Once in a while, an incident occurs from which many one-liners can be drawn. Please bear with me
There’s a Star Trek episode called “Darmok,” which features a species (The “The Children of Tama”) who communicate in metaphors. When the Enterprise first encounter the Tamarian ship, its captain sends the message, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” A metaphor that describes the confrontation that is about to occur.
I know several people, including our daughter, with whom I could communicate in metaphors drawn from movies like Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Animal House, Ghost Busters, Stripes and other works of serious cinema. Along those lines, I would describe an encounter I witnessed at our town’s Public Works department as “Danny and Tony at the caddyshack office window.”
Last week, our town participated in an area-wide hazardous waste collection. The collection is run by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and is held at various towns throughout the year. After cleaning our shed and our garage, I had filled about 25% of my trailer with a wide variety of cleaning supplies, pesticides, auto-care products, and the like. I loaded my trailer and headed to Public Works early Saturday morning.
The process was well-designed. Vehicles entered behind the Public Works building and proceeded around the building. Along the way, questions were answered, forms were filled out and waste was removed. As the guy in front of me turned from driveway into the facility, he stopped at a table manned by two Public Works employees. I decided to eavesdrop, in order to learn what was expected.
The conversation went off the rails quickly and became a little scary.
The Public Works employees asked the driver for his ID. The driver responded angrily, stating that we would not show them his ID. This exchange went back and forth for several minutes. Simple, legitimate requests from Public Works were met with anger and paranoid accusations regarding privacy, and individual rights. The underlying issue was the need to establish that the driver was a resident of one of the participating towns. The end of the exchange was blunt. The driver firmly stated,
“I am not showing you my ID.”
To which the Public Works employee responded,
“Then we’re not accepting your hazardous waste.”
The driver sped out of the facility, almost backing into my car in the process. Once the excitement was over, I was reminded of a scene in Caddyshack where Danny Noonan is behind the window of the office in the caddy shack when Tony D’Annunzio orders a Coke. Unaware that the price of Coke has increased, Tony is upset when Danny hands him a Coke and fifty cents change from his dollar. Their exchange ends with:
“Well I ain’t paying no fifty cents for no Coke.”
“Oh then you ain’t getting no Coke. Know what I’m talking about.”
This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, If you would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.
I had a link to a video clip, but the YouTube account has been closed. The image below is from the quotes page on IMDB.
