Midwest Memo
This and that
by Alan Shultz

It was just one of those weeks where I kept encountering quirky situations or ideas that interested me. So I made a list:

The week started with me buying gift certificates for a couple of folks who helped me out with a project. I went to a Starbucks coffee shop and bought two gift cards. The problem was that they only had one gift card holder left on hand.

"I have an idea," the counter person said.

She proceeded to take a small coffee cup from her supply. She put the gift card in the cup, put a top on it and handed it to me.

"What do you think?"

I thought it was a terrific idea, much more clever than the gift card holder and so I brought it back to my office where I left both items on the ink blotter of my desk.

The next morning when I came into work it was obvious the cleaning crew had straightened my messy desktop. In the middle of the ink blotter was the one gift card in holder sitting at perfect right angles. The coffee cup?oh they tossed that in last night's trash.

It was all I could do to restrain myself from hopping in the garbage dumpster out back to retrieve my clever gift!

* * *

In the waiting room of the dentist's office I passed the time reading an interesting magazine article. The story was about a Chicago investment guru who turned out to be a con man.

In one section of the article the writer described the guy's lakefront cottage in New Buffalo, Mich., which he had purchased the year before for a half million dollars.

It was a long article and it kept my interest. But that detail a half million for lakefront that kept bugging me. There's no half million dollar lakefront parcels left on Lake Michigan, certainly not in New Buffalo.

My wait for the dentist was long, and the article was riveting, so I read to the end. Then I closed the cover and noted with a chuckle... the magazine was from 1992. Now even for the dentist's office, well, that's pretty old material. I think I'm going to buy my dentist a current subscription to something anything. Free catalogues would be better in my estimation!

* * *

In case you missed it, last week an investment hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn. lost 6 billion dollars in value, overnight. Amaranth Advisors was racking up 20% returns speculating on oil futures. I guess they forgot to diversify. Greed, it can get you in trouble real quick.

* * *

A Chicago Sun-Times newspaper saleslady called to get me to renew my subscription that I had terminated several years ago.

I explained that I enjoy buying the paper at a news stand when I have time to read it.

Well, if I wasn't going to renew then she wanted to talk to me about the outstanding balance due on my account.

According to their records, I owe the folks at the Sun-Times a penny. The conversation deteriorated from that point on.

* * *

I have a storage locker that I've probably not opened in a year. I keep real estate open house signs in this locker. They are big, clunky signs, heavy metal ones. I got a "good deal" on these signs from someone changing firms. It turns out that smart folks have gone to plastic signs, they're a lot lighter. Anyway, I needed my signs.

I couldn't find the key to the padlock.

I looked everywhere. In the course of a day I made five separate trips to the locker with five different keys I thought might work. I went through every drawer, tracked down every spare key, but to no avail.

Sometimes life itself is a metaphor. How often do we look to others or away from ourselves to solve our problem? How often is the solution inside ourselves, something we already know, or already have?

All along, the key to the padlock was on my key chain, I just never looked there.