Opinion: Overheard at the Susi Q

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This conversation took place sometime in the near future at the Senior Center Bingo Bonanza.

Fred: (reading this paper) Hey Mabel, did you hear about the new restaurant they wanna open downtown?

Mabel: What?! Speak up!

Fred: I said did you hear about the new restaurant downtown?

Mabel: No. Now why do they want to do a stupid thing like that?

Fred: Seems like that’s what people do, nowadays. Eat.

Mabel: Well we don’t go out.

Fred: Exactly

Mabel: I’m against it. It will make traffic worse. How many square feet?

Fred: Says here, a thousand.

Mabel: Do they have any parking?

Fred: Of course not. The last time a restaurant had parking downtown was 1948.

Mabel: How do they expect people to get there without their cars? Trolley? Uber? Walk? Ride a bike, for heaven’s sake?

Gladys: Did somebody say ride a bike? In Laguna?

(gales of laughter)

Fred: Oh my god, that is funny. Laguna is not and never will be a biking town.

Mabel: I don’t trust those three Council people. They’re gonna get rich off this, somehow. I saw one of them hand a big envelope to Bob and say “Mayor Whalen.”

Fred: Actually, he said “Mail, Whalen.” It was his mail.

Mabel: What?

Fred: The chef of the restaurant is some guy named Massimo Bottura, from Italy. Architect is Frank Gehry.

Mabel: As long as it’s Craftsman and they serve meatballs.

Fred: Gehry is the guy who did Disney Hall.

Mabel: What!? Have they lost their minds? We have to do something. Can’t we oppose it at Planning Commission? And if that doesn’t work, appeal it to Council? And if that doesn’t work, take it to our friends at Coastal Commission? And if that doesn’t work, take it to the Fudges?

Fred: That’s so 2020, Mabel. We won the Ballot Initiative giving us total control over what can be built, right down to any small project that generates an additional 200 car trips a day. Unlike those fools in Costa Mesa, Newport and Dana Point, who only vote on mega projects.

Mabel: Why wouldn’t they want to vote on every single new project? I mean, what else do they have going on?

Fred: Exactly, we vote on anything that generates an average of eight additional cars per hour coursing through our town – or one every seven and a half minutes. We have to stop it! We vote on it next week. Then there’s a nail salon the following week, followed by a coffee shop. Our dance card is filled out for the rest of the year. Time to gather the troops and stop Laguna from turning into Huntington Beach.

Mabel: Oh this is so fun. OK, pot luck at our house Friday night?

Fred: I’ll start putting together talking points for everybody’s public comments. Emails, petitions, ads. I’ll find a picture of spring break in Cabo so we can photoshop that in and ask, “Is this what we want for our town?”

Mabel: I love it. All this sexy talk is turning me on, Fred.

Fred: Easy Mabel, we’re at the Senior Center.

Mabel: Exactly, what happens at the Senior Center, stays at the Senior Center. Because no one will remember it. Oh and one more thing: find out if the project needs a mitigated negative declaration per CEQA.

Fred: A what?

Mabel: Never mind. Bingo!

Fred: What? Again? You are one lucky lady, Mabel.

Mabel: It’s skill, honey. You just have to know how to play the game.

Billy hosts “Do Good Works” on Thursdays at 8pm on KXFM radio. He can be reached at [email protected].

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8 COMMENTS

  1. My views are often in alignment with Billy’s. But the point he is trying to make in this column is drowned in a sea of ageist clichés. While he is hardly the first or last person to misspell Susi Q, the place has been open since 2009 and it is disheartening to find this hardy error in an Indy headline.

  2. Mr. Fried – I find myself looking forward to reading your columns every week. This one gave me a good chuckle, as did the piece on Fudge.

    This bitter “no to everything” mentality describes so many of the political activists in town and is exactly why our community cannot move forward. I’ll be the first to admit my generation needs to get out of the way.

  3. Oh dear lord, Chris, really? Are we that fragile we can’t take a little good ole ribbing about age? I am nearing Medicare myself and joke about my failing memory, hearing, and motor skills all the time. The only thing we hopefully have left at the end of the day is a little humor. As for the misspelling, I apologize to the entire Quilter clan for such a glaring offense!

  4. No need to dial it up to 11, Billy. It’s just that a lot of what you call “good ole ribbing” has aged badly, especially in a NORC (Naturally Occurring Retirement Community) like Laguna. While Charles may feel the need to get out of the way because of his age, most of your elders don’t. And a lot of us don’t like the initiative either. What? What?

  5. Oh Lynette, if you only knew the trauma of being me. Anyone not of German descent routinely spells my name as if I’ve been liberated, or pronounces it like chicken cooked in flour and a vat of oil. It’s cost me years of therapy and I’m still not healed, as you can tell. Chris, glad you worked in a little humor there and finally spoke to the content of the piece. And by the way, you missed the total nuance celebrating the mental acuity of these seniors. Besides hearing impairment, they are socially active, know how to write, persuade, use photoshop, email, and win at Bingo. I can’t even manage half those tasks. Give it up for Fred and Mabel!

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