McDonald's, they probably don't think about nearly having a heart attack caused by a Jack-in-the-Dumpster experience when they were 17 and thinking how weird it was that John Travolta was in movies, too.

Yeah, I worked at McDonald's.

I made friends there, gained confidence and learned an important lesson: When putting trash in Dumpsters, always be cautious.

I'm lovin' it!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

America changes this week, the toy hall of fame and more

This is the week that America changes.

Things will be different. Whether it's brighter or darker depends on your outlook, but change is coming.

Yeah. In case you missed it (far less likely now than before our electronic devices updated automatically), daylight saving time ended early Sunday morning. It's now standard time, which means it's dark earlier in the evening and we can all settle into months of sadness.

Most of us have strong opinions on whether it our current system makes sense.

Some of us like daylight saving time and think it should be in place all year, rather than just eight months. Some of us think we should stay on standard time year-round. Some of us think we should pick a lane and not have to change our clocks twice a year (particularly our car clocks).

I don't know who's right, but I think we should learn that we can have vastly different views of issues and not hate the other side. If you're a DST denier, I think you're wrong, but I don't think you're evil. You may just not have the same information as me.

It seems like that may apply somewhere else this week, but we'll see.

While we're on the topic, consider my latest proposal with daylight saving time: What if instead of springing forward and falling back, we just fell back every time the time changed? Fall back in the spring, fall back in the fall.

Of course, that would hamper the idea of longer summer days (at first), but it would . . .  are you ready . . . have a time-shifting element unlike anything else. Falling back twice a year would result in us getting an extra day every 12 years. It wouldn't change the calendar, it would just mean that over time, we're stealing an extra day.

We could defeat time!

On to the topics du jour. . . . 

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If you're like me, you're losing sleep over this month's big election.

Correct! We're about to discover the makeup of the 2024 class for the Toy Hall of Fame. The Strong National Museum of Play announced 12 finalists back in September, but most observers think it's likely time for balloons and trampoline to break through and gain entrance to the toy shrine. Pokemon cards and Transformers – popular with generations younger than me – also seem likely to get in.

One beneath-the-radar toy that might sneak in: The stick horse.

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OK, something equally important: Why do manufacturers put peel-off caps on products, but leave off the tab that makes it easy to pull off the caps? I mean, it's bad enough that I have to pull a metallic cap off my toothpaste tube, but how am I supposed to do that when they don't give me something to grip?

It's ridiculous and I generally end up pounding it with tweezers or my toothbrush, like I'm a caveman (who owned tweezers and an electric toothbrush). If you put a peel-off cap on a product, give us a tab that's easy to grab.

It's simple decency.

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No TV show in the history of broadcasting has been more pleasant than "The Great British Baking Show." It's now in its (I'm estimating) 1,500th season, but every season features a bunch of really nice people baking tasty items in a good-natured competition at a country house with pleasant music playing.

Anxious about Tuesday's election? Binge watch that show.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Four out of five dentists surveyed said you should read this column

Evolution is slow until it isn't.

Dinosaurs roamed freely in the American West for hundreds of years before they all died in the Revolutionary War. Men treated women as inferiors until Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis match in 1973, settling gender equality forever. Soccer was the only sport in the world until an intrepid Irish player touched the ball with his hands and lived – leading to the rise of baseball, basketball and team handball.

(Don't fact-check me. Trust me.)

We live in a period of dramatic changes in short periods. The rise and fall of the BlackBerry, the explosion of remote and hybrid work, the disappearance of traditional tube televisions, the rise and fall of Paris Hilton. As legendary philosopher Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Keep reading. My point is three paragraphs away.

I don't know when hairy chests for men went from sexy to disgusting, but it took a while and I missed it. Few of us can pinpoint the year when children went from calling adults "Mr." or "Mrs." and started calling them by their first names. I missed that, too.

Who can pinpoint when yellow stopped being a common color for kitchen appliances or when men started growing sideburns again? Not me.

Finally: It's hard to pinpoint exactly when we stopped chewing gum.

Gum chewing is down. The number of Americans who chewed gum at least once a year dropped 12% over the past decade-plus. In 2024, less than half of Americans say they'll chew gum (at any point of the year!).

The gum-chewing bubble has popped (GET IT?).

Back in the day, everyone chewed gum. Gum-chewing was almost as common as cigarette smoking – which leads to the possibility that the two are linked in ways beyond Nicorette. We had the gum-chomping waitress as a pop culture icon (hello, Flo from "Alice"!). Anxious cops chomped gum in movies. Baseball players chewed gum (if they weren't chewing tobacco). Kids in school chewed gum and stuck it on the bottom of their desks. Every mom had gum in her purse, even if it was something like Dentyne or Wrigley's.

But it's gone down. Way down.

Think of the last time someone rudely chomped on gum while talking to you. It's been a while, right? Consider this: When was the last time a fitness trainer who discourages situps said, "If using a muscle over and over makes it strong, why don't people who chew gums have huge jaws?" (Ignoring the fact that the jaw is not a muscle and also ignoring the fact that doing situps is not designed to make your torso bigger!)

Anyway, Big Gum noticed the decline. They realized the path to keeping their product viable is more than just having attractive twins chew gum (the old Doublemint commercials) or telling us gum chewing can help keep our teeth healthy (like Dentyne did). 

According to an article on Food Dive, Hershey (who knew they sold gum?) is introducing a version of Ice Breakers gum where the flavor keeps changing (presumably not the traditional gum-flavor change that goes from five seconds of flavor to tasteless cardboard). Hubba Bubba now has a Skittles-flavored gum. Another company has introduced caffeine-infused gum, for people who would rather chew their coffee. 

Shockingly, Big League Chew is making a comeback – although mimicking chewing tobacco seems outdated in a world where major league baseball has banned most tobacco products. This emphasis is happening through partnerships with college athletes who show Big League Chew as fun, since mouth cancer seems like a blast.

Gum manufacturers are following a playbook for when a product loses steam: jazz it up and make it popular for a new generation.

We'll see if it works. On one hand, I lament the end of a familiar characterization of people. On the other hand, it's been a while since I stepped on sticky gum that some idiot spit out on a sidewalk.

Is gum going away? Is it a good thing? I'm not sure, but I'm interested to see if gum goes the way of dinosaurs and disappears after a few hundred years.

Four out of five dentists say that's happening.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

It's time to move away from arbitrary (6 foot) ideas about height

I've been 5 foot, 10½ inches for decades. I was that height when I married, when I turned 30, when I got gray hair, when the 49ers won their last Super Bowl and when the Giants won their last World Series (events that were 19 years apart). 

About 15 years ago, I went in for an annual physical and they measured me as . . . 5-11.

I was growing! The dream of being 6 feet tall was still alive! Maybe I'd reach that magical landmark by the time I was 50 or 60 or 70. Things were really going to start happening for me!

The next year, I measured 5-10½ and the dream was done.

Except the "dream" is the result of a strange allegiance to round numbers and the imperial measurement system.

Think about it: Even if we've decided that a whole number is better than a fraction (that 6 feet even is superior to 5 feet and a fraction of a foot), who made the decision that we'd ignore the logical decimal system and instead go with the imperial system of inches, feet, gallons and pounds?

Other than all of America in the 1970s, I mean. Because when I was in elementary school, we were told that by the time we were adults, we'd be measuring things by the decimal system. Alas, that was over by the time I was in high school as we determined the decimal system, like disco music, sucked.

Back to the point: Think of the pain caused by the ridiculous belief in the superiority of 6-foot men  (apparently, many women in dating apps say they want their man to be at least 6 feet tall).

We all apply arbitrary standards. We like baseball batters who hit .300, not .299. We recognize the world record in the 100-yard dash, not the 95-yard dash. We talk about a 10-gallon cowboy hat, not an 8-gallon hat. Denver is the Mile-High City for a reason. 

I'm not suggesting we stop having ideals. After all, if we did that, what would happen to iconic things like "My 600-Pound Life" or "The Hundred Years War" (other than reducing voyeurism or celebrating long-ago wars)?

Here's my suggestion: Follow the European model.

Generally, I'm an America-first person. They shouldn't call soccer "football." We should drive on the right side of the road. We shouldn't endorse official naps during the workday.

However, there's one European model with which I agree: The standard for male height shouldn't be 6 feet tall. It should be 180 centimeters.

Who disagrees with that? Of course! One hundred eighty centimeters makes sense!

(First, I Googled, "convert 180 cm to feet" and found that it's between 5-10½ and 5-11. In other words, if I stand up really tall and don't get a haircut for a few months before a doctor's appointment, I might reach 180 cm. Wonderful!)

Of course, it would be simpler if we weren't hung up on multiples of 10. For instance, I think it's reasonable that 179 centimeters were considered the ideal, since it's slightly shorter than 5-10½. At least that seems ideal until I start shrinking. Maybe 178 centimeters or even 175 centimeters.

Wouldn't the world be better if we didn't set arbitrary numbers for ideal heights, weights, IQs and income? Especially since all of my figures – except weight – are gradually declining.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

What Mrs. Brad really fears will happen to me if she dies first

Mrs. Brad and I were taking our regular Saturday morning hike around our community on a recent warm day. We walk, talk and comment on our neighbor's houses. We greet people and shake our heads at those who walk past us and avoid eye contact.

We'd talked about our kids, jobs and plans for the day. We asked some questions that we would later Google ("What are the main predators for coyotes?" "What's the difference between England, Great Britain and the UK?" "Did Hawaiians invent the ukelele?"). We were getting our exercise, sharing our lives and having a good time.

And then . . . 

"If I die before you, I want you to promise me something," she said.

Geez. Out of nowhere!

While on a relaxed walk, Mrs. Brad was asking me to promise to do something if she dies first. Things had suddenly gotten deep.

Side story: A few years ago, she announced, "After you die, I'm going to . . . " I interrupted her. "What makes you think you'll outlive me?" She looked at me and started again, "After you die, I'm going to make it easier for our sons. I'll move close to them if they don't live here."

Nothing dramatically changed since that day, so I don't know why her outlook changed. She has no fatal disease and I haven't discovered the fountain of youth. But suddenly she was extracting a promise from me.

I started anticipating her request. The most likely ask was for me to not be stubborn but to allow our sons to take care of me. That was by far the most likely request.

It was unlikely she'd have an opinion on whether I'd remarry or grow a beard or become vegan. What did she want me to promise?

After waiting for me to say OK (which I did by saying, "OK."), she made her request:

"Promise that you'll get professional housekeeping."

What?

What?

My wife, to whom I've been married nearly 40 years, who I fell in love with when I was 18, who I partnered with to raise two sons with me and who has been my teammate in every area of life since the Reagan administration (or since Chris Brown was the Giants third baseman, depending on your historic reference point), had one request for me if she dies first. That I hire a housekeeper.

I was baffled. While I don't see all the dirt she does, I'm not a slob. I do the dishes and vacuum and pick up the house regularly. I did all of our laundry for decades. I'm the grocery shopper.  But if she dies first, her first concern is not that I let our sons help me, but that I let a housekeeper clean the house once a week or once a month or whatever.

Second side note: There's no problem with hiring professional housekeeping. It makes sense. We've done it. But that's the thing that most concerns her?

I was befuddled. It was an easy request Of course, I'll do that (as far as she knows).

Later, I wondered why the request shocked me so much. Why did it seem to come from left field (Giants left fielder the year we married: Jeffrey Leonard. HacMan!). 

I landed on five possible reasons the request surprised me:

1. I've watched too many movies where a character makes a romantic request of their loved one while dying. In the real world, maybe people have practical plans. Such as keeping their posthumous house clean.

2 Mrs. Brad fears I'll have people over after she dies and they'll judge her if my house is dirty.

3. It's crazy.

4. Mrs. Brad secretly signed up for a multilevel marketing scheme involving house cleaners and told her "manager" that I had agreed to pay for housekeeping at a future date.

5. I'm actually a slob but don't realize it.

I don't which is true (oddsmakers have No. 5 as the heavy favorite). I just know the next time Mrs. Brad wants me to promise something if she dies first, I'll be ready for anything. ("That you'll eat salad once a week." "That you'll take up horseshoes." "That you'll never wear suspenders." "That you'll keep your eyebrows trimmed.")

In the meantime, I'll search the house for a document where she added me to a list of people she's registered for future housekeeping services.

Maybe I found a loophole: If I'm truly going to let our sons help me, they can clean my house.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Biggest question in A's move: Why doesn't owner sell?

It's been more than a week since the Oakland A's played their final game at the Oakland Coliseum. They're set to play at least the next three seasons in Sacramento before allegedly moving to Las Vegas to play in a new stadium (smart bet: Las Vegas stadium is never built).

A's fans justifiably have hard feelings for team owner John Fisher, who is abandoning Oakland after years of stadium plans that failed due to his incompetence and penny pinching.

The biggest question, remains this: Why doesn't John Fisher just sell the team?

Fisher doesn't seem to like being a team owner. He doesn't go to games and cheer, like the owners of the Warriors and 49ers. He mostly gets blasted for his incompetence and idiocy (those criticisms are correct). He claims to not be making much money off the team (likely untrue, due to major league baseball's revenue-sharing agreements).

But he could sell the team. Fisher is allegedly worth $3 billion (due to his biggest accomplishment: Being the child of the couple who founded the Gap). He bought the A's in 2005 for $180 million and the team is now worth well more than $1 billion.

John Fisher won't be beloved in Sacramento or in Las Vegas. He doesn't appear to care.

It's unclear why he hasn't sold the team, cashed out and let someone who actually likes baseball run it.

Instead, he abused A's fans for nearly 20 years, helped drive away the Raiders (by vetoing any changes to the stadium) and now broke their hearts by taking away the team of Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson and "Moneyball."

Being rich isn't enough. He apparently also wants to be despised – and that's something at which he succeeded.

On to the topics du jour . . .

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A few weeks ago, I asked some friends (both in real life and on Facebook) if our hands have five fingers or four fingers and a thumb. In other words, is a thumb a finger? If so, why does it have a different name? The consensus was that a thumb is a finger, but my smart friend Duane pointed out that a finger requires three phalanges and a thumb has only two. Duane also said that means we don't have a middle finger, since we have only four fingers.

I agree with Duane because he's smarter than me and I've never used the word "phalanges" in a conversation. However, I have a simpler solution, based on what we call our toes. What if we started calling our thumb a "big finger," like we call our big toe? Wouldn't that solve a problem?

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Part of aging that isn't talked about enough (and maybe shouldn't be): The reaction when celebrities, politicians and athletes who die. You are kind of shocked that they've died so soon and then you realize they lived a long, full life.

Pete Rose was 83. Kris Kristofferson was 88. Tito Jackson was 70. Phil Donahue was 88.

My suggestions: The only famous people who die should be those who were already old when I was a kid.

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A few weeks ago, I was reading my Bible in The Message version, which was published in the 1990s and early 2000s and made a major effort to be in everyday language. I read the following verse, which would have made 10-year-old Brad giddy. In fact, it made current Brad giddy.

From 2 Kings 18:27: “We weren’t sent with a private message to your master and you; this is public–a message to everyone within earshot. After all, they’re involved in this as well as you; if you don’t come to terms, they’ll be eating their own turds and drinking their own pee right along with you.”

Fantastic.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Rio de Janeiro scandal shows dark side of claw games

For years, I've referred to Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurants as "casinos for kids."

The parallels are shocking. Both are noisy and dark, with energy and greed and competition. Some people celebrate, while others bemoan how close they came to winning (money, a stuffed animal or a pencil). There are family arguments over whether to keep spending money or shut it down for the day.

Chuck E. Cheese is a Ceasar's Palace for kids.

Turns out that's closer to the truth than we thought.

And it's not Chuck E. Cheese, which I'm sure has a capable legal department that scours the internet to find everything written about it.  I'm not saying a pizza parlor named after a rodent might be unsavory. Not at all. Mea culpa if you thought that.

But the kind of product you might see at a Chuck E. Cheese establishment – again, I'm not suggesting the vermin-controlled pizza parlor is unscrupulous – is apparently more like a slot machine than a contest of skill.

Consider Rio de Janeiro, where police recently carried out an aggressive sweep of claw machines. Claw machines are those glass-box machines with joystick-operated claws. You try to grab a stuffed animal after dropping in whatever money they require (maybe $2 or $3).

According to an article by The Associated Press, "Officers seized claw machines, laptops, tablets, cell phones, a firearm and – yes – furry friends. They are investigating whether organized crime groups may be the invisible hand behind the claw because they already run slot machines and a popular lottery known as 'Animal Game' across the city."

Organized crime may be in charge of Rio's claw games!

This isn't the first time. A few months earlier, Rio police seized 80 such machines, ostensibly putting a severe crimp in the plans of parents who hoped to impress their 4-year-old with their ability to grab a stuffed penguin.

Police said there were two major crimes involved: First is that machines were rigged to pay off after a certain number of turns, changing them from a game of skill to a game of luck. Second was that the games had counterfeit toys, so a stuffed tiger was even cheaper than you thought.

Cheap payoffs and a fixed game? Other than every single county fair I've attended, that sounds shady!

That couldn't happen in the United States, right?  Right?

Well, there are certain standards we have. According to the AP article, most states consider claw machines games of chance, which is the opposite of what appears to be how they are presented in Argentina. American claw games are specifically exempt from gambling statutes if they comply with certain rules, probably because the Big Claw lobby has so much influence.

Of course, the people running such games also need a certain number of winners, so people keep thinking it could be them – similar to how people who run carnival games make sure a few people carry around massive stuffed animals as a passive advertisement for how great their game is.

Claw game enthusiasts in Rio de Janeiro appear to have a bigger complaint than the consideration that the game is based on luck, rather than skill. They also seem to believe the claw is weaker and can't grab stuffed animals – a scenario familiar to those of us beyond a certain age who find it tough to open a pickle jar. To the Rio claw-gamers, the game got tougher. Too tough.

Rio claw-game enthusiasts are shaken. Skill isn't the thing. The claw can't grab big stuffed animals. And the toys are counterfeit.

I'm sure that Chuck E. Cheese and other such establishments haven't rigged their games to guarantee profitability. The reason is simple: When my kids were young, you had to spend about $30 in gaming coins to win enough coupons to acquire a 50-cent toy. That's a payoff of $60 for the house for every $1 in expenses. If you can do that, there's no need to rig the games further.

Note to the Chuck E. Cheese lawyers: That's a compliment to your business model, not a criticism.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Leaving on a jet plane . . . I'll land with clean teeth and a new tattoo

Hear me out. This isn't absurd.

This might sound absurd. But years from now, we'll look back and wonder why it took so long to do this. Like changing the rules to make baseball pitchers throw pitches within 18 seconds. Or instituting trading curbs to slow stock market crashes. Or creating microwaveable taquitos.

All so obvious in retrospect.

So hear me out, but first, establish the reasoning:

1. Virtually everyone dislikes going to the dentist. Dentists aren't (necessarily) evil or sadists, but if you had an opportunity to get all the benefits of teeth cleaning without going to the dentist and sitting in that torture chair, would you take it? Of course.

2. Consider the colonoscopy, that unfortunate procedure you should have done at least every decade upon turning 50. It involves at least 24 hours of fasting, taking something that "cleans out" your system and having someone drive you to and from an appointment. That doesn't even address the procedure. If you could have the same result without enduring all that, would you do it? Of course.

3. Now think about other uncomfortable procedures. I'm not talking about major surgery, but things like a biopsy or Lasik (is that a brand name? Maybe.). Getting a tattoo. Anything that takes time and makes you uncomfortable. Would you take the result without the discomfort? Of course.

4. Finally, consider long plane flights. If you're going to Hawaii, Florida or the Philippines – or anywhere that requires five hours of sitting uncomfortably in a plane next to strangers, would you prefer to get there without the discomfort? Of course.

So hear me out.

What if there was an airplane flight where they would anesthetize you and then do every medical procedure you need: Clean your teeth, do a colonoscopy and give you that tattoo you've wanted. When you wake up, you're in Honolulu or Miami or New York City. It feels like you just got on the plane, but  your teeth and colon are both clean (presumably with different doctors and with hand-washing between), while you've got a new "Fanilow for Life" tattoo on your back with a picture of Barry Manilow.

It's a hybrid plane/surgery center. Brilliant!

The finances would work. Would you pay extra for that? I would. Would doctors and their assistants do that? Sure, they'd get free trips. Would an airline do that? They could charge more, so the answer is yes.

The hybrid plane/surgery center is the greatest idea since microwavable taquitos! We must make this happen! It's so obvious.

One day your grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be shocked to hear that we used to make an appointment to get our teeth cleaned or to get a colonoscopy. It will seem ridiculous.

"Why wouldn't you just take an airplane flight?" they'll ask.

You'll shake your head and give no answer as you eat a microwaved taquito.

The great ideas come around only once in a while.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

A surprising percentage of your neighbors fear tornadoes

I hate to tell you this, but you probably know someone who is irrational.

You may already know that, based on your acquaintances' views on politics or sports or pizza toppings or whether Milli Vanilli should have been forced to return their Grammy award (after all, the award goes to the musicians, not the lip-syncing guys). But now you know for sure.

According to a survey by the good folks at Yougov, 6% of Californians think tornadoes are a "major problem" where they live.

Yes. Roughly one out of 15 Californians live in fear of tornadoes. Of course, that's not the main natural disaster we fear. That is earthquakes. According to the survey, 32% of us consider earthquakes a major problem– which seems a bit low to me, since 70% of California's population lives within 30 miles of an earthquake fault.

I mean, I'm not afraid of earthquakes. I'm not afraid of anything other than the clothes in my closet when they seem to take human form after we turn out the lights. (Two major fears of my childhood: That Charles Manson would escape from prison, come to my Humboldt County home and kill me; and that I would inexplicably go down the drain of the bathtub. By the time I was in my 40s, I had conquered those fears.)

But to repeat. One-fifth as many Californians fear tornadoes as earthquakes. Despite there being zero recorded deaths due to tornadoes in California's history.

That begs the question: Why?

Part of it may be some anxiety that we Californians embrace. After all, only 3% of Oregonians, Nevadans and Arizonans consider tornadoes a major problem and only 2% of Washingtonians consider tornadoes a major problem. (And yes, I was anxious about how to spell all those words.) We're twice as anxious about tornadoes as residents in our neighboring states.

The concern may come because so many Californians moved here with a baked-in concern from their home state. Maybe a decent chunk of that 6% includes people from Kansas or Nebraska or Oklahoma (all part of "Hurricane Alley," which constituted the former Big Eight Conference). 

There's also the possibility that movies ("Twister," "Twisters," "The Wizard of Oz") have given us a sense that tornadoes can crop up anywhere. In rural Kansas. In urban Oklahoma. In Vacaville. In Cordelia.

But 6% of Californians consider tornadoes a major problem. Also, 8% consider hurricanes a major problem (also unlikely, but more possible) and 32% consider earthquakes a major problem. Significantly, 63% of us say none of the above, which makes it clear that there is a lot of overlap in fears. The same people who fear hurricanes and tornadoes likely also fear earthquakes.

The good news is that most things we fear never happen. The economy hasn't collapsed. Steph Curry hasn't reinjured his ankle in a long time. That clicking sound in your car engine went away. 

So a fear of tornadoes is not, in the current pseudo-spiritual language, likely to manifest tornadoes.

How do I know? I never went down the drain and Manson never came for me. As far as I know. Although maybe he was coming for me but was swept up in the great Southern Humboldt County tornado of 1973.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.