Monday, September 19, 2011

Grrr ...

Saturday was a bad day ...

The plan was to mow the lawn and paint my daughter's bedroom.  But the mower wouldn't start.  The battery was dead.  That's the first time that's happened since I bought it some 7 or 8 years ago. 

Hmmm ...

"No problem", I thought.  "I'll just boost it with my car battery."  I wasn't sure if there was any danger in damaging the mower battery by using my car battery.  But, what the heck, right?  When I tried to lift the plastic hood on my mower I cracked it three quarters of the way to the headlights - right down the middle of the hood !!!!

Crap !!!!  I had forgotten the hood release latches on the sides of the hood.

The mower still wouldn't start.  The engine was turning over now that the jumper cables were connected.  But it still wouldn't start.  "Perhaps it's out of gas", I thought.  I had mowed the lawn a few times since the last time I put gas in it.

So I go to the gas station to get gas, put it in the mower, and reconnect the jumper cables.  Still wouldn't start.

Humph.  No mowing today.

So I put on a slightly better old T-shirt to go to Wal-Mart to get the paint for my daughter's bedroom.  When I get there I realize the ball shorts I'm wearing have no pockets in them.  So I carry my wallet, my car keys, and the color selection in my hand to go get the paint only to find out that Wal-Mart has run out of the base material they need to mix the paint I wanted.

No problem, I usually get my paint from Lowes anyway.  So I go to Lowes with my wallet, keys, and color selection in hand.  I grab a cart just like I did at Wal-Mart to carry my wallet and keys.  While the nice young lady in the paint department was mixing my paint I went down the aisle to pick up a paint pan and trim brush.

While looking for those items I realized I had left my cart unattended for a few minutes.  When I got back to my cart, sure enough, my wallet and keys were gone !!!!

Stupid, stupid, stupid !!!!!

It's my own fault for leaving them unattended.  I had something like $77.00 cash in the wallet along with my debit cards and a few shopping cards.  I figured the cash was the price I paid for learning not to leave my wallet unattended.  And the debit cards are for accounts I keep at near zero balances all the time.  So I didn't think any real financial damage could be done.

The manager was sympathetic and nice enough to check the lost and found and to review the surveillance tapes for any clues.  No such luck.  He asked if I wanted to call the police.  But I wasn't sure if it would do any good. 

I searched every empty shopping cart I could find hoping that someone had mistakenly and innocently taken my cart instead of theirs.  I checked the parking lot several times in case the thief might have ditched my wallet and keys after taking the cash.  I asked the manager if they could check the trash cans as they empty them in case my stuff might have been dumped there.

I called my wife from the phone at the service desk to tell her to come and get me and bring the extra set of keys for my car.  Heh, can you believe it, she couldn't find HER car keys !!!!  But she finally found them and rushed to my rescue with the extra set of keys for my car.  But she didn't actually have my extra keys ...

And wouldn't you know it, that was my fault, too.  That very morning I had decided to remove my extra keys from the gawd-awful batch of trinkets my daughter had attached them to way back when.  My wife had grabbed that gawd-awful batch of trinkets.

Sigh ...

So I drove my wife's car back to the house to get my extra keys while she went into Lowes and paid for the paint.  By the way, where we live EVERYTHING is at least a half hour drive from our house.

But you know what?  None of that seemingly never ending series of unfortunate events warrants the "Grrrr ..." in the title of this post.  Not the broken down mower; not having broken the hood on the broken down mower; not the stolen wallet; not the missing cash; not having to drive back home to get my extra keys; not the inconvenience of having to cancel debit cards and order new ones; not even the aggravation of all that combined.

You know what made me mad? 

While I was waiting for my wife, I decided that it might be prudent to have a police report on file just in case there were some transactions on my debit cards that I needed to dispute.  So I go to one of the women working at a desk near the entrance to the manager's office and told her that I had, in fact, decided to call the police after all.

"OK", she said.
"Can I use your phone?".
"You can't use this phone."
("Oh", I thought, "Maybe I have to use the phone at the service desk like I did earlier to call home.")
"Do I have to use the phone at the service desk?"
"No.  You can't use that one, either."
("Hmmm ...")
"Will you call the police for me?"
"We're not allowed to call the police.  And if the police come here, they can't look at the camera without a subpoena."
(Why did she feel the need to add that bit about the cameras ???)
"YOU'RE not allowed to call the police ?!?!?"
"No."
"You mean to tell me that if you see a crime being committed right here in front of you, you're not allowed to call the police?"
"That's right."
"I find that hard to believe", I said and walked away.

The more I thought about that, the angrier I got.  There were several people there I know so I used one of their cell phones to call the police.  I also told another employee that I wanted to see the manager again.

When the manager came out I told him what the woman had told me.  I'm pretty sure during my description the term "horseshit" was used.  I told him I hadn't at all been angry until then. 

To illustrate the ridiculousness of what she had told me I said to the manager, "So if I shoot that guy standing over there in the aisle, none of you are allowed to call the police. The poor guy has to hope he survives the shooting, has a cell phone on him, and is somehow able enough to call 911 himself."

Are you feeling the "Grrrr" yet ????

The manager apologized, assured me she had simply misunderstood store policy, and offered to let me use the phone to call the police.  Oh, and when the police came, the manager took the officer straight to the cameras so he could review them all he wanted...

Later, as we were leaving, I thanked the manager for being sympathetic and helpful and for everything he tried to do to help me.  I'm sure I'll repent for the horseshit remark as soon as I send a nasty letter to Lowes identifying the women who refused to help me.

By the way, as I was sitting on one of those Z-Track lawn mowers in front of the store keeping an eye on my car, the thought occurred to me that we have been blessed so much over the years that they (the infamous they; conveyors of conventional wisdom and ever the other from "us") could never steal or take away enough from us to put us on the negative side of life's ledger.

I waited until Sunday to paint my daughter's room.  It looks great!  I did, however, kick the paint can over and spilled paint all over the carpet ...


This is the Stuff - Francesca Battistelli\

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Better Man

Heard this song on the radio this morning.  I remember way back when it first came out.  That's when I knew Clint Black was the real deal !!!!!!

Better Man