I went to buy three things from Target...and then this happened.

Good morning!

So for reasons I can't fathom, we have been running through eggs in this house like it's the only food left and we're starving.  I don't know where they all go. I know I had almost four dozen in the fridge last Monday and yesterday I looked and I was down to two.  Who is eating all the eggs?

But it's Easter and I need a couple dozen for Sunday so we can play Tips and Butts (our Easter tradition game...the rules are here from my post on 4-18-14.) so I checked various other departments in the house for things I needed so I could avoid Easter shoppers today and tomorrow.

I came up with three items:  eggs, eyeliner, and a gift card for some one's shoebox from the Naughty Easter Rodent.  (Yeah, we don't do Easter baskets.  Years ago I gave up trying to dig the baskets out of a box in the basement.  And the Naughty Easter Rodent?  Well...it's not a NICE creature that sneaks into your house and hides your Easter Eggs, right?)

So off to Target I go to get three things.

Of course, it's Target, so I wound up with a few more than three things.  I mean, who walks out of Target with only the stuff on their list?  Please. I had enough things in my basket (not cart, I actually kept my over shopping to basket levels) that I didn't want to mess with self checkout.  So I headed to the registers.

Now, I've had some adventures at the Target check outs, so I've learned to avoid a few things:  Like the shortest line. Or lines where someone has a ton of kids with them.  Or lines where the register operator is over the age of 80.  Or the register where the operator has his/her mouth pierced closed.  (I'm all for tattoos and piercings if that's what you're into. But sticking a metal bar in your mouth so that you can't open your face to speak clearly makes the details of any transaction difficult to understand.  It's really a me thing I guess.)

So, armed with my experience, I marched my basket of fun things to the longest line where the register operator was a young man in the lower twenties age range. (No mouth piercings.)  There were three people ahead of me, but Ahmed (That was his name) was moving things quickly.  

Well, at least the first two people went quickly.  

And then we came to a person I'll call Rosetta, as in "apparently she's composing a new Rosetta stone."

Rosetta had four things in her cart: two bed-in-a-bag and two other items I didn't see.  Ahmed ran the four things through quickly and then asked for payment.

That's when everything came to a screaming halt.

Let me just rant for a moment:  In this day and age of debit cards, credit cards, cash, apple pay and one touch shopping, WHO IS STILL PAYING WITH A CHECK AND WHO IS STILL TAKING CHECKS?

I can answer that question:  Rosetta is paying with a check and Target is still taking checks.

As we all pretty much know, writing a check takes a minute or so, but it's not that long.  I mean, it's five, maybe six blanks to fill out:  date, pay to, amount in numbers, amount in letters, signature, and maybe the memo line.  It's not a novel. It's not even a tax form.

Except for Rosetta.


I do not know what that woman was writing.  I watched her get her checkbook out of her purse, find the check blank and start filling it out.  And honestly, I've never seen anyone write more...or TAKE LONGER...with a check than she did. 

We all have internal clocks when it comes to basic activities:  An ATM transaction should take X number of minutes.  A drive thru order at a fast food place should take X minutes.  A trip to the bathroom should take X minutes.  AND WRITING A CHECK SHOULD TAKE ZERO MINUTES.

Not so for Rosetta. Words fail me as to how she was filling this thing out. It was like watching some Middle Ages monk transcribe the Bible with gold plated letters and artwork.  And it went on and on.  She might have been writing out her shopping list. She might have been filling out a home loan application.  She might have been writing a letter to her pen pal.  (Do people have pen pals anymore?  I don't know. But I had time to ponder that.)  My guess:  She was doing all three.

I've never, in my life, seen someone take longer to fill out a check.

FINALLY, FINALLY she was finished. She very deliberately tore the check from her book and handed it to Ahmed.  We were home free.

Until...

"I am going to need to see your I.D."

WHO WRITES A PERSONAL CHECK AT TARGET AND DOESN'T HAVE I.D. AT THE READY??????????????????????????????????????????

Answer:  Rosetta.

So then we waited, Ahmed and I while she reached into her purse and slowly, very slowly, drew out her wallet.  Meanwhile, behind me, the half dozen people lined up were being dispersed to other check out counters.  I, on the other hand, was determined to see this through.

You know, when you're waiting in line at a retail store and the person in front of you is being especially difficult, you sort of bond, silently, with the clerk.  Weirdly enough, you do this without more than a quick glance.  No one wants to be caught staring at a clerk in a meaningful way when it's the customer who is being the problem.

If the clerk is the problem, however, I have no trouble giving him or her the death stare.

But in this case I shot a quick look at Ahmed and then spent the rest of my time, when I wasn't mentally taking notes on Rosetta's movements, being VERY interested in the gum rack.

Finally she presented Ahmed with the I.D. and, completing her transaction, she was on her way...sort of. I mean, Ahmed hadn't put her two bed-in-a-bag sets in her cart, so she had to roll around to the end of the register belt to do that.  And yes, even with everything in my basket, it took longer for her to put two things in her cart than it took Ahmed to ring up everything I bought.

Once she was finally out of the way, and I, having had my method of payment in my had from the moment I put my items on the belt (LIKE A NORMAL PERSON) said to Ahmed, "If I said I wanted to pay by personal check, would you lose your mind?"

He smiled at me and said, "Well, it's not like we can turn it down, right?"

Total time for Rosetta's transaction, not counting Ahmed ringing up her four items: seven minutes and fourteen seconds.  Total time for Ahmed ringing up my seventeen items and processing my payment: under two minutes.  And that included our little conversation.

Next time I'll just do self check and yell at the machine when it tells me something foreign is in the bagging area.

Well kids, it's Easter weekend so I want to wish all of you a happy and blessed Easter!  For Christians I rejoice and say, "He is Risen!"

For my secular friends, I say, "no child really wants to sit on a giant bunny's lap."  

For everyone else, I say, "Half price candy on Monday!"

Reposting a fan fave: Bless the Lord, Oh my Snot.

:Good morning all!

Once again, it's Easter Week, and Monday's choir practice reminded me of this blog from a few years back.  It's an oldie, but a goodie, I think.

I'm working on a fresh new blog, but at the moment I'm in the last week of NO BREAD FOR LENT and I'm a little low on those lovely high energy carbs.

 This is for the front row of my church's senior choir, (including me),  who is fighting to get through Easter this week.

Good evening.

We've established that I am, at best, an uninspiring singer.  The fact that I've been in a church choir almost my entire life doesn't not mean I have any special talent, other than being able to read music and make some sort of sound come out of my face.

Nope, we don't look this good.

For the last several years I've sung in our church's "Senior Choir."  In the last year, we've tried, as an ever shrinking group as members of said choir die or move to Florida, to reinvent ourselves.  We are now the "Adult Choir."

Yeah, we're the old farts of the congregation.

So tonight at a mid week Lenten service  (and I don't expect too many folks out there to understand exactly why my church has Wednesday night church during Lent.  We just do.) the Adult Choir was to sing two songs.

Now, the ladies of the soprano section, of which I am one, tend to get colds...a lot.  And we aren't very good at those really high notes.  We can hit them, but them you better play something loud because the next sound you hear will be every single soprano coughing, gagging, or clearing their throat.  The Hallelujah Chorus sounded like a consumption clinic when we sang it a few years ago.

The two songs we were to sing weren't that hard.  It's Lent.  Stuff is low key and quiet.  We do really well with low key and quiet.  Unfortunately for the sopranos, we once again were all sick.  Oh, my cold just started, which means I'm in the runny nose, random nasal clog phase.

I loaded up on decongestants before the service and figured I would be able to stay clog free for the 56 minute service.  Nope.

Could somebody just make one
of these for me?  Please?

About halfway through the sermon, my right nostril closed.  You know the feeling.  It's closed, nothing's coming in.  But plenty is rolling out.  Oh yes, I was suddenly a drain pipe for that really annoying, completely pointless snot that just runs down your face and you can't suck it back up into your head because your nostril is closed.  And you go through about fifty tissues in a minute because it won't stop running.

Yeah, about four minutes before our second song, that happened to me.  BUT, my good friend...let's call her Alexis, who has sat next to me in choir for almost twenty years, got hit with a sneezing fit a minute before the song.  Next to her, dear, sweet Rosie couldn't stop coughing.  In the back row, well, let's just say those girls were attacked by phlegm in the throat.

We managed to get through the song...watery eyed, runny nosed, and coughing at the end of every phrase.  But we did it.

That's not a puddle.  The sopranos just warmed up
right there.

Blame it on Cat Poop, blame it on Walmart, but Tuesday Claims a new Victim.

Good evening!

For those of you who are friends with me on Face Book or who follow me on Twitter, you know Tuesdays are just not my day.  If something is going to go wrong with work, it's on a Tuesday.  If I break something, if an appliance breaks down, chances are, it's a Tuesday.

I have no idea why.  But it's like clockwork.

Today I figured Tuesday struck early.  There was a pile of cat pooh in the room formerly known as the dining room.  (We now call it the place where we keep the cats' dishes and cat tree.)  Of our five, we have one who will announce his displeasure at the state of his food levels, water levels, cleanliness of the cat boxes, whatever, by poohing outside the #1 litter box, which also happens to be right outside our bedroom door.  (This is why I always have the flashlight setting on my phone turned on when I get up in the morning. I never know who or what I'm going to step on when I open the door.)

But it's been a while since he poohed outside the box. I thought he was finally pleased with our collective performance and we no longer had to live in fear.

Until this morning when I noted he'd plopped a present near the top of the basement stairs.

We have a rule here.  Well, I have a rule.  I do not touch cat crap.  I do not clean the litter boxes.  I will feed them, I will water them, I will let them crawl on my desk when I'm trying to work, and I will take them to the vet if need be. And Heaven knows I pay for them.  But I did not want 5 cats in my house and none of said cats are MINE. Therefore, I expect the other three adults in the house to deal with any and all feline fecal matter.

Thus it came to pass that this morning as he was headed out to a long day of driving, I caught Hubby and informed him of the protest plot in the room formerly known as the dining room.  He cleaned it up, expressing, as I did, wonder at the new location of the dump site.

And then, the mess cleaned up, he got in his car and drove away.

A couple short hours later I get this text:

Guess what dummy here forgot this morning?

Sometimes Hubby forgets one of his phones or his notebook, which was my first guess.  His response was this:

Better.  Perfect for a blog.


Now I was intrigued.  Lately Hubby's biggest goal in life is to stay out of the blog.  I made several more guesses on what he could possibly have forgotten that would be wild enough for him to volunteer that it was blog worthy.

I suggested perhaps he'd forgotten what day it was and therefore was going to the wrong appointments.  


It's Tuesday.
Go to work without a shirt day.

Apparently what had happened was this:  Hubby keeps his hanging shirts in his office closet (because my clothes have become so fluffy we can no longer share a closet.)  So while on his way from the bedroom to his office, he realized he was running a few minutes late. It was then that I popped out of my office and informed him of the pooh pile in the room formerly known as the dining room.  He cleaned that up, put on his coat and headed out the door.

Fortunately for him, there was a Walmart near his first stop and he was able to purchase a shirt for work and get on with his day.

And, after a tremendous, and much needed laugh, I got on with mine.

Holding out for a (Anti) Hero.

Good morning everyone!

So last night Hubby and I were binge-watching a Showtime TV series on Netflix and I realized something fairly disturbing about our favorite series:  The heroes are actually the villains.

Going all the way back to my childhood I've loved a good hero.  It started with Randy Mantooth, TV's "Johnny Gage" on "Emergency!"  Now, Johnny was hardly perfect...and had 1970's television been a touch more graphic it's doubtful my parents would have allowed me to watch a show featuring a fireman who had a bed in the back of his personal vehicle.  That said, Johnny Gage was my first love, and my first hero.

Over the years I've come to realize I have a type:  Tall, dark, and heroic with just a touch of bad boy.  Tom Selleck, Mark Harmon, Scott Bakula were all my dreamboats through the 80's and into the 90's (and oh yes, I'm all over Mark Harmon and Scott Bakula on their NCIS shows on Tuesday...it's the highlight of my week).  All of this culminated with the ultimate hero (with just a touch of bad boy) David James Elliott as Harmon Rabb on JAG.

With the exception of NCIS, however, I I realize that the "hero ideal" is sort of...non existent in TV today.  Instead, we've replaced the slightly bad boy HERO with a completely decent BAD GUY.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Okay, let's look at just a couple of the biggest TV shows in the last decade:

Don Draper.  Tall, dark, handsome, rich.  Completely amoral.  Smoker-drinker-womanizer-complete jackwagon at work.  Oh, and let's not forget the whole stolen identity thing.

Walter White:  Family man. Endearing father.  Faithful husband.  Dedicated High school teacher.  Meth kingpin and murderer.

Dexter Morgan:  Mild mannered blood expert.  Family guy.  Devoted brother.  Crime fighter.  Serial killer.

Marty Byrde:  Husband, father, all around good guy played by the ultimate all around good guy, Jason Bateman.  Oh, but Marty is a mob money launderer who also, if memory serves, stole a strip club.









These are the TV shows I can't put down. These are the heroes, if you can call them that, that I'm cheering for.  Yes, I wanted Walter White to make the "good meth" and I'm cheering for Dexter to slaughter people because he only kills the really deserving.  And I want Marty to succeed in laundering all the money he's hidden in the walls of the resort he also sort of stole.  And as for Don Draper, well, yes, he must drink all the Scotch and sleep with all the women so he can be brilliant and save the ad campaign.  

Sing it, Bonnie.

What has happened to our heroes?  When did we decide evil criminals were the guys we were going to cheer for?  Does the right motivation truly cover a multitude of sins?  It must, because I fill my TV time with hours up hours of just this kind of material.  

It can't just be about the lead being good looking.  I mean...let's face it, Bob Odenkirk is many things, but good looking he is not. Yet, when I sit down to watch "Better Call Saul" or "Breaking Bad" I'm truly cheering for this sleezeball lawyer to win at all costs.  (The same goes for Brian Cranston of "Breaking Bad".)  The key is that they are compelling and sincere, even at their worst. 

It doesn't hurt the antihero movement if the guy in question is good looking. I mean, Jon Hamm (Mad Men), yes please!  (Although if my husband started acting like Don Draper, I'd show him the door.  So I guess money and ridiculous good looks do count.  I'm not proud that I'm admitting that.  But I know I'm not alone.)


Where are the good guys?  Where is the balance to all of the dark-souled evil we see in so many male characters now?  Where is the 

Oh, wait...maybe we just don't want them....

Are we simply getting what we deserve?  Have we gravitated toward the "bad boy" side of heroes so far that we've lost the "hero" and just gotten the "bad boy?"



I would love to see another pure hero type all around good guy back on TV.  A nice guy who is just out to "put right what once went wrong."  You know, someone I could sort of fall in love with without feeling dirty.

(This one's currently fighting crime in New Orleans on Tuesday nights.)






Maybe I'll mount some kind of protest, you know, demand that TV bring back a true "knight in shining armor" kind of guy.  Demand that we walk away from hot criminal and celebrate the "good guys" who are truly "good."


Wait, what's that?

TABOO season 2 is coming out soon?  

Never mind...

Hey, Taco John's Cashier! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

Good Saturday morning to you all!

So yesterday the company I work for had a company wide day off, with pay. (Yes, I work for the best company on the planet. )  This was great because I'd had a physical on Tuesday (that was humiliating) and my doc wanted me to go in for some blood tests after I'd fasted 10-12 hours.

My new diet thing is to not eat one tiny bite between 10 PM and 10 AM.  I know this sounds weak and that I shouldn't eat anything after like 7 PM, but our dinners around here are late because Peaches has school late.  So 10 is still early for me. So far I haven't lost any weight, but I do feel super proud of myself.  So there's that.

Anyway, I was trying to figure a way I could have a legitimate 12 hours of fasting on a work day without killing myself, since I work until 1:30, and coffee was on the list of stuff I'm not allowed to have before the blood test. Enter my boss and his wonderful day off.

I got to the clinic at 9 AM, a whole day of fun errands planned and 12 solid hours (dinner was early) of fasting under my belt.  I was hungry.  Very hungry.  So hungry that when I saw the line for the check in at the clinic I almost gave up. I mean, how many people make Friday, 9 AM appointments?

Apparently all of them.

That line lasted about ten minutes and I was on my way to the lab for my blood test. Now, I've done these before.  I've blogged about these before because the people who work in this particular lab aren't...how do I put this...really all that customer service minded.  They'll see you when they see you and the lady at the desk can and will vanish for no reason and for long periods of time.

I don't know why I keep going to this clinic.

Anyway I get to the waiting room and It. Is. Full.  Not like, oh hey, there are a couple ahead of me. No, more like, I have to stand in the hallway because all the chairs are filled.  Which is what I had to do after again waiting in line and checking in at that desk.

Why the registration desk couldn't have passed that information to the lab I have no idea.

After standing in the hall for ten minutes a chair finally opens.  (One should note, four people left the exam rooms in the lab while I stood out there, but no one went in.  Must have been coffee break time.  I swear I smelled donuts.)  I brought a book along, prepared for this one, so I took the chair, which was in the tight far corner, right next to an old man who smelled of moldy moth balls.

Lovely.

Another ten minutes passed with no one going in or out.  The old guy's smell was so strong I thought about getting up and standing in the hall again, especially since more people had come in to the lab to wait and it was getting hot in there, and a little claustrophobic. But I didn't want to be rude.

After a few more minutes the old lady sitting across from me went in and came back out in less than a minutes.  She'd gotten there long before I had, and I'd been waiting almost half and hour.  She was all cheerful and sweet, getting whatever it was she needed done in less than a minute after long wait.  I look forward to a time when I'm old and retired and have nothing else on my schedule than waiting at the lab.

Like that's ever going to happen for me.

The old lady's son had driven her. He looked to be a little younger than I am, and he seemed equally cheerful, although it was clear from their conversation that he, indeed, did have something else better to do. He still had to go to work.

"Oh, that's fine," says old lady.  "Next time I'll just drive myself.  I can still drive you know."

She said this while trying...and failing...to get her arm into her coat sleeve.  All I could think was, yes, and when you are driving, if you could just put out a notice on Face Book for everyone else so we can avoid the roads, that would be great.

Finally, FINALLY it was my turn.  Again, as I walked back to the room I could smell coffee and donuts.  At this point I'd been fasting, and more importantly not having coffee, for almost 13 hours.

The woman taking blood spent a few precious moments delaying my test so she could whine about how many people were in the waiting room.

Well hey, maybe if there were fewer donut breaks here in the lab and maybe if the front desk lady didn't flirt with some dude who just stopped in to say hi...and then vanish from her post for ten minutes, things would be less log jammed. Let's not blame the people in the waiting room for the department's lack of dedication to their jobs. 

I didn't say that of course, because I'm a coward. Instead I said, "Well, I'm sure it'll clear up soon enough and things will slow down for you."

"Oh but I'm off at noon, so I really don't care."

She said that.  Out loud. To me. 

My test took a couple minutes. Just a quick blood draw, and then I was bandaged and on my way.

Given that it was already after ten, I rearranged my schedule a bit and ran to Taco John's for a quick
breakfast. 

I love Taco John's breakfast burritos and if you haven't had one, you should. They are yummy.  So yummy, in fact, that I never allow myself to have one because, well, I blame some of my weight problem on eating way too many of them back when I worked for EVIL BOSSMAN.

I get to the drive through and they always ask if I want to try something. Generally I say no and then just place my order, but today I was super hungry and I figured if they were suggesting it then they must certainly be able to make it FAST.  So whatever that fuzzy voice was suggesting I was all in.

She told me the total, and I pulled around.

I gave her a twenty.

She gave me $1.25 back.

Okay, I'll admit, I don't know exactly what price she said it would be, but it I was about to eat an $18.75 breakfast burrito, I sure did want to know what kind of endangered animal meat it contained.

"I gave you a twenty," says I.

"No, you gave me a $5," says she, with a defiant curl of her snarky face.

"No, I gave you a 20."

"No, you gave me a five."

This could go on all day, and honestly, if 1) she didn't have my money and 2) I wasn't now deep into the 14th hour of no food and no coffee, I would have just driven off.  But this was not an argument I was going to lose because I was right.

How was I so sure?

Because I NEVER carry cash. Like NEVER.  And on this morning I'd stopped at the ATM and gotten some cash and, as we all know, ATMS ONLY shoot out 20's.  Which means the only cash I had in my purse was in the form of 20's.

"Look,"  says I , trying to keep calm, "I know I gave you a 20 because it's the only cash I have in my purse.  I just stopped at the ATM and that's what I got."

At this point, Snarkface opens her cash drawer and counts her 20's.  She then heaves a heavy sigh of one who has been wildly inconvenienced and she says, "Fine."  Then she closes the window.

Now I'm sitting there with my food and the $1.25 she gave me for change. She walks away from her post for a moment then comes back and starts texting.  Yes, she started texting.  I have no idea what or to whom she could possibly be texting. I'd like to think she was reaching a manager who would tell her to stop giving me grief, but it's more likely she was griping to social media at this old woman who was lying to her about change.

Again, I  knew I was 100% right.  So text away sweetheart. I'm going to sit here until I get my real change back.

After a couple minutes she opens the window and holds her hand out.  I'm guessing, since she didn't tell me, she wants the change back. So I hand her a dollar and a quarter.  She gets some more money out of the drawer and then pauses.

"Did you give me that quarter back?"

"Yes," says I.

"Are you sure?"

ARE YOU KIDDING?  "Yes, I'm sure," I say in my very best stern mom/teacher voice.  "I gave you the quarter back."

"Whatever, I'll just let you keep the quarter. Here's your change."

I count it.  At this point I suspect that she's now undercharged me for the burrito, but it was a special item so maybe there was a sale. Whatever, I'm not going to get into that argument with her because I am not 100% sure of what the original charge was.

I drove away, exhausted and ready for a nap.  But when I got home and ate my steak and egg burrito (that's what she said over the intercom?) I felt triumphant.

Yes, Taco John's Snark Girl...NEVER GET INTO A BATTLE OF WITS WITH A FASTING SARAH WHEN CASH AND FOOD IS ON THE LINE!