An end-of-summer medley

Because nothing much new or interesting has happened the last week or so (except every Republican in sight resigning from something or other -- Gonzales and Craig are actually resigning and, even more importantly, Sen John Warner of VA announced that he wouldn't run again in 2008. Now if only that Hoonyack from Kentucky who sullies my surname would hang up his squirrel gun ...), here's a contextless melange' of stuff from the old WCA archives. I thought it was funny, back then, and I still sort of think so now.

---

From 2000:
Ann Arbor: Recently, WCA Facilities staff purchased two new smoke detectors for HQ. Like the lazy, featherbedding weasels I am -- that is, they are, they failed to install them, and the two units were left sitting on a credenza in the executive dining room. Last night, one of the executive staff, namely a large black cat, jumped up on the credenza and sat down on the detectors, one of which promptly went off. After I picked myself up off the floor, laughing, the question I had was: what did it detect?

---

From 2000:
OH, WHAT AN HONOR!

Ann Arbor: There's this person, Judy Rose, who writes about Detroit-area real estate in the Free Press (not unlike being the quality of life Editor at a concentration camp). Her column in a recent paper was headed, "St. Clair Shores looks like the next Royal Oak." And as if that wasn't enough, the lead points out that, in past years, Berkley and Ferndale have also been the next Royal Oaks.

Ok, I see how the game is played. Pick a depressing near-in suburb with one or two early buildings left in what can be described only geographically as a downtown. Pick another one nearby, where someone has recently opened -- say -- a new restaurant, and write 250 words on "X is the new Y." Ok, I predict that in the next 10 years, Inkster will be the new Taylor. How's that? Or Wyandotte is well on its way to becoming the next Ecorse? Warren the next Sterling Heights? Gore the next Clinton?

Folks, these are not cities we're talking about. They're either small towns that were swamped, devastated, and destroyed wholesale by urban sprawl, or they're development-driven accretions of the fifties, refugee camps for white folks fleeing the big bad city. And Ms. Rose, it takes more than (and I quote from your encomium to St. Clair Shores), "... brick pavers, trees, flowers, a park with a pond and bridge, and a trolley to transport visitors from one Nautical Mile site to another" to make them anything but a hellish endorsement of rigid urban planning policies.

Meanwhile and much more existentially, Ann Arbor is all set to be the next Ann Arbor.

---

From 1999:

WHAT?!?
Ann Arbor: By now, your WCA Food Editorial staff have heard pretty much everything out of new, ill-trained, and/or just plain young wait personnel. Our long time favorite was the response from an employee of a now-defunct Ann Arbor brunch venue, when our son asked if he could have hard boiled eggs: "We just don't have the facilities for that." However, two new instances have just recently come to hand, and we thought we'd share them with you.

First, from a waitress at that new place out in Saline, Mac's Acadian: she brought a bottle of wine, uncorked it with at least a reasonable degree of ability, poured it around, and then asked, "Now, should I let it breathe, or should I put the top back on?"

And not a week later, 1500 miles away, a young man in a Santa Fe restaurant took our order, noted our wine request, and was turning around when Linda said, "... and we'd all like water, too, please."

"Oh," he said, "Um, Ok. The water will be a few minutes. We're out."