The holidays catch up to us all, so I plan to be back next weekend in time for some holiday observations made from what will probably be an overweight body after too many parties. See you then.
The holidays catch up to us all, so I plan to be back next weekend in time for some holiday observations made from what will probably be an overweight body after too many parties. See you then.
It must say something ominous about the economy when supermarkets shut down. In my area, in the broader range, we have lost a Pathmark and two Genuardi’s, and now the local Superfresh just up the road is going away after years of happy commerce. What’s up with that?
The parking lot at Superfresh was always crowded. It was also the market with the biggest selection of three local stores (the others being Acme and Thriftway). Nobody can understand this move by parent company A&P. We certainly don’t want to lose the personal service of checkers we have known for a long time, nor the store’s own brands we have turned to.
Apparently customer loyalty doesn’t matter.
It may well be that the corporate bottom line requires them to shutter perfectly good store to save money to pay the pensions for everybody who has retired. Hopefully they’re not squirreling away funds for marlin fishing in Florida*.
The market takes up the biggest space in the plaza and used to house a Clover store before the collapse of its parent company, Strawbridge & Clothier. In fact, the plaza tore down the original Superfresh location, built a bank on that pad and moved them into the larger store, where it thrived.
The shopping center, which has evolved over the decades, has been almost fully occupied until now, with a Tuesday Morning store newly arrived. Now it looks like the entire site will be blighted unless some new tenant takes over the space.
I’m hoping that the Acme down the road will take it over; then another market like Bottom Dollar can move into that vacated space. Since I brought it up, it probably won’t happen. The empty Pathmark and Genuardi’s still sit like open wounds in barren patches of parking lots.
Who knows where the shoppers have gone to fulfill their basic needs. Maybe the Wegman’s stores have absorbed their business, as they have sprouted almost as fast as Wal-Mart.
When the grocer leaves town, the town goes hungry.
*(Marlin fishing in Florida is a symbol for rich retirement).
Now I understand why people pay $500 for a phone; that’s the price for technological respect from any cellular carrier. If you go cheap, they don’t care a fig about you.
I’m not a total idiot when it comes to cell phones, but neither am I a genius. My cell phone is a no-contract device for which I pay for time and usage in advance and put up with a lack of bells and whistles for just an emergency and occasional usage product.
Figuring out how to adjust the darn thing, unfortunately, takes an advanced degree.
The darn thing didn’t ring, for starters. When you don’t get phone calls on a cell phone very often, the sound of an incoming call is like the call to dinner, and in this case my stomach was growling. Then my menu kept disappearing from the screen, and apparently it could only be resolved by turning the phone off, turning it on again, pressing the main button and praying hard. Sometimes the phone angels were too busy to help out. Try navigating a push button phone menu without the icons sometime.
Finally I tried to call Customer Care, and I soon found out that it means what it says: the customer–me–does care, but there isn’t anybody else on the other end of the line who does. There was no option to speak to a live person. I could press one for advice on phone upgrades (which I wouldn’t want to do until I could get my phone to just ring), or seven to return to the main menu. There was no option to press to scream at somebody.
By chance I finally found, at the end of the third long menu of options, that a representative was available. Giddy with excitement, I was connected to a fellow who said yes, he could help me. He sent me a text message and said he would call back in a few minutes after I got it. The text message advised me on how to check my account balance, not how to make the phone ring.
He called back and promised a solution shortly. That was the last I heard from him.
At one point while trying to test the phone, I hit upon an option to increase the volume, which I did out of simple frustration. It seemed to solve the problem, because in the middle of an executive meeting, my phone launched into the device’s default ringtone, labeling me forever as a phone dope with no clue as to how to make my ringtone “Call Me Maybe.”
Buying underwear shouldn’t be such a challenge. I spent some time checking out the packages of panties at “SLR” (WalMart, the “Store of Last Resort”), and it’s amazing how many choices there are if you tend to shop for utilitarian rather than thrilling undergarments.
The underpant for men tends to be boxers or briefs. Those men who are truly ripped may go for tighter and lower-cut varieties to show off their bodily accomplishments. At least boxers are amusing, coming in various patterns, colors and styles. A man who would wear Spongebob on his boxers would likely have a great sense of humor. Of course, one should be able to tell that before they see that Spongebob is on his boxers.
Woman, on the other hand, have panties in so many styles, it seems impossible to narrow down one’s choices. We have boy shorts (square), low-cut (think Speedos for gals), thongs, bikinis and briefs in enough colors and patterns to blind the shopping eye. I also counted eight sizing types, adding to the difficulty.
When you see a panty in a pattern you like, it’s usually in a package in the wrong size for you, or it’s surrounded by such horrendously patterned or colored package mates that it isn’t worth buying the lot for just one pair.
And these necessities come five or eight to a package, rolled up into neat little burritos of cotton or nylon and taped and lined up for maximum shopper appeal. And nobody has yet invented a hook that effectively leaves the packages on the rack without ripping out of the wrapping. Nor have they figured out how to stop people from opening a package to check the size before buying, then getting a fresh one because “this one is opened.”
If the week has seven days, neither choice gets you through them all without an inventory problem. I’ve noticed manufacturers throw in an extra pair in a value pack, making the total panties either six or nine. Maybe the packaging was invented by the same people who put ten hot dogs in a package while buns come in quantities of eight.
Another problem with packaged panties is their construction. They are never quite even; seams are off center, crotches are sometimes too narrow or wide, and some have trails of looped thread dangling from them in testament to the quick piecework process by which they are made.
The price is right, though. When you think about the price of similar garments at Victoria’s Secret, and the abuse they endure on the human body, there is a value to such things. As long as they fit and don’t show a line, they’ll do.
Nothing like a bad week to make one miserable. Bad weeks make you appreciate the ones in which you come out with money in your pocket and no need for medical care. I have been trying hard to come down with something, and running with a sleep deficit doesn’t help matters.
Traffic was unusually hectic, with drivers disregarding speed limits and getting into accidents by incredible numbers. The local newscasters have had a field day with snarls and gridlocks all over, and I was stuck in quite a few of them.
This week in particular, I found myself driving into the rush hour traffic, as I went to a different office than usual. This required going south to north in the morning, and north to south in the evening. Everybody seems to go in these directions, and I have always been glad to have a job which normally sends me the other way and out of the grip of the brake-tapping tango that normally fills the opposing lanes when I’m coming and going. Traffic jams are nerve-wracking when you have someplace to go.
Then I got delayed in Friday traffic when a jam took place at my usual exit. The cars backed up for five miles. When I got to the exit, there was nothing to indicate an accident, only cones and flashing lights. It still took me an extra half hour to get home, on a night when I really wanted to be on time, because I had something to do.
Bad traffic days make one want to not have something to do after work. There will always come a time when you will be late, and people don’t like to be late. That is when they speed up and cause accidents which make other people late.
Maybe it happens because everybody seems to get out of work at 4:00 or 5:00. Maybe people just don’t get the concept of driving safely and taking care of their vehicles.
Griping about it doesn’t help make the bad week go away. All I can do is wait for the next one to be better.
At least I can look forward to turkey this Thursday.
I was in the mall with a friend and saw Santa had just arrived that day. We just finished a late Halloween, and already the jolly old man is taking children’s early toy orders.
This whole thing has gone a bit too far.
Does anybody remember Hess’ department store, based in Allentown, PA? Each year, usually after Thanksgiving, a local network would air a special featuring the store’s animatronic holiday figures. It was something to look forward to. All the major department stores opened up a holiday window the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday meant something back then.
Hess’ was one of the early victims of department store closures. Back then, probably nobody would have predicted that such places would go out of business like they have in the past twenty years.
Now department stores compete for which can open closest to the end of the turkey dinner, while the stuffed denizens of the family table have not succumbed to the effects of tryptophan.
The PA lottery is airing their holiday instant ticket commercials already, featuring a group a carolers doing a lottery themed rendition of “Twelve Days of Christmas” (the lead singer has sung “Five Cash Five”–substituting for five gold rings–for about four years now, and the residual checks must be phenominal), and a man graciously giving tickets as gifts to the employees as a newsstand (from which he might well purchase them daily anyway).
We see ads for the “Pre-Black Friday Sale,” and prices are low enough that one could refurbish an entire home with new stuff.
Of course, there are victims of Hurricane Sandy who need an entire new home, and even sales won’t help them recover in time for Christmas.
Some of the networks are already airing holiday themed specials. Next will come the radio stations playing holiday music until January. Christmas has become a calendar equivalent of a plague of locusts, which comes and ravages your life for what seems like forever, and for which you are grateful only when it is finally over.
Sure, businesses are desperate for end-of-year profits, and some people like to have a holiday that lasts forever, but the constant barrage so early in the season is just wrong.
Can’t we at least get to Thanksgiving week first?
I’ve been having bad luck with attempting to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Each year, starting the moment November begins, intrepid writers attempt to complete a novel of 50,000 words by the last second of November. That entails some time and devotion. Time is my enemy, and my devotion gets put on hold.
One thing I’m trying this year is to use voice software to leave my hands free to do the things I would have to ignore if I’m typing a novel. The software has turned out to be a bit too human: it doesn’t understand me, often ignores me and keeps asking stupid questions.
This morning, while waiting for some friends to show up, I channeled my inner J.K. Rowling and drafted some details from my planned NaNoWriMo novel on a napkin. It works rather well and travels lightly in my already bulging handbag. Somebody had a fingernail issue and I offered my clippers, prompting another friend to ask what I don’t carry in my purse. I confessed that I don’t have a kitchen sink in there. I also don’t have a novel.
Over the years I have had attempts at making my novel goal that came close to being tangible successes, but that 50,000 mark has escaped every year. One would have to write 1,667 words daily to achieve the goal. Maybe it is best achieved by folks who are on vacation, retired or write for a living. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying. Wish me luck, and if I’m not back next week, you’ll know that I’m cranking out words on a napkin somewhere.
The coast is due for a pounding from a hurricane. I’ll be back after the dust has settled (or the water recedes).
Today I was in the queue at the post office. The good old reliable mail system has lost some luster lately because of the prevalence of email, so staffing is lighter than usual. In this particular case there was one employee on duty, and the line for customer service for this real human being was ten people long.
Four people had packages to send, two of which were pre-paid returns which needed no additional work on the clerk’s part, but he did suggest that they obtain a receipt just in case. They stayed on to do that.
This clerk managed to juggle one woman with a complex mailing issue (involving standing aside at the counter twice), two of the package senders and a lady who swore she had been in line for a half hour (he said it wasn’t quite that long, and I think it was more like ten). She noted that she didn’t want to be a bitch about the situation, but she had places to go and things to do. Perhaps she supposed that the other nine of us in line didn’t have anyplace to go. However, the gentleman behind the counter was cool under pressure, polite beyond reproach, and whittled down that line as if it were an everyday picnic. He mentioned to one customer who noted how calm he was that he had survived a childhood in Camden, college and a family with kids, so he obviously felt prepared for anything. It brought smiles to our faces.
I didn’t catch the fellow’s name tag completely (it was glare or his ultra-white shirt or something), but he was a breath of fresh air in customer service. I don’t know many post offices with staff that pleasant in the waning business hours of a Saturday.
I was there for stamps, and I don’t like to have mine dispensed from a grocery store cash register or an ATM, so I don’t mind the minor inconvenience when I have time to spare waiting in line. When my turn came I asked politely what small stamps were available, and I noted that he probably gets asked such questions fifty times a day? “Fifty?” he asked good-naturedly. I’m sure it’s more like two hundred.
So the post office does have nice people, and I felt it was beneficial to note that. Customers waiting in line, however, are often still as sour as ever.
I have already commented on the presidential debate and President Obama’s small flag pin. The contender, Mitt Romney, had a larger lapel pin. Well, the candidates for the number two position did the same thing. Vice President Biden wore a small American flag lapel pin, while Paul Ryan had the large one.
What’s up with this? I’m certainly not going to argue the issue of patriotism in relation to pin size, but was the choice part of the overall effort to steer public attention or opinion? Don’t think that every aspect of the candidates’ outfits is not over-thought down to the last detail. Somebody came up with the idea. I’d like to know why.
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