It Didn't Take Long

I have been out of town on a Mid-Atlantic region vacation for the past week (more observations on my trip later). And as you might have guessed, I got screwed on my very first customer transaction back in the Burgh. I think it must just be the Peterson Events Center, because it is quite clear that the clerks there are totally clueless. This morning they charged me for a medium coffee when I had ordered (and received) a small coffee. It's great to be back!

Some helpful suggestions for our dear merchants

When did checking out at a store turn into the Spanish Inquisition? Today I bought some hardware at Lowe's and they asked for my phone number when I checked out. I took much glee in refusing, as you might have guessed. As I was purchasing my pants at Penney's, the checkout lady cheerfully exclaimed, "And you'll be using your Penney's card, of course!" Even if I had a Penney's card, I wouldn't use it out of spite. Same situation happened at Kohl's.

When I buy something, all I went them to do is to tell me the price. I can figure out how I want to pay for it all by myself, thank you. Don't ask me for my phone number, zip code, favorite color, body mass index, high school GPA, or any other personal information. Don't try to sell me yet another credit card to enourage me to spend more than I can afford. And don't give me those stupid on-line survey coupons that probably waste enough paper to decimate millions of square miles of forest, thereby causing increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, rising global temperatures, and Al Gore's head to explode.

Do Cry For Us, Pennsylvania

Sorry for the title, and my apologies to Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, but we Pennsylvanians are in for it, now that it looks like our primary may actually be important this year, at least on the Democratic side. It's going to be a world class panderfest for Hillary and Barack. Actually, winning in Western Pennsylvania requires a fairly strightforward strategy. Simply gain the endorsements of Sidney Crosby and Ben Roethlisberger and get Bob Nutting to endorse your opponent

Pants Expedition (continued)

The first stop on my pants expedition was at Kohl's. Now I have to thank Kohl's from the bottom of my heart for making my future pants shopping forays much simpler, in that I will never, ever set foot in one of their stores again. The reason they have earned such antagonism from GOM is due to their PPP (Pants Pricing Policy, for the uninitiated). Most of their pants are priced with the devious "get one, get another for half price" scheme. And if you just buy one pair, you have to pay the original, nondiscounted price! So if I buy two pairs of pants, it costs me $67.50 ($45 discounted price for the first pair and $22.50 for the second pair). But if I only buy one pair, it costs me the original nondiscounted price of $60! This obviously puts the pressure on me to buy 2 pairs of pants, but they don't have 2 pairs of pants in my size that I like. Sometimes they don't even have more than one pair of pants in my size anyway. I mean, this pricing policy may make sense if you're buying soup or toilet paper or some other item that you know you're going to need a lot of, but it makes no sense as a PPP! So to hell with Kohl's - I'll take my pants business elsewhere. It's on to JC Penney's ...

Pants Nightmare

I took an expedition to the North Hills yesterday to buy some pants. It was a truly horrific experience, but on a brighter note, it gave me enough material for my blog to last me several weeks.

First of all, I have to admit that pants shopping has always been a traumatic journey for me. I think it goes back to my childhood, when my Mom would drag me to the department store before school started and we would have to shop in the "Husky" section. I don't think they have a Husky section anymore, so for those of you who are not familiar with the term, it basically means big-assed pants.

Anyway, after I got home with my pants, I had to start the laborious chore of cutting off all of the little plastic thingies that hold the labels on. Whomever invented those things should be waterboarded by W and Dick Cheney. First of all, you can never find the remnants of the plastic thingies when you cut them in half. Some of them fall on the floor, never to be found again until your cat decides to eat them, possibly precipitating a massive digestive upheaval. But the thingies that really bother me are the ones that stay in your pants. I am constantly fearful that they will someday work themselves out of the pants material and insert themselves into some delicate part of my body and cause irreparable harm. It's my own personal pants nightmare.

Busted again

What a way to start the week! I was overcharged 30 cents this morning for my bagel and coffee at the Peterson Events Center. Turns out I got rung up for a grande instead of a tall.

Lately, there has been some turnaround at the Pete behind the counter, which may account for the vexatious nature of my transactions there as of late. Previously, they had a woman behind the counter who was very efficient and knew what she was doing. I must confess, however, that I was developing a level of familiarity with her that was making me somewhat uncomfortable. Not as bad as the Seinfeld "Kiss Hello" episode, mind you, but GOM is not particularly fond about chatting about the weather and other superficial topics on a daily basis with total strangers. So I guess she had to go.

Forget world peace - this is what we really need

Lots of snow in the beautiful Laurel Highlands yesterday. Unfortunately, the ambient temperature was such so that the snow would melt on my windshield and then stick to the wiper blades in the form of ice, thereby rendering the wiper blades pretty much useless. I literally had to stop the car every 10 minutes to scrape the ice off of the wiper blades. So why can't they invent a heated wiper blade to prevent this type of thing from happening?