I found a list of possible brokers via Lending Tree, and contacted each of them. They were all eager to write up a deal, except that both Peter and I are self-employed, and as such, couldn’t provide a pay stub to prove our employment. We needed to show two years of federal tax returns, and even then, our 2008 tax return wasn’t sufficient. One broker tried to work with me to try to get a refinance rolling before we could put our 2010 tax return together, but it was a stretch.

Then before I knew it, Peter had contacted Amerisave, a brokerage which advertises wildly all over the place, and which had given him a song and dance that they could do what all the other brokers couldn’t do. (They were not one of Lending Tree’s suggestions, by the way.) But as it turns out, they were a massive waste of time, and stressful nightmare as well.

The days of Happy Happy Lenderman, the madness that had every single financial institution handing over gobs of money to anyone who wanted a house and was able to sign a document, were clearly long gone. Every day, the Amerisave agent instructed me to send him more and more financial documents. We send in our 2009 income tax return, with both of our Schedule C (sole proprietor business profit report). We also had to send in our current business licenses, asset depreciation forms, and both of our Schedule A’s (business expense details.) But, wait, there was more! Peter sells software, so they needed to see his 809 sales tax form, too. Even that wasn’t enough. They needed the last 3 months of our bank statements, both business and personal, and asked for Peter’s 401K fund statement. Finally, we completed our 2010 income tax form as soon as we could (much thanks to our new bookkeeper), and waited for the loan to come through. We’d been promised underwriting would take just a few days, given that we’d already submitted all the other data already.

And then our Amerisave agent disappeared. Yup, he just up and went missing. I’m already protective about my financial data and had been suspicious Amerisave needed bank statements, so it really freaked me out. I asked Peter how legitimate Amerisave really is. I tracked down the agent’s boss, who was equally flaky, and after two calls, pooped out on us too. AUGH!

I was hating life. I do not like sending my bank statements to strangers, no way, no how. And for this, we got nothing.

Whereupon Lending Tree called me (as had the other brokers, who were still eager to do business with us.) I was crazed by this point, but Peter talked to the agent, Pat, who guaranteed us she would get us a loan at the rate we wanted. The catch was, Lending Tree wanted $4000 for the process, but we’d never have to pay it again if we did another refinance through them. Personally, I had to get out Excel and do some calculations to figure out if this was worth doing again. It was. But given that just a few years ago, banks couldn’t give their money away fast enough, I was more than a little miffed that we, with more than adequate income and as residents in our home for more than 15 years, were suddenly being treated with more caution than the itinerant gardener who bought 5 houses, and surprise, surprise, couldn’t pay for any of them.

Well, I’d scanned the copious amount of documents we’d sent to Amerisave, so getting it over to Lending Tree was easy enough, if still tedious. But all that still wasn’t enough. On top of it, we had to write a sworn and witnessed document that the closing funds wouldn’t make Peter’s business insolvent. We had to sign forms letting the lender check that the numbers we showed on the tax returns we sent in matched those on the forms the IRS received (as if we’d fake a tax return!!) We had to write a signed and witnessed letter saying we weren’t taking out any new loans, because we had a bunch of credit inquires (from the brokers who were trying to get us a loan, including Lending Tree itself). I had to come up with profit and loss statements for both my business and Peter’s. Oh, and we needed a letter from a CPA confirming our businesses were solvent and would not be affected by the refinance, even though the same business(es) had been perfectly able to pay the current loan for the last 15 years.

I forget what the last straw was, but it was just too much. The agent wanted us to take out $10,000 more than we needed so that the closing costs wouldn’t be taken from the business Peter owns. In short, from being giddy with their funds, the banks are now like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, clinging to their credit lines like they’re the One Ring. It was like they had all been communally on some euphoric drug, and suffered a sudden withdrawal or side effect which left them utterly and completely paranoid. A bank makes money by lending it out, but they couldn’t do it any more because they’d already given it away to people whom anyone rational knew (even without the underwriting that was clearly never done) would never be able to pay it back. And, now, here we were, solvent, sober, and successfully self-employed, getting an underwriting work-over that was just too much.

Agent Pat told us only three banks are still writing any home loans at all: Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Everyone else, it seems, may be on the verge of collapse, desperately hoping to turn around their foreclosures and praying there will be no more.

In the end, we got our refinance, at a lower rate, screaming and kicking all the way through, and paying an extra $4000 just to get a broker who wouldn’t do a quick fade a month in. But the bank that has the new loan still can’t get its paranoia under control. They’ve twice sent me letters demanding proof of home insurance, threatening to make me pay for their own overpriced home insurance, and ignored all the information and documentation I’ve sent, proving, that, yes, indeed, we have home insurance, and, yes, indeed, they are listed as the mortgagee. The insurance broker has now promised me they’ve been faxed the information directly to the bank, but we’ll see.

One good thing that came from the mortgage euphoria crash is that friends who used to be priced out of home-ownership can now afford real estate. But if you need a loan, it’s clearly a hassle to get one, especially if you’re self-employed. It’s no wonder more houses than ever are being sold for cash to investors who have enough at hand; and though I love my “slumlord” friends who have rescued decrepit property and fixed it up for rent, I’d rather more people could buy their own homes at prices they can pay. In short, the insanely paranoid underwriters may be almost as bad as the insanely euphoric ones of the recent past.

I’m not sure I agree. Effectively, I’ve already been in that time machine and the Vegas that was, was an adults-only place. Today’s Vegas is far more mainstream, and fun for people of all ages, tastes, and money.

I first saw Las Vegas in 1980, when my mother and I crossed the country from San Diego to western Massachusetts to visit my cousin (once removed) Louise. On the way back, I convinced my mother to stop over in Las Vegas. I wanted to see Caesars Palace, which was the epitome of glamor to my teenage self, in no small part because it had recently been featured in a TV movie starring my favorite actor, Omar Sharif. (Yeah, that was atypical about me, but it sure beat swooning over Leif Garrett).

There was little I could do in Las Vegas. When I walked into Caesars Palace with my mother, a security guard shooed me out of the casino, directing me to walk on a pathway on the edge that made sure I didn’t go near any of the games. We could and did walk around the front, where I posed with my mother in front of one of the Roman statues:

The drive-up entrance to the casino was far more modest than it is today:

As viewed from Caesars Palace, the rest of the Strip was far smaller and less impressive than it is today. There’s no Venitian, Wynn, or Encore. Tom Jones? Didn’t he do a Prince cover?

My mother and I (always budget travellers) stayed right on the strip in a modest motel called the Tam O’Shanter.

I didn’t see Las Vegas again until 2002 when Peter’s parents moved to nearby Henderson, Nevada. It was dramatically different. Not only was it fresher and glitzier than it had been, all three generations could go out and have a fun time together. We looked at the lions at the MGM Grand, watched the 3D M&M experience in a small mall that had sprung up on the Strip, and watched the pirates fight at Treasure Island. We rode the gondolas at the Venetian and saw street performers put on free shows underneath a video canopy at Fremont Street. Back at Caesar’s Palace, we could go shopping and I had my picture taken with Caesar, Mark Anthony, Hannibal, and Cleopatra. We often had to walk through casinos to get to the entertainment, but it was ok to have children as long as they were moving in a direction.

But I suppose I can see some of the appeal of old Vegas. It was a time when adults had no qualms about segregating some forms of entertainment and their children. These days, even entertainment that ought to be restricted just isn’t. Go into an R-rated movie and you’re more likely than not to find an 8-year-old munching popcorn next to you as the actors on screen simulate a steamy sex scene. My friends threw an adults-only Halloween party, and I walked in to find a couple handing their toddler around for adoration to people in bondage gear. Honestly, people, I love my kids, but I don’t love yours, and I sure as hell don’t want them asking me to help them pull up their pants while I’m trying to play a poker game. Children just weren’t in the scene in 1980 Las Vegas, and while that limited its pull, it almost certainly had its own appeal in just that aspect.

These days there’s very little children may only experience upon reaching a certain age, and that’s only because of legal restrictions, not societal ones. And even then, it’s not necessarily something to look forward to: I don’t even know if my children will smoke, drink, gamble, or watch strippers. But if you want an environment that doesn’t have children in it, you almost always have to choose a place that specializes in one of the above vices.

In any case, thanks to the grandparents willing to do some babysitting, Peter took me to enjoy the glamor of Caesars Palace that I couldn’t experience in 1980. We dressed up, and went to the high-limit area, where I watched him play a few hands of baccarat between a dour Chinese man with a suitcase full of $100 bills, and a young millionaire from Arkansas. It was a lovely sociable experience, and we spent some of Peter’s winnings in a casino bar with silhouetted dancers and showy bartenders. So if you want the adult fun, modern Las Vegas will give it to you, too. But it’s got something for everyone now.

Along one edge of the booth, Fujitsu was demonstrating waterproof electronic tablets against a picture of people using them in the bathtub and next to a kitchen sink, together with a proud announcement that the tablets had a gesture interface. I used a few known gadget gestures by the tablets, and nothing happened. So I turned to a young woman in a Fujitsu shirt nearby and asked her how the gesture interface worked. She smiled blankly at me, looked at the tablets in puzzlement, and confessed she didn’t know anything, but if I were to go up into the booth, I might find out more.

I found no tablet experts, but I did see the Fujitsu femtocell. I write about femtocell/microcell technology, so I was very interested. I turned to another young woman stationed near the cell and asked her which carrier it worked with. She whirled into a lame explanation of what a femtocell is, boosting cell phone signals. Yeah, I know that, but which carrier does it work with, i.e. AT&T? Verizon? Sprint? Finally someone else (not with the Fujitsu booth) informed me that the Fujitsu femtocell only works in Japan. Um, OK.

I turned the corner to find most of the booth babes clustered around a male booth babe clutching a smart phone to his chest. On the screen in front of him, a cartoon image of Miss Japan was telling him exactly how to hold the smart phone. Between garbled instructions on screens and a bevy of guesses from his fellow booth babes, he leaned right, then left.

What is this, I asked? It was some fitness thing, a booth babe told me. Maybe it would tell him how tight his pects are, or something. How does it work? I asked, hoping for a more coherent answer. Thereupon, one of the brighter booth babes let me know smartphones have a “gyro-thingie” in them which can sense how far you’re leaning. In my world, it’s called an “accelerometer” and it’s nothing new, but I guess Fujitsu has rebranded it as a “gyro-thingie” for booth babes who want to measure how babely they are, by Japanese standards.

Had Zoolander and Hansel appeared and instructed the collective staff to have an “I’m Too Sexy for My Fujitsu Shirt” walk-off, it would have been a better, more effective booth. As it was, Peter and I walked away appalled at the extraordinary waste of space and our time. I have no idea what Fujitsu is doing, but it’s clearly not interested in marketing itself to U.S. tech experts.

I did try out Groupon a few times. We bought 4 discounted tickets to Downtown Ice in the Circle of Palms so we could all go ice skating together as a family, and that was fun. This Halloween, while Kelly was a Brownie sleepover, I used half price Groupons so the rest of the family could run through the delightfully cheesy Alien Extreme experience, to which we wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. And a few months ago, I picked up a Groupon for $20-for-$10 at Smoke Eaters, a place we hadn’t visited in years, and which we ended up revisiting after our Groupon use.

So then, when I saw a Groupon to get a car detail, I thought I’d splurge and finally get my Toyota cleaned after its 4 years of hard use as a child receptacle and homeschool bus. I only rarely get a car detail, though I’m well aware of its benefits. Way back in another life, I worked briefly for the used car department of a major auto dealership. All the used cars got a full detail, and it did wonders for their marketability. A car that had come in smelling horribly and fully begrimed inside and out was transformed into near-new within a few hours.

It’s not cheap, though theoretically, you can do it yourself in a few hours with a steam cleaner and a few extra supplies you can find at a local auto supply shop. But I don’t even wash my own car, much less set aside 4-5 hours to scrub away at every nook and cranny and do a full waxing. The last time I splurged for a detail, I only paid for the interior detail, which cost $125 at the local car wash. So even for such a detail, the $85 Groupon for a “$225 value” looked to be worthwhile, and I bought it.

Two weeks after I bought it, I called for an appointment, hoping to get my car spick and span before we planned to go visit some friends in Walnut Creek the next weekend. To my surprise, and horror, I was told the very first appointment that was available was 6 weeks later, on December 20. I was appalled at my mistake in purchasing the Groupon. At the car wash, I could get a detail by just stopping in. Here I’d have to wait 6 weeks!? My life is hectic and packed with activities that rush onto my calendar all the time, how could I possibly know if I’d still be free on December 20? As it was, within a few weeks, my December 20 was booked with another event, and I had to reschedule again, this time for January 6. Nine weeks in order to use my purchase? I don’t like that at all. I never book hairstylists or restaurants who tell me their only appointments are weeks in advance. I loathe Comic Con because of the necessity of having to book everything a year in advance. And here I was with a non-refundable purchase for a service I wouldn’t ordinarily have bought, and I was on the hook for leaving that day so far in advance free and clear.

By the time Car Detail Day finally came around, I was way too ramped up about it. I had never heard of this auto detailer before; would they still be there by the time I got there? Would they really let me use my Groupon, or tell me I need to reschedule once again? To my relief, when I arrived, they had me in their calendar. The shop was pleasant, as was the staff diligently toiling away at two other cars, which looked very shiny and clean. In a little over 4 hours, my car was sparkling: the windows de-gunged, every cranny swiped clean, the upholstery and mats steam-cleaned, and the outside not only washed, but also polished with a protective coating to protect the paint underneath. That same level of service would have cost $300 at my local car wash, if not more, so for $85 it was a really, really good deal.

I expressed my delight at the work, but also told the business I wouldn’t be able to deal with another 9-week wait, even though their regular prices are more than competitive. Apparently, long waits are a common side-effect of a Groupon promotion. The pro who had helped me explained that they’d done the Groupon promotion to put the word out about their services, and it had more than exceeded their expectations. In the 3 days they’d had the deal up, they’d sold more than 750 Groupons, and they were now booked solid into April. Looking at Yelp, it’s clear that they’ve received a lot of reviews from people who used their Groupons to go there, so clearly many more people know about their business and are talking about it than would have ever been the case otherwise. He offered me the same amazing price for the same service once again if I came back after April, but honestly, I don’t know.

But I value being in control of my own schedule, and I’m not that hard-core of a bargain hunter. After this, I will never buy a Groupon that requires a booking. There’s very few services or activities I’m willing to wait months for, and I appreciate someplace that lets me just drop in or make an appointment at my convenience, not theirs. Should I desire another car detail, I might call around rather than just dropping in at the car wash, now that I know independent services may offer more for less. But I’ll also book at a business that can get me in quickly, rather than one that is overwhelmed by its own promotion.

So is it worthwhile for a business to use Groupon? I wish this one had perhaps limited its number of offerings more, and/or staggered them in different stages, but I don’t know the logistics and cost involved for a business in setting up a Groupon. I prefer finding new businesses at charity auctions, where the business gets a full tax-deduction and the charity gets money, but I’ll admit the audience is far smaller. And we’re so saturated with advertising everywhere and anywhere, I don’t think local advertising is at all as effective. There is something to be said for getting a potential customer to walk in your door and try you out, but if they have to wait in a long line to do so, you probably lose out on a lot of people like me. And my favorite local businesses are already working hard to keep my loyalty, with frequent promotions, discounts, and exclusive services tailored to me.

So, hopefully, the Groupon promotion will work out for the local auto detailer, and he’ll receive lots of return business from at least some of the customers who had their cars detailed, and understood the value of his service. But I find the Groupon crowd effect unpleasant. Good luck, Groupon groupies, but I’d rather pay more to be somewhere else than where you’re at.

Having been a freelancer, and thus responsible for my own taxes and benefits (like health care and unemployment savings) for most of my working life, I’ve never found the state an effective provider of the services I want. Yes, there is something to be said for pooling our resources for a mutually-needed service, like public safety, cross-country roads, and parkland. But:

1. No matter how much you pay, it is never enough.

I have lived in California most of my life. When I moved here, the sales tax was 5%, the top personal state income tax rate was 7%, and the schools were good, the parks were clean, and the roads drivable. Now it’s 7.75% sales tax (just dropped from 8.75%) and the governor is jonesing for a vote that’ll give us the highest personal state income tax rate in the nation at 12% and most schools are nigh-unusable, the roads are falling apart, and there’s not enough money to lock up car thieves. I hear moans on the injustice of Proposition 13, which had to be voted in as old people were being forced out of homes they could no longer afford to pay the taxes on, without any consideration that shortly thereafter, we instituted a lottery to replace said lost income. Housing has gone up in price, so the amount of money that comes from property tax is similar to that paid by homeowners in other states; the lottery brings in millions, but it’s still not enough.

People, no matter how much you give the state, it will never be enough for all the things the politicians want to spend it on. Feel free to speculate and debate amongst yourselves on how this money is being mis-spent, or why those greedy people who do have money run away with it rather than keep watching it flow into Sacramento and disappear. But the more you give the government, the more it’ll spend, and once you’ve started spending on one thing or another, it’s impossible to stop.

It might hurt a little less if it weren’t also for the fact that:

2. No one ever says thank you

When someone pays me, I am grateful. But when I fill out a form and send the required funds (which are coerced, not asked for) to the appropriate agency, more often than not, I am punished for it. The EDD and the IRS constantly lose forms, which I then have to recreate and send to them again and again, not that my time is worth anything to them. Peter moved his business to San Jose, but rather than receiving a welcome from the Chamber of Commerce, as soon as he paid for his $300 business license, he received a demand for 2 years’ worth of fees and penalties just ‘cuz. A string of incompetent accountants resulted in me doing the back taxes for a small corporation for several years, and the State promptly cashed, but did not credit, the exorbitant (one of the highest in the nation) $800 franchise tax fee for one of the years, and sent us a nasty, incorrect bill. When I called, I was connected to a snotty, imperious agent who insisted she would not deign to talk to me, the mere mortal whose signature and name were at the bottom of each form, but only to one of the members of the board. Really, honey, only the CEO will do for you? When you’re going to be treated like tax-evading scum whether you’re honest or not (and more often when you are honest), is it any wonder some people prefer to hide their income instead of having to deal with the lords of the state?

and

3. If they’re right, you pay. If they’re wrong, you pay.

The first year I paid my income tax, I received a nasty little letter from the IRS demanding thousands for back taxes my mother had said she’d paid on my trust, but hadn’t, since the IRS had taken the liberties to simply suck taxes off it themselves. I had to pay a forensic accountant to recreate years of investments, returns, and tax rates, and in the end, they owed me $1, and took their sweet time paying up. Another year, I sent in my state income tax, and whoever processed the form, threw away the check. I had the check stub and registered proof of delivery, but I had to pay late payment penalties on a payment I made in time.

When they make a mistake, they don’t have to do right by you, and in fact, they can do all sorts of harm to you, seizing your assets and payments until you finally manage to get it corrected. If you make a mistake, the penalties appear the second you’re even a penny short of what you should have paid, and keep snowballing: and they’ll take their sweet time applying your correction to your record. Even my favorite tax lawyer has trouble dealing with them, because an auditor is free to interpret the laws on the books more freely than he or a judge may.

So don’t get me wrong. I’m not an anarchist or a libertarian. I don’t mind tithing some of my income to libraries and schools, to parades and police pensions. I doubt I’ll receive Social Security, at least not in any amount I could ever expect to live on, and also think it’s stupid to drop expensive bombs on Libya for no clear reason. Beyond that, I don’t care to debate how much should go where, and what is more important that other things. But I. Have. Paid. Enough. So don’t self-righteously go about telling me I need to pay even more than I already am, because taxes suck.

We called the police, and with Peter’s powerful binoculars, kept looking at the figures in the dark. Meanwhile, a guy came out of a house closer to us and started looking through stuff in a truck bed in the driveway. He didn’t seem alarmed by the action 3 doors away, so either our call was a false alarm; he was somehow associated; or, more than likely, he couldn’t see what we were seeing from our second story vantage point.

The police arrived fairly quickly, and since we weren’t able to give them a clear address, they first drove up to talk to the guy looking through the truck. I ran out and told the police officer the activity we were calling about was actually down the street, and he walked over there, and I went back into the house.

As it turned out, the guys with the flashlights were the homeowners working on their car in the dark, but luckily for neighborhood harmony, they weren’t mad: in fact, they’d heard about the boogeyman Andrew Clark Bergman, too, so they were grateful for the nosy paranoid neighbors.

A second policeman arrived, and, to everyone’s surprise, the guy at the truck freaked out and jumped over a fence (not of the house he’d come out of.) No one was more surprised that the owner of said house, who grabbed a baseball bat and chased the guy right back out, straight into the policemen who were right on the scene.

As it turned out, the guy at the truck was a fugitive with 3 arrest warrants on him, who was hiding out at his mom’s house. The police frisked him and pulled out a wallet bulging with other people’s credit cards. He claimed he’d just found them, but that was an awful lot of credit cards to have just found, much less carry around in one’s wallet.

By this time, Peter and I were back out of the house, and we had a veritable neighborhood mini-party going on, with the fugitive as our major entertainment. The fugitive’s mom said he’d run away from rehab, which she was paying thousands of dollars for. We all agreed the fugitive was mightily lucky that he’d jumped into the backyard of a neighbor wielding a baseball bat, rather than a gun. In fact, one of the policemen informed us, there’d recently been just such an incident with a fugitive who met the wrong end of a shotgun as he ran into the wrong backyard fleeing the police.

In the end, all was well, and the fugitive got a car ride to the county jail. Now he’s well known, so maybe his mom’s place is no longer such a good hiding spot. On the other had, I fear, that like Andrew Clark Bergman, he won’t be staying in jail for long, and he’ll soon be “finding” more credit cards to fuel his addictions.

I have no idea of his current whereabouts, but the possibility that he may be hiding out down the street, ready to pimp-roll himself into our driveway each night makes him the perfect boogeyman. Don’t leave anything valuable in the car, or Andrew Clark Bergman will smash the windows and take it. Lock the car doors, or Andrew Clark Bergman will crawl into your car and leave a layer of skeeze behind. Lock the front door or Andrew Clark Bergman will ooze in and steal your homework. And just think, Andrew Clark Bergman could be skeezing through your neighborhood, too!

To memorialize the anniversary of the theft and brief return of Peter’s PT Cruiser, we bought additional locks for the garage and back yard, purchased a laser sight for one of our pistols, and accidentally rousted a fugitive (though not, alas, Andrew Clark Bergman.)

To be fair, Andrew Clark Bergman is not our first family boogeyman. Until he came along, our family boogeyman was a former colleague-of-sorts whom I’ll call Flounder. Flounder had bad manners and a particular, peculiar enmity with the department I was working for at the time, so he constantly stymied my project. My supervisor hated him, and worst of all, every time Flounder called me, I‘d get chewed out.

I never actually met Flounder in person, and I doubt he lives up to the character we built up for him as a family. Peter attached a picture of Jabba the Hut to Flounder’s contact information in my contact list. We still have Halloween boxes which Kelly decorated with a worm like figure with eyes and mouth, with stink lines coming off, with the words “Flunder” underneath them. After all, Flounder was the scariest figure we knew.

But poor Flounder! Now he’s all but forgotten, and unlike Andrew Clark Bergman, who’s wanted in at least three states, Flounder is undoubtedly not wanted at all, anywhere. And this year’s Halloween boxes may have another set of Andrew Clark Bergman mug shots on them to properly spook them up.

One of the cutbacks that’s been the toughest has been the one for the libraries. As a homeschooler with two passionate readers for children, I go to the library a lot. Last year, the library had to close on Mondays, and have only half days on Fridays, raised late fees to 50 cents/day/item, and limited reserves to 5 per card. Eventually, we got used to it. This year, they made more cuts, so each branch library is open only 4 days a week, but they also staggered the schedules, so some branches are open some days while others are not.

As with any change, there’s a transitional period when everyone adjusts. I hit the wall quickly. I had several books which were coming due, so I planned a visit to my branch on the first day it was open that week. To my surprise, I was hit with late fees for two books which had been due when my library was closed. Now, I’m not a schmuck when it comes to late fees. I’ve been hit with them when I don’t pay attention, and I’ll pay those, but with the higher late fees, I’m motivated to pay attention a lot more. But I thought it was somewhat reasonable not to expect me to return books to a closed library.

The librarian I spoke to was unsympathetic, which was unusual. I’ve come to know and love my regular librarians. They’ve admired Kelly’s drawings and helped her find books she wanted; they help Neil locate hard-to-find books from distant libraries; they put on fun and chaotic storytimes and events; they’ve even forgiven me for two books Kelly put in the bathtub, and which I would have had to pay $16 each to replace. So I figured, given the circumstances, I might get $1 waived since the library, as I said, wasn’t open.

But, no. Apparently the proper thing to do, according to the unsympathetic librarian (who I also had never seen at my branch before), was for me to have come to the closed branch and dropped it in; or to have driven across town to one of the branches open that day, never mind the inconvenience or pointlessness of that. I complained some more, and she told me I should write to my city councilman, Don Rocha.

Undoubtedly, she expected me to whine about the library cutbacks. But it’s tough all over in the city. The wonderful Fourth of July fireworks festival ended in 2008; the Cinco de Mayo parade was cancelled this year; the parks and recreation department lost most of its funding for programs for the disabled; and the San Jose police, who can find stolen cars, run down gangbangers, and chase the skeezeballs out of town, had to lay off a sizable portion of their force and reform their pension plans. What part of there is no money does not compute?

As it turned out, my problem wasn’t the city council, but rather a bad librarian. We had yet another issue when Kelly tried to check out a book which had been reserved but not yet pulled. I generally hate politicians, so I wasn’t pleased I was being goaded to write to one, and I was vocal about it. Thereupon, seeing my record, I also noticed the LINK+ book I’d given to the bad librarian to check in had never been checked in. LINK+ books are inter-library reserves, and the librarians I normally deal with advise me strongly to always turn them in in person rather than dropping them in the book slot, since the overdue fee on them is $1/day, and if there’s no proof they’re checked in and they disappear, that’s a sweet $125 you have to kiss goodbye. I suppose that’s one way an embittered librarian can earn her day’s wages off of people who are reluctant to shake down the city council, but it doesn’t really make for a positive long-term relationship like I have with the regular librarians at my branch. Luckily, this time, I was speaking to a librarian who wasn’t devoted to sucking every last possible penny out of library goers, and she bothered to go find the LINK+ book and check it in as it should have been done while I was being lectured on how I should now be driving all over town to return books, and if I didn’t like it, to go whine to the city council.

I did write to Don Rocha, but I praised him for being brave in making cuts, probably not what the bad librarian was hoping I’d do. As it turns out, she was also wrong about who my representative is, because, as I thought (and was hoping was still the case), my city council representative is the lovable Nancy Pyle, a frequent presence at community events, and one of the judges who awarded Kelly a “most beautiful” ribbon in the Memorial Day Parade. In any case, Don Rocha looks like a pretty good council member, too. I advised him that maybe the city should sell the Hayes Mansion and the Mexican Heritage Plaza if they’re not making money. As for the libraries, I see there’s just one librarian who need to be fired, because she obviously cares more about politics and her own hide than she does about the citizens of San Jose.

Way back, when I was his age, I, too, had been offered the opportunity to sell Cutco knives, so sharp they can slice through rope, and guaranteed to last a lifetime! But my mother nixed that when I told her the first thing I was required to do was buy a set of knives. But now I could get the demo myself, and find out if Cutco’s sales division works the same as it ever did. “I’m in kid, stop by on Friday,” I told him. He asked if Peter would be there, a question I found somewhat curious, and when we told him, no, he said it would be real swell if Peter could come, too.

Well, we had some miscommunication, because I thought he would come to my house where I could test the Cutco cutlery against my own, but instead he expected me to go over his grandmother’s. So I grabbed a handful of my favorite knives and went over there.

He was really disappointed Peter didn’t come along. There was a script, undoubtedly what he’d been told he had to follow, or somehow the customer would lose the plot and not understand all the excellent features of Cutco knives and the wide variety of knives and gift sets available for me to buy, though certainly I would want the top of the line full set. I know it was a script, because I kept knocking him off it, so he had to find his place again and again. Full tang, yadda yadda, sharp serrated edges which are super cool, made in America and a trusted best-selling brand since 1949. Been there, heard that. I just wanted to see the rope trick, compare them against my favorite Global knives, and find out how much a set of steak knives cost, because I could use more steak knives, and this is after all, the neighbor’s grandson, working a job when so many teens are utter slackers.

To my dismay, he’d lost the rope, and only the official demonstration rope would do. I so wanted to cut the rope with a Cutco knife. I did get to slice through some leather with a Cutco knife, and then with my Global paring knife, though. When it came to slicing a lemon, the Cutco knife could slice as thinly as my Global knife, which was nice. I told him the delicious marketing factoid that Global knives were made by the same craftsmen who made samurai swords. He tried my Global knife and opined that it was awfully heavy, and didn’t I get fatigued with such a heavy knife, and wouldn’t a lil’ lady like me prefer the lightweight Cutco counterpart instead? I gave him the stink eye. I like some heft in my kitchen implements, and when I no longer have the strength to wield my 9.5 ounce Global butcher knife, I’ll probably be living off pureed food at the assisted living facility.

There were some things about Cutco knives I never knew or perhaps had forgotten. Though they are so excellent and sharp, you don’t have to sharpen them, after 10 0r 15 years, you may want to sharpen them, in which case Cutco will do it for you for free, give or take an $8 shipping and handling fee. But I love sharpening my samurai swords, er, Global knives, and what’s up with the knife sharpener I see in the Cutco catalog? I eventually let that die.

The kid touted the Cutco guarantee which promises me a new knife should it break, a guarantee he guaranteed me was not offered by those other high-end knife manufacturers like Wüsthof or Henckels. I looked at my Global chef’s knife which is so solidly constructed I’d have to be chopping wood with it for it to break, in which case, I don’t really deserve a new knife. Well, he pointed out, the handles are ergonomic, designed by an ergonomics scientist who tested his designs against hundreds of hands to make the perfect handle, only available on Cutco products. I asked how these dorky-looking plastic handles compared against the less-dorky -looking-but-also-touted-as-ideally -ergonomic Oxo brand handles. The kid didn’t know from Oxo, and anyway, my hands have never complained about the knives I use now, so I don’t care.

I still wanted to know what these Cutco knives cost, especially a set of steak knives, which were beginning to look less and less appealing. But, no, first I had to hear the rest of the spiel. Cutco makes a whole bunch of other kitchen tools, which have a lip so you can hang them on the edge of a pot without worrying that they might slip in when you step away. They also make hunting knives, which I’m sure has Cabela’s quaking. And an ice scream scooper that is always at room temperature, no matter how much ice cream you scoop. I have an ice cream scooper just like it, but I’d left it at home so we couldn’t do a whose-ice-cream-scooper-stays-at-room-temperature-the-longest test.

Finally, I got to see the price list. The Cutco chef’s knife cost $90, about $20 less than the Global equivalent. A set of steak knives cost $130. $130! I decided I no longer cared to get a new set of steak knives. My guests have never complained about the el cheapo steak knives I set them up with, and if I served up something so tough it required a Cutco knife (or a recently sharpened Global knife) to cut, they’d be complaining about a lot more than just inadequate cutlery.

But I still wanted to quiz the kid about the business. Had he had to buy the demo knives, as I would have had to? He said no, but if he sold $10,000 worth of Cutco goods in his first two weeks, he’d get a full set for free. $10,000?! He’d also get a ski trip, and a recommendation as an excellent salesperson from his manager. I bet he would. I don’t even think Sur La Table which sells a whole bunch of brands of high-end knives (including my Global knives) to foodies with lots of money sells $10,000 worth of knives each fortnight. What’s he getting in commission? 10%, he told me, but as soon as he sold his first $10,000 he’d be getting the same kind of commission other commission-based salespeople get when they’re just starting. Did they play the same game with him they did with me in the group “interview,” where you’re told only a few will be selected, and after a long wait, the manager pulls you aside and tells you you’re one of them? Yes, he was really excited he’d gotten the gig: with a 10% commission, unpaid training, no benefits, and having to produce each and every single one of his sales leads himself. Did he know it was a sales job when he went in for the “interview”? No.

I told him I still wanted to see the rope trick, and advised him to sell himself into a better gig. Things are tough out there in the job market, and he had no previous experience, he said. I told him with the same technique he was using to get leads for Cutco: calling on everyone he knew, and asking them to pass him on to yet more people, he could also announce he’s out of school and looking for entry-level work. Even in a tough job market like this, there’s a place for kid with moxie and gumption, not just in reading off lame scripts that were outdated 40 years ago.

He shook my hand, and made eye contact just like he’d been trained to do, and thanked me for coming. But, shucks, it was just too bad Peter couldn’t have made it, too. According to internet scuttlebutt, I soon discovered why. He wouldn’t even be paid the paltry $15 or $17 Cutco was now paying its representatives for giving a demo that didn’t result in a sale, because the demographic for such reimbursement is extremely narrow: homeowner over 30 years old, with kids and a full-time job. I find that horrendously insulting. I work part time, not full time. I am the primary culinary knife wielder and buyer of household stuff, and if Peter had been corralled into that demo, I’d still be the one deciding whether, what, and how much to buy. By Cutco’s standards, virtually none of the people on Master Chef, who are the foodiest of foodies, and thus certainly buyers of high-end knives, don’t qualify as a qualified demo.

In short, I hope the kid finds a better gig, the sooner the better.

One of the items was a change of address form for Bergman, registering him from an address in Fresno to one in San Jose. The police took down this information, since we all suspected he had lied to the police, the court, and his bondsman, as thieves are wont to do. I didn’t hear anything back from the San Jose police. But I would be not at all surprised if the SJPD, who always go a little above and beyond in community service, quietly decided to pay him a visit with a few questions shortly after they received by security video. Because since then, it looks like Bergman returned to Fresno, where the justice system is so criminal friendly, they won’t even put you in jail for grand theft. Not surprisingly, the public police blotter reveals him to be on a criminal tear there, with a May 17 arrest for burglary, and a July 7 arrest for “dangerous drugs.” This time, I hope Fresno keeps its garbage, and once again, I give a thumbs-up to the SJPD.