Companies are so strange
Sometimes I wonder what motivates companies and large organizations to give you new cards. Think of the cost to the DMV to send everyone in NY new IDs. Today I got a new Chase card in the mail. My previous debit card would've been good for years. That means this new card probably has better security or at the very least a new number. It really makes me wonder what they realized that necessitated totally new cards for everyone.
A new fascination of mine is very short stories. The kind of story that is about a paragraph long but very witty and illuminating. Here are two:
This one is taken from the book Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan:
A Soviet woman is trying to buy a Lada, one of the cheap automobiles made in the former Soviet Union. The dealer tells her that there is a shortage of these cars, despite their reputation for shoddy quality. Still, the woman insists on placing an order. The dealer gets out a large, dusty ledger and adds the woman's name to the long waiting list. "Come back two years from now on March 17th," he says.
The woman consults her calendar. "Morning or afternoon?" she asks.
"What difference does it make?" the surly dealer replies. "That's two years from now!"
"The plumber is coming that day," she says.
Death Speaks
by W. Somerset Maugham
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him the horse and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
Someday You Will Be Loved - Death Cab For Cutie
A new fascination of mine is very short stories. The kind of story that is about a paragraph long but very witty and illuminating. Here are two:
This one is taken from the book Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan:
A Soviet woman is trying to buy a Lada, one of the cheap automobiles made in the former Soviet Union. The dealer tells her that there is a shortage of these cars, despite their reputation for shoddy quality. Still, the woman insists on placing an order. The dealer gets out a large, dusty ledger and adds the woman's name to the long waiting list. "Come back two years from now on March 17th," he says.
The woman consults her calendar. "Morning or afternoon?" she asks.
"What difference does it make?" the surly dealer replies. "That's two years from now!"
"The plumber is coming that day," she says.
Death Speaks
by W. Somerset Maugham
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him the horse and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
Someday You Will Be Loved - Death Cab For Cutie