Mrs. HM Protests An Instant Reward For Her Selflessness

Sometimes, Even Steven is out of line. At the grocery line, no less!

Saturday, I stopped by Save A Lot to get some Stove Top Stuffing. I had a box in the pantry, but the date said it was best by 2022. I figured I could do better. I normally don't go to the store on Saturdays. It's busy with working people who have no other time to shop. Or with people bringing their kids, because there's no school to babysit them. And I especially do not go on a Saturday at the first of the month, when so many people get their government or social security or retirement benefits deposited in their accounts, or loaded on their cards. It's a hectic time.

Still, I wanted to use the Save A Lot lottery machine. I'd just been in 10Box the day before. I bought tickets there, and I was unable to find the Stove Top Stuffing. Even the lottery-playing checker was not sure what aisle. She suggested the one I had just looked on. And added that A LOT of people ask about it, and it is apparently on the bottom shelf somewhere.

Anyhoo... I pulled into Save A Lot, and saw a multitude of cars. But my rightful handicap parking space was open! I figured that must be a sign. It's right next to the cart return. I grabbed one and hobbled in. I didn't have a big winner from my scratchers, but my good-deediness almost got me a payout!

As I expected, the store was FULL. In fact, right in front of me, a woman and her three teenage kids strolled inside. I could hear a younger kid screaming. A dad and young son were on the bean aisle, and he was on his phone. I'm pretty sure they had a list, and he was making sure not to get the wrong thing.

This was also a special weekend, because Save A Lot had been advertising on the radio (Farmer H said) that you could get 6-for-$25 this weekend, on their usual 5-for-$25 meat deal. Also, you could get $10 off on any $50 purchase. AND they were giving out vouchers for $50 FREE groceries (no alcohol, tobacco, pet food) to people with electronic benefit cards. Local law enforcement officers were supposed to be there handing them out until they ran out.

Anyhoo... I was just there for a few items. Hopefully quickly! I grabbed a can of biscuits. A bottle of Caesar salad dressing for when The Pony comes out for grilling. Two boxes of stuffing. And three bananas. So basically, I had five items in the child seat of my cart when I headed up front to check out.

Only two lines were open. The man in front of me had a cart full. He was setting things onto the conveyor. A couple had pulled into the second line, also with an overflowing cart. I waited. A black lady around 30-something walked up, glanced at both lines, and stood in the second one. She had obviously just come in for a few things. She was wearing pink pajama pants, and some fluffy house slippers. It was the day after Halloween, or I might have thought she was in costume. She didn't even have a cart. Just a bottle of Coke, a plastic square container of blueberries, and two things I forget.

"You can go ahead of me. I have a cart to lean on."

I didn't mind, because I'd hate to be holding awkward items while waiting in line. She thanked me and got in front of my cart. I could tell the checker was frazzled. She must have had a Not-Heaven of a day, with these specials and the resulting crowds. She was young and blond. I've not seen her there before.

Of course That Lady's blueberries did not have a price on them! "Do you remember how much these were?" Nope. Frazzle took them and started over to the produce section, which is fairly close to the registers. Then she came back. "I'm just going to charge you $X for them." I don't remember how much, but it seemed fair enough.

Then the phone rang. Frazzle answered, while ringing up That Lady's other three items. I put mine on the end of the conveyor. Frazzle kept that conveyor going. Stopped it when it got to her end. That Lady had her card out and ready for the total. 

THEN FRAZZLE SCANNED A BOX OF MY STUFFING!

"Wait! No! That's mine!"

Frazzle was startled, but took my stuffing out of the cart where she had been putting That Lady's items. Then she subtracted it off her register.

"You almost bought my groceries for me, heh, heh!"

That Lady laughed. I hope she looked over her receipt. Frazzle should not have been trying to do so many things at once. Still, I could not stand there and let That Lady pay for my stuffing. 

A reward for my good deed should not result in a "fine" for somebody else!

Technology Is Killin' Me!

Progress! Bah! Humbug! Technology is a burr under my saddle. A thorn in my side. A fly in my ointment. Supposed to make our lives easier, huh? Not this ol' gal's life. 

Today it's been extra irritating. HIPPIE lost the innernets again. No amount of fiddling with HIPPIE's innards could bring it back. My phone still had the innernets. HIPPIE also professed to being connected. Until he didn't. I gave up after 15 minutes. I recalled that in the past, the innernets have come back after a time. Through no efforts of my own. So I went to make a pot of green beans with onion and bacon, for tonight's supper with Shake N Bake pork chops, and Stovetop Stuffing.

I kept thinking about past outages of the innernets. It happens a lot, you know. Through my experiences, it seems like HIPPIE shuts me out for an hour. That's right. After an hour, things magically start working again. No amount of shut-downs and restarts and turning the wifi on and off have any effect. It's like I'm in timeout. Yep. When I tried again after an hour had elapsed, nothing was amiss. Except, of course, I lost an hour that I would have preferred to be typing this complaint.

Don't get me started on my phone. Not just MY phone, but the phone service here in Hillmomba. How in the Not-Heaven could we send multiple men to the moon multiple times 55 years ago, but we can't let Mrs. HM call Farmer H on a cell phone when he's 100 yards away in the BARn???

And those dang debit cards! You may recall that I got mine replaced a few weeks back. The new one works just fine. Now it has the TAP feature, which I am loathe to use, since it requires no PIN to suck money from my account. The Pony uses the TAP. We were shopping in Save A Lot on errand day, with The Pony putting stuff on the conveyor first. Then couldn't find the TAP area on the scanner. After much moving around of The Pony's card, it took the data. My chip worked like a charm.

And how about just typing in what you want over the innernets, and having merch delivered to your home? Well, at least to your mailbox a mile down the gravel road. I ordered three items earlier in the week. Since I have Amazon Prime, I get two-day free delivery. Right? That's what I pay for, right? But I was being a friend of the earth, and agreed to have all my items come in one package. Which made it four days, but that was fine. EXCEPT... they were supposed to be here today, and only TWO of them say they've been delivered, with the other cooling its heels at a facility 30 miles north. So there was really no point in my selfless consolidation of my shipment

The good news is, I looked at my cell phone and saw another big crack. This time near the top, not one of the branching cracks at the bottom that distorts my reading of texts. It's been cracked since a casino trip when Genius was home one Christmas. As I got out of A-Cad on the concrete carport, I leaned to pet Jack and Juno (that's how long ago it was), and my phone fell out of my shirt pocket, landing face down on some gravel. If not for the gravel, it probably would have been fine.

Anyhoo... getting back to the good news, I discovered that it was NOT a new crack in my phone, but just something (probably lemon juice) that had splashed onto my phone while it was charging on the kitchen counter. It rubbed off with some mom-saliva. YAY, me!

But seriously. I am not a fan of technology. Except of course my working innernets and HIPPIE.

A Deserving Usurper

I was not happy to see a usurper in my rightful handicap space at the gas station chicken store on the second rainy day in a row. It was bad enough the day before, when my space was available. But this time, I'd have to walk even farther. I put T-Hoe nose-down in the FREE AIR space. Nobody was in the vehicle. Normally, I'd wait until the usurper left. But his day, it was only going to rain harder, according to the futurecast. I wanted to get back home. So I got out, shoes squeaking on T-Hoe's running board, careful not to slip.

As I hobbled past the white SUV parked in the handicap spot with neither marked plates nor placard, I sensed someone on the other side opening the driver's door. As I rounded the back of the vehicle, the guy said something to me. I looked up through the rain, and saw AN OLD MAN. Okay. I was not mad about the usurper any more. He was an OLD MAN, kind of hunched over. Probably arthritic and aching that day, just like I was.

"Do you need this space? I can move."

"No, I'm already parked. It's easier just to go in."

"I don't know which one of us would be faster."

"We could have a race, heh, heh! If it wasn't raining."

I went on towards the roof and the door, and he got into his SUV. Here's the thing. That OLD MAN was polite about it. By calling out to me, it seemed like he was apologizing. Unlike the Ram truck guy who is not even old, who just sits there, taking up the space. Or the lady who sits in her sedan, scratching her tickets.