Thoughts from a brain on holiday

Because I've never understood the "summer-reading" concept that a person (not me) who might plow through Dostoevsky three seasons of the year would suddenly turn to Danielle Steele romance novels because the weather is warm, I can't really beg for understanding that summer would also be the time that a columnist might be low on ideas.

Nevertheless, I am once again am turning to my "ideas" file, where I throw random thoughts that at one time seemed full of possibility.

Upon later inspection, these ideas are usually good for a few lines at best.

-In praise of nice people: I have had a run of good luck in grocery stores lately where people have very kindly allowed me to go through the checkout line before them. It happens when I am buying only a few items and typically in a hurry (and obviously looking like it).

I feel that, by the grace of people with full carts, I have saved hours and had my faith in the human race restored. If people can be thoughtful in a crowded grocery store when the lines are building by the minute as a small staff of checkers works frantically to keep up, then there's always hope for mankind.

(Though in the classic "what was she thinking" department, I ran into an unfriendly woman recently who insisted on keeping at least eight feet between her cart and the woman in front of her in line. She was then testy and acted horribly offended when other shoppers pulled up in the gap she had inexplicably created. She must have feared her groceries would mingle too freely with those of the other shopper.)

-Educated consumers: In a debate over the benefits of corporations having a major presence in public schools, often occurring when school hallways are lined with beverage-vending machines, good arguments can be made on both sides.

But when your son's homework worksheet bears both Kentucky Fried Chicken and Family Circle magazine logos, it makes you wonder how long it will be until textbooks are filled with endorsements, something like - "Today's algebra equations are brought to you by the good hands people at Allstate Insurance."

-On holiday: My idea list contains a number of terms used by the British. I lived and worked in London for about six months many years ago, and must have had the desperate thought that a column on these terms would be just fascinating.

First I have the words "toast" and "buttered sandwiches" written down - the British did seem to have a different relationship with bread than I was used to. A co-worker who spent time in Wales said her roommates there fixed toast for breakfast, toast for lunch, toast for dinner and toast for snacks in between.

And more than once when I'd ordered a sandwich, the bread was covered from edge to edge with butter.

It did not warm my heart, as I had not experienced this unseemly practice in my American life.

I had a better culinary experience with "digestives," basically a cookie with a slightly grainy texture and a hearty quality.

The problem is that it's easy to tell yourself that eating a chocolate-covered

"digestive" is a healthy way to end a meal, and by the time I left England it was obvious I had been operating under a serious delusion as to the caloric value of the average digestive.

-Other random incoherent column ideas include a plea for people to stop using capital letters inappropriately and with mindless abandon in press releases, a dissertation on the inferiority of cake as a birthday celebration dessert and memories of junior high wardrobe decision making, as it was painful for a girl to be the only one in school wearing a skirt on any given day.

So as a writer hates to be repetitive unless one is trying to bring down the government (rarely the aim of this column), those subjects are now officially out of bounds.

You're welcome.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com