Wild Bra Chase

Mrs Newbie owes me big-time.

The other day I mentioned that I would be passing her favourite mall later that morning, and unwisely asked if she needed anything. "Yes, please," she replied, coming down the stairs and thrusting something soft into my hand. "Can you go to Macy's and get me two of these, one in white and one in black?"

I looked down at the small object in my hand. It was a beige bra.

Now I'm not a macho kind of guy. I've probably changed as many nappies as my wife (mostly without gagging too), and was recently complemented on my ability to tie my daughter's hair in a ponytail. But women's underwear is something different entirely. Although I don't mind admitting I've undone and removed my fair share for partners over the years, I've never actually bought any myself. The prospect therefore filled me with a certain dread.

Having reached and parked at the mall, my first problem was how to transport the object in question. I couldn't very well stuff it in my trouser pocket or walk around casually holding it my hand, so I emptied some shopping out of a Target bag in the back of my car, and stuffed the bra in there. At least that way I wouldn't draw too much attention to myself. "Here I go," I said, pulling up my man-pants.

After a great deal of searching around Macy's (are these stores designed to baffle men?), I finally found the lingerie department, where I decided against rifling through the racks of women's breast supports like a pervert, opting instead for a more inconspicuous approach: timidly asking an assistant for help.

"I'm sorry," the assistant said rather too loudly for my liking. "We don't sell that brand of bra. That's a Saks label."

So I stowed the bra away again in my Target bag, summoned up some courage for a second attempt, and headed over to the swanky Saks Fifth Avenue store on the far side of the mall. There, in an even more well-concealed nook of the shop, I tracked down their "intimate apparel" department, where a tall, smartly-dressed lady ignored my embarrassed look as I repeated my request and extricated the flesh-coloured undergarment from the Target bag.

After a cursory examination of the bra's label, she said, "I'm terribly sorry, sir. This isn't one of ours. But I'm pretty certain they have it at Nordstrom. Let me give them a call." And without waiting for my approval, she picked up the phone, dialled a number that she clearly knew off by heart, and spoke to her counterpart at Nordstrom.

"Hi Joanne, this is Sara Jane at Saks. I have a gentleman here who's looking for a size medium Luxuria bra in white and in black. Do you have them in stock? You do? Wonderful!" She then turned back to me, brazenly asked for my first name (as only Americans can do), relayed it to her colleague, explained where I had to go, and told me to ask for Joanne. But before hanging up, she said, "By the way, would you also like it nude?"

"Pardon?" I sputtered.
"Joanne wants to know if you'd also like it nude," she repeated with a completely straight face.

This was an optional service I definitely had not expected. Envisioning the prospect of a naked Joanne handing me skimpy undies, I cursed myself for not having bought any before, and was already planning my next shopping spree when the assistant's voice woke me from my reverie.

"Sir, I said, 'Do you also want it in nude: the same colour as the one you already have?'" Kicking myself at my clearly testosterone-fuelled naivety, I apologised for my momentary absentmindedness and shook my head, before heading over to Nordstrom, where a fully-clothed Joanne sold me a white and a black bra, which she delicately folded in paper before placing them in a square, white Nordstrom bag with string handles.

"May I?" Joanne said, gently but firmly taking the plastic Target bag from me and wrapping my wife's bra in with the other two. "You don't need this, do you?" she said, throwing the Target bag in a bin as if it were a soiled nappy.

"No," I lied, hurrying out of the store.

Freedoms

People in the UK may complain about the "nanny state", yet this mumbled dissension is typically British in its muted amateurism. Not so in the US, where the fight for much-vaunted "freedoms" and "liberty" can be and often is taken into every corner of life.

Americans - or rather, a proportion of said people - are obsessed with their freedoms and the supposed, alleged or feared restriction thereof by "Big Government".

Americans have resisted taxation ever since the Boston Tea Party, when disgruntled New Worlders were so incensed by the fact that they were "taxed without representation" (i.e. supported the British crown financially, but couldn't vote - a situation in which, by a quirk of fate, I too find myself, albeit in my case I pay the IRS) that they threw some leaves off a ship. Scary, eh? The current "Tea Party" is simply an extension of this, a movement who claim they have been Taxed Enough Already - hence TEA - and assert the "freedom" to pay less, thus scuppering any attempts to balance the US budget and rein in the national debt.

Another "freedom" vehemently and vociferously defended is the so-called "right to bear arms" based on the rather ambiguous Second Amendment of the Constitution, which reads:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"

Gun-lobbyists like the National Rifle Association believe this permits people to own even assault rifles. As a result, 40-50% of Americans have one or more guns, although only 11% use them for hunting. In all, there are about 190 million guns in circulation spread between a total population of about 310 million.

One of the dafter "liberties" currently under dispute is the argument against the recently implemented healthcare reforms, which demand that everyone must have healthcare coverage. At last count, as many as 15% of Americans - 46 million people - were without health insurance. But now (wealthy) people are demanding the "right" to opt out, claiming mandatory coverage constitutes an infringement of their liberties. Although the case is still going through the courts, it's possible the nay-sayers could yet scupper what was a bold attempt to give more people access to medical treatment.

Finally, I want to mention a "freedom" that is being argued over here in Michigan: the right not to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. At present, all bikers have to wear a helmet. But "freedom-loving people" now want to repeal the 40-year-old legislation on the spurious grounds that, because there is no such law in neighbouring states, Michigan could lose valuable tourism revenues if bikers chose to vacation elsewhere.

"Helmets don't prevent accidents," says the president of the American Bikers Aiming Toward Education Michigan, echoing the NRA's "Guns don't kill, people do" mantra. Seatbelts don't prevent accidents either, but nobody's suggesting we scrap them too - or are they?

Air Conditioning

Air conditioning is another of those American inventions that was a great idea originally, but - like driving and ice in drinks - has been taken to the logical extreme and is thus no longer so great.

If you live in a country in which it can be unbearably hot or unbearably humid and occasionally both, managing the ambient temperature is a shrewd move. It can, for instance, be wonderfully refreshing to go into a cool house when it's baking outside, and when we visited New York last year during a heatwave (the timing was purely coincidental and unintentional), just passing by an open shop doorway gave us renewed energy to pursue our exploration of this fabulous city.

Unfortunately, as mentioned in my preamble, you can get too much of a good thing - quite apart from the extra electricity this consumes (don't get me started on that one). Duly accustomed to such conditioning of their air, retailers, companies, restaurateurs and even private individuals routinely turn the temperature in their shops, offices, eating establishments and homes so low that it is positively unpleasant.

On a recent holiday (sorry: vacation), whenever we entered a hotel room, our first move after dropping our luggage would invariably be to sprint across to the air conditioning unit and switch it off, praying we wouldn't turn into an ice statue along the way.

For similar reasons, Mrs Newbie always has to take a jumper or jacket to work, where the temperature is typically 17°C, though often lower. The same is true in cinemas, concert halls, bars, hospitals, indeed any space that is enclosed.

Perhaps this explains why so many Americans have developed a thermally insulating layer of blubber. There's no other way to survive a trip to the mall without donning full Antarctic all-weather gear.

Fight For Your Rights

As I discovered this morning thanks to that tremendous invention, the Internet, the source of a wondrous array of facts, half-truths and the merely fanciful (not necessarily in that order of magnitude), America is one of only 14 countries worldwide in which it is illegal to buy and consume alcohol under the age of 21. Whatever the pros and cons of this, the law is the law, and deserves to be upheld.

Without revealing too much about myself, it is fair to say that I am in my mid-40s, and although I like to think I don't look my age, I have had independent confirmation from several third parties – Mrs Newbie included – that I could not pass for 20.

I have therefore been irked (yes, irked, no less) for some considerable time that I am required to prove my age whenever I shop at my local Kroger supermarket. A sticker by the cash register, which some similarly senescent person has clearly tried to peel off in their annoyance, declares "If you are under 40, we must ask for ID". Cashiers even have to enter your date of birth in their till in order to authorise any attempted purchases of alcohol.

Time after time, I resolved to resist this blatant overcautiousness on Kroger's part, and time after time I meekly pulled out my driver's licence, only to kick myself afterwards (metaphorically, I hasten to add) for my repeated temerity.

So annoyed was I by this flagrant injustice that I hatched a cunning plan: on a day when my children had wound me up to near breaking point and Mrs Newbie had failed to see my side of the story, I would charge into Kroger, grab some beer and defend my Congress-given right. I would make a fuss, demand to see the manager and win elderly people across America back the prerogative to go into a store armed only with some crumpled dollar bills and declare, "I wish to procure sundry libations" (or whatever the local equivalent thereof may be).

Although all is well in the house of Newbie and the Newblets have for the most part been their darling selves, I resolved this week that the time had finally come. So together with the kids (brought along for defensive purposes only), I drove over to Kroger, picked up a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, filled up a shopping cart with suitable alibi groceries to cast aside angrily should my demands remain unmet, and headed for the meanest-looking cashier in the store.

Trembling with anticipation and pumped with adrenaline, I thought, "This is my date with Destiny. Today is the day that will change America. Henceforth, baby boomers throughout this great nation will no longer live in fear, but be able to purchase alcoholic beverages unchallenged once more".

With my heart thumping in my throat, I unpacked my cart, brazenly placing the Mike's at the very front, and looked the cashier straight in the eye.

"Do you have a Kroger card?" he asked. And that was it.

A new sticker by the till read: "If you are under 27, please be prepared to show your ID".

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Postscript

Less than a week after writing this - on the first day in living memory when, through a chain of coincidences, I did not have my driver's licence on me - I was "carded " at Kroger in spite of the new sticker, which I pointed to (to no avail). Duly summoned, the store manager said, "I'm sure that'll be OK." And it was.

Odd Products

So it tastes of sugar, right?

Flick knives?


For the assassin in your family


Almost

Unmarked Squad Cars

Unmarked police cars are supposed to be hard to spot, right? Well in the States, they're pretty easy to identify - by no fewer than three characteristics:

1. Most of them are Dodge Chargers
Whereas the police car ("interceptor") of choice has always been the Ford Victoria, police departments across the US think the best way to avoid detection is to disguise their vehicles as muscle cars. Perhaps they should be more imaginative in their range of models.

2. Most unmarked vehicles are black
More lack of imagination on the part of the nation's finest. And since relatively few regular cars are black, unmarked squad cars tend to stand out like a sore thumb - not least because they look like normal police vehicles, albeit without flashing lights on the roof or the stickers on the side.

3. Police vehicles have what looks like an extra wing mirror
This is the biggest giveaway of all. Because police officers want to be able to illuminate stopped cars at night without having to get out, they have a spotlight mounted next to the driver's (and sometimes the passenger's) side wing mirror, which they can move around using a clumsy-looking handle that extends inside the vehicle.

As a result, when you see a black Dodge Charger with what appears to be double wing mirrors, you have plenty of time to slow down, stop texting, put down your beer and hide your unlicensed guns before the cops see you.

Lost

Lost: One season. Answers to the name of "Spring".

Spring is a friendly, three-month season whose most distinctive features are sunshine, mild temperatures, leafy trees, flowers and birdsong.

Spring first went missing about a week ago, although it briefly reappeared. However, Spring disappeared completely during a freak winter storm on April 18, which brought about two inches of snow. It has not been seen since.

If found, please return to its owners in suburban Michigan, who miss it dearly and look forward to being reunited with their beloved Spring as soon as possible.