Has anyone seen my top?




I blew it yesterday, I'm afraid: my top, I mean. If everyone could quick check under their chairs and tables, I'd really appreciate it. I just blew it about an hour ago.

Oh, like you guys never blow your own tops? Yes, of course.

Any signs of it out there?

Oh, well, not to worry: It always turns up eventually. This has happened to me before, I'm afraid. Don't let this "Steady Eddie" persona fool you, I can be as loud and unreasonable as the next guy.

Mind you, it wasn't entirely my fault. A certain local music store saddled me with a defective keyboard carrying case and then refused to acknowledge the problem when I returned it --

Can you imagine?

Never in all my born days! (Humph!)

And rather than investigating my complaints on their own merits (the case was the wrong size, the storage compartments wouldn't securely close, etc.), the manager adopted a facade of supreme serenity towards me (in an obvious attempt to make me seem unreasonable by contrast, taking strategic advantage of the fact that a complainant is almost always slightly flustered in such cases, outnumbered as they are by store employees and "playing," so to speak, on the manager's home turf)

And then.... Get this!

Pointing to a case behind his still seated and somewhat hefty person, Mr. Tact then asked me if the "shoddy" case of which I was then complaining wasn't identical to the one that he himself was wont to bring to the store every single day of his working life!

Translation: I must be lying. After all, HIS case is identical to mine, and it works just fine, thank me very much!

Well, let me tell you, I summed up my opinion of the matter in one terse sentence (which I'm sorry to say probably included the word "crap" in reference to the merchandise in question) and stalked defiantly out of the exit, refusing to be the stooge for any more of the psychological gamesmanship that the apparently blame-proof manager seemed determined to practice on me.

(It's a big top: greenish-blue, about 7" by 5"... Free drinks for whoever finds it.)

I'm not saying that I came off smelling like Mahatma Gandhi myself, of course. No, I fancy I rather floored the gas upon exiting the parking lot, burning what for me was some very uncharacteristic rubber off of my Toyota's all-season radials -- and, yes, I probably even waved the odd fist in the air while turning left on Route 50, shouting some anachronistic advice to the portly gentleman about where he was henceforth invited to PUT that apparently wonderful case of his that he supposedly brought to work every day -- and I wasn't telling him to put it in the store locker room, either, I can assure you.

Of course, later I'm thinking (as I set to work on a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce at the Olive Garden on my way to work, while reading The Washington Post, as is my custom in such cases): QQ3

"Why am I even buying this kind of stuff from a brick-and-mortar store in the first place??? Henceforth I should cut out these blame-dodging middlemen and purchase all my big-ticket items online -- the more so in that the online world is full of info and reviews on such potential expenditures so that I can make up my own consumer mind in my own pea-picking time, thank you very much indeed, Mr. Manager Person Sir. I say again: Humph!"QQ4

Well, naturally I was so gratified with this sudden epiphany of mine that I immediately ordered some dietetically irresponsible dessert by way of celebration (the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, in fact, topped with a scandalously large dollop of whipped cream), and subsequently left the waiter an almost inappropriately large tip so as to share my new emotional wealth with them, too. (Of course, I soon hastened out the door, lest the server place an amorous construction on my motives. After all, it's not every day that someone gives them an $8 tip for a $21 meal: What is a body to think?! Bless their suddenly confused souls! Could it be that the handsome cuss that just left that seat right there -- that winsome manjack that was just now reading The Washington Post -- was -- GULP! -- in love with them???! Probably not, of course -- but they can DREAM, can't they? They can dream!)

Oh, like you guys have never extravagantly tipped a waiter after undergoing an epiphany at the Olive Garden restaurant. Please!

Anyway, now you know why I blew my top yesterday -- Ah! Wasn't that store manager a real sillykins! (Hey, listen, I don't mince my words in these cases! I stand by my terminology: He was a sillykins! I'll repeat it in any court in the land!)

Speaking of which, has anyone found it yet? My top, I mean? Can you look one last time under your chairs and tables? It's got to be around here somewhere!

Maybe I can advertise in the paper:

Missing: One blown top. Blown yesterday at the corners of Main and 22nd Streets. If found, please return to owner. Reward offered.