I put it on every morning (when I remember, though sometimes I'm a couple hours late) and wear it until bedtime. I think my goal is 1.7 miles, because I got a different chirp from The Shamer on Thursday, rather than the tsk-tsk shaming beeps I usually get. We'd been to the lottery office in the city, and stopped by the casino on the way back (one had nothing to do with the other, I swear) so I got in more walking than usual.
Anyhoo...I asked Genius, though I've never received a response, how The Shamer knows when I'm walking, when I'm just shaking my arm (not that I'd ever try to outsmart The Shamer), or when I'm pushing a cart through The Devil's Playground with my hand resting on the handle. Because even though I'm walking, maybe The Shamer thinks I riding.
Just in case, I've taken to pushing the cart with my right hand, and letting my left arm bearing The Shamer swing as usual with my stride. No way is Mrs. HM going to walk and not get credit for it!
Today I encountered a problem. The only cart I could get loose was not going along willingly. It was as if one wheel was flat. Or locked. Even though I looked down at it, and it appeared to be moving in tandem with the other three.
By now, I was already in the deli section. Being the eternal optimist, I'd figured that maybe there was just a smidgen of something caught under that one wheel. It happens all the time, right? You're rolling along and then CLUNK! You come to a sudden stop, and have to pull the cart back, and see what foreign object has put an end to rolling. I even picked up the handle and let the wheels slam down, thinking I would jar that one loose. Didn't work. But I'm pretty sure the associates monitoring the security cameras enjoyed it.
Pushing that cart was like pushing a blocking sled made for professional football players. Not college. Pro. Michael Oher, inspiration for The Blind Side movie, could not have pushed that cart with one hand, while swinging his Garmin FitBit arm. Sandy Bullock would have encouraged him, though.
On the way out, I decided that I'd carry my three bags to T-Hoe. I was parked almost at the end of the lot. I was actually closer to the Pizza Hut than to The Devil's Playground. That's what happens when you go at church let-out time on a Sunday. As I struggled with my
"How's everything going today?"
I gave him a big smile right back. He looks like William Lee Golden, that one of the Oak Ridge Boys with the beard. He's always cheery.
"Not as fast as I'd like. This cart seems like one wheel won't roll! I've been fighting it the whole time."
"Well, next time, feel free to take it right back and get a different one!" So logical, that Oak Ridge Boy man.
"I know! I thought about it, but I was already over in the deli, and I didn't want to drag it back."
"You know, all of these carts have something wrong with them! I've told the higher ups all they need to do is have someone with a wrench loosen that nut a little bit." He pointed to the wheel, and indeed, there was a nut exposed on each wheel that could have been adjusted in less than a minute. "But they didn't want to hear about it."
"Yeah. Save A Lot has a bunch of bad new carts, too. I guess we'll get used to them."
I'm pretty sure that Oak Ridge Boy man would have loosened up those bolts as he greeted people. They could have gotten two men's worth of work out of him. But that's not how The Devil operates.
I'm still waiting to hear how my Shaming Bracelet operates.
I have no idea how they work either. I do know that my daughter got a mini fitbit that she keeps in her pocket when it isn't wherever else it should be and I think it still works in there. Anyhow, she showed it to me the other day when I was in her hospital getting some blood tests done and in her normal work day going all over the hospital, she'd clocked up over 13000 steps. I joked that if I got one it would probably ring the paramedics for me telling them I hadn't moved for three hours and was probably dead.
ReplyDeleteWhy do companies insist on making wonky supermarket trolleys?
River,
ReplyDeleteI can't remember how many steps my goal is set for. I just put it on miles and compare from day to day. I'm sure I walk WAY LESS steps than your daughter, and way less steps than you!
Those carts are probably made my toddlers in a developing country, and shipped here in FREIGHT CONTAINERS like Farmer H made a garage out of. They are not high quality. Nothing on them fits together right. The carts at Save A Lot have that plastic child seat that's supposed to flip up to fill those leg hole openings when you don't have a kid in there. But the notches where it clicks into the metal are WAY OFF, and it flops back unless you have some sturdy food in there to hold it up.
That kid seat USED to be where I carried my handbag, with the straps loosely tied to the handle, until one day I noticed I was being followed around the store, so I buried my bag under a heap of groceries and he took off in search of another victim. I reported him on the way past the front desk and a security guard was called and followed him around until he gave up and left.
ReplyDeleteYou would think they would let the greeter fix the carts, but they would rather buy all new carts than have someone fix them while on the clock. I use to tell the workers in the garden dept. that they could save most of their annuals by dead-heading them. They were "not allowed" to, they would rather toss the plants or put them on clearance shelf at 75% off for me to rescue them.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteYou barely escaped being a crime statistic! Good snitching!
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Kathy,
I think The Devil's Playground is a No Common Sense Zone.