Saturday, December 12, 2015



It is Sunday, December 13 and there are only 12 days until Christmas.  Time to get the guar gum and polysorbate so that your cookies will last until March.  Today we remember the birthdays of Mary Todd Lincoln, Carlos Montoya and Dick Van Dyke.  On this day in 863 Boudouin with the Iron Arm wed Charles de Kale’s daughter Judith (I didn’t even know they were dating), in 1843 “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens published, 6,000 copies sold, and in 1969 Arlo Guthrie released “Alice’s Restaurant.”  In Malta it is Republic Day and in Upper Volta it is National Day.

Still no word from the old home, so I am not sure if they have gotten the CO or not.  I have e-mailed the buyer, but have not heard back yet.  I would assume that if there was a problem he would let me know.  I guess no news is … no news.  I will keep after it and hopefully everything will work out.  I just want this last piece to fall into place so that we can truly be finished with the whole deal.

We were out on the road the other night and there was construction going on (where isn’t there road work going on lately) and I noticed, from some distance away, that they had lights set up.  I know that they need light to see to do the work at night.  I understand that.  However, unless the work is being done by the astronauts in the space station, do the lights have to be that bright?  Plus, the work is being done in a lane that is closed to traffic.  Why do the lights have to shine in the eyes of the drivers in the other lanes?  I was just wondering.

While we were out, I also noticed something else that I thought was amusing.  We were driving along the road and saw a McDonald’s.  What I thought was funny was that directly across the road was an urgent medical care facility.  The question then becomes who came first?  Did the McDonald’s come first and then the medical facility?  Did the medical place set up there intentionally, thinking it would be amusing?  Was the medical place first and McDonald’s opened without looking around?  Either way, I thought it was funny.  

I am noticing more and more that people are lazy and I mean LAZY!  It is especially noticeable in supermarket parking lots.  If I had a nickel for every time I started to pull into a parking place and had to stop because someone left their cart there, I would have enough nickels to make my pants droop.  Seriously!  Because it is an issue, I decided to start watching people and observing their habits.  One of the benefits of being retired is that I have the time to do that.  I also spend a considerable amount of time running back and forth to the supermarket because we have run out of something or forgot to get something that we needed … but I digress.

As I was saying, I have had the opportunity to observe people and see how they handle their carts.  Keep in mind that this issue is not restricted to older people.  It is a problem with all age brackets.  Well, not all brackets.  Pre-teens are not that big a problem, but they can be … digressing again.  I have seen people come out of the store, go to their cars, unload their groceries and then push the cart into the nearest empty parking space.  I have seen people unload their cart and then leave it behind the car next to them.  I have seen them push the cart down the side of their car, just to get it out of their way.

Two of the worst were two people I saw the other day.  As I was coming into the lot, I watched a young woman pushing an empty cart toward the store.  I thought that she had taken one of the many carts strewn about the parking lot to use for shopping.  Wrong!  When she got to the end of the row of cars she gave the cart a big shove and let it roll across to the front of the store.  She didn’t even look to see if it made it all the way over.  She just pushed it, turned and walked back to her car.  The other one I saw loaded his groceries into the car, left the cart in the middle of the empty space next to him and drove off.  What makes this bad is that the space where he left it was right next to the cart drop off.  Five extra steps and he would have been able to put the cart there instead.  I could see this if it was 100 degrees out and they had a bag full of ice cream, but it wasn’t and I am pretty sure they didn’t.

The height of lazy that I witnessed recently was not directly related to a cart.  As I was entering the store I saw a woman coming out riding one of those electric carts.  Walking with her was a young man.  When she got out of the store she parked the cart got up and started to walk away.  The young man said, “I don’t know why you ride that cart when we come here.  You don’t need it and you are not handicapped.”  Her response was, “I ride it because I don’t feel like walking through the whole store.  The carts are there, why shouldn’t I ride one?”  I did not hear his response and I am pretty sure she did not want to hear mine.

So, in the future, walk your cart to the proper drop off spot.  It will make it easier for others to park, it will make it simpler for employees to collect them and the exercise is good for you.  This has been a public service announcement.  Thank you.

This week our fact tell us that 27% of female lottery winners hid their winning ticket in their bras.  So maybe guys are just trying to get to the ticket so they could have some cash to take the girl out for a nice dinner.  Maybe …

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