Calhouns Can(n)ons

Attend The Tale of Sweeny Todd . . .
Well, not exactly. This tale involves Los Osos resident Anne Allen who went into her local Rite-Aide store to buy a toothbrush only to find that the toothbrush racks had little red locks on them requiring you go find store personnel to come unlock them so you could get the one you wanted. (And if you’ve ever shopped in Rite-Aide, finding store personnel can be a daunting prospect.) She further complained that the store manager was behaving towards her as if she were some kind of common criminal (I know Anne, she’s a writer, not a thief, although I know many people confuse the two professions.) and in her letter, she suggested a boycott of Rite-Aide for implying that Los Ososians are all shoplifters with teeth issues.

Well, that letter sent me immediately down to the Los Osos Rite-Aide and sure enough, there were those little red locks on the ends of some of the toothbrush display hangers, but not on others. So I scanned the display to see if I could make some sense of it all. Clearly, the high-end electronic type toothbrushes priced at $34 bucks had little locks, while those priced at $3.99 didn’t. But there were some muddlements as well. For example, a battery powered model costing $7.99 was all locked up, while a 4-Pak set of manual brushes priced at $9.99 wasn’t. Neither was a waaayyy cool battery operated brush for kids that played a little tune. That was priced at $11.49, unlocked and free for the filching, likely by grubby little fingers since the brush was put at kid’s eye level.

So I asked a nice young “associate,” who looked rather sheepish and said that yes, the lock-up instructions came down from “Corporate.” And, so far as he knew, the idea was that maybe toothbrushes costing $10 or more, be locked up. When I pointed out the discrepancies, he said that likely some mistakes had been made.

What was odd as well was that there are thousands of items in Rite-Aide that are more than $10 that are not locked up, which raises an interesting question: Are Los Osos thieves, foot-pads and cut-purses particularly concerned with the health of their teeth and gums that they would shoplift a sufficient number of toothbrushes to cause Corporate to notice the huge losses and start locking up dental hygiene products? Or is the store in the process of locking up everything over $10, in which case they’ll be doing a great service for the economy since they’ll have to hire thousands of employees to chase all over the store unlocking stuff for customers.

Or maybe enough people in the market for a toothbrush will simply go buy theirs at Vons next door or down the street at Ralphs, at which Rite-Aide “Corporate” will notice that their toothbrush sales in their Los Osos store has dropped markedly and they’ll have to send some suit guy down here to find out why.

When he comes, I’ll suggest he call Anne.

AB885 OWTS Draft Regulations
Got an email noting that the draft regulations for State wide AB885 (which has been in the pipeline for years) and concerns state-wide rules for all onsite wastewater treatment systems, draft statewide conditional waiver, and draft environmental impact report is now posed on the State Water Board’s website at (I hope):

www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/septic_tanks/

For people living outside the Los Osos PZ and for all people in the state who are on septic systems, this one’s for you!

Book Signing Today
Remember, Sue McGinty will be at the Coalesce bookstore (chapel) in Morro Bay today from 1 -4 for the launch of her new book involving a murder, a nun and a small California coastal town with a hideous sewer plant proposed for the middle of its town. Coincidence? Ah, now there’s the mystery.

Your Sunday Poem
From Sure Signs, New and Selected Poems by Ted Kooser

There Is Always A Little Wind

There is always a little wind
in a country cemetery,
even on days when the air stands
still as a barn in the fields.

You can see the old cedars,
stringy and tough as maiden aunts,
taking the little gusts of wind
in their aprons like sheaves of wheat,

And hear above you the warm
and regular sweep of wheat being cut
and gathered, the wagons creaking,
the young men breathing at their work.