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Burton Cole

I’m out of touch with touch screens

I studied the menu board as I ambled up the counter. But before I could get the word “Quesadilla” out, the teenage punk behind the cash register spoke first: “You have to use the kiosk to order.” He pointed behind me at one of those infernal touch-screen machines. Forty-some years ago, I used to drop quarters into boxes much like that one so that I could use a joystick to send Pac-Man whooshing through a maze to eat ghosts. Now, if I want to eat, I gotta stand at a stupid kiosk that has neither joy nor joystick, and tap photos of what I want to eat. And I don’t insert ...

Hold the pumpkin spice and pass the half-price chocolate

Halloween is past and now it’s the most wonderful time of the year — big sales on trick or treat candy. What did you think I was going to say? Sure stores have been selling Christmas stuff since July, and by October, EVERYTHING comes in pumpkin spice variety. If we still had to lick postage stamps, the adhesive would be pumpkin spice-flavored this time of year. Pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cups make a whole lot more sense than ANYTHING labeled “pumpkin spice.” That’s why this is the most wonderful time of the year — every Nov. 1, big bags of chocolate go on sale for ...

Dads aren’t as dopey as toy commercials claimed

The geezer counting out his change lost track and started counting over. The kid in his 20s bouncing behind him let loose a tirade about the doltishness of old people. “What is this, a nursing home?” the youngster groused. “I mean, look at that guy. He has to be in his 60s. He’s ancient!” Well pardon my silver hair and Medicare card, but 60s is not — I repeat, NOT — old! It used to be old, but it’s not anymore. Back in the last century, I knew that anyone in his or her 40s had surpassed their “best used by” expiration date and could be ignored as feeble of mind. I ...

Love, marriage and … now what did she tell me?

Marital truth of the day: “Nobody is more surprised than a husband hearing about his wife’s plans for the second time.” (Laura Marie Gordon) It’s a tired trope, the one about how husbands don’t actually listen to what their wives say. This is not true. I’m positive that every ...

Things that go bump in the night — ME!

I remember when creepy was cool. As little kids, we spun chilling, ghoulish ghost stories full of severed hands and bloody eyeballs rolling across the floor to see which of us could scare the others the most. We giggled ourselves silly. The more horrific the tale, the louder we laughed and ...

Sheets, ladders and the height of adventures

The teenage girl lowered knotted bedsheets out her second-story window. I sat in the shadows of my balcony, enthralled by the “show” at the apartment building next to mine. When the bedsheets reached the ground, one of two boys loitering on the lawn wrapped the end of the sheet around ...