Oh, the Humanity, Part I: Coming soon to Whole Foods stores, including our own branch over in Puget, aka Fred Meyer South, ’hood: Palm-reader scanners for store payment. We are not making that up: Apparently they attach a scan of your palm to a major credit card, allowing you to literally wave your way out of the store with your hemp bag of assorted natural organica. Hmm.

You’re Way Ahead of Us Here: The receipt can also tell you whether you will live a long and prosperous life, which may or may not be connected to the frequency with which you visit Whole Foods. 

Oh, the Humanity, II: B. Hammer admits a certain degree of shame seeing the following order placed from one hardnosed journo to another in the Lunch Channel of our office comms system this week: “May i pls have Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso, 16 oz?”

Just Saying: A number of battle-hardened, ink/coffee-stained (also dead) newsroom wretches turned over in their graves as soon as it was posted.

Also: “Shaken,” as in “not stirred”? The mind reels.

Just In Case of Emergency: Hammer’s wife has recently acquired a new vehicle with a bunch of fancy electronics. Said vehicle clearly has aligned itself with the better half of Clan Hammer and is trying to kill Mr. Hammer in various ways. More on this in a coming column.

Speaking of Death by Traffic: Was Hammer the last person in the ’ham to know about the “SeeClickFix” phone app, through which beleaguered city drivers/riders/loose cranks are supposed to submit requests for street repairs and other public works needs by pointing them out on a digital map?

Needless to Say: Hammer has now submitted one for repair of the Original Oregon Trail Wagon Ruts found in the cross section of Samish Way and 36th Street, one front-end-busting chasm to the west of the Samish Way overpass. This rutted nightmare has been in its present state since the days when the Hammer first moved north from the Jet City, dodging mastadons and various ice floes along the way.

And the Outcome Is? Crickets! SeeClickFix, which we can only assume is an AI being, has acknowledged receipt of Hammer’s complaint, which was optimistically labeled, “Pothole & Street Repair,” but that’s it, except for this helpful, heard-it-all-before note on behalf of the COB: “This has been received. This is an automated response. We will post updates as soon as possible.”

To Which Hammer Can Add Only: So shall we.

We Kid the COB, But: It really is a sad statement, there on the interchange that much of the world traverses when it first visits the ’ham, to be forced to receive a lamentable initial impression: infrastructure not updated since the Truman administration. 

The Hammer, a somewhat-less-studious alter ego of CDN's executive editor and various other pointed-barb influencers, appears online on Fridays and in CDN's print edition on the first Wednesday of each month; ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com; @roncjudd.