May 14, 2012
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1 Incident in Safeway on Mothers’ Day: I get in line at a Safeway in order to buy flowers for Mom and the clerk is SO on it that he chucks a plastic customer divider perfectly in front of me without taking his eyes off his register. I didn’t have to play that customer/divider thing where some guys feel they don’t have to bother separating their items from mine. Already the clerk has won me over.
2 The customer two guys in front of me moves off, and the guy being helped notices that the other guy forgot his change.
3 He runs after the guy with the change and says, “Sir, you forgot your change!”
4 Good man.
5 The other customer thanks him and leaves sheepishly, as though he were the only person ever to be that stupid.
6 Clerk chimes in, “I had to chase a lady for her change once. I yelled, “Uh, Miss? Change! She walked back to me angrily and said, ‘I ain’t changing for you or any other man!’ “
7
8 Guy made my day.
9 Sometimes I love going back home. That store was in South San Francisco, where wiseguys are a dime a dozen.
10 I was born in San Francisco and lived in South City for the first ten glamorous years of my life.
11 My memories are of a place that was black and white, like a 50′s sit-com.
12 Even when I re-visit, it almost turns black and white once again, like a doctored photograph.
13 I have nice memories of all of that.
14 I particularly enjoy that the wiseguy thing still exists.
15 As much as I love San Jose, we don’t have wiseguy clerks around here.
16 Maybe it’s the town, or maybe it’s the economy, but most clerks are polite and robotic, quite what I call concrete-operational. They are there to do their jobs, and they have smiley managers breathing down their throats.
17 If there’s anything that gets on my nerves, it’s when some district manager is visiting a store and is like Joe Happy, asking, “Finding everything okay sir?”
18 In typical hypocritical fashion, I am annoyed by stores that don’t help you when you obviously could use some help. I sat in a restaurant the other day with an empty coffee cup, empty water glass, and clean plate for around ten minutes before the waiter came over to give me my check. I couldn’t really even get her attention.
19 I won’t go there ever again. Overpriced, lousy food, lousy service, toe-up rest rooms, etc.
20 This is why we get those happy-faced general managers going into stores to make all their employees nervous. But that somehow annoys me. It’s sort of like when teachers suddenly get passionate about teaching right before the WPC walks into their classrooms.
21 The WPC, for non- DN regulars, stands for “White People With Clipboards.”
22 AnywayZ…
23 It was refreshing seeing a clerk chuck a divider perfectly where I wanted one, and then pick up on a cue perfectly. Big wiseguy tone too.
24 Blue collar madness. Raised with it, love the intelligence and humor.
25 I miss old times.
26 Moving on, Part the First: Biggest mistake I have made all year was not keeping up with the DN. After fifteen years of getting this thing out no matter what, circumstances finally made it impossible.
27 It was a series of things, but mostly lack of easy internet access, what with a kitchen remodel, a wrong pushed button, a Theater with no internet access, and weekends at Dad’s, who still uses typewriters. I found it physically impossible to get this out each day.
28 Unfortunately, in these times of blogs and Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Twooter and all, nobody wants to hear any extended nonsense anymore.
29 Okay, so it wasn’t the biggest mistake I ever made.
30 But things change so swiftly in life that coming back to writing the DN has been a bit of a challenge.
31 For one thing, I noticed a vast drop in readers. Understandable.
32 Second, it’s the end of the school year.
33 Third, people just want to scroll down Facebook Lane and read the headlines, occasionally stopping to comment on something that might rank a like or a comment.
34 Quite often they like and comment on the latest trend fashion.
35 That’s why there is a picture of The Avengers at the top of this page.
36 I should have put the Time magazine up there with the mom who has a four-year old boy dangling off her boob. Because THAT’S news.
37 It’s come to that.
38 Welp, it’s Monday. No point in worrying about any of this. I’ll just keep tacking away and tossing this nonsense out there until I can’t.
39 It’s back into the 4 a.m. I had a lovely Mother’s Day with Dad. I had internet access but preferred boushitting with him, and then doing a little yard work.
40 We visited Mom, and it was a nice moment. Flowers look pretty. Mom rests under the American flag at Holy Cross in Colma. I took a picture of the flowers and the American flag, but I’m too lazy to get up and put it here.
41 Nothing will catch the moment anyway. Mom passed away three years ago this Thursday, so yesterday was pretty special with Dad.
42 Hope you all had a nice one.
43 I love you all, everything.
44 Time to go back to sleep. It’s into the 4 a.m. and I need a few more hours.
45 Have a lovely Monday.
46 Fly low.
47 Peace.
~H~
