Honolulu Lite
I have tried to heed our government's request to stay on high alert because of credible threats of impending terrorist attacks but frankly, it's kind of hard. Meating the call to be
on high alertI was on high alert for a couple of days but admit that I spent one day on regular old alert.
One of the problems is figuring out the difference between being on "regular alert" and being on "high alert." I think the new homeland security czar might even have asked us to go on "highest alert."
When I first went on alert, I think I actually was on high alert. I mean, I was doing everything except pawing through my neighbors' garbage. If everyone else in the neighborhood was on regular alert, I must have been on high alert, because they were just acting like they normally do and I was sitting on my roof with binoculars protecting the Kaneohe marine base from incoming missiles.
I take being on alert seriously. So when we were asked to upgrade our alertness to a higher level, I was kind of stumped. How alert can one person be? I mean, my neck was getting sore, from whipping it around every time I heard noise in the yard.
Then I read about this Big Island farmer who is almost bankrupt because someone keeps stealing his oranges and selling them to supermarkets. This had to be a serious breach of national security, I felt. How could a supermarket put fruit on its shelves when it doesn't even know where its fruit comes from? It seems like it would be a simple thing for supermarkets to confirm that the person they are buying oranges from actually owns an orange farm. If they don't know where the oranges come from, then they can't possibly know whether they've been tampered with.
So I went to my neighborhood supermarket and, hiding behind the tangelos and grapefruits, staked out the suspect oranges on the highest alert I could muster. An extremely old woman blew my cover, eyeballing me suspiciously, so I tailed her through the aisles. She must have been on alert, too, because she nabbed me shadowing her by the beef counter and hit me with a four-pound chuck roast.
I was going to have her busted for going through the express check-out line with more than nine items (a six-pack of Schlitz Malt Liquor is NOT considered one item, lady). But since I was in the meat department on high alert, I decided to look for signs of Mad Cow or Hoof and Mouth disease. The butcher finally came over and asked, "May I help you?" I pointed out that the New York steaks didn't look quite right, a bit pale. He said, "That's because those are chicken breasts you are looking at, you nitwit."
I spent the rest of the day on semi-alert. All right, I was napping. But napping in a semi-alert mode. I'll be glad when we can go off alert. I can't take being hit with too many more large chunks of meat.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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