THEY'RE BOOING THE PIGEONS ON RITTENHOUSE SQUARE

LIDDY AND LOO DO PHILADELPHIA IN THE 90s

                                        PROBLEM SOLVING

It was one of them days when they shut down the government, you know, closed down the Liberty Bell, stuff like that. Now I'm as liberal as the next guy, but I know a Republican scowl when I see one. Layin' people off the week before Christmas! Talk about Scrooge! Well whatta you expect from a bunch of stiffs who think Newt Gingrich knows what he's talkin' about? I mean, the guy has a Ph.D. for cryin' out loud, and we all know what that means. You can see Im really steamed about this.

But hey, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I wanta get this off my chest to tell you just what kind of a day it was for me; actually it started on Friday, the day before. Liddy and me were headed up the Northeast Extension towards Allentown to stay with Christina while Keri and Rob took the night off and went to a dinner or somethin'. Christina is only seven weeks old, and she's our first granddaughter.

Only seven weeks old, those big round eyes lookin' out at the world, tryin' to figure out what's goin' on. Kickin' and stretchin' and yawnin' and lettin' out a few squawks once in a while, and gettin' mad as hell if she don't get some milk when she wants it. Well that part went okay. Liddy and I got to know Christina a little better, and she got to know us toowe sort of took turns holdin' her, and tryin' to see which of us was better at gettin' her to shut up. Liddy won that contest easy. Liddy wouldn't let me change Christina's diaper, although I would have if she asked me to. I'd do anything for that kid.

When we wake up in the morning it's a white world. Snow comin' down so hard you couldnt see across the road, and here we are in Allentown 70 miles away from the shop where Liddy has to go to work at 9:30.  But hey, we got a Jeep Cherokee, so no eye problema as our friends in Costa Rica used to say.  We'll just pop that baby into four-wheel drive, and cruise on down to Philly, right?

          Did you ever try to find yer way out of Allentown? Look, I ain't sayin' it can't be done because, you know, people do it all the time, but what happens is you see this sign that says TURNPIKE SECOND RIGHT, and when you take the second right you end up heading back towards the Lehigh Valley Hospital wondering what happened to the turnpike, and trying to get Liddy to stop yelling. You gotta be lucky to get out of Allentown.

After some wrong turns our luck holds, and here we are slushin' down the Turnpike behind this big coal truck. It's eight o'clock in the morning, still dark as Rush Limbaugh's heart, and it's one helluva mess. Everybody's got their lights on and wipers goin', and the snow is comin' down like crazy, and we're tryin to get KWY on the radio so we can find out how bad it is in Philly. This stuff is coming as one big surprisethe forecast we heard yesterday was for a pretty decent weekend, sunny and in the forties. Ha! says Liddy, and for once I agree with her.

So we're behind this big truck, putzin' along about 30 or so, and thinkin' it ain't such a hot idea to pass when you see emergency lights blinking on both sides of the road from snow plows and all, and cars at cockeyed angles in snowbanks.

It's a real nail biter all the way, but it looks like we gave ourselves enough time and somehow we manage to get to Liddy's shop no more than two minutes late, which I figure is at least a small miracle. Well, guess what? The shop is locked, and whoever was supposed to open the place up is nowhere around. So Liddy and me wait about 20 or 30 minutes and nobody shows, and we're thinkin' okay now what do we do? Well, we got one thing goin' for us although it ain't that much. Katie and Jeff, our other daughter and her husband, only live about 20 minutes away, and I need to stop there anyway to pick up some stuff we're movin' into our new apartment down near the Art Museum. So I get the bright idea why don't we leave a note in the door here at the shop, where the snow is still piling up, and then if anybody shows up they can call Liddy and I can bring her back. I'm thinking on this kind of a day maybe they just decided to not even open up, and it don't seem so smart to stand here all day waiting to find out. You say why don't we call somebody? No dice. Liddy's only worked here a few weeks, and she ain't got no phone numbers. Oh by the way, this is a children's clothing shop, so with the weather like this it might not be a surprise if somebody don't want to come out and buy somethin' here.

Okay, so when we get to Katie and Jeff's, while I'm chasin' Andy around the house, see, Andy's a year and a half and he likes to run, and he really likes to run with somebody chasing after him, Liddy decides to call the shop because it drives Liddy nuts waiting for somebody to call her. Yeah, you guessed it, the shop is open and they were just getting ready to give Liddy a call. So we pile back into the Jeep, and on the way back to the shop, Liddy gives me my instructions for the day. I'm supposed to do some grocery shoppingshe gives me a list. The most important thing is to get a windshield scraper. Liddy is sure you can buy one of these at the Superfresh. She also tells me how to use the MAC card and about PIN numbersI have to memorize this PIN number, right? Liddy says you ain't allowed to write the number down anywhere.

So now I'm tryin' to figure out how is the best way to handle all this. Here's what I got to dofirst, go back to Katie and Jeff's and pick up all those boxes I need to move. Oh, I forgot to say we already have a big floor lamp we brought down from Allentown in the back of the Jeep. Look, I know this is getting to be a long story, but hang on. And let me tell you them Jeep Cherokees will hold a loadlast week I unloaded 14 boxes of books at our new place, and Ed the doorman said it reminded him of one a them circus acts where 20 clowns roll out of a VW Beetle. So I load up the Jeep and head off down 63rd street, then left at Chestnut, or is it Walnut?  The one that's one-way into the city. The other's one-way out of the citydon't worry, them Philly traffic people got it all figured out.

So I pull up in front of our new place where you ain't allowed to park except to unload things like I'm doin', and don't forget, the snow is still comin' down buckets. Anyway it takes me four or maybe five trips up to the eighth floor to get all them boxes and that lamp unloaded. By now it's about one o'clock, and I'm thinkin', now I'll go to the Superfresh on Broad Street, take care of the groceries then come back and eat somethin' even though I'm kinda hungry now. On the other hand, Liddy always tells me it ain't a good idea to go grocery shoppin' when yer hungry. But it don't matter what I'm thinkin' because while I was unloadin' the Jeep I forgot to turn off the headlights and it turns out, even a Jeep Cherokee's battery will run down. Anyway, that' s what Ed the doorman tells me when I turn the key and only hear a series of clicks. Ed says, It's yer battery, Loo.  Yeah, that's me, Clarence Waterloo, but people mostly just call me Loo. When I was growin up they called me Clancy, but that's another story. Anyway, Ed says, Them clicks is yer solenoid, Loo, like he knows what he's talkin about. He looks at my battery and says, Loo, you ought to get them terminals cleaned off, and then he asks, Loo, you got Triple A?

            It turns out I do have Triple A so I call the number when Ed lets me use his lobby phone. This coulda been a lot worse you know? I mean, the last time we had to call Triple A was when Katie's car died in rush hour traffic in the middle of the intersection at Walnut and 38th street, or was it Chestnut?. Whatever. So the Triple A guy says We're pretty busy, but we can get to you in about an hour. I say fine with me; I can grab a sandwich in my apartment, and Ed can give me a call when Triple A gets here.

       Well naturally it takes a couple hours, and by the time they get here and give me a jump start it's almost three o'clock, and I ain't done my grocery shopping, and I gotta pick up Liddy at five. And Liddy don't like to wait. The Triple A guy says, Mister, you better get them terminals cleaned off.   Then I get another bright ideayoure probably starting to notice that problem solving comes easy to me. Okay, here's what I'm goin do: I'll take the Jeep out to the garage where we paid 160 bucks last week to get a couple hoses replaced on the transmission system maybe I'll tell you that story sometime. Liddy told me she made em' check everything over so we wouldn't have no more surprises with the Jeep this winter, but I guess they forgot to look at the battery terminals. Anyway, what I'm thinkin' is I'll leave the Jeep at the garage, which ain't too far from where Liddy works, and while they're cleanin' off the terminals, and maybe giving the battery a charge, I'll mush on down to the Superfresh which is only a couple blocks away.

So this is lookin' pretty good. I get to the garage and Steve, the guy behind the counter says he don't see no problem, and I still got an hour and a half before I got to pick up Liddy. By now it's pretty much stopped snowing so, like I said, things are lookin' pretty good. I don't have no big problems at the Superfresh except when I ask do they sell scrapers they tell me to look in aisle nine where it turns out is where the ice cream is. So I get everything on the list except the scraper and Liddy is rightusing the MAC card is easy, even though I got the PIN number wrong the first time. I knew it was either 8166 or 8611, and well, never mind, it came out okay. Oh, one more thing about the Superfreshthem guys are really clever about getting people through the checkout countersdo you know they got one line for five items or less, another for ten items or less, and believe it or not, another line for twenty items or less. I never thought of that, see, but while I'm standin' there looking at all them people with their carts piled up, tryin to figure which is the fastest moving line, and I think it's a nature law that no matter what, youre goin to get in the slowest,  some guy says to me You ain't got that much, why don't you get in the 20 line?" And you know what? I had only 19 items, counting the two bags of radishes as one, and it worked, I got out of there pretty quick, all things considered. And let me pass something on to you. The clerk told me even if I had maybe 25 items he wasn't goin' to say nothin'.

 By the time I lug my two sacks of groceries back to the garage I still got 20 minutes before I got to pick up Liddy, but I see the Jeep is in the same place where I left it.

Steve, I say, I got to pick up Liddy in twenty minutes.  

Steve says they'll get right on it, and not to worry, which is easy for him to say because he don't know how much Liddy hates to wait. I figure I better give her a call because it don't look to me like there is any chance I can get to her on time. So even though I thought I solved the problem, I forgot something that I already knew, which is that you shouldn't expect a garage to have your car ready on time.

But now I had a new problem, which was that I didn't know the phone number of the shop where Liddy was working, and I couldn't figure out where exactly to look in the Bell Atlantic Yellow pages. But Steve is good at problem solving too, and remembers that Liddy was here last week with the Jeep, and he finds her work number in his file. So, to make a long story short, it costs me 30 bucks to get the battery terminals cleaned off and I'm only fifteen minutes late picking up Liddy, which is okay because she had time to go across the street to the hardware store and get a scraper. Liddy knows something about problem solving too, and she thinks I did pretty good with the PIN number and all.

It's about five thirty and we're headin' back to our place when Liddy reminds me, which I forgot, that we are supposed to be at her boss's house for dinner at 7:30. She has directions written on the back of an envelope which she begins to read to me, Take the skookl expressway to the Plymouth Meeting exit onto the Blue Route. Take exit eight to the Germantown Pike West. Go past two stop lights and turn right (Ikea on the right) on Walton road. Go past four stop lights and turn left on Township Line Road . . .

Liddy looks up and sees I got a face. She agrees.  Loo, she says, I think we got a problem.

December 20, 1995