Friday Follies....

NO Joe...not YOU...the OTHER "Friday"...(sheesh)!
End of another work week (or another week without HAVING to work, if you live on the SOUTH side of Fort Wayne). But there ARE people that DO work down here, trust me...just not that many.


First off, during the summer months, when my wife is off from school, we do our food shopping, and always at SCOTTS (now KROGERS). One thing I noticed is that whatever price cuts we were "supposed" to receive (as Krogers touted long and often) have been eaten away by rising fuel costs, as well as crappy crops due to lack of rain. And the resulting factor is not any of the savings we were hoping for. In fact, we're buying a lot less while spending substantially more.
Life is good.

And if the high prices for items we usually buy aren't enough to get your day off to a rousingly lousy start, let's add the fact that only ONE checkout line was available (as in OPEN). Cripes, the EXPRESS line didn't even have a cashier there. Now I don't know about YOU, but I like to shop E A R L Y. That means when there are FEW PEOPLE roaming about with kids in tow, shouting like banshees (a cultural thing?), and the aisles are fully stocked from the night shift. The stores USED to placate to people like us...shelves were full, and you basically had the store to yourself (a damn nice feeling).
Think again.

People seem barely awake any more.
The veterans from Scotts are still there, always on time, and willing to assist you any way they can. They are the salt of the earth for us. Then there are the newbies...kids with no work ethic, or single moms working to get out of debt, with little sleep the night before, or hacking like some tuberculous person destined for the isolation ward by 3PM. Somehow, that doesn't set off my "confidence meter" all that quickly.

Getting your lunchmeats cut can be an exercise in futility, unless you vehemently "ask" that it be cut THIN. Everyone in this city loves THICK slabs of meat, and since we ALL know "YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT", that would explain all the people living in MY area (thick, as in dense).
Now I don't plan to slap a slab of bologna onto the grill..that's stupid, but when I say THIN, I don't mean 1/4 inch thick.
I mean diaphanous, see-thru, translucent, not opaque, able to filter light-not block it...get the idea? Good, because most times, those behind the deli counter don't cut it that way. And in ANY "good" deli, the meats (as well as the cheeses) are ALWAYS cut thin....then again, I suppose most here have never been to a REAL NYC Jewish deli in downtown Manhattan.
A damn shame.
The old BLIMPIE stores got it right...and tasty to boot.

Still, what I used to consider the "grocery-shopping EXPERIENCE" is becoming more a tedium than anything else. But we still have to eat, right? So we plow forward, hopeful all goes as well as can be expected. And we always expect the worst.
After all is done, we hit that checkout line I was telling you about (the most understaffed area of the store). Invariably, the person IN FRONT of you in line will have the LARGEST order the store has seen all damn week. The person will likely be female and could stand to take a walk once in a while (I'm being nice here). The conveyor belt will be FULL of stuff, which makes you wonder HOW many people she's feeding. And she will likely pay with some "assistance", such as food stamps. Maybe that's why they go over OUR check with a fine-toothed comb...not used to seeing (working) people pay in a NORMAL way with VALID checks as well as IDs, huh?

Actually, YOU'RE paying for a part of her bill, so if the mood strikes you, feel free to "snack" on some of HER items...what the hell. It's not like you don't have the right to....you, as a taxpayer DO. (By the way...nice new CADDY w/ the handicapped sticker you got there for those groceries, Beulah...and, you don't LOOK handicapped?)

Thank the maker the "other" stores aren't as bad...(oops, the DO IT BEST store forgot to place those 2 SKYBARS we bought in our bag...didn't know until we got home), unless they didn't get enough sleep either, or made sure YOU had all YOU paid for.
Note to shoppers...CHECK EVERYTHING...twice before you leave the store!!!

Walgreens wasn't bad at all. They have a great cashier there, who is not only blessed with a great work ethic, but will steer you to bargains you didn't know were there, and she's a naturalized citizen from Central America with a strong accent. But she is TOPS! I'd rather have FIFTY of her around the area than ONE of these teenagers that as partying too long and late last night when I'm at the checkout. And as for the "Dollar Stores"...well, the less said the better. Family Dollar has a checkout girl with BURGUNDY braids that wears ghetto talons aka fingernails 2 inches long, talks on her cellphone while checking out your items and loves to use the *N* word as well as bitch while on the phone.
How wonderful is THAT, people?

Yeah, I don't wonder ONE DAMN BIT why shopping down here is the way it IS. And I don't wonder WHY new businesses don't flock to the area. I KNOW why... If it's not the crime, it's the ethics, and if it's not that, it's plain old laziness. Got news for those people...this ain' t Uncle Remus' Tales of the South, where everyone sits on their dead ass watching the world pass by singing ZIPPADEE DOO DAH (although it DOES look a lot like it from day to day). It's all about the people (or those passing themselves off AS people).

Shopping on the south side of Fort Wayne. It's many things; a study in human behavior, a study in work ethics (or the lack thereof), a study in aberrant psychological values, a study in decibel intrusion (shouting parents and honking cars), and most often...a study in PATIENCE. It is also (as the Navy used to say) AN ADVENTURE.

So remember, OPPORTUNITY only knocks ONCE (unless it's a home invasion...then they just kick the damn door in, so keep the gun handy...Jehovah's Witnesses always knock TWICE, btw).

Have a safe weekend...happy shopping!