No Mand's Land: 11/6/05

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Freebies!

This is my first annual Plymouth Freebies Award column.
I thought it was about time to recognize the generosity –if that’s what it really is, of those in our community who give out free things.
Of course Plymouth is not unique in this regard: almost everywhere you go in this country, people are promising ‘free stuff’. But I am only concerned with those free things that I can get my hands on without too much trouble.
And you know me (a little, I think): I am not really interested in really free things, but instead, in those things that they tell us are free but are actually something else. I am interested in the way ‘free’, usually means anything but.
So let’s dispose of the really free right off.
The best really free thing in Plymouth is, tah dah -The Plimoth Plantation.
If you actually live in town, you get in free. That can save you hundreds of dollars, especially if you’re like my wife and I, and use the Plantation as our own personal Nanny. Whenever we want to go out for some ‘adult time’, we take the kids to the Plantation and leave them there for a few hours.
We don’t just drop them off though: we’ve figured out that it works best if they blend in, so we had a few child-size Pilgrim costumes made up. Several times they’ve even come home with tips!
I would also be remiss (and would have missed a chance to kiss up to the boss, big time) if I didn’t mention the Bulletin. It’s free too! Most of you knew that, but let me take this opportunity to apologize to a few of my neighbors to whom I sold trial subscriptions at a very reasonable rate before the first issue came out. The bad news is that I already spent the money. The good news is that, hey what do you know, the paper is actually free!
Okay, I think that takes care of the free stuff that is actually free. Now let’s move on to the free that ain’t.
As I see it, there are three basic categories of free stuff: the Come On, the Come In, and the Come Off It!
I put the free water test offers that I find hanging from my mailbox several times a year, in the Come On category. Most people are not going to consider spending a few hundred dollars to have their water tested – but if it’s free, well that’s a horse of a different color. Of course, you have to wonder what kinds of rigorous scientific evaluations they do for free – but on the other hand, you get to keep those cute little plastic bottles.
In the same vein are the free soil tests in spring, free assessments of the value of your property, and a seventh beer with every six pack purchase(I can dream, can’t I?). I guess as free stuff goes, the Come On kind are kind of boring.
The Come In variety of free stuff is my favorite. It’s an offer used to get customers in the door, but once you’re in you can take control.
Free Salsa with Chips at Sam Diego’s tops my list in this area.
When we drop the little Pilgrims off at the Plantation we usually head right over to Sam Diego’s. We go to the top floor, and find a small table in a corner where we won’t be pestered by waiters.
If we’re on top of our game we also remember to ask the person seating us for free crayons and a coloring book for our patient pilgrim. The coloring book also helps delay the inevitable (they keep waiting for the kid to show): but when management is finally alerted and we are asked to leave it’s just a short walk around the corner to the British Beer for pretzels, and a few free shot-glass samples of their great selection of imported beers.
After that it becomes more difficult to decide where we’ll get our next fix of free, but oftentimes we head over towards Route 44 and one of the many local car dealers offering that staple of American automotive marketing – the free test drive. Some dealers will even let you keep the car overnight, in which case we usually head over to the Radisson and crash a wedding reception or two. Besides the free meal, Mary loves the centerpieces that they give away –some of which are nice enough to sell on EBay!
Oh heck, I’ve already used an entire column without even getting to the Come Off It variety of freebies.

Hey, what do you want: it’s free!

Running Commentary

Dec. 29, 2008 The Laundromat may be the last authentic public place.. That is, a place where people gather to do something other than gather, or be seen, or see others. Not a franchise bar, or a concept restaurant, or a public hall. A place where - necessity creates the confluence? No, that's not it: necessity, in a way, is also behind the concept restaurant, or the themed bar. A place where by accident, or as a result of forces beyond the personal, strangers come together? Our dryer died and so, every week I take a few soggy loads of wash to Ye Olde Pilgrim Washing Well Laundromat downtown: that's not a joke by the way, its the actual name. It had been a while since I had gone to a laundromat. The last time might have been in the mid eighties, when I drove my motorcycle to Connecticut, down 84, and on the way back pulled into a laundromat in a strip mall just off the highway near Hartford, to dry off the clothes I was wearing. I stripped down to my skivvies, threw everything else into a dryer, and waited for my clothes to dry and the rain to lessen. Now though, I am a regular, of sorts, at Ye Olde, spending about 40 minutes per visit per week. I bring the clothes in trash bags, so I can dump them easily in to the dryers (which are surprisingly inexpensive: about 75 cents per load). Then, when they are dry I put the clothes in laundry baskets and slip the trash bags over each basket - keeping them safe from rain or whatever, and ensuring that I will not let a stray sock fall out while I am transporting them. In my forty minutes or so, I usually read, but I can't help but hear conversations, can't completely block out the songs from the radio, and though I know my dryers have a long way to go, can't help but stand and check out the time remaining on each when I hear the warning buzzers from other dryers somewhere nearby. Today I overheard bits and pieces of a conversation between two women about a third - who had just left: how tough things were for her, about her cat which she takes everywhere, about how the cat behaved more like a dog, sitting on command, waiting at her side at intersections. Some talk of Obama too, cynical assessments of America, pity for Obama, or anyone, who was going to take over now. Complaints about the lack of anything good to read: 'just Sports Illustrated'. Information about abandoned laundry. How could anyone forget about their laundry - and, even if they did, why don't they come back for it. Seems there is a wealth of unclaimed laundry in the laundromats basement. Forty minutes is all I need though. Today, while the wash tunbled, I read a few chapters from 'Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer', an AIDS era story of death and potato pancakes. Uh oh, it's happening. I am thinking that a combination laundromat and bar is a good business concept. But then I know I wouldn't go there - unless, somehow, the owners could manage to keep the laundromat authentic. Maybe the thing to do would be to keep the two business separate. Have a glass door between them, but different management. Act as if there is no connection, but allow people to take their drinks between them, sell drinks with funny names like 'Spin Dry' and 'Fluff and Fold'. No, that wouldn't work.
Dec. 9, 2008 Been a long time since I added to this blog. I've been churning out the columns, but not taking the time to transfer them here. But I'm baaack, as they say. A lot has happened in the mean time. We finally won one: after ten years of going door to door for various Democratic or progressive candidates, we finally won back the White House. Of course Obama has his hands full - after eight years of the disastrous Bush administration. But beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, here we are, on the verge of a complete economic meltdown. Maybe the truth is that I'm a crow - a scavenger that thrives in the worst of times. Maybe for me, the news is good. Gosh, looking back at my last addition to this stream, I see I was commenting on poor Anna Nicole. Gone and, pretty much forgotten.
FEB15,2007 Anna Nicole is going out as she came in, with a great deal of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There was less there than any of us might have imagined: a little girl caught in a rainstorm. The significance of Anna Nicole, I think, is that she represents a kind of innocence: not of herself, but of this age of non-stop images. Nothing, and no one can be left alone: once you are in the public domain, you are the public's domain. Perhaps, in time, we will tire of this, or we will squander everything for it. The world's fascination with Anna Nicole is no different than the 11-year old boys' obsession with his Playstation. Anna Nicole may have been the first victim of society's inability to pull themselves away from the screen. Certainly she is not the last. FEB 17, 2007 After six years of incompetence and ideological posturing I suppose it is not surprising that is what is now a Republican minority cannot make a clean break from the past. However the cowardice that Republican Members of Congress has demonstrated recently, and the equally pathetic obstruction of their counterparts in the Senate as regards the efforts to make a statement in opposition to the escalation in Iraq, genuinely angers me - and demands, I believe, a creative, non-violent reponse. The Republican apologists - those formally conservative voices in the press and on television who, in the past several months have begun to stake out a more moderate role (anticipating the change in the country's mood) had for some time been sniping at the Democrats as to the impotency of their non-binding proposals on Iraq. But the obstructive policies or the right have put the lie to that perspective. Elections will come again in two years - and more Republicans will pay with their seats, but we need to take action now to let them feel our anger. They should not be able to walk to lunch without hearing our displeasure and disdain. They should not be able to spend their weekends golfing or skiing, or enjoying themselves at all until they make a clear and unequivocal statement as regards this escalation. This war has gone on now, longer than World War Two, and the President seems content that it go on forever - for to do so is a kind of justification - the final justification. They want this war to go on because, to end it would be to finally admit what idiots they have been. We wouldn't accept this kind of argument from our children, and damned if I am going to accept it from these children. These are 'The Emperors New Clothes".

No Mand's Land

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Freebies!

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