|
SHEARON: Welcome to my discomfort zone |
|
|
Thursday, 27 September 2007 |
 Robert Shearon
For instance, the city’s new advertising slogan, “Welcome to your comfort zone.”
While the slogan may be a work of inspired and true genius, it didn’t really resonate with the newsroom crew.
Mike suggested his own, which I can’t repeat verbatim, but it was pretty good. It was along the lines of “Get your donkey on down to Benton.” You have to admit, it’s more evocative than “Comfort Zone.”
I came along with my own, drawing on the city’s low violent crime rate and absence of alcohol-based potables. “Benton: Safe and Dry.”
Lynda seemed to like this one pretty well and composed a jingle to go with it based on the melody of the church song “Deep and Wide.”
It’s probably good that we don’t really have that much spare time.
Anyway, we were at the tag end of the horrible hot weather spell, and I had turned my air conditioner off after receiving a $350 utility bill. Hmm. “Welcome to your Discomfort Zone” might actually be more appropriate.
I had hoped, upon receiving that bill, that the utility company had made a mistake. I called the company and was told it was no mistake. I asked how my usage compared to the same period last year. Amazingly, I was told, I had actually used less energy.
So, less energy usage, higher bill – all thanks to the city’s 50 percent-plus rate increase that went into effect earlier this year.
After turning off the air conditioner, we had to find ways to keep cool. We opened all the windows and got out a floor fan. We placed the fan for maximum effect. Plus, we both upped our consumption of iced tea. A fan and iced tea will keep you comfortable in almost any circumstance.
Except for when it is 100 degrees outside and you have cats who want to share the fan with you.
Because I tend to be more inert than my wife, the cats have learned to sit on my lap for long-term relaxation. If the 20-pound cat, Purrfessor, gets there first, the other cats kind of move up, draping themselves across my expansive belly, and finally, my chest.
There’s not enough iced tea in the world to keep you cool when you are covered by 30 pounds of house cats.
Anyway, when the weather was hot, I was NOT in my “comfort zone.”
Another thing I’m not comfortable with is giving people directions around town. When I moved to Benton, my lovely fiance and my son huddled over the map and called out directions to me as we attempted to find one place or another. I determined that no single road in town actually goes anywhere.
This was impressed on me further when my friend, Francis, wanted to come for a visit. I gave him directions to our house, which was on Cherry Lane. It took a full sheet of paper, I suspect, what with explaining about getting off the interstate, crossing over the freeway, then the 15 turns it took after that point to actually get to our house.
When Francis arrived, he got out of his car, laughing. “How did you ever find this place?” he asked.
We live on Jameson now, so the instructions aren’t as detailed, although a visitor who had never been to my house before tried to find it using Mapquest. A word about using Mapquest to find my house – don’t.
She was in the Home Depot parking lot. She told me what the Mapquest directions had told her, including turning onto “Lincoln Street,” which to my knowledge doesn’t exist. Also, the directions didn’t take into account the relatively new light on Congo Road at the overpass.
I directed her to the house, then told her to look for an overweight bald guy in the front yard, and she would have found the right place. And she did. I make a pretty good landmark. I guess you could say being a landmark falls within my comfort zone.
Robert Shearon is news editor of the Courier. His column appears weekly.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
Razorbacks
