Bad news DEGs, we have to shop more. If it helps ease the stigma, I like to say that women shop – guys buy. (Not that women do not buy. DEGs are the family CFOs - we know better.)
If you are scheduling more buying trips, you are also in more lines. I have lousy line karma. Over the years I have just learned to live with it, even while encountering enough new material for a weekly rant.
As I age, I find my patience wearing with the quick-reflex-challenged (people older than I), especially when they are ahead of me at checkouts. It never seems to occur to them to search through their purse or billfold or pants pocket to find their payment option (card, cash, or check) until the items have been checked and totaled. Only then begins the tedious task of filling in the check or sliding the club card and credit card through a gizmo that can check a card’s validity faster than you breathe. The cash-only golden oldies are the most annoying. When presented with a bill for $9.89, they will carefully count out nine dollars and then forage their coin purse, the purse’s bottom, or dig into the pants pocket for loose change. When they’ve finished counting 75 - 85 – 86 – 87 – 88 - 89 cents on the counter, they smugly smile as if they’ve just had a good poop. Not that there’s anything wrong with a good poop.
Last Tuesday I bought a few things at Target. On balance Target does a decent job of staffing checkouts. It is rare, at least during weekdays (this is DEG prime buying time – shorter lines, usually), for Target’s line to be more than two deep. Quickly surveying my options I settled on one. Wrong. I failed to notice the shopper at the register slowly pulling one-dollar bills out of the bottom of a piggy bank. I don’t suppose this lady (daughter in tow) gave any thought to pulling the cash out before she left the house. No, that would be thoughtful and courteous. (Maybe she envisioned a teachable moment for her daughter – “Look honey, money flows from pig’s butts.”) I suppose I should have been grateful she wasn’t counting pennies from Porky. I changed lines, and as I walked out, noted that she was still counting out.
Last Thursday I dropped by CVS for a prescription. I thought my timing was perfect - only one drug addict ahead of me. Wrong. Again. The lady was picking up enough prescriptions to open a small pharmacy. Either that or she is medically a mess. I’m guessing the latter. Worse yet, she had a shopping cart loaded with stuff. I stopped counting at 25 items. At least she wasn’t toting a piggy bank.
DEGs with bad line karma need to learn to nap while standing.
For balance, I have great parking space karma, meaning that I find spaces within a day’s walking distance, and remember which county I parked in.
If I had a choice I would choose better line karma. When you can’t find your car, at least you’re getting more exercise.
Showing posts with label karma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karma. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Getting Lit
The annual outdoor lighting tradition is never a jolly chore, even if chugging spiked eggnog. But we have appearances to maintain in our cul de sac. Boycotting the fantasy façade would affect neighborhood karma, and the exchanging of tasty treats.
Domestic engineer guys just need to suck it up; the drill, not the eggnog. Your ATM machine loves peace and goodwill toward neighbors as well as arriving home and seeing her kingdom magically lit.
I deck out a fence, patio, balcony, trim, bay window, two posts, four bushes, and three hedges. I’m tired just writing this. The back of the house faces the street below, while the front faces the cul de sac. And we have a LONG driveway.
At each season’s end I bag the strands and label them, such as Back Fence, or Driveway - East Hedge.
Each new season I unravel the strands never remembering which end I began with or how certain sections connected. That combo package of the bay window and front posts always renders decidedly un-seasonal expletives.
If I were a real engineer or similarly anal, I would have diagramed the entire schematic into a computer file, printed and stored it with each strand and its proper bag. The replacement parts would be labeled and neatly stashed somewhere on or near the tool bench. Sure, and when pigs fly.
Then there are the sexually-active strands. No matter how carefully I layer them in the bags each year, they still entwine and nestle up during their annual hibernation. Untangling them is harder than separating slices of prosciutto.
Four hours after beginning, near dusk, I’m ready to power up, without fanfare. No Tim the Toolman exploding the fuse-box, or staging the ceremony to the soppy sounds of Debbie Boone’s You Light Up My Life. No, I connect them at five different fuse-box outlets, minimizing electrocution, while singing the Stones, “If you start me. If you start me up I’ll never stop.” Wishful singing. But like Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation, something always goes wrong. At least one strand refuses to cooperate, and lights my fuselage, enough to “make a grown man cry”. Apparently the strands’ planned obsolescence accelerates in the bags during hibernation, as well as bond with each other. I’d call the manufacturer but it’s a long distance call to China. Instead, I get lit.
The next day I make another Ace Hardware run and replace the defective fuses. It is a good thing that Christmas comes but once a year.
Don’t get me started on what the Christmas tree lights do with each other during the off-season.
Happy Holy, Holly Days!
Domestic engineer guys just need to suck it up; the drill, not the eggnog. Your ATM machine loves peace and goodwill toward neighbors as well as arriving home and seeing her kingdom magically lit.
I deck out a fence, patio, balcony, trim, bay window, two posts, four bushes, and three hedges. I’m tired just writing this. The back of the house faces the street below, while the front faces the cul de sac. And we have a LONG driveway.
At each season’s end I bag the strands and label them, such as Back Fence, or Driveway - East Hedge.
Each new season I unravel the strands never remembering which end I began with or how certain sections connected. That combo package of the bay window and front posts always renders decidedly un-seasonal expletives.
If I were a real engineer or similarly anal, I would have diagramed the entire schematic into a computer file, printed and stored it with each strand and its proper bag. The replacement parts would be labeled and neatly stashed somewhere on or near the tool bench. Sure, and when pigs fly.
Then there are the sexually-active strands. No matter how carefully I layer them in the bags each year, they still entwine and nestle up during their annual hibernation. Untangling them is harder than separating slices of prosciutto.
Four hours after beginning, near dusk, I’m ready to power up, without fanfare. No Tim the Toolman exploding the fuse-box, or staging the ceremony to the soppy sounds of Debbie Boone’s You Light Up My Life. No, I connect them at five different fuse-box outlets, minimizing electrocution, while singing the Stones, “If you start me. If you start me up I’ll never stop.” Wishful singing. But like Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation, something always goes wrong. At least one strand refuses to cooperate, and lights my fuselage, enough to “make a grown man cry”. Apparently the strands’ planned obsolescence accelerates in the bags during hibernation, as well as bond with each other. I’d call the manufacturer but it’s a long distance call to China. Instead, I get lit.
The next day I make another Ace Hardware run and replace the defective fuses. It is a good thing that Christmas comes but once a year.
Don’t get me started on what the Christmas tree lights do with each other during the off-season.
Happy Holy, Holly Days!
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