Doctor Death!

We make a lot of jokes about The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore on the Morning Waking Crew broadcasts. And from all accounts, the jokes are totally justified.  But I did meet Jim Cantore several years ago at a symposium about emergency preparedness in Washington DC. Jim was the keynote speaker.  Funny guy... Much shorter in real life than you'd think. Jim related his vacation story.  Basically it's this... If Jim Cantore shows up in your town with a satellite truck, it probably means your house is in the path of some monster storm that The Weather Channel has sent Jim to cover. So Jim has become accustomed to a certain amount of panic from local folks wherever he goes while working. The problem of course is that Jim isn't always working. Sometimes, just like the rest of us, he goes on vacation. Jim talked about being on vacation and causing a minor stir in a resort area because the locals thought that some hurricane/tsunami/tidal wave/blizzard was bearing down upon them. He said it was like "Doctor Death" had shown up in their town and all he wanted to do was relax. So... I have to re-wire a part of my home entertainment system to accommodate a new digital whiz-bang toy. I was in one of the big box hardware-type stores picking up a few things. At the register the nice young lady was having a little difficulty with her card-reader... You know, that thing you swipe your credit or debit card into and it slurps out all of your personal information, your bank account numbers and what you had for breakfast. Apparently when these things act up the clerk needs to take the card and manually enter the numbers and name along with your billing zip code. The young lady started typing and then apologized for some error she made and started again. A moment later the same thing happened, then a third typo and a fourth! Finally the flustered clerk blurted out "PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT THIS ON THE RADIO!" I try to never assume people know who I am and I had no idea that this poor girl had recognized me. She was shaking and apparently just assumed I'd make fun of her on the radio. I've apparently become my own little version of Jim Cantore's "Dr. Death"! I've heard concerns from other people about stuff winding up on the radio, and my daughter complains about it constantly, but this poor girl was terrified. I promised that nothing about my visit would turn up on the radio. I never said anything about blogs.