Starting five

1. Why is seeing cherries in stores a happy thing even if you don’t end up buying any?

2. Want to feel old? Check your blood pressure in a grocery store.

3. Because my phone is on a family plan hosted by my sister-in-law who lives in a Detroit suburb, a Michigan area code shows up on Caller I.D. when I call someone with it, which I seldom do. But the other evening, I was away from home and needed to phone a colleague at work in the newsroom. When his city desk phone rang, he looked at Caller I.D. and thought his brother in Michigan was calling him.

4. Knowing that I was about to set off a store’s security alarm as I exited (I had set it off on my way in), I informed an employee of this and asked her what I should do. “Just run,” she said.

5. I have been working for daily newspapers since the 1970s. But until just the other day, I don’t think I had ever called a bar and asked that someone I needed to speak to be located and brought to the phone.