Tomorrow, I'm going to town to mail a letter to the #1 Son, and a couple of bills. Kind of important, I guess.
My boy will be rifling through his cul-de-sac mailbox for his weekly $6 and HOPE on Monday. The $6 because that's what my mom used to send him every week when he first went off to college three years ago. And HOPE in the form of two scratch-off lottery tickets. He won $100 a couple weeks ago, so he's a bit more interested in them now.
The bills are payments for a little yearly thing called THE MANSION INSURANCE. And DISH Network, which keeps Mrs. Hillbilly Mom on the innernets. Good thing I got those bills in the mail!
The mail. It kind of worries me. But not enough to switch over to automatic bill pay online. I've been going to the main hub instead of the dead mouse smelling post office ten minutes away. I have found it to be more reliable. Until Tuesday. I pulled into the parking-garage-like lot and stepped out of T-Hoe, my only business there to put The Pony's weekly letter in the slot, and I saw a printed sign taped to both glass outer doors.
TRANSACTIONS LIMITED TO STAMP PURCHASE WITH CORRECT CHANGE OR CHECK. INTERNET IS DOWN.
Sweet Gummi Mary! Is that any way to run a government agency? Does that make me feel confident that The Pony will get his letter? No Siree, Bob! But what options do I have? And why can't postal clerks figure out purchases without exact change? Don't make excuses for them about not having cash in the drawer! They give back change on days when the internet IS working. There's a bank a block away, for cryin' out loud!
Nope. I am not feeling at all confident in my mailings tomorrow. The insurance premium for T-Hoe, mailed LAST WEDNESDAY, has still not cleared the bank.
Why are things so complicated in these modern times?
Farmer H said he tried to pay for a purchase with cash the other day. He did not say where, but chances are he was at a Goodwill or a Lowe's. The total was $15.17, so he handed the gal a $20 bill and a quarter. She was bumfuzzled. Discombobulated. Flusterated. She had already seen Farmer H pull out the twenty, and punched that into her register. It was telling her to give him back $14.83. Farmer H tried to explain that all she had to do was hand him a five-dollar bill, and a nickel and three pennies. He said it took a while to convince her.
I asked if she was young. Because the only way you're gonna have somebody use common sense and count back your change is if THEY'RE OLD! Those old ladies in the gas station chicken store sure know how to do that. They'd better, or their woman owner boss will have their head! I guess old people just KNOW how to do this stuff, though, because that's how we were schooled.
Let's hope nobody has to read or write cursive next time the internet is down!
HM--In St. Louis, a hacker is holding the city libraries hostage. They want $30,000-something before they "return" the system to the libraries. The libraries are open, but no one can check out and no one can use their computers.
ReplyDeleteIt's a strange, strange world...
I tried to use two rolls of quarters to pay for a purchase I made at Big Lots that totaled $39.79. The young man stared bug eyed at the rolls and assured me that Big Lots did not take "that", only cash, or debit and credit cards. I told him that it was cash and he told me that "cash is dollars". I insisted on a manager and when she asked him what the problem was. He told her he couldn't even ring the rolls of quarters into the register. She told him to finish the transaction, that it was $40. He refused!! Told her it wasn't dollars and he would not lie about it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if she fired him or tried to re-educate him. It does not speak well for our youth and after the activities that happened this morning, I am afraid it will only get worse.
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteThat's PREPOSTEROUS! And such a random amount! Why not $100,000? I'm going to ask the #1 Son what he thinks about such subterfuge. I'm sure he'll have an opinion. It involves computers.
***
Kathy,
SWEET GUMMI MARY! To refuse right in front of the manager??? Maybe he's "on the spectrum," and couldn't help himself. Can only see things a certain way. Takes the world literally. As in...coins are not dollar bills, even though the two rolls of quarters are the EQUIVALENT of 40 dollars.
Or else he just has a bad attitude. I'm surprised his brain didn't start smoking.
Pretty soon cursive will be like writing in code!!
ReplyDeletefishducky,
ReplyDeleteThink we'll be in high demand to decipher it? Or we could be spies!