Category: irritated

Literal girl takes things literally

Ok, so there we were on a day of running errands, The Good Man and me.

We pull into a crowded parking lot behind the store where we’ve taken our bicycles to get tuned up.

Fabulous. All good.

TGM parks the car and heads inside while I get out change to go see about the meter.

Muliti-tasking couple, that’s us. Efficiency!

Ok, so we parked in one of those lots where you have to “note your space number and pay at the machine.”

Sure. Ok. I’m in!

So I note “space number 6” and then I swivel my head around to find the pay’er machine.

I see a sign that says, “pay here” and I go toward it like a moth after a 60-watt bulb on a hot summer’s night.

I literally walk right to the “pay here” sign. Seeing ONLY the “pay here sign.”

I arrive at the “pay here” sign to find that there is ONLY a “pay here” sign and no sort of payin’ machine.

What. The. Heck?

Ok. A photo will probably explain this better.

It actually took me several moments to turn around and actually figure out how to get my parking fare paid.

The sign says, “pay here.” It DOES NOT say, “pay over there, like eight feet away.”

Pay here with an arrow means pay there! At the end of the arrow.

Very, very literal girl was really perturbed by this whole setup.

So perturbed I took a dang photo of it!

I totally need to take up yoga.

Or meditation.

Or something with plinky-plunky music that will help lower my blood pressure.

Literal girl is *tense* sometimes…..

Damnit! I’m a purist!

Hey! What in the seven kinds of sam hell is wrong with my goldfish crackers?!?!?!

What are those cracker lumps? Did my goldfish swim near a nuclear reactor? WTF?

Basketball shapes? BASKETBALL SHAPES!?!?!?!?

WTdoubleF?

Aw fer crissakes, Dwayne, keep your gear out of my snack food!

I don’t like nobody messing with my goldfish. I like ’em just like they is.

And also…

HEY YOU KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!!

Tapping Into My Personal Genius

Boy, that’s a title, eh?

I’ll provide a guarantee right now, this post won’t live up to that title.

Maybe it’s aspirational. We’ll see.

There is a blog I read regularly that takes the form of an online journal. The author is really open and straight forward. It really is like reading her personal diary.

She suffers from quite a bit of writer’s block, and so when that happens, she’ll do a free association blog post where she asks herself questions and has her mind answer any which way it wants.

I find those posts fascinating as they always contain some nugget of something good that makes the whole exercise worthwhile.

I’m not saying my version of this is going to provide anything other than a nugget of “what the sam hell?” but I’m willing to try.

So. Here we go.

Chatting with myself…

Heeere we go!

Yup, let’s go!

We’re doin’ it!

Crimeny, I’m so blocked I can’t even write interviewer questions.

Ugh.

Ok, for real this time.

Hello, welcome to our self-chat. How are you feeling today?

Wait, that’s how a therapist likes to start a conversation. “How are you feeeeling?” How am I feeling? Bite me, that’s how I’m feeling!

I sense a little hostility.

Congratulations, your sensors are working fine. Can I go?

Yes, you can. But would you stay a minute more?

Why?

Because I asked you nicely.

Fair enough.

Why are you so cranky?

I get cranked up when I have writer’s block. It usually comes so easy to me, the words. In fact, I can write too many words. I was constantly admonished by a former boss, a numbers guy, that I wrote too many words.

He was a toad, though, so no need to let his opinions matter.

Isn’t writing a process? A flow? Sometimes a raging river, sometimes a trickle?

Thanks. Now I have to go pee.

Some of the greatest writers in the world had and have writer’s block.

Sure, sure. I know it’s all a part of the creative process but damn, I hate it!

Don’t you think railing against it only makes it worse?

Don’t you think being a smarty-pants is going to net you the backspace key, repeatedly?

Hey, this is your mental exercise, hot-shot, I’m just asking the questions here.

Oooh, touchy touchy! Fine, yes, I know that railing against writer’s block only makes it worse. But railing against [insert item here] is sort of how I make my way through life.

You know, “Hulk mad! Hulk smash!” or something like that.

Yeah. How’s that working out for you?

Today, not so well.

What do you think would help clear the block?

I don’t know. It usually passes in its own time.

So, if you can just wait it out, it will resolve itself.

Usually.

So, being patient with yourself and letting it pass by might actually be the quickest route?

Yeah, probably.

So why don’t you do that…be patient with yourself?

Damned if I know.

Well, maybe that’s something to work on today.

Yeah, you’re right. I’ll grudgingly admit you are right. Maybe even helpful, too.

Any closing thoughts?

I like pie.

Thank you, and good night….

It’s daytime, stupid brain. You good fer nothing piece of……

Thus concludes today’s conversation. I hope we’ve all learned something here. Though I’ve no idea what that would be.

Tracking My Every Move

Recently, my local Long’s Drug store was converted to a CVS store. Mergers and acquisitions are a way of life.

With the new CVS store came a new request…”Do you have your CVS card?”

As soon as CVS took over, they implemented one of those frequent shopper cards that it seems every store has these days.

You shop the store and when you swipe the card, you get discounts on some items.

Seems harmless, right? Swipe a card to get a discount.

Actually, I think these things are pretty insidious. This, despite the fact that I actually use the cards in many stores.

So in exchange for discounts on items, which, by the way, I believe are marked up so they can discount them…the store gets to track my shopping data and use that information however they choose.

Ostensibly, it is used to both market to me personally, and to help figure out what to stock and in what quantities.

But here’s what bugs me: In order to get a card, I have to give them personal data. Name (first and last), address, phone number, and date of birth (so they can send me a birthday card??).

Just what, exactly, do the stores do with all of this data they’ve mined?

By the by, to purchase marketing data like this costs a lot of money. They are getting it for the price of marking up an item so they can take a discount off the top. Cheap deal!

Plus, I suspect they are also selling the data too. Tidy sideline business, I’d say.

I got to thinking about all of this today when I read an article about a recent salmonella outbreak. The CDC asked permission from the patients, and used their shopper cards to trace back to which food item caused their illness.

Ok, so that’s a pretty good use of the data. Permission was granted, in advance, to use shopping information.

If only all the uses of my data were for such noble causes.

I personally have an issue with all of the data that is collected and tracked in our ever-evolving data driven society. Google tracks all the websites I’ve visited, has satellite and street level images of my home, and oh, and if I use their email service, they track information from that too.

Airlines and Homeland Security track everywhere I travel.

Security cameras everywhere track my movements.

A retail company I worked for installed cameras that track a shopper as they come into the store, note what items a shopper looks at, picks up, and ultimately buys (to evaluate effectiveness of the store layout, the manufacturer of the device says).

AT&T knows WAY more about me than pretty much anyone in my life. Phone calls, text messages, email, what sites I surf, etc is all available on their mobile network.

And honestly, every single time I use my credit card, someone tracks where I am, how much I’ve spent and what I spent it on.

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist. Usually I take things in stride, but even I have my limits.

Lately, I’ve been using cash more and trying to frequent stores that don’t collect my data, like Trader Joe’s and Walgreens.

I’m not yet to the point where I want to live “off the grid” on my compound in Montana, with razor wire around the perimeter and an avid suspicion of authority.

But some days, I gotta be honest, it doesn’t sound too bad…..

Wow, New Mexico, really?

I’m late to this party, but just have to write a few words of huffiness regarding the New Mexico Senate’s vote to start taxing tortillas.

I got wind of this from former Albuquerque mayor Jim Baca‘s blog and have read up a bit more this morning.

This article from New Mexico Independent told me all I need to know.

The vote has already passed the Senate. Ugh.

So look. I get it, ok? In the best of boomtown heydays, New Mexico has never been a rich state. How does a state make money? Taxes.

A few years back, New Mexico made the move to end taxes on groceries.

When I moved to California over a decade ago, I was shocked to discover that grocery food items here aren’t taxed. Holy jeebus, California will certainly tax everything else! But food, no.

Then California decided to add in a tax on junk food items.

Ok, fine. I disagree with it, but I get it.

So, in theory, I understand what New Mexico is doing. They need money. Lots of it, and so adding in a junk food tax is not totally unprecedented.

However…when the “junk food” term applies to cultural food staple items like tortillas and chile pods, now I have to ask myself just what the sam hell is going on in my home state?

I tend to shy away from the “tax the rich!” debates, but I have to say, on the face of it, taxing flour and also taxing tortillas made from flour really sounds like punishing the less financially well to do.

I’m left a bit perplexed at this whole thing.

For New Mexico, a state that has always sought to maintain the ethnic heritage of the multi-cultures that call the Land of Enchantment home, this seems to be a strange and rather elitist move.

To quote Joe Monahan, this whole debacle “will surely be remembered as an example of the utter disconnect in our time between the elected and voting classes.”

It seems not really very fair, Oh Fair New Mexico.

(You’d think the guv, no stranger to a tortilla, might have more to say?)