Mike O'Connell

Pokémon cards are now so in demand that local retailers cannot handle the crush of customers (sometimes literally) clambering to obtain them. Target, for example, once one of the world’s go-to spots for Pokémon cards, has just plain given up.
Nerds fighting over pieces of cardboard.
Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry fights an old lady for a loaf of marble rye?Yeah, this is worse.

You hear about the gas shortage?

Depending on where you live you’ve either been not affected at all or you’re in a complete gas desert, apparently a result of your neighbors’ panicking when told they might not be able to buy gas soon, filling up plastic bags and such with gasoline.

(By the way, filling a plastic bag is not a good idea. The government said so. And speaking of governments, and the regulation of gas prices… don’t even get me started, this post is about panic shopping.)

Loudoun County Virginia? Yeah, we panicked.

If soon all of us are just not driving anywhere at least we have a precedent, right? It’s the March 2020 routine!

We were all going to be hiding in our houses avoiding the cicadas anyway, right?

Many holidays have found me confused, not about the spirit of the day or its merit, but rather… how to spell it. (I swear I’ve seen “Presidents’ Day about six different ways.)

Mother’s Day? No such problem.

Seems as though the holiday’s founder (that would be the mother of Mother’s Day) foresaw this potential confusion and in fact codified the spelling! Ms. Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrase “Second Sunday in May, Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, Founder,” in 1912. (The holiday was celebrated with increasing formality for nearly a decade before President Wilson proclaimed it formally in 1914.) Ms. Jarvis specifically noted that “Mother’s” should “be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”

If only all government orders were so clear.

Every so often I like to keep up with what “the masses” are reading, embarking on a fiction journey worthy of third-grade prose and soap opera substance.

That’s me reading 28 Summers, the 2020 beach book written by the dean of all beach book authors, Elin Hilderbrand.

I think my opinion of its literary merit is already clear, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t enjoy the guilty pleasure of such artistic slumming. The book is not without its amusing sections. And I love how the conflicts last only a few pages, like a series of rom-coms all with happy endings.

Case in point, when our protagonist (who, ironically, would laugh at beach books) meets an apparent Mr. Right at a Nantucket bar. (A few pages later it’s revealed he’s married… whoops!) Suitor discloses he doesn’t read much fiction,  perhaps only that related to sports or history or other unwoke subjects. I should have known he was not a perfect mate when he admits his favorite book is David Halberstam’s October 1964.

Ha!

My favorite book!

One of the funnier bumper stickers I’ve seen in recent years reads: “I’d rather be living in an Elin Hilderbrand novel.”

That does sound great…

though I’d probably be the bad guy!

I knew the deGrom jinx would work.

Walking off the mound Wednesday evening, having given up an awful one run in six innings, deGrom’s otherworldly ERA+ had fallen to 744, only about triple that produced by the greatest pitchers in the greatest seasons of all time.

DeGrom has given up exactly two earned runs this season in 35 innings. Both have resulted in losses. His record is 2-2, probably the most spectacular 2-2 in history. He’s pretty much been snakebitten his entire career; remember, this guy won two straight Cy Youngs being a total of four games over .500.

Several times this season deGrom has helped himself at the plate. (Maybe that’s the only way he can get a W.) Alas, ol’ Jake was 0-2 with the bat on Wednesday, his average crashing down to .462.

Still not bad, I guess.