is it just me?

Yesterday I went to the post office, the grocery store and Walmart. what a day! first, the post office. wow. I mean, it's particularly bad around the holidays, but seriously. That place is a mess. it is one of the only places where you can show up completely unprepared for your transaction and someone helps you figure it out. my post office has a high concentration of old people, which I have discussed before, which just adds and extra layer of excitement. I love looking at the faces of the people in line while the old lady at the counter holds up a wrapped gift and says "I need to send this to California", and instead of sending her home to read about things like addresses, the worker says "well, let's see if we can find you a box!" he had her write the address on a sticker and she says "I don't have the zip code. I can remember the one for Los Angeles, but not this other one." Call me crazy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that LA has more than one zip code. I'm just guessing. I think Madison has about 15, and although I have never been there, I had always sort of assumed that LA was bigger. But maybe all those celebrities I see on TV are actual size? and the whole city is miniature? If that's the case, I must go there on vacation ASAP.

Also in the post office was a sort of tired looking mom and her child who appeared to be about 2 years old. While the mother was distracted by complicated questions about customs forms, which of course she had not filled out, the child wandered off to go play with some decorative mailers. The mother came over and spoke to her quite nicely in some language which I could not recognize at all, but then I saw that her boxes all said Slovenia so I will assume it was...Slovenian? Does that exist? I feel bad, as I have a job that means I should know things like what the speak in Slovenia and where Malawi is, but I have no idea. (Okay, I just looked it up and Slovenian is correct, and it appears to be about as easy to understand as Hungarian.) Anyway, kids speaking other languages always makes them look like geniuses, though of course I realize that doesn't make any sense. But then she spoke in the international language of mom and deposited said child on the counter where she could not run away and handed her a bunch of random literature about how to change your address or something, and the kid was happy as a clam.

So, on to the grocery store. In the produce section, I came across and old woman perusing the summer squash, and she starts telling me she is looking for smaller ones. She hates leftovers. But, you know what she does with them? Puts them in a pan with some mushrooms and her secret ingredient: ranch dressing. "No one ever notices." haha. So I run into her again many aisles later and I smile at her since she has recently divulged her culinary secrets and she gives me a totally blank look. And then I realized: she talks to people she doesn't know all the time, so this was not a memorable encounter. I, on the other hand, generally do not talk to people I do not know so it stuck with me. heh.

And finally Walmart. Well, I didn't like it. It is absolutely huge and they sell everything known to man for ridiculously cheap prices. But I say if you can sell the world's largest gift basket of headache-inducing smelly bath products for $14.88, and the person who owns the company is a billionaire, there is a rat somewhere in that business model. I fully admit that if I was on a very tight budget I would feel differently about Walmart, though I think I would try to just not buy stuff rather than buy it there. But everything there is really, really ridiculously cheap. It's insane. I bet people buy a lot of things they don't need because it is so cheap. And then you think Walmart is great because you got a lot of stuff for a little amount of money, but you don't need it anyway. And that is the genius of Walmart.

heads up
I arrived at work this morning and the door I usually use is blocked off with caution tape and there is a sign that says "Watch for falling ice!" And sure enough, there are a bunch of big, busted ice chunks sitting on the front step. effing winter.

jinx, buy me a coke
there is a radio ad for replacement windows that I hear often that says "the bad thing about windows is they let the outside in - they are the jinx in your home's armor." The jinx? In my armor? Are you sure you don't mean chinks in my armor? I have listened closely for weeks, hoping that I was just hearing wrong, but alas....I am not. things like this make me cranky.

monkey see
this morning baby lizard was standing by the couch when the dog walked in the room. she looked right at him and lifted her leg up to the side. hahahaha. kids are awesome.