It begins…

This summer (we’re now into autumn), we have been plagued for the first time by incredibly annoying acoustic pollution. Maybe as a kid, you loved hearing the piercing electronic truncated version of Für Elise, because it meant the ice cream truck was coming! Which maybe it did, once a day.

But not all day long, every day. Which is what the apparently-otherwise-respectable-in-terms-of-service gas company Acodike has been doing. When I wrote to complain, they responded that they can’t turn down the volume, because otherwise customers complain that they don’t hear it.

To which I responded, you have not been here the last eight goddam years, so how many customers, seriously, complained about not hearing something that didn’t exist?

End of conversation, needless to say. (I have a bit of a track record when it comes to ending correspondence using logic. A certain attorney in British Columbia comes to mind, but that’s another story.)

So fast forward, and the first deployment of anti-Akodike stickers has begun.

Shut up, Acodike. It’s 2018. We have telephones.

Alas, these are just laser-printed paper labels. They won’t last long. I’ve got some high school kids, equally annoyed by this 1980s-era “marketing,” who may help post these. I say “may” because I delivered them to a couple houses  but not directly to the kids. Ya veremos. We will see.

This label stock is not sold in Uruguay, as far as I can find. I spent $30 to order 100 sheets @10/sheet, plus $7.95 shipping to Gripper, a Miami-Uruguay delivery service, and another $30+ to Gripper to get them here. And promptly trashed a couple sheets learning how to get them to print properly.

But it fits the characteristics of projects I like, such as freelance mentoring of at-risk adolescents in North Carolina, and adopting a bright and funny, but seriously socially disadvantaged 12 year old boy, also in North Carolina:

1. I (we in the latter case) can maybe pull this off;
2. If I/we don’t try to do it, nobody else will, and;
3. It’s worth doing, even if it doesn’t end as you hoped (because it probably won’t, but that doesn’t mean you failed).

FWIW, the 12 year old boy is now cooking at Applebee’s in Prescott, Arizona, and has been awarded MVP (Most Valuable Player) status numerous times, and is training to be an instructor. I’ve lost contact with the others, but that’s OK: I didn’t want be a hero. Helping them navigate a little was enough. As far as I know, they are all doing well.