Wag's Commentary

Hello everyone. I have decided to start off today with a commentary.

Wag's commentary titled "I said it, so you believe it."


I don't know if my memory has faded with early Alzheimer's or if the world around me has changed.

My parents taught me right from wrong, choose your words because they were your bond, and leave the world better than you found it.

I have come to the conclusion that I cannot leave the world better than I found it. Now I must tell my kids I failed because the world has changed.

When older people talk about the old days they are laughed at and simply passed off as old people who don't want to accept change.

Well, 90% of the time when old people "said it, you could believe it."

In this modern world people doing the talking think "I said it, so you believe it" - no questions asked.

Well, my friends, the world has changed and now you have to "question it rather than believe it!"

My case in point, our friend Rick told us Albertson's Supermarket had London Broil on sale, and if you ask the butcher to grind it, it makes wonderful hamburger steaks.

Rick "said it, and we believed it" so the next day off to Albertson's the wife went in search of the perfect London Broil.

She hit the meat aisle on a mission, and alas, there staring at her was the most beautiful 4-1/2 pound London Broil in the meat case. Well, all excited, the wife scooped it up and off to the butcher she went.

"Hello Mr. butcher," she said. "I have this beautiful 4-1/2 pound London Broil and if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you would grind it in your grinder for me."

He sighed and said OK, then he picked it up and into the back he disappeared. A short time later he returned with the original package resealed and handed it to the wife.

The wife reached up and took the package from the butcher and as she was loading it in the basket she said, "Wow, this sure doesn't look like 4-1/2 pounds."

The butcher said it looks different when you grind it up. (I said it, so you believe it.)

So the wife loaded it and off she headed to the cashier to check out. Once at the check stand the cashier stated she also had the London Broils ground and loved them.

The wife said, "I heard they were great, but I am surprised at how small the package was for 4-1/2 pounds."

The cashier said, "No, that's normal." ("I said it, so you believe it.")

When I came home from work, the wife told me she had a great London broil ground so we could BBQ hamburger steaks to see how we liked them, but she asked if I thought it looked like 4-1/2 pounds.

I said I didn't know, then proceeded to make the patties for the BBQ. My intent was to do them in 1/2 pound patties, but I ended up with only 4 patties. At this point what the wife had asked about the amount made sense.

Please get out your scale I requested, which she did, and we proceeded to weigh the meat with a result of 2 pounds 2 ounces from a 4-1/2 pound London Broil.

"Call Albertson's and ask for the store manager," I exclaimed. "They ripped us off."

She called and talked to the manager who said, "Well you know there will be some difference in weight when you grind it." ("I said it, so you believe it.")

She explained to the manager that 2-1/2 pounds was quite a difference, to which he reluctantly agreed and said to stop by and he would give her 3 pounds to make things right.

So the wife asked if I would mind running to the store and picking it up and grabbing some more while it was on sale.

So off to Albertson's I went, fully expecting some sort of confrontation when I got there.

Well, I was not disappointed. I picked out a 2 pound 9 ounce piece(for the 3 pounds he offered) and a beautiful 5 pound London Broil to grind as well.

I then ventured to the butcher lady with my request to grind the London Broil and she said, "Oh, you are the one who called in about being short on your meat."

To which I replied yes, and she said, "Well, come with me, let me show you something."

She then shows me the grinder and says, "See this area and that area where there are particles of meat left over? That is why your package was not the same weight as before it was ground." ("I said it, so you believe it.")

I then laughed and said, "Lady, you people ground up a 4-1/2 pound London Broil and gave us 2 pounds 2 ounces. Do you really expect me to believe 2-1/2 pounds were in the areas you have shown me?"

She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well, where could it have gone then?

This my friends is a sad commentary. No longer can you take someone at their word! Now it is "you said it, so I don't believe it!"

From now on when the wife or I ask for something ground, we will request they place the final product on the scale to verify we aren't being cheated!

The happy ending to this story is that Rick is old school and he told us it would be good and it was. So in Rick's case "I said it, so you believe it" is true.








While I am in the comment mode, this frosts me as well:

Waiters Say Diners Could Use Tips on Tipping

NEW YORK - Waiting tables is a stressful job and sometimes not even lucrative, given servers' sticky reliance on tips for income.

In some states, restaurants are only legally required to pay as little as $2 or $3 an hour. So if a server earns $30 in tips on a bad night, he could feasibly walk out having earned less than minimum wage after tipping out the bartender and busboys (a common practice in most restaurants).

To level the playing field, waiters are taking action. Some are resorting to guerrilla tactics - it's not uncommon for waiters to personally confront stingy tippers, or to blog about them on sites such as WaiterRant.Net.

One former waiter, Yakup Ulutas, is proposing restaurants change the system. Ulutas, a 36 year-old restaurant manager in Atlanta, founded a nonprofit organization, Fairtip.org, to persuade restaurants to implement an automatic 20 percent service fee on every check. He estimates 2,500 waiters have joined.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a server who wouldn't love to see his or her employer slap an automatic tip on to every check. But wouldn't it make more sense for restaurants to hike prices by 20 percent and raise workers' salaries?

"That wouldn't work," Yakup says. "Many restaurants wouldn't be able to afford to pay higher wages."

OK, I'm not a math major, but if they hiked their prices by 20% and had a no-tipping policy, why wouldn't they be able to afford to pay higher wages? I'm good with that.

As far as including tips as salary, that is between the owner and the employee. Tips were invented to show appreciation to people like Flo at the diner who waited, bused, set up the tables, carried six plates of food at a time, and never let your coffee cup or water glass get empty.

Now you have someone who sets a rate for tipping! Gimme a break - give me good service and I will give you a good tip!! Good service means I never have to ask for catsup, butter, water, or anything else.

Using this logic, everyone should get tips, so stop the street sweeper, the garbage man, the gas man, the power man, the 7-11 clerk and so on and so on and tip them!!

What a world - it's the me generation - no work required!!!





Thank goodness it's Friday as we are all stressed out. Come back Saturday and check out all the news you can use.