"The Best Is Yet To Be" is a weekly installment of Jackie's views of living in the South and how it affects our mental, physical and spiritual lives. It is a celebration of life and points out the positive nature of the enjoyment the simple pleasures of life offer. It is a rendering of thoughts that are sad, funny, inspirational, and/or reflective. The overall theme is that life just keeps getting better and better.
It is the little things in life that drive me crazy. I mean those things that don’t really amount to a hill of beans but just drive me into a frenzy. My wife has told me a million times not to let this type of thing bother me because it only makes it rough on me and not anyone else. Still these little annoyances keep occurring and yes they do bother me a lot.
Take the case of the dreamy checker. I was at the local grocery store yesterday and was just getting a few items. I ended up behind a guy who had a large amount of items but that was okay since I wasn’t in a rush. Anyway the checker scanned most of these guy’s items and then stopped to talk with someone who was bagging the groceries. When he got through with the conversation he totaled the order and gave the man the amount. The man then wrote a check for that amount.
Sounds like everything was fine, right? Wrong! There were five or six items still sitting on the conveyor that were part of the order. After the man paid and left the checker looked at me. I told him the items were not mine. Mine were behind the dividing bar I had put down. The checker had to send someone out into the parking lot to bring the guy back so he could get the rest of his order.
The man was mad about having to write another check; I was frustrated by the checker’s actions; and the checker? He was not ruffled a bit, even when the man buying the groceries called him another “spaced out kid.” He just smiled and went off into some corner of his mind.
Another thing about grocery stores is the scan your own groceries option. I don’t mind it being an option for those who want to do this. I just can’t stand when they try to coerce me into doing it. Have you ever been standing in a checkout line and someone comes up and says they can take you at the self service line? That happened to me and even though I said no, the person employed by the store didn’t want to take no as an answer. She kept saying, “Sir, we can take you down here” and I kept saying, “No!”
It became a battle of wills but I won. She was either going to have to pick me up physically and move me down there or give up. I kept telling her I didn’t like the self service feature and she kept telling me she would “help” me. Maybe they are under some kind of management order to use those machines but I want nothing to do with them.
Another gripe is with restaurants. I went to Cracker Barrel this summer and they had a dish on the menu that included grilled chicken, salad, cheese toast and sliced tomatoes. I loved it. I ordered it the next few times I went to Cracker Barrel. The last time I ordered it I was told they didn’t have it any more. It was just a promotional item. What the heck!
At the Olive Garden I got hooked on a new soup. It was a tomato type soup with chicken and potatoes in it. Anyway I ordered it each time I went to the Olive Garden until one night I was told they didn’t have it any more. It was a promotional item. I don’t understand what this means. I mean if they try something and people like it why not keep it? Don’t just lure me in with it and then take it away. That is totally frustrating to me.
There are many, many more little things I could write about but you get my point. If I were King these things would not happen. But I am not King so they will continue on and on and I will continue to get irked. It is just the way life is.
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