A holiday situation presented itself whereupon I got the opportunity to spend a $100 gift card at Kroger. As completely unsexy as that initially sounds on the back end, the front end of preparing a variety of meals off of food that I got for free was an awesome enticement. I perused the aisles filling my cart with ingredient after ingredient, spending a fair amount of time in the produce section packing in all the fresh greens and sad-looking winter tomatoes I could. With most everything I chose, I already had a recipe in mind and an idea of how I was going to use it in a meal or in presentation. I am pretty calculated in my grocery store selections. I feel that in doing so, I'm saving the waste of price-driven impulsive buys as well as the caloric intake of iced, individually wrapped things that come in boxes, both giving way to residual back fat buildup. Plus kale costs like, a dollar and cereal is priced in such a way that makes you wonder what the hell is in cereal anyway.
Partly due to the warm, inviting nature of Kroger HR and part due to The Law, a retard bagged my groceries. Over the years of grocery shopping, I have discovered that old people work at Wal-mart, and mentally handicapped people work at Kroger. I don't know at which point they decided this to be, although I wonder who really "won" on that deal. Personally, I feel as though the mentally handicapped people are in better spirits than the old people in the majority of my experience. Anyway, the cashier scanning my groceries in must have been often paired with the particular retarded gentleman that was bagging my groceries, as they seemed to have a sort of annoyance-ignoring thing going on. Their team ethic was reminiscent of a married couple, whereas one of them has clearly just gone insane and the other one laughs or ignores them to keep their own sanity. I am wondering which manager put these two together because the cashier, who looked like a young black-haired Don King, was like the Billy the Kid of grocery scanning whereas the other guy was the slowest person I've seen do anything while working. He stood at the end of the conveyor belt, giggling and making small talk with us while $91 worth of groceries just began to pile up in front of him.
"I like hockey," he grinned as he grabbed two frozen items and put them in the same bag. Before I could respond, he found two more frozen items and added them to the same bag, "Actually, I like the Big Three." He stopped working and said, "You know, the Big Three."
"Yep," I said, looking at the pile of unbagged groceries.
"Baseball.... football," he patted some meat, "Hockey!"
"Yeah I really like hockey, too," I said, and looked at the cashier who was desperately trying to get his bagger to cooperate.
"C'mon, Ed...." he said in a surprisingly polite tone.
Ed was holding up my bananas. "I just bought bananas."
"I'm buying bananas," was my response.
He stopped working again. "You know, I don't really even like bananas. I think I bought them because they...look good on my counter." I dismissively laughed.
Ten minutes later, my groceries were bagged and I was rushing through the rain to get them all packed in my car, the grocery experience still mildly resonating in my mind. However, I had forgotten about it by this morning when I came out to get breakfast and realized I hadn't even touched my bananas. They were one of the few items I had bought that was not part of a meal plan. I honestly didn't even want them. But, much like flowers, they did look really nice on my counter.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Monday, June 4, 2007
Chain of Fools
I hate chain restaurants. I mostly hate anywhere that gimmicks people into thinking they are having a great experience by surrounding them with balloons.
There are only two outcomes from eating at a chain restaurant: either I feel like I am in some sort of sugary commercial or I feel like I am on the set of the behind-the-smiles filming of the making-of-the-chain restaurant commercial. Simply put, I either experience the facade or I am reminded that it is, in fact, a facade. The balloon trick should really only work until the grand age of 9, and yet the people concurrently sharing my franchised experience also really seem to be a part of Balloontown. I mean, would the restaurant re-open if the championship local sports team pulled up in a bus 5 minutes after close? Fuck no, the cooks would be already drunk by then.
Admittedly, I can't deny a tabbed-by-drink-style book of beverages, despite the fact that it's named the Captain's Bar Log. Maybe I'm a sellout, maybe I've given up, maybe I just wanted a goddamned blueberry mojito without getting any holier-than-thou attitude from the bartender. Get off my nuts already.
I am not an advocate of Jimmy Buffet, "Parrotheads", the thought of Jimmy Buffet, or any other excuse (musical or otherwise) for middle-aged singles to get obscenely drunk, smoke pot and behave like the Duke lacrosse team. But his particular chain can make one hell of a mojito, and since they brand themselves to be an island getaway in the midst of congested mall traffic, they have to make them with a smile. They have to. They even have a interchangeable Blue Man Group-esque team of guitar-playing men that sound all reasonably like Jimmy Buffet that take requests - IF within the approved vocal range and the approved decades.
On this particular trip to Paradise, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. I noticed that it slowly began to darken in the dining area and as I slowly focused my attention away from the table of (empty) mojitos I noticed that it was truly Carribean-style monsooning outside. Previous to this realization, the group consensus was to pay our tab and flee. The weather provided more than enough justification for us to stay. The trees were dark against and even darker sky of an indescribable color and swayed nearly sideways from the extreme winds. Sheets of rain danced through the parking lot, and passing cars flew by with waves of water chasing them. We were in Paradise, and this was all a quiet backdrop to the soothing sounds of James Taylor, The Eagles, and our soon to be requested song.
I turned to my friend and asked for a dollar, so that we might get to request the perfect song to cement our experience.
"OK," he said while thumbing through his wallet, "But if I find one, you have to request the song."
Knowing that our request was blatantly transcendent of both vocal range and generation, I did not want to request it. Thankfully, our bartender-waiter saw the exchange transpire and offered his services.
"Do you guys want to request a song?" I admired his innocence.
"Yeah, we wanted to hear Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Does he know that one?" I asked.
"Well I actually play in a band with Dave," he said proudly, "But I don't think he knows this one. Now if I were up there, I could sing it for you but I'll see what I can do." He disappeared, briefly spoke to the guitar player and returned to our table. The weather outside of our cabana was unaffected by this exchange.
He approached the table more slowly than he had left, foreshadowing the bad news.
"He doesn't know that one," he said slowly, "like I said I could've done it for you, but..." He trailed off in a moment of thought. "He did say that he would do something falsetto and within that same general year of music style."
We shared a glance around the table, equally bearing the expected disappointment and cautious anticipation that our dollar would bring.
We sipped on what we knew to be our last mojitos as we waited for Dave to finish his current selection, before the performance that was to personalize our absolutely perfect chain restaurant experience. As the song was finishing, the manager briskly walked by our table and caught my eye. I pointed to the storm outside, and jokingly said, "Hey, can we get a refund? I'm supposed to be in Paradise."
"It rains in Paradise, too." He said it without missing a beat, a conditioned, in-the-manual response to another asshole customer's predicted question.
As scripted, our song began. Dave closed his eyes, pressed his lips together and began our custom performance, singing in a slightly higher voice than before.
/I would have given you all of my heart
/but there's someone who's torn it apart
I knew the words but I couldn't place it. We sat in silence at our table, while listening to our song.
/and she's taking almost all that I've got
My friend across the table narrowed his brows. "Is this...this is The First Cut is the Deepest?"
I started to nod.
"Sheryl Crow?"
We wanted sexy; we got balloons.
Jimmy Buffet, you win again.
There are only two outcomes from eating at a chain restaurant: either I feel like I am in some sort of sugary commercial or I feel like I am on the set of the behind-the-smiles filming of the making-of-the-chain restaurant commercial. Simply put, I either experience the facade or I am reminded that it is, in fact, a facade. The balloon trick should really only work until the grand age of 9, and yet the people concurrently sharing my franchised experience also really seem to be a part of Balloontown. I mean, would the restaurant re-open if the championship local sports team pulled up in a bus 5 minutes after close? Fuck no, the cooks would be already drunk by then.
Admittedly, I can't deny a tabbed-by-drink-style book of beverages, despite the fact that it's named the Captain's Bar Log. Maybe I'm a sellout, maybe I've given up, maybe I just wanted a goddamned blueberry mojito without getting any holier-than-thou attitude from the bartender. Get off my nuts already.
I am not an advocate of Jimmy Buffet, "Parrotheads", the thought of Jimmy Buffet, or any other excuse (musical or otherwise) for middle-aged singles to get obscenely drunk, smoke pot and behave like the Duke lacrosse team. But his particular chain can make one hell of a mojito, and since they brand themselves to be an island getaway in the midst of congested mall traffic, they have to make them with a smile. They have to. They even have a interchangeable Blue Man Group-esque team of guitar-playing men that sound all reasonably like Jimmy Buffet that take requests - IF within the approved vocal range and the approved decades.
On this particular trip to Paradise, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. I noticed that it slowly began to darken in the dining area and as I slowly focused my attention away from the table of (empty) mojitos I noticed that it was truly Carribean-style monsooning outside. Previous to this realization, the group consensus was to pay our tab and flee. The weather provided more than enough justification for us to stay. The trees were dark against and even darker sky of an indescribable color and swayed nearly sideways from the extreme winds. Sheets of rain danced through the parking lot, and passing cars flew by with waves of water chasing them. We were in Paradise, and this was all a quiet backdrop to the soothing sounds of James Taylor, The Eagles, and our soon to be requested song.
I turned to my friend and asked for a dollar, so that we might get to request the perfect song to cement our experience.
"OK," he said while thumbing through his wallet, "But if I find one, you have to request the song."
Knowing that our request was blatantly transcendent of both vocal range and generation, I did not want to request it. Thankfully, our bartender-waiter saw the exchange transpire and offered his services.
"Do you guys want to request a song?" I admired his innocence.
"Yeah, we wanted to hear Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Does he know that one?" I asked.
"Well I actually play in a band with Dave," he said proudly, "But I don't think he knows this one. Now if I were up there, I could sing it for you but I'll see what I can do." He disappeared, briefly spoke to the guitar player and returned to our table. The weather outside of our cabana was unaffected by this exchange.
He approached the table more slowly than he had left, foreshadowing the bad news.
"He doesn't know that one," he said slowly, "like I said I could've done it for you, but..." He trailed off in a moment of thought. "He did say that he would do something falsetto and within that same general year of music style."
We shared a glance around the table, equally bearing the expected disappointment and cautious anticipation that our dollar would bring.
We sipped on what we knew to be our last mojitos as we waited for Dave to finish his current selection, before the performance that was to personalize our absolutely perfect chain restaurant experience. As the song was finishing, the manager briskly walked by our table and caught my eye. I pointed to the storm outside, and jokingly said, "Hey, can we get a refund? I'm supposed to be in Paradise."
"It rains in Paradise, too." He said it without missing a beat, a conditioned, in-the-manual response to another asshole customer's predicted question.
As scripted, our song began. Dave closed his eyes, pressed his lips together and began our custom performance, singing in a slightly higher voice than before.
/I would have given you all of my heart
/but there's someone who's torn it apart
I knew the words but I couldn't place it. We sat in silence at our table, while listening to our song.
/and she's taking almost all that I've got
My friend across the table narrowed his brows. "Is this...this is The First Cut is the Deepest?"
I started to nod.
"Sheryl Crow?"
We wanted sexy; we got balloons.
Jimmy Buffet, you win again.
Monday, March 26, 2007
hi again
I was afraid of seeing you again;
maybe you wouldn't remember me.
then I remembered why we got along so well in the first place;
because we were so much alike.
maybe you wouldn't remember me.
then I remembered why we got along so well in the first place;
because we were so much alike.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Oh.
DJ: Hi, thanks for calling QFM 96, what can I play for you?
Man on Phone: Yeah, man, could you just play some Pink Floyd, On The Turning Away?
DJ: I'll get that right up for ya. What you up to today?
Man on Phone: Aw, you know, just on my way to work...
DJ: Where's work?
Man on Phone: Donating plasma.
DJ: (pause) Um, how much is plasma going for these days?
Man on Phone: $8.50.
DJ: Oh.
Man on Phone: Yeah, man, could you just play some Pink Floyd, On The Turning Away?
DJ: I'll get that right up for ya. What you up to today?
Man on Phone: Aw, you know, just on my way to work...
DJ: Where's work?
Man on Phone: Donating plasma.
DJ: (pause) Um, how much is plasma going for these days?
Man on Phone: $8.50.
DJ: Oh.
Friday, February 9, 2007
It's OK to Still Hate Someone Even When They're Dead
Even though Anna Nicole Smith didn't directly kill anyone, nor did she contribute to the detriment of the rest of the world in a significant way enough to want her dead per se, I am still totally okay with the fact that she is no longer with us. It seems as though anytime anyone dies, we are expected to feel a sense of remorse or sadness despite the sort of relationship (real or imaginary) that we have had with this person. If I go through my whole life thinking someone is -- let's say -- a money-grubbing whore, I feel that it's only honest to still feel that way even if they happen to choke on some vomit and die.
I went to the grocery store after work to grab a couple items for dinner, shortly after the 'news' of Anna Nicole's death had been circulated. There was an older guy in line who looked like your typical older blue-collar worker and he was discussing the news with the cashier, a girl who looked to be a peer of mine. The girl was incredulous upon news of Smith's death, as she was just finding out from the man in front of me. By the time I stepped through to pay for my items, the 'I-can't-believe-that-just-happened' look was still on her face and compelled her to try to pass it on to me as well.
"Is that really true?" she asked me, wide-eyed while scanning my items.
"Yep."
"That's just so terrible," she said as she busied herself bagging my groceries, "I mean... she was just only 39, and ugh... that little baby..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "I just can't believe it."
"You can't?" I said, sarcastically. She looked up at me with a confused look. "I mean, have you ever heard the woman talk?"
I realized it was pretty pointless to get in some sort of pop culture discussion with the cashier at the grocery store but I pressed on.
"It could've been worse," I started, "It could have been someone who actually made a positive contribution to society instead of someone that just sucked it dry and forced everyone into hearing all about all the shameless drama she brought onto herself. Probably the best thing that ever happened to that baby was that it won't remember ever meeting its mother."
The cashier handed me my bag quietly and stared at me as if I had horns slowly growing from my head.
"Have a good one," I said cheerfully, and walked toward the doors.
Anna Nicole Smith had one purpose for the rest of us, and it wasn't for us to admire her. Maybe you saw that episode of Boston Legal in which Heather Locklear co-starred, however there is a term that was brought up that pretty much sums up her sole media purpose: Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word that means 'pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune'. People get caught up in celebrities for this very reason, often coming to their own conclusions of someone in the public eye that they have never even met. Anna Nicole Smith went against practically every moral I have ever had, we never would have been friends in real life, and I take more comfort in her death than her life although both levels hover around zero. I'm just saying I don't care.
Take a look at the timeline of Anna Nicole Smith and you can too become comfortable with the fact that she is dead. If you believe in Karma at all, know that justice was done.
I went to the grocery store after work to grab a couple items for dinner, shortly after the 'news' of Anna Nicole's death had been circulated. There was an older guy in line who looked like your typical older blue-collar worker and he was discussing the news with the cashier, a girl who looked to be a peer of mine. The girl was incredulous upon news of Smith's death, as she was just finding out from the man in front of me. By the time I stepped through to pay for my items, the 'I-can't-believe-that-just-happened' look was still on her face and compelled her to try to pass it on to me as well.
"Is that really true?" she asked me, wide-eyed while scanning my items.
"Yep."
"That's just so terrible," she said as she busied herself bagging my groceries, "I mean... she was just only 39, and ugh... that little baby..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "I just can't believe it."
"You can't?" I said, sarcastically. She looked up at me with a confused look. "I mean, have you ever heard the woman talk?"
I realized it was pretty pointless to get in some sort of pop culture discussion with the cashier at the grocery store but I pressed on.
"It could've been worse," I started, "It could have been someone who actually made a positive contribution to society instead of someone that just sucked it dry and forced everyone into hearing all about all the shameless drama she brought onto herself. Probably the best thing that ever happened to that baby was that it won't remember ever meeting its mother."
The cashier handed me my bag quietly and stared at me as if I had horns slowly growing from my head.
"Have a good one," I said cheerfully, and walked toward the doors.
Anna Nicole Smith had one purpose for the rest of us, and it wasn't for us to admire her. Maybe you saw that episode of Boston Legal in which Heather Locklear co-starred, however there is a term that was brought up that pretty much sums up her sole media purpose: Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word that means 'pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune'. People get caught up in celebrities for this very reason, often coming to their own conclusions of someone in the public eye that they have never even met. Anna Nicole Smith went against practically every moral I have ever had, we never would have been friends in real life, and I take more comfort in her death than her life although both levels hover around zero. I'm just saying I don't care.
Take a look at the timeline of Anna Nicole Smith and you can too become comfortable with the fact that she is dead. If you believe in Karma at all, know that justice was done.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Vintage Jumps the Shark
Nobody wants to "Jump the Shark", so to speak. We all want to keep a good thing going for as long as possible before it inevitably starts to suck. Wheras the initial premise of determining when the 'shark' had been 'jumped' pertained only to television shows, I think we all realize that pretty much anything is eligible.
I've had my eBay account since May 1999. It's been good to me through the sale of my old bed, some shoes, and really supported me through my obsessive Brendan Shanahan phase. I remember the times before PayPal, and having to actually go and get a money order from Speedway. Most people just entering into the workforce don't even know what a money order IS. Anyway, times change and web storefronts are updated and new features are tested and added and eBay is no different. The addition of the streamlined checkout process was key, About Me pages have become worthy of standalone traffic, and PayPal is bomb. However, eBay's "Buy It Now" (BIN) feature totally cast aside the auction giant into the 'sharked' bin.
Think about it this way: eBay, with its hundreds of thousands of daily new listings, was like the online flea market Mecca. There was all the allure of actually going shopping at a worldly flea market without having to worry about having to wash out the scent of cigar smoke, bad decisions, and middle-aged hygeine issues. There was a chance, just a chance that we might be the ones to find that hidden gem of a treasure that some homely-looking archaeologist guy from Iowa -- the only person who collects that very thing that you happened to find -- looked over and missed. There was achance that we might be lucky enough to underpay for something great and possibly even unopened. The pursuit was nearly as exciting as the purchase. Well, those days are fucking over, and we have BIN to thank for it.
BIN turned my beloved local-feel eBay flea market into the Mall of America. No more forced bidding wars, no more secret great deals, no more pursuit of frugal happiness. It's now just set prices for mass-produced crap, fake autographed items with outlandish reserve prices (just ask Joan Jett), "vintage" items with laughable BIN prices, ways to shoplift (check out esnipe), and a bunch of annoying people with fake foreign accents trying to squirt you with sticky shit from their kiosks. Ugh! Go away! The 'new and improved' eBay is now just a bunch of stuff that you can buy locally, but instead you have to wait 2 weeks and pay some suspiciously high shipping price for it.
There is no more 'new' information. In the days of pre-promotion and hypermarketing, everyone already knows about a good thing before it's even good yet, making its reputation completely precede the actual thing itself. We've totally done a 180 by banking on the phrase 'supposed to be'.
Adding to eBay's bag of suck is the resurgence of 'vintage' items, or should I say items that are branded as 'vintage' but are just logos heat-transferred onto a new t-shirt. The vintage look is all the rage thesedays and the demand of such items far outweighs the supply. 29 minutes before an auction ended on an authentic vintage (seems redundant) 1979 Van Halen World Tour concert T-shirt, the price was $50.50. It closed at $130.00. The exact same t-shirt in another auction was a BIN only "auction" set at a fixed price of $250.00. Six months ago, I bought two small sleveless Van Halen concert tees for no more than $10 apiece. I mean, what the hell is going on here? It can't be just because they announced their upcoming tour...
Vintage 80s concert t-shirts + BIN option = 'Fuck that'.
I've had my eBay account since May 1999. It's been good to me through the sale of my old bed, some shoes, and really supported me through my obsessive Brendan Shanahan phase. I remember the times before PayPal, and having to actually go and get a money order from Speedway. Most people just entering into the workforce don't even know what a money order IS. Anyway, times change and web storefronts are updated and new features are tested and added and eBay is no different. The addition of the streamlined checkout process was key, About Me pages have become worthy of standalone traffic, and PayPal is bomb. However, eBay's "Buy It Now" (BIN) feature totally cast aside the auction giant into the 'sharked' bin.
Think about it this way: eBay, with its hundreds of thousands of daily new listings, was like the online flea market Mecca. There was all the allure of actually going shopping at a worldly flea market without having to worry about having to wash out the scent of cigar smoke, bad decisions, and middle-aged hygeine issues. There was a chance, just a chance that we might be the ones to find that hidden gem of a treasure that some homely-looking archaeologist guy from Iowa -- the only person who collects that very thing that you happened to find -- looked over and missed. There was achance that we might be lucky enough to underpay for something great and possibly even unopened. The pursuit was nearly as exciting as the purchase. Well, those days are fucking over, and we have BIN to thank for it.
BIN turned my beloved local-feel eBay flea market into the Mall of America. No more forced bidding wars, no more secret great deals, no more pursuit of frugal happiness. It's now just set prices for mass-produced crap, fake autographed items with outlandish reserve prices (just ask Joan Jett), "vintage" items with laughable BIN prices, ways to shoplift (check out esnipe), and a bunch of annoying people with fake foreign accents trying to squirt you with sticky shit from their kiosks. Ugh! Go away! The 'new and improved' eBay is now just a bunch of stuff that you can buy locally, but instead you have to wait 2 weeks and pay some suspiciously high shipping price for it.
There is no more 'new' information. In the days of pre-promotion and hypermarketing, everyone already knows about a good thing before it's even good yet, making its reputation completely precede the actual thing itself. We've totally done a 180 by banking on the phrase 'supposed to be'.
Adding to eBay's bag of suck is the resurgence of 'vintage' items, or should I say items that are branded as 'vintage' but are just logos heat-transferred onto a new t-shirt. The vintage look is all the rage thesedays and the demand of such items far outweighs the supply. 29 minutes before an auction ended on an authentic vintage (seems redundant) 1979 Van Halen World Tour concert T-shirt, the price was $50.50. It closed at $130.00. The exact same t-shirt in another auction was a BIN only "auction" set at a fixed price of $250.00. Six months ago, I bought two small sleveless Van Halen concert tees for no more than $10 apiece. I mean, what the hell is going on here? It can't be just because they announced their upcoming tour...
Vintage 80s concert t-shirts + BIN option = 'Fuck that'.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Retaliation Through Sandwiches
For those of you that are looking for a blog post to jump out of the screen and make you warm inside, with each word soothing and caressing your temples while the sheer profoundness of it all tingles your happy parts, go somewhere else. I'm in a really bad mood.
There are a big shit-basket of reasons to which I attribute the gloomy gut, but it can pretty much be summed up as this: I am slowly coming to the realization that I am stuck in a generation gap. I am awkwardly straddling the cusp between Generation X and Generation Y: Generation "More Money" vs. Generation "I Don't Care". One part of my brain wants to be super-entrepreneurial and make all kinds of money jammin' out to Stevie Ray Vaughn, yet the other part of me wants to serve prudish assholes coffee while wearing a demeaning little apron, thinks Death Cab For Cutie is actually goodand hangs out at Whole Foods all day. They've apparently given us the name, "MtV Generation" (yes I realize this is not new). For Christ's sake, I looked it up on Wikipedia and one of the Global Factors influencing this distinguished group of people is Teddy Ruxpin. Hey, I may know a shit ton of people on medication for ADHD but it wasn't because of trauma caused by a goddamned talking bear. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be baby-booming, baby-busting, baby-sitting, or just telling dead baby jokes. Fuck you, 1980! Seriously though, how long does it take to microwave a dead baby?
Wait, what were we talking about?
Anyway, shit has been a strugglin' lately, INCLUDING MY BLOG YES I KNOW, so instead of keeping quiet per usual I am going to unload (upload?) on you people in a rare bitch-a-blog session. Feel free to comment, feel free to add, feel free to go GFY, I dont care. Apathy: Teddy Ruxpin-style.
I am going to do this as cheaply and plainly as possible. Here is what's been stirring and stewing in the brain pot lately (MTVers, I've added visual stimulation for you as not to lose your interest, Generation Xers I've split it up into two parts to keep your attention Jack Bauer-style):
As I've mentioned before, I go to the same coffee shop every morning for 'the usual', a skim latte. Make whatever scoffs you want, I like milk and I like coffee and I just happen to like them together and admittance of so does not make me any less of a person, despite the ridiculous snobbery that goes on within coffee shop confines. Black coffee drinkers get all pissed off waiting behind someone ordering a frothy drink, die-hard coffee drinkers think the chai people are hippies, everyone thinks you're sick or ailing if you order hot tea...it's all retarded. I mean, we're mostly all there crusty-faced at 7:30 in the morning for the same reason: to get a jolt of caffeine before starting the 'routine' that we've actually already started but just didn't realize because we were too damn tired. We're tired, we're crabby, that's why we're there. The people that work at coffee shops are super troopers and surely understand the "you're allowed to be an asshole in the morning" rule and just take retribution in guilt-tripping us to paying an extra dollar for our coffee via tip jar.
The other morning, however, I groggily stumbled into the shop and waited at the counter for a brief moment for someone to attend to me. While I was standing there I felt a gust of cold behind me, signifying someone else had come in. By the time I felt the cold, the door-rushing woman was so close behind me, she almost scared me. Honestly, one more step closer and she could've put her fist up my ass. Every tiny detail in the experience involving her that morning pointed to the fact that she was rushing. I hate being rushed. I hate it. I ordered my latte and she sighed audibly. Heavily, even. I turned around and gave her the "Are you being fucking serious?" look but she was so airy that she pretended to look through me. I turned back around and added a sandwich onto my order to retaliate. More heavy sighs, and maybe even a desperate 'come on' muttered underneath her breath. Eventually, I moved aside to the end of the counter to wait on my coffee, when I heard the woman order. DECAF!!! A decaf coffee?!! I mean, honestly, why don't you just piss on a hill of navy beans and light a fire underneath the runoff? What a waste to get all pissed off that I was standing in the way of you getting your .01% caffeine fix. And of $1.40.
This sort of goes hand in hand with the general lack of patience movement I've been noticing lately. I find it so funny that we get so worked up to the point of actually physiologically elevating our own blood pressure over the most trivial things. When something is supposed to take 10 seconds but instead takes 30, people flip the fuck out. One of these kinds of people is the Delayed Angry Honker. I used to live in New York, where the horn is just a way of life. Columbus really isn't so bad. The only times I have felt it necessary to honk my horn in the last two years have been out of courtesy. A polite double-honk to let the person text-messaging in front of you that the light has changed, an "OMG! YOU ARE GOING TO GET HIT!" courtesy honk, a honk of recognition to a car or a person - these are all pretty acceptable. Normally, if someone is pulling into a parking space and has to Tommy Boy it, or otherwise is just old and takes forever I don't honk. That person probably has enough problems as it is to have to be going that slow in the first place without me adding any further confusion. Lately around here, our wind chills have been ridiculous, so I can understand and accept the fact that things are going to take a little (if not a lot) longer than usual. Am I going to wait for a parking space if someone is pulling out of one if it's 2 degrees out? Hell yes I am. Anyway, someone was doing this yesterday; waiting for a parking spot at a rather busy lunch spot. Admittedly, her waiting for the spot held up about 3 cars for about 40 seconds. I could see the person in front of me go through the entire stages from 'calm' to 'freak out' in a matter of those 40 seconds. Finally as the car pulled into the great parking spot, traffic was freed up and Freakout laid on the horn and screamed, hands waving madly. She was only going one row over from the lady that had just parked. I know, because I watched her. I watched her get out of her car, still muttering and waving, and she went into a National City Bank. 40 seconds late.
I'm dragging Part 2 out until tomorrow so I can have an excuse to go to happy hour tonight.
There are a big shit-basket of reasons to which I attribute the gloomy gut, but it can pretty much be summed up as this: I am slowly coming to the realization that I am stuck in a generation gap. I am awkwardly straddling the cusp between Generation X and Generation Y: Generation "More Money" vs. Generation "I Don't Care". One part of my brain wants to be super-entrepreneurial and make all kinds of money jammin' out to Stevie Ray Vaughn, yet the other part of me wants to serve prudish assholes coffee while wearing a demeaning little apron, thinks Death Cab For Cutie is actually goodand hangs out at Whole Foods all day. They've apparently given us the name, "MtV Generation" (yes I realize this is not new). For Christ's sake, I looked it up on Wikipedia and one of the Global Factors influencing this distinguished group of people is Teddy Ruxpin. Hey, I may know a shit ton of people on medication for ADHD but it wasn't because of trauma caused by a goddamned talking bear. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be baby-booming, baby-busting, baby-sitting, or just telling dead baby jokes. Fuck you, 1980! Seriously though, how long does it take to microwave a dead baby?
Wait, what were we talking about?
Anyway, shit has been a strugglin' lately, INCLUDING MY BLOG YES I KNOW, so instead of keeping quiet per usual I am going to unload (upload?) on you people in a rare bitch-a-blog session. Feel free to comment, feel free to add, feel free to go GFY, I dont care. Apathy: Teddy Ruxpin-style.
And then Goldilocks and the Three Bear... Hey you do realize your parents are subsituting me for a babysitter, right...
I am going to do this as cheaply and plainly as possible. Here is what's been stirring and stewing in the brain pot lately (MTVers, I've added visual stimulation for you as not to lose your interest, Generation Xers I've split it up into two parts to keep your attention Jack Bauer-style):
Who needs content when you have PICTURES!
As I've mentioned before, I go to the same coffee shop every morning for 'the usual', a skim latte. Make whatever scoffs you want, I like milk and I like coffee and I just happen to like them together and admittance of so does not make me any less of a person, despite the ridiculous snobbery that goes on within coffee shop confines. Black coffee drinkers get all pissed off waiting behind someone ordering a frothy drink, die-hard coffee drinkers think the chai people are hippies, everyone thinks you're sick or ailing if you order hot tea...it's all retarded. I mean, we're mostly all there crusty-faced at 7:30 in the morning for the same reason: to get a jolt of caffeine before starting the 'routine' that we've actually already started but just didn't realize because we were too damn tired. We're tired, we're crabby, that's why we're there. The people that work at coffee shops are super troopers and surely understand the "you're allowed to be an asshole in the morning" rule and just take retribution in guilt-tripping us to paying an extra dollar for our coffee via tip jar.
The other morning, however, I groggily stumbled into the shop and waited at the counter for a brief moment for someone to attend to me. While I was standing there I felt a gust of cold behind me, signifying someone else had come in. By the time I felt the cold, the door-rushing woman was so close behind me, she almost scared me. Honestly, one more step closer and she could've put her fist up my ass. Every tiny detail in the experience involving her that morning pointed to the fact that she was rushing. I hate being rushed. I hate it. I ordered my latte and she sighed audibly. Heavily, even. I turned around and gave her the "Are you being fucking serious?" look but she was so airy that she pretended to look through me. I turned back around and added a sandwich onto my order to retaliate. More heavy sighs, and maybe even a desperate 'come on' muttered underneath her breath. Eventually, I moved aside to the end of the counter to wait on my coffee, when I heard the woman order. DECAF!!! A decaf coffee?!! I mean, honestly, why don't you just piss on a hill of navy beans and light a fire underneath the runoff? What a waste to get all pissed off that I was standing in the way of you getting your .01% caffeine fix. And of $1.40.
This sort of goes hand in hand with the general lack of patience movement I've been noticing lately. I find it so funny that we get so worked up to the point of actually physiologically elevating our own blood pressure over the most trivial things. When something is supposed to take 10 seconds but instead takes 30, people flip the fuck out. One of these kinds of people is the Delayed Angry Honker. I used to live in New York, where the horn is just a way of life. Columbus really isn't so bad. The only times I have felt it necessary to honk my horn in the last two years have been out of courtesy. A polite double-honk to let the person text-messaging in front of you that the light has changed, an "OMG! YOU ARE GOING TO GET HIT!" courtesy honk, a honk of recognition to a car or a person - these are all pretty acceptable. Normally, if someone is pulling into a parking space and has to Tommy Boy it, or otherwise is just old and takes forever I don't honk. That person probably has enough problems as it is to have to be going that slow in the first place without me adding any further confusion. Lately around here, our wind chills have been ridiculous, so I can understand and accept the fact that things are going to take a little (if not a lot) longer than usual. Am I going to wait for a parking space if someone is pulling out of one if it's 2 degrees out? Hell yes I am. Anyway, someone was doing this yesterday; waiting for a parking spot at a rather busy lunch spot. Admittedly, her waiting for the spot held up about 3 cars for about 40 seconds. I could see the person in front of me go through the entire stages from 'calm' to 'freak out' in a matter of those 40 seconds. Finally as the car pulled into the great parking spot, traffic was freed up and Freakout laid on the horn and screamed, hands waving madly. She was only going one row over from the lady that had just parked. I know, because I watched her. I watched her get out of her car, still muttering and waving, and she went into a National City Bank. 40 seconds late.
I'm dragging Part 2 out until tomorrow so I can have an excuse to go to happy hour tonight.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Patience
Patience and tolerance are very closely related concepts, however, are very different in practice. Patience is more of a visceral reaction; it takes cognitive manipulation to retain it. Tolerance, however, is more of an attitude. For example, I am tolerant of several different kinds of people unlike myself in color, practice, or beliefs, however, I have no patience behind any of them on an exit ramp. Look elsewhere for an even-temper on the road, 'cause I have a short fuse.
My whole point of bringing this up is to initiate a certain cognizance that there is an appropriate time to exercise tolerance and patience and not to let your emotions get the best of you, especially at Wal-mart. The people that regularly shop at Wal-mart are fucking crazy, wallowing around in a velcroed-knockoff version of small town self-fulfilling pity that seems to only get worse when they're shown a glimpse of better life. Just for a visit.
I always thought it was integral to the marketing strategy of Wal-mart to build a giant superstore in the middle of a field in Smalltown, USA, strategically placing it within a certain distance of X population + Y distance from a distribution center and Z number of minority workers. I was fine with that. For instance, there upon 2 feet of raised ground in Chillicothe's flood plain -- quite possibly the worst spot ever to build anything-- sits the giant discount Mecca like a giant thrift magnet. Small town, small town wages, small town Wal-mart. Seems to have a nice balance to it.
Somewhere along the way, the mega-success of Wal-mart wasn't enough. So now, greedy corporate evolution has led way to the stores popping up in some of the best neighborhoods in the state. Dublin, Ohio has a Wal-mart. Dublin's average home price was $350,000 last year. You can bet that several of the Better Homes and Gardens wives are shopping there, but they sure as hell aren't happy about it being there. Wal-mart is like the dragnet of tuna fishing. You're going to snag a lot of tuna, but you're probably also going to get about just as much trash and old boots when you take a look at your catch.
Living in Northwest Columbus is optimal, mostly because you can get practically anywhere within 15 minutes. I live in a comfy area, sandwiched between two of the best zip codes in the city, one of which I share. The two nearest streets are hotbeds of retail activity and within 5 minutes I can be at Micro Center, an organic foods market, McDonald's, develop photos in an hour, or pick up medication at at least 4 locations. Because those two streets are under the umbrella of generic City of Columbus zoning, nobody made a huge deal when an old Big Bear location was knocked down and then Phoenixed as a Wal-mart. In fact, living around the corner from it I didn't even know what was going on until I saw the newspaper last week. Instead of being contained in the clear, thin plastic bag per usual, it was in an opaque white bag bearing the advertisement of the Wal-Mart Grand Opening on 'Bethal Road' (the correct spelling of the road is actually 'Bethel').
My boyfriend and I went in Saturday to check it out. Actually, we were goinggeocaching and we needed a couple little things, so we went in quickly to grab some lottery tickets. We didn't find any, but we did find a deer hunting arcade game with two rifles, a significant dose of apathy, and two mulleted idiots behind the customer service counter. It was almost as if they had a Wal-mart Idol at every town in rural Ohio that no one had ever heard of and recruited them to work there. We left after five minutes, and a general sense that our comfy area of central Ohio was about to get a little less comfortable.
One day later, there was a murder-suicide in the parking lot. A man shot his wife, then himself in front of their two teenaged daughters right there in view of anyone who may have been returning to their cars at about the same time. At least he did it Wal-mart style and shot himself afterward, instead of dragging anyone else into it. Plus, he committed the crime at about 9:21, when any respectable individuals would've been inside watching Family Guy; another bonus. I have lived in Columbus all of my adult life and the worst crime that I can even think of on that corner was perhaps a car getting broken into. Slap a Wal-mart next to a dollar movie theater and some guy can't even wait a week for it to be open to kill his wife. Isolated incident, maybe. But really, fuck Wal-mart.
The real horror: the teenaged girls who just lost their parents were home schooled. When an aunt of the girls was asked by police to come and pick them up with no explanation, she offered this gem:
"We all had a feeling that something was coming."
Oh. Well then.
My point is this: The only sanity that you can really be assured of is your own. How many of these human time bombs are in front of us in line, working at the check out, or overhearing our petty conversations? How can we be so sure that the guy sitting next to us at the movie theater can't stay still because he has restless leg syndrome and not because he has a gun poking him in the ass? I'm not paranoid; I am just realistic. People are fucking crazy.
Next time, go to Target.
My whole point of bringing this up is to initiate a certain cognizance that there is an appropriate time to exercise tolerance and patience and not to let your emotions get the best of you, especially at Wal-mart. The people that regularly shop at Wal-mart are fucking crazy, wallowing around in a velcroed-knockoff version of small town self-fulfilling pity that seems to only get worse when they're shown a glimpse of better life. Just for a visit.
I always thought it was integral to the marketing strategy of Wal-mart to build a giant superstore in the middle of a field in Smalltown, USA, strategically placing it within a certain distance of X population + Y distance from a distribution center and Z number of minority workers. I was fine with that. For instance, there upon 2 feet of raised ground in Chillicothe's flood plain -- quite possibly the worst spot ever to build anything-- sits the giant discount Mecca like a giant thrift magnet. Small town, small town wages, small town Wal-mart. Seems to have a nice balance to it.
Somewhere along the way, the mega-success of Wal-mart wasn't enough. So now, greedy corporate evolution has led way to the stores popping up in some of the best neighborhoods in the state. Dublin, Ohio has a Wal-mart. Dublin's average home price was $350,000 last year. You can bet that several of the Better Homes and Gardens wives are shopping there, but they sure as hell aren't happy about it being there. Wal-mart is like the dragnet of tuna fishing. You're going to snag a lot of tuna, but you're probably also going to get about just as much trash and old boots when you take a look at your catch.
Living in Northwest Columbus is optimal, mostly because you can get practically anywhere within 15 minutes. I live in a comfy area, sandwiched between two of the best zip codes in the city, one of which I share. The two nearest streets are hotbeds of retail activity and within 5 minutes I can be at Micro Center, an organic foods market, McDonald's, develop photos in an hour, or pick up medication at at least 4 locations. Because those two streets are under the umbrella of generic City of Columbus zoning, nobody made a huge deal when an old Big Bear location was knocked down and then Phoenixed as a Wal-mart. In fact, living around the corner from it I didn't even know what was going on until I saw the newspaper last week. Instead of being contained in the clear, thin plastic bag per usual, it was in an opaque white bag bearing the advertisement of the Wal-Mart Grand Opening on 'Bethal Road' (the correct spelling of the road is actually 'Bethel').
My boyfriend and I went in Saturday to check it out. Actually, we were goinggeocaching and we needed a couple little things, so we went in quickly to grab some lottery tickets. We didn't find any, but we did find a deer hunting arcade game with two rifles, a significant dose of apathy, and two mulleted idiots behind the customer service counter. It was almost as if they had a Wal-mart Idol at every town in rural Ohio that no one had ever heard of and recruited them to work there. We left after five minutes, and a general sense that our comfy area of central Ohio was about to get a little less comfortable.
One day later, there was a murder-suicide in the parking lot. A man shot his wife, then himself in front of their two teenaged daughters right there in view of anyone who may have been returning to their cars at about the same time. At least he did it Wal-mart style and shot himself afterward, instead of dragging anyone else into it. Plus, he committed the crime at about 9:21, when any respectable individuals would've been inside watching Family Guy; another bonus. I have lived in Columbus all of my adult life and the worst crime that I can even think of on that corner was perhaps a car getting broken into. Slap a Wal-mart next to a dollar movie theater and some guy can't even wait a week for it to be open to kill his wife. Isolated incident, maybe. But really, fuck Wal-mart.
The real horror: the teenaged girls who just lost their parents were home schooled. When an aunt of the girls was asked by police to come and pick them up with no explanation, she offered this gem:
"We all had a feeling that something was coming."
Oh. Well then.
My point is this: The only sanity that you can really be assured of is your own. How many of these human time bombs are in front of us in line, working at the check out, or overhearing our petty conversations? How can we be so sure that the guy sitting next to us at the movie theater can't stay still because he has restless leg syndrome and not because he has a gun poking him in the ass? I'm not paranoid; I am just realistic. People are fucking crazy.
Next time, go to Target.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)