Ming Is Miffed

So you want to contact a company. Take your medication first. They provide a cutsie number to call giving you letters that spell out some word having to do with the company that corresponds to the numbers on the dial. You now have to peck out those numbers after scanning through the letters they pertain to.

Then you are asked to press two if you wish to continue in English. How are those that don't wish to pick English to know that's what's asked of them? If they do know then perforce, they can communicate in English. Ming has never gone to the non-English option, but he hopes all of the approximately 6,700 languages still spoken are offered since to do less is discriminatory. Ming just bets that Pashto and Urdu have been slighted.

Next you're put on hold, while some recording lies it's head off telling you how important your call is to them. After that you are presented with a list of options to press, none of which are in the least responsive to your needs. Pick some and there is a secondary list and even a tertiary list of options. All such options are for prerecorded responses and all know that they don't answer your question since they all ultimately direct you back to the first option and you get to proudly select English once again.

Ming fervently hopes there is a place in Hell for designers of mechanical phone responses who can only escape Hades by dialing the right number, selecting the right language and striking the right option.

Men Are No Longer On Top

Just watch any couple being interviewed on a news program. It doesn't matter what the topic. The woman is fielding the questions, providing opinion and commentary in stentorian tones while the poor schlub stands half a pace behind , shoulders stooped, wearing the look of a poleaxed steer, not even daring to speak.

Today women are even more buff than men. Female body builders are everywhere. Television hasn't portrayed a positive father figure since Robert Young in the 1950's sitcom, Father Knows Best. Women are now police officers, firemen (firewomen?), and have invaded every other tradition bastion of male superiority.

When Ming was a tyke, a wife walked two paces behind her husband. He was the breadwinner. King of the castle. Lord of all he surveyed. Ming blames the estrogen thy feed cows that gets into infant formulae.

We men must now courageously retake our traditional role as..... oops, Ming sees his significant other approaching and must now close out this screen or there will be hell to pay. "Yes, my love. Ming was only playing freecell just as you agreed he could before scrubbing the floor"......