Idiot Alert!

January 19, 2001

A house alarm is a nice thing to have. You can call the police, the fire department, an ambulance all by pressing a button. Of course it’s not so great if you accidentally set it off. You probably know the story, or you’ve even lived it: guy gets up in the middle of the night to take the dog out, guy stubs toe on chair, guy slaps hand over mouth to keep from screaming and waking up wife, guy then opens the door without shutting off the alarm first.

A few days after I celebrated the new year by eating popcorn and watching "The Twilight Zone", I got a little pamphlet in the mail from the security company. The pamphlet instructed me not to "celebrate New Year’s Eve by purposely setting off the alarm." Naturally the first thought that comes to mind is, What kind of bonehead would do that? Celebrating the new year by purposely setting off your own house alarm is like celebrating your birthday by driving drunk. It’s stupid, it’s irresponsible, and it puts other people in danger. The amazing thing is that this is apparently a big enough problem that the security company spent time and money trying to prevent it. It’s too bad that their pamphlet didn’t arrive until January 7th, but then anyone dumb enough to set off their own alarm would ignore the request, while anyone smart enough not to do it doesn’t need to be asked.

The sad thing is that purposely setting off an alarm to "celebrate" anything really is a call for assistance. It’s a way of saying, "I can’t be satisfied with more socially acceptable ways of celebrating like drinking until I throw up all over my friend’s Persian rug or firing off guns in my backyard." Unfortunately the police, the fire department, and even doctors can’t do anything for such people; they’re beyond help.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

What we all are sometimes on the computer?

I’d like to share a little anecdote that happened in the office the other day. Young Kristin, the editor of our trivia publication, was having trouble with her computer.

So she called Wes, the computer guy, over to her desk. Wes clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. As he was walking away Kristin called after him, "So, what was wrong?"

And he replied, "It was an ID ten T error."

A puzzled expression ran riot over Kristin’s face. "An ID ten T error?" What’s that in case I need to fix it again?"

He gave her a grin. "Haven’t you ever seen an ID ten T error before?"

"No."

"Write it down," he said, "and I think you’ll figure it out."

So she wrote it down and got: ID10T

As you celebrate the new Millennium, might consider this:

"100 Years Ago"

The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

Pneumonia and influenza
Tuberculosis
Diarrhea
Heart disease
Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

Drive-by-shootings — in which teenage boys galloped down the street on horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy — were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.

Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn’t been discovered yet. Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

One in ten U.S. adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine’s foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide — which was thought to diminish sexual desire — into the women’s drinking water.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.

Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the government to help compile the 1900 census.

Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

There were about 230 reported murders in the U.S. annually.