The Worst Idea Ever

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 3, 2017] ©2017

 

For reasons unclear to me, airlines keep revisiting the idea of allowing passengers to make Wi-Fi calls on their cell phones during flight.

 

Meanwhile, according to the International Air Transport Association, cases of air rage increased 16.4 percent from 2014 to 10,854 (from 9,316).  In 1994, only 1,132 such cases were noted. And you want to add phone calls?  Has someone been breathing too many jet fuel fumes?

 

Let me predict that if Wi-Fi calls were permitted on airplanes, the air rage incidents would increase 10,000 percent.

 

Possible violence?  No, guaranteed.  Especially by me.  Olof should start saving for my bail right now. I’m not even particularly tolerant about cell phone abuse even on the ground. 

 

Anyone who has ever lunched with me or been a dinner guest at my home knows if they answer their phone at my table, it had better be because the donor for their liver transplant finally came through. Don’t get me wrong. Cell phones are wonderful inventions when used appropriately. But I have friends who insist that people “expect to be able to reach them at any time.” 

 

“Oh, no!” I reply in horror. “Are you one of those people who answer their phone at the symphony?”

 

They insist they would never be so rude as to do that.

 

“So your dentist is willing to stop while he’s in the middle of a filling to let you chat?”

 

Oh, no, of course not. Not during a medical or dental appointment.

 

OK, I say, so consider me the symphony and the medical/dental establishment all rolled into one.

 

And they’ll reply, “But it’s  different.  You’re a friend.”

 

Inga:  “Not anymore!”

 

I always tell them I’m going to get them one of those newfangled phones that has voice mail.  It’s amazing! It answers the call and takes a message for you!  You can even call back later when you’re not at lunch!

 

But the same people who abuse cell phones on the ground will be guaranteed to abuse them in the air.

For some people, the ring of a cell phone has the curious effect of transporting them to another dimension where they become the Anointed One in a private universe of dispensable deaf mutes. Everyone around them ceases to exist.

 

It’s bad enough at airports to be squashed into waiting areas listening to people conducting business. Or worse, not conducting business.  Just droning on to everyone they know. They have nothing to say, which does not prevent them from saying it.  The only saving grace is that you know that once the plane takes off, they’ll have to turn it off for the next three thousand miles.

But what if they didn’t?

 

Carriers would apparently be required to inform passengers when they make their reservations that cell phone calls are permitted on that flight so they “can make other plans.” Seriously?  Like most business travelers have any choice on what flights they’re on? Or you’re supposed to pay double and fly a route with two stopovers to avoid a non-stop that allows cell phone calls?  If that happens, technology will have officially trumped humanity.

 

United (no surprise) is apparently one airline considering in-air calls. That’s OK with us since we’ve long since cut up their credit card. And that was BEFORE they started “reaccommodating” (their word) paying passengers by physically dragging them off their planes.  Hard to imagine they used to be our preferred airline.

 

But there could be some definite entertainment value in all this.  I predict there will be a YouTube channel solely devoted to in-air cell phone brawls videotaped by gleeful fellow passengers.

 

Personally, the only way I can see this in-air phone thing working is that people who want to use a cell phone on the flight have to indicate it in advance and be assigned to a special cell phone row just as there used to be smoking rows.  As we all know, people who talk on cell phones tend to talk much louder than their regular “inside” voices so they can be heard over the din around them. Cell phone users expect a quiet, compliant audience on either side of them – because, of course, it’s all about them - but I love imagining the scenario where a whole row of cell phone users are speaking louder and louder to be able to be overheard over the conversations of the people right next to them.  I foresee lots of glaring, lots of demands to the other folks to talk more softly. Escalating hostility. Complaints to the flight attendants. Hopefully, he or she would then have the capability to push a button that would eject the whole row out at 35,000 feet. This fantasy keeps me going.

 

So airlines: please do not consider this. It is a really really bad idea. But if you do, get ready to install a first aid kit in every row.

 

                                            

 

How We Became A Canine Dentist's Dream

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published April 12, 2017] ©2017

 

Boy, have I had a chance to eat some words. And since they involve teeth, the phrase is apropos.

 

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a column about brushing dogs’ teeth which at the time I found to be an absolutely hilarious concept.  When I was growing up, every household in my family-centric neighborhood, including us, had a dog.  No one had fences and the dogs were simply let out as needed. The dogs generally went to the vet twice in their lives: once to get a rabies shot (if they hadn’t already had one at the pound where you got them), and then when they died, which was usually from being hit by the car they had been chasing at the time.

 

If my parents were alive today, the concept of brushing a dog’s teeth would incite both incredulity AND hilarity in them.  Which it did in me when our vet first suggested it for the now-deceased Winston. I researched doggie tooth brushes and doggie tooth pastes (you can’t use the ones for people) and even tried it once on Winston. An English bulldog, Winston was clear he had the advantage and it was never attempted again.

 

In the meantime this past year, we have had the full-on expensive education in canine dental health.  For reasons I hope  someone can explain to me, small breed dogs are notorious for bad teeth which not only cause the animal pain and difficulties eating, but makes their breath smell like they just ingested a barrel of rotten mackerel.

 

Percy, our first foster dog last year, was a Shih Tzu who had been abandoned on the streets of Bonita and rescued by a small volunteer rescue organization before being placed with us. Our vet said this dog had some of the worst teeth she’d ever seen. 

 

Let me emphasize that when you foster a dog, the foster agency pays all the expenses: food, medical and dental care, neutering, beds, grooming, toys etc. The foster parents just have to provide love and care while a forever home is found. Or in the case of our second foster, Lilly, until the foster parents fall madly in love with the dog and keep it.

 

The many volunteer animal welfare organizations locally are constantly scrambling for funds to treat the animals they rescue so as a donation to ours, we said we would pay all Percy’s expenses including dental, neutering, grooming, food, etc. Any money they didn’t have to spend on this dog was money they could spend on another one. My husband and I agreed afterwards that it was probably the most gratifying money we’ve ever spent.  Usually when you donate money to a charitable cause you don’t get to see the results, but after five weeks and just under $1,000, Percy was totally rehabbed. He went to a fabulous home and has given a 75-year-old widow reason to get up in the morning.

 

At the time, we thought that $500 for Percy’s teeth was a lot of money. We were such virgins. A neighbor with three small breed dogs has spent more than $4,000 on the teeth of EACH of them.  “You could get a whole lot of new dogs for that,” opined my husband Olof.

 

Well, yeah, but the problem is, as we know too well, you get really attached to the old ones.

 

The first thing we noticed about our second foster dog, Lily, was that her breath was even worse than Percy’s, if that was even possible:  a 9 on the “ickter” scale. Lily’s previous owner had relinquished her to the County shelter saying she couldn’t afford the dog’s dental care. The County’s medical in-take report was all of four words: “Nice dog. Terrible teeth.” 

 

Fortunately, the same volunteer organization who rescued Percy rescued Lily. They spent $500 to pull the worst of Lily’s teeth but it was clear that this was only going to be the start.

 

As happy as we had been to sink $1,000 into Percy, a dog we didn’t even own, this was not something we could do every month. But Lily rapidly worked her way into our hearts and before we knew it, we’d adopted her and sunk another $1,100 into her teeth beyond what the rescue agency had invested. (We consider her dental care our new 401k.)  But what a difference in her breath which previously would have scorched your eyebrows.  And all of a sudden she was eating voraciously.

 

But now, of course, it was up to us to maintain this brand new mouth into which we now have such an investment. So just as we became pros at cleaning Winston’s ever-infected ears, we’re now absolutely whizzes at brushing Lily’s teeth. And every time I do it, I look heavenward toward my parents and say, “I know. I know.”

 

 

Lily shows off her freshly-rehabbed teeth

 

Front-tooth-challenged granddaughter and dentally-enhanced dog