Christmas: Day 3

Where's my jet pack, Santa? Short of that, enjoy this story from Magnus, Robot Fighter #11 (August 1965).

Dolsotbab and Nurunji

Dolsotbab is a traditional Korean way of cooking rice in a very hot stone pot. The heat of the stone rapidly cooks a single serving of  rice. Nurunji is a way to prepare and eat the sometimes burnt but definitely over-cooked rice that remains adhered to the sides of the pot.

Foodies might be all into this for the experience but for me it reveals a bit of social engineering.

Preparation of rice in non-stick pots or steam cookers is a fairly modern addition to the kitchen. Regular pots are still a bit messy, prone to overheat and so are only a slight advance over the old stone bowls heated on a fire. Making another dish to add to the meal out of the scorched remains of the rice is frugal and common sense solution to scarce resources.

Just because the rice may be browned or burnt is no reason to waste it. The preparation of Nurinji requires one to add water to the stone pot, which boils up, softening the burnt rice. The diner then has to put in some work to scrape the scorched rice off the sides and bottom, giving them not only a hot soup but a extra few ounces of rice. Basically the diner does a lot of the pre-soak and cleaning of the bowl which anyone who regularly cleans burnt food off of a pan knows is a bit of a chore. Diners probably get an added bit of minerals in the diet from scraped stone though in the modern era the downside is ingesting aluminum from the flatware flaked off while scraping.

While in the past Nurunji would be created and eaten out of necessity out of being mindful of not being wasteful in an environment where stored food spoiled quickly or attracted pests it has since become a luxury process as a side dish to the modern Korean dining experience.

I think George Bailey would approve

A credit union in San Diego is culturally savvy and timely enough to insert an OWS-inspired Guy Fawkes image in their hustle to bring customers over to them from the big banks for Bank Transfer Day tomorrow. I changed the name of the credit union to something fictional but the rest of the ad is real.

This Omnivore's Dilemma

I don't know whether to slather this stuff onto my feet or spread it on toast.

From a local San Diego Asian market 9-5-11.

The Great San Diego Blackout

Not that you'd know it from the national news media but yesterday San Diego suffered a major and nearly unprecedented power outage that lasted about 12 hours.

At about 3:30 p.m. the electricity failed due to some event in Arizona. The grocery store where I worked went into power-saving mode, which means the back-up generator can run the registers and some other systems for a time, but not for very long. Apparently, the contingencies some nationwide companies have in place for regions of extreme weather that have frequent and extended power outages are not distributed or adapted to the franchises in the relative paradise of Southern California. Historically for businesses outages in San Diego rarely last more than a few hours. This time though we lost untold thousands of dollars worth of product. Some stores are reporting up to $70,000 in spoiled product. Fingers are pointing at the heads that are expected to roll but this wasn't a disaster that began and ended at the store-level. Little or no local contingencies for extended power outages, few refrigerated trucks, limited and seemingly random ice and dry ice deliveries, many back up generators that were limited to support only registers and some lighting and not the refrigerated cases and freezers is a problem that started at and can only be fixed from a higher level.

Once the power went out we shut the doors, only letting customers out and none were allowed entry. This was for safety, mostly. The store was dark and we couldn't have people stumbling around and possibly getting hurt.

Initially, we did let in a mother and her newborn infant so she could get some baby formula and a bottle. We escorted her with us carrying flashlights. Being in panic mode from the power being out she forgot her payment card, didn't have cash and the ATM's were inoperative anyways so we just let her have the items. If she pays us back great, if not we are not worried about it. Babies gotta eat. Of course, when we let the mother and newborn inside another person outside threw a tantrum about being excluded. She wanted in so we let her grab a few things.

A bit later while we were prepping the store another person arrived and went all "Trigger Effect" on the person watching the front doors, claiming an emergency. He was pretty out of line about it and in interest of keeping peace the guy was allowed inside. I don't know what type of emergency is handled with the tortilla chips and strawberries he purchased but it is an odd world sometimes so who knows what his situation was. When I was notified of his behavior I made sure I checked this person out at a register. I dropped a few suggestions that in the future, he should behave better and that I would understand if he wanted to shop elsewhere from now on. FYI: You don't threaten people, not any I am responsible for and basically if I am anywhere in the vicinity. I won't stand for it. Threats will usually get you two things: At my place of work at minimum a banning and maybe a trip to the slammer. I've worked too many places where workplace violence is a reality to let things like that slide and hope the person doesn't get the "Big Headache" and return with a weapon or flip out and attack.

EMERGENCY TIP: Always check the International aisles of the store when panic/emergency shopping. Often people don't think outside their usual frames of reference and when the hardware aisle is cleaned out of regular emergency supplies the International foods section will usually still carry a good supply of veladoras (those prayer candles with religious icons on them) and Shabbat candles.

After the customers were out of the store all the employees pitched in and went to work covering all the cold items. Open chill cases are great for shopping but lousy for keeping things cold. If the power was restored in a few hours then everything would be alright (with the exception of the ice cream). Once we were all done with that we opened the store again. Taking advantage of the emergency lighting in the aisles, sunlight through the windows and using flashlights propped up on the checkstands we were able to remain open until later in the evening when it just became too dark for customer safety and we were unwilling to sell the remaining refrigerated items.

With a few exceptions the customers pretty much remained calm and didn't act out. No one mentioned terrorism without it clearly being a light-hearted jest. I heard more people suggesting that the Grocery Workers Union was responsible for the event than al Qaeda. I did observe one couple taking advantage of the chaos by walking out the door without paying for a bunch of stuff (among the loot was a bouquet of flowers. Not even the edible ones, just a pretty arrangement!), but over all thievery was at a minimum. I guess there will always be people who take advantage. Those kind of people would rifle through wallets and pull rings off of fingers at the scene of a disastrous jet crash so stealing munchies and a flower arrangement during a power outage probably won't cause them to lose any sleep. The truth was if anyone without access to funds (like the mother with the newborn) discreetly asked us (so others wouldn't jump on the idea) we probably would have just let them grab whatever they needed at no cost. I wasn't mad, mostly I was just disappointed.

Once the store was closed for the day I drove home. By then the streets and highways were clear. My neighborhood was still without power and the house was hot, hot, hot. I don't live in the kind of area where windows and doors can remain open unguarded so even though it was cooler and tolerable outside I just went to bed. The first I was aware the power was restored was at about 3:00 a.m. when the air conditioner kicked on and woke me up with a blast of sweet, cool oxygen.

What sold the most at the grocery store during the power outage? Ice, water and booze. All three items are obvious, at least for our regional climate. Whatever fear-mongering or distortions might be reported on later I didn't observe anyone really scared, just mostly unprepared. After everyone dumped ice in their respective fridges to prevent spoilage then it was Big Fun Party Time! Nearly every order had alcohol in it. And 13 hours without power? I wonder what kind of baby boom we can expect in the San Diego area 9 months from now.

Toy Surprise Inside!

Found in a box of candy from a local Asian market here in San Diego is this weird (to my American eyes) toy surprise figure holding an egg in its prehensile tail against a backdrop of a pretty sunset.

A Case of Animal Cruelty

If your pet snake gets too big for the terrarium why don't you just set it free, jerk? Dropping it off in a sealed cheese ball jar behind a strip mall on a hot pavement in the sun to bake to death is not right.

Were you thinking someone would find it and adopt it? It's a snake, jerk, and had to be over four feet long. Maybe you thought setting it free would hard on the mouses and birds in the area. If that is how your brain works there is something wrong with your wiring. Take responsibility for what you do.

After calling Animal Control and describing the snake they advised me it wasn't harmful to people or pets and to set it free. I let it go in a hilly area full of trees near the mall. Couldn't tell you if the shock of being set free from a steaming death trap into a cooler environment will kill it or not but at least it has a chance now. I released the snake in stages, though. Moved the jar to the shade so it would cool down a bit closer to the outside temperature before getting set free. Did I mention you are a jerk?

I wish RFID chips were common enough to be implanted in that cheese ball container so the proper authorities could track you down by your purchases and you could get the sound thrashing you deserve.

Found in San Diego off Governor Drive, 6-5-11.

43 Cameras

Lot of cameras for a little store. I speculate fear of loss of product, or shrink, through theft is so high due to the low profit margins. A small establishment can not sustain for long the daily losses of $500-$1600 a day due to pilfering the larger chain stores can withstand (Photo taken in San Dieg0, April 2011).

Improved by graffiti

I'm not the type of person who considers most graffiti as actual art. Banksy and others in that class aside the majority of the scrawls on walls and property is, cleverness notwithstanding, simple and ugly vandalism that is costly and deleterious to the area in which it appears.

The graffiti in my neighborhood, while full of pretty colors and large swooping letters, makes the street look like a slum. I don't get why people poop where they live.

One exception I found recently is a case where vandalism may actually improve a location. While eating lunch on a day out with my wife I discovered a vandalized painting of a still life of flowers hung up above a urinal in a bathroom of a local restaurant. The painting itself is of a class that some consider to be perfectly suited for hotel rooms and other areas like bathrooms. No disrespect to the artist, as it is better than I can do and is an improvement to the standard decor of air fresheners and paper towel dispensers.

Apparently, a few ne'er-do-wells had taken the time to scrawl their monikers on the painting, tagging it with their signatures. Shame. Vandalizing art is tantamount to burning books as far as I'm concerned.

Yet the vandalism is not the most unfortunate aspect of the painting. During flushing, fluids in a toilet become aerosolized and spread out about a yard or so in all directions. Due to the proximity of the painting to the urinal it is probable the art is toxic to more than the eye. The painting is a still life but I don't doubt that the surface is teeming with squirming, throbbing, icky, deposited nastiness. Worse, any person of average height using the urinal is positioned directly in front of the canvas, mouth a few inches away from the surface (on average, about six inches distant), breathing in and out, blowing colonies of bacteria and horror into the air and then inhaling them deep into the lungs and sinuses. So the good thing about the vandalism that mars the painting, the only reason when graffiti would improve something by damaging it, is that for esthetic reasons the painting is unlikely to be moved during redecorating to anywhere else in the restaurant. Like to the dining area.

Happy Wife Happy Life

Ain't that the truth. Sometimes.

Cruel Shoes

I guess the little girl on these boxes of footwear is supposed to show all the joy and happiness the recipient of shoes will experience but it just seems to convey some sort of horror at what the box might contain.

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, he must be a communist

Santa and San Diego's KGB Chicken circa 1978.
Photo by Barry Fitzsimmons, post title by Arlo Guthrie.

Advantage: Me

I'm standing at a gas station trying to get my dad to answer his cell phone. After filling up the gas tank of my car I realized the car key had broken off in the ignition. I've been fruitlessly attempting to connect with my Dad and I need him to drive over and bring the spare key. While I'm on the phone a homeless man walks up...

Hobo: Excuse me, can you spare...
Me: Oh, hey. Can I borrow 60 bucks?
Hobo: Uh...I don't...
Me: That's what a locksmith is going to cost to get my car running. Can I have some money?
Hobo:  Sir...I don't have...
Me:  But you're wearing a nicer coat than I am.

Homeless man turns and walks away.

Me: Yeah, right! How do you like it, dude?

Guess who didn't get a tip?

That's right. I held back my green because the restaurant didn't hold theirs. I asked the server not to include any garnish or parsley with our meals. They included it anyways. Look at that horrible waste. It isn't like the parsley was taking up space on the plate that could have been occupied by real food as it was completely buried under my french fries and my wife's salad. Yes, the house salad included a garnish that was found under the lettuce.

Somewhere, a family of gun-toting Marylanders who always have plenty of money for bullets and beer but not soap or meals are staring at their empty food stamps envelope wishing they had something to nibble on. This parsley, added to other sprigs collected from all over the nation could have made a horrible if nutritious yet possibly health-threatening soup. Somewhere, a pasta sauce is denied little bits of green floating in it that might be basil or not. Or gnats, depending on if the kitchen window was open during food preparation.

Save the planet and Hold the Green!

Line 7

Saturday I risked life and limb to photograph this sign of mall rules at the Fashion Valley mall in San Diego. Line #7 prohibits photography without prior written authorization from the mall management. Well, since this is still America I made sure to photograph each similar sign I came across as I wandered around all day shopping spending money.

By the way I did get permission to photograph what ever I felt like pointing a camera at but it was not from mall management. I went over their heads. The document I used was from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom had the foresight to get the paperwork started on giving me permission to take photos in public way back in 1791.

Consumer Demands

STILL BETTER THAN THE DMV
Spent half the day getting my car smog certified (failed the first time due to a gas cap that wouldn't seal). Then two hours at AAA getting my tag. The unusual wait time was because a printer was inoperative. The folks at AAA suggested anyone waiting could drop off their paperwork and their tags would be mailed that night and received by Monday. Good think I opted to wait because the payment I made to the DMV a week ago by debit card still had not cleared. The way the universe works if I went with the plan to wait for the mail it tuns out the AAA could have not processed my paperwork and I would have been pulled over by the cops and had the car impounded. So I waited, paid my registration fee for the second time and now have to contact the DMV to get my first payment refunded. You can apply to get a refund online but the DMV doesn't have an option for "You paid twice because we suck." In spite of 5 hours of waiting to get smogged and getting my tag and the frustration it was still better than going to the DMV. I'll take a migraine over an embolism any day.

THANK YOU, OBTUSE SHIFT LEADER AT DEL TACO #949
While I'm not a fan of fast food anymore my wife needs something on occasion first thing in the morning after she gets off work so she can take medicine. So she or I will visit a drive-thru when I pick her up in the morning. Here is content of a letter I faxed to Del Taco concerning a recent visit.

This letter concerns a visit to Del Taco #949 in San Diego, CA on 8-29-2010, at about 7:30 am. My wife and I are frequent customers to your establishment in the morning. It is a place that is conveniently located and serves fresh, quality food. However our experience on our last visit was far from what I found to be typical for your restaurant.

On the visit of August 29th we ordered two breakfast meals. The employee at the window, Shift Leader [Name Redacted] handed me two orange juice cartons along with our meals. They were frozen solid. I discovered they were frozen when I tried to push the straw into the carton and the straw would enter only about a 1/4th of an inch before hitting solid ice. I handed them back and asked for some replacements. [Name Redacted] told me there were none available as they were all frozen. I then asked for some replacement drinks, like coffee. [Name Redacted] at first refused, then offered coffee as a swap for the frozen drinks. She then stated she would only trade out one drink because the other was opened. For the record, the carton was "open" only at the straw aperture.

She continued to refuse to trade out the one drink. My position was that one carton was opened and found to be unusable because it was frozen. We did not eat 95% of a meal then demand a refund because we were not "satisfied". I work retail and am well aware such a situation can occur with some customers. [Name Redacted] stated she would not accept the carton because she would get in trouble. I know this is not factual as distressed or damaged items can typically be returned if there are quality issues. A frozen carton is definitely a quality issue. I ordered the food and intended it to be eaten at that time, not a few hours later when it thawed. [Name Redacted] stated there was no problem with the juice and it was only a little frozen. I had to demonstrate the extent to which the carton was undrinkable by squeezing the carton very hard, after a few moments producing a small slushy stream of chunks of orange ice.

At that time I handed back all the food I ordered and requested a full refund. [Name Redacted] refused, then agreed in part as she still refused to refund the "open" orange juice. The discussion continued a few more minutes. [Name redacted] also declined to let me speak to a supervisor or tell me the name of the manager.

Eventually I asked if a refund would be refused if I found egg shells in a egg and cheese burrito, which I could only detect after I had opened it and bit into it. [Name Redacted] allowed that I would get a refund or replacement. I had to point out there is no quality difference in the quality in the burrito and the juice. After that she refunded the order in total. The entire visit was about ten minutes.

I was very disappointed in the entire experience and no longer feel comfortable as a patron to that location, though I have happily since visited other Del Taco locations since then.

THE PEOPLE'S CLERK
While it is true that a company survives or fails in part on how they treat their customers there are also a number of terrible, terrible customers out there that can make some work a miserable experience. I usually enjoy my job in retail as it is high pay, there are fun people around and it is the least amount of work I have done in 25 years. Yet the small percentage of the crazy, the thieves, the greedy and the grifters discourage me.

Typically what I receive is rage way out of proportion to what is happening.

Some people lose their minds when they can't return purchases made with food stamps (it is illegal to do so). A tantrum, like being sweetly and sickly nice, is one of several methods of getting a refund as the clerk wants the person to go away with no fuss.

Over a certain dollar amount a receipt is usually required as this stops wholesale receipt fraud.

Yet a lot of these rules stores follow are not arbitrary. They come from the City, State and Federal Government and Health and Safety agencies, not to mention the company. Like not accepting returns of baby food or perishable items. There is no guarantee of how the items were stored once they leave the store. Who would want to go to a store that accepts meat that sat on a counter overnight or baby food forgotten in a trunk for a week then brought back and placed on the shelf because the customer said they didn't want it? I once refused a refund on someone who bought a large brick of cheese "just now" and lost the receipt in the last few seconds and decided they didn't want it. The cheese looked okay until you turned it over and could read the word DUNLOP imprinted in the underside of the food. Apparently, the cheese was left in the trunk of a car on top of the spare tire. The customer put in the fridge so it would feel cold before attempting to return it.

The thing is, if he didn't try to grift me (and if successful, possibly make the next person who purchased it sick if they didn't notice the cheese was stored improperly) I'd swap it out for a fresh one. We can usually distress damaged items, that is, return them to the vendor for credit.

One customer became unhinged when a register opened up and he wasn't first in line. He ran from several check stands over only to be told by the customers who got there before him (from the adjacent register) he would have to get in line behind them. He claimed he was sick (the customers didn't care) and he abandoned his spot in a check stand (reserved for the disabled, by the way) in order to run down and try to force his way in front of the other customers. Somehow I was at fault for it and he ranted to the manager the next day (the video shows me motioning him in to the line right away anyway). I speculate because he was not first he was angry about being second or third.

Another customer complained to corporate that I did not smile enough. Of course, I got tag-teamed by the managers about it for a good twenty minutes. They were paralyzed speechless when I asked why I didn't get any support from them for what was a ridiculous complaint. I was absolutely going to get a memo in my file until that point.

So a few spurious complaints over the last couple of months made me decide to put a few people on notice. What is unfortunate about the retail business is that often the first resort of a scoundrel is to say an employee is rude. This is the one thing that is sure to make someone in an office sit up and take notice. Not to say rude, terrible. hostile and incompetent employees don't exist. I run into them regularly. Companies rarely, in my experience, drop the hammer on the customer, though I have seen it happen if rarely. Also, it has been my experience that companies will sometimes take administrative action against an employee based on speculation and hearsay. Sometimes these things happen but there are ways to resolve them for the most part.

Truthfully jobs can be lost due to some vengeful, angry customer who didn't get what they wanted. One store manager I knew received numerous complaints, demands for action, demands for punishment and censure in an ever-escalating litany of revenge-minded complaints going up the corporate rungs. Of course, the customer never once said anything factual. What the opening statement from the customer, were they honest, should have been was "I was attempting to return items for cash I purchased on food stamps over the last several months. I knowingly attempted to defraud the State of California but the store manager said I could not return the items." Oddly, if the customer was truthful and then her complaints took the exit to crazy town she probably would have gotten what she requested and been able to keep the food.

Sadly the results of whatever (if any) investigation into the truth is typically the result of someone's opinion and not fact. This affects livelihoods. If Management doesn't actually take action then at the least a number of spurious complaints will negatively associate that employee's name in someone's mind.

This is where I'm considering small claims litigation against anyone who damages my job and reputation over merit-less complaints. I wonder if somewhere other employees have successfully fought back against such complaints and I'm actually surprised I don't hear about it happening more often. I have a family to support, the job market is tough and I will aggressively protect my way of life. Maybe if enough people fight back the stupid stuff will become minimized.

One thing about complaints though, and rightly so, is that they may as well be anonymous. To get a customer identity would require a subpoena, if their identity is even recorded (and they rarely are for minor complaints). It wouldn't do to have some wacky employee hunt down and punish a customer for a real or perceived slight. On the other hand that perceived anonymity makes people brave, mean and sometimes evil, just like the internet does for trolls. We know how well that works out.

Honestly, if most of the things people said we did at a check stand actually happened they would be all over the video hosting sites. Just about everyone has a phone with digital recording capabilities and no compunction about using it even if it was just for the lulz and pwnage.

NOT EVEN GOD GETS A REFUND WITHOUT A RECEIPT
One of the main complaints by consumers is that they perceive they are treated like criminals. Rather, retail fraud is a billions of dollars a year industry and stores and companies take it in the shorts. Someone is stealing and it isn't always the employees.

A good part of my day is dealing with people who are trying to work the system. The cheap, the frugal, the thief and the grifter all make the innocent person trying to return a box of damaged plastic spoons feel like they are trying to scam a store of a bunch of cash in order to buy crack.

Ask any customer service clerk how many scams they deal with everyday and the backlash from angry grifters. Most of the baddies get away with it because the fight isn't worth the potential damage to an employees job from a vengeful scammer and the usual lack of support from the company they work for.

Many people complain that industry-wide they are checked for receipts when leaving at the door. In particular one electronics chain and a discount store received the largest share of complaints. I don't mind, some people do. Fact is if stores didn't have a greeter at the door acting as a deterrent to crime they would get wiped out and have nothing in the registers for it. The majority of retail crime is accomplished by simply filling a cart to the brim and walking out the door. Not a day goes by that I don't catch at least one person who abandons a cart with a felonious amount of unpaid goods in it, deterred only because the cart wheels lock up if you don't pay for your stuff.

The most common response I get when I ask for a receipt? "My wife has it. But I don't want this s**t anyways." Then they calmly walk away leaving the cart behind. I hope one day to be so wealthy I can just abandon $400 worth of un-bagged meat and beer at the door of a store because I can't be bothered to have my wife hang around 30 seconds after the purchase to provide her receipt.

AN EXAGGERATION, BUT NOT BY MUCH

"Hello, is this the complaint line? I'd like to make a complaint."
"Yes, Ma'am. How can we help you?"
"I want to report one of your employees. He was very rude and unprofessional."
"Yes, Ma'am. Go ahead."
"Well, last night SATAN, THE ALL-POWERFUL LORD shattered the dimensional wall into your store and Bob was very rude to him. Satan asked what aisle the human babies were on and Bob wouldn't help him."
"I see."
"Satan needed a baby to sacrifice to bring about the End of Days and Bob told him to leave the store. He wouldn't help him at all! This is unacceptable and he was unprofessional and very rude. I won't be shopping at your store anymore after this! I'm also telling all my friends not to shop there."
"I'm sorry your experience with us was not to your liking. We at Great Big Grocery value you as a customer. We will report Bob's behavior to the district manager. We are interested in keeping you as a customer, too. Would a $100 gift card to Great Big Grocery let us keep your business?"
"Yes. Yes it would!"

Two days later, Bob was fired.

THE UNIVERSE IS A BASTARD
I dress okay. My wife does, too. She's hot. I'm average-ish. Certainly not the elephant man. We stay clean and don't over-do the perfume and cologne. We behave in public. Don't act snotty, don't act street. Not all rude and coming off like people from Maryland do. Yet I always feel like I get screwed over wherever I go. Anyone else feel like this?

If I leave my name I get missed or they don't write it down or my order is wrong. I keep asking for a spoon and I don't get it. We don't see a server until long after people that came in after us do and we won't get our food in the same manner. Yet you still have to tip them well because next time you visit you are "That ahole-oid" and they maybe do something to your food or make it more casually and sloppy. Same reason I can't go back to Del Taco #949.

I can sit in my car in the driveway for 20 minutes and never see one vehicle yet the second I begin to back out there appears a never-ending stream of cars and it takes me another 5 minutes and risk of death to get out of the driveway onto the street. I check 30 DVD packages to make sure no one cut the plastic and slipped out the disc, pick one only to get home and find that the disc is seriously warped and flawed and won't play. And then the store acts like I deliberately took a torch to it and gives me grief about a refund or swap for a working copy.

Whatever electronics I buy only allow proprietary peripherals, even though everything looks the same, fits together the same, has the same specs, the device I bought is hardwired to only accept their expensive accessories.

I recently had confirmed that a 40 waist and 2XL shirt mean something different between brands and stores. My wife throws away receipts and cuts tags and labels out of clothes usually by the time she reaches the car. So when something doesn't fit it is difficult to return. Also, there are a lot of good-looking clothing on the racks if you are under six feet tall. All the large sizes that fit my height are weird off-colors, patterns and styles that would get me beat up by socially awkward math nerds half my size.

I can imagine some guys in a factory realizing they have 2000 yards of unused kitchen mat fabric and deciding to make a bunch of 2XL and 3XL shirts out of it because we have no choice other than to buy whatever we can find in that size. Oh, and for an average two dollars more per shirt.

If I didn't know the universe was just a collection of matter with no intelligence behind it, I'd think I was getting picked on and singled out for getting crapped all over.

AND YET THEY SAY I WAS THE JERK

Me: Hey, there.
Couple at table: Uh, Hi. Can I help you?
Me: Can you do my wife and I a favor and take our picture?
Couple at table: Oh, sure.
Me: Here, I set it all up so just push this button. CHEESE!
Couple at table: There you go.
Me: Hey, thanks. I really appreciate it.
Couple at table: No problem. Glad to.
Me: Oh, hey.
Couple at table: Yes?
Me: One more thing. Can I get your email address?
Couple at table: Uh, why? No, why?
Me: Well, you and your companion were staring at us for so long, I thought maybe you would like to get a picture because it lasts longer.
Couple at table: F**k you!
Me: Okay. So that's a "no", then.

People seem fascinated to the point of intrusiveness when my wife and I communicate using Sign Language. People get so wide-eyed, still and open-mouthed as their minds try to process what they are observing that you'd think they were staring into the abyss and the abyss stole their sanity and soul. I used to see something similar in Maryland when a huge crowd would gather to stare agog and whisper at a family that would be speaking Spanish.

Maryland sucks, though

Wine Pong

Here are some ping pong balls hanging up in the liquor section spotted at a local grocery store in San Diego, August 2010. The most common usage for ping pong balls other than for a table game back in 1957 is for playing Beer Pong, a fun, stupid and sometimes ill-advised game that promotes over-imbibing of beer. Now, the store itself isn't directly promoting drinking games as it is an outside vendor who hangs up the racks of various impulse buy items. It is more than likely that the store is unaware the balls are in the liquor department.

These packs are not hanging up over the beer (yet) but they are in the general alcohol section. I have no doubt the store would not hesitate to move the balls to the toy section if brought to their attention.

We're gonna show them who's on top!

Tagging a toilet plunger with your 'gang' graffiti? I mean, what turf is being claimed here?

That's just nasty.

Missed Connection

I've seen you around, did you see me? I bet you know I've been watching you for for a long time. Last night when you entered the store you made my heart beat ever so fast!

Your four-sizes-too-big jacket and pants with the other jacket and pants with all the extra pockets and tied-off waist and legs on them...Well, you certainly do cut quite the image when you come swaggering in. You make everybody notice. Aren't you hot wearing all that stuff? I know I am. Yet for someone so slim and tiny you sure do seem to walk like you carry a lot of weight. You have me worried. Are you in good health?

I ask because on July 30th at about 10:15 p.m. when you took that donation jar off the check stand and ran out the store to jump into that waiting white [redacted] with California license plate #[redacted] driven by that obese woman who left the passenger side door waiting open you seemed to have trouble moving your legs and arms. You know, if you were sick I could understand you needing that jar of money reserved for cancer patients. Maybe you needed to cut out the middle-man to had to pay off that guy who gives you your medicine.

Now, some would say you are in pretty good health since you have to carry all those DVDs, packages of food, liquor and pharmacy supplies stuffed in the sleeves, waistband and legs of your under-layer of clothing and that is what slowed you down and made you walk funny. I don't know. Maybe you have been prescribed weight training? If you had told me you had cancer I would have given you the $23 myself to save you the exertion of running. Those coins must have been way too heavy for you because you supported the jar by sliding it up into your jacket sleeve. Fortunately all those layers of extra clothing made sure you didn't drop any change on your way out of the store. Every nickle is important!

But last night was so special. I just can't forget how adorable you were when I took all those pictures of you with my cell phone. You acted all sheepish, covering your face as you ran away from my attentions after I saw you cutting open that Wedding Crashers DVD case. I don't blame you, how else can you be sure that the disc is actually in the case before you buy it? And Oh-Em-Gee, you looked so gangsta when you pedaled away on your Huffy!

But why so shy? A guy like you should not be ashamed of your looks. I've seen your face plenty of times from the high-quality videos and still-frames taken off the store surveillance system. Let me just say you look just like who I've been looking for: A Hispanic male, long brown goatee, shaved short black or brown hair, 5' 1", approx 150 pounds, mid-20s. Mmmmm!

You know, I show your pictures and videos to everyone at work. Everyone wants to meet you. Particularly my pals in the San Diego Police Department (a truly fine bunch of really strong, muscular guys and gals) all agree that you seem to be an interesting person (or person of interest, I forget exactly what they said because I was distracted. Me and uniforms, hello!) and they want pick you up, too! Drat! How can I compete with them? They wear bullet proof vests and carry guns and clubs and hand-cuffs for hand-cuffing and they drive those totally tricked out cars with the lights and horns and wire cages...

What was I doing? Oh, yeah. Sigh.

But I realize that after all this time I don't even know your name! That is just one crime among many, I know. Oh, I'm sure I'll find out who you are eventually. It is I think fated that we meet again. Perhaps soon we will see each other across a crowded room. I'll stand up and point to you and say "That's him!" and then everyone will know how I feel. I can wait. After all, the next time you attempt to register that car or it gets pulled over while you are in it I'm confident my pals in blue will give me a ring and we'll be able to discuss our relationship and your future living arrangements.

My Left Foot

On the side of the store that caters to males a shoe is advertised that protects the wearer from wear and tear of exercise while simultaneously allowing the user to benefit from the activity. The shoe differentiates all the harmful activity from the beneficial through some sort of I don't know, shoe magic, I guess.

Meanwhile, the other side of the same store caters specifically to women. On the flip side a shoe is for sale which reportedly does nothing other than mercilessly work the muscles of the lower extremities in order to tone the legs and backside.

The ad for the men's shoe emphasizes protection and the one for women focuses on the wearer being made more attractive at the expense of safety. Are women expected to suffer more for the desired results? This leads me to question the conventional wisdom that women are the more careful and wiser shoppers. Advertising is remarkably complex and nuanced on levels many consumers never consciously detect. Do women shop for their shoes mostly alone and accompany the men? Then the difference in the execution of the advertising makes more sense. Making safety a priority for the men's shoes would indicate the woman in the relationship would have some say in the purchasing decision as she would not want her man out of work recovering from a playground injury.

Then again, it could be that this ad reveals a situation where the right foot doesn't know what the left foot is doing.